Households per bus stop: pi r sq x 50 = 157
Cars per stop: above x 2 = 314
Car cost per stop: above x $988 x 12 = $3,722,784
Annual Car hours per stop: cars x 380 { 112,000
Annual Bus hours per stop: car cost / 165 = 22,562
22,562 annual bus hours, or 2.5 busses running every hour all hours, per stop with 1 km bubble at the lowest possible density for suburbs.
At 3 km (cycle distance) you get 1,413 cars replaced with 101,530 annual bus hours. Or 11.6 busses per hour, every hour, 365 days a year.
Public transit does work in sparsely populated suburbs. We just don’t want it to work there.
In short: at 50 households per sq km, we could replace cars with a bus every 5 to 24 mins 24/7/365.
Assumptions:
Density: 50 households per sq km (lowest possible before rural) Transit catchment: 1 km radius Cars per household: 2 Cost of a bus: ~$122 USD/hour ($165 CAD) Cost of a car: A car $988 per month on average Use of car: 380 hours per year on average.
Calculations
Households per bus stop: pi r sq x 50 = 157 Cars per stop: above x 2 = 314 Car cost per stop: above x $988 x 12 = $3,722,784 Annual Car hours per stop: cars x 380 { 112,000 Annual Bus hours per stop: car cost / 165 = 22,562
22,562 annual bus hours, or 2.5 busses running every hour all hours, per stop with 1 km bubble at the lowest possible density for suburbs.
At 3 km (cycle distance) you get 1,413 cars replaced with 101,530 annual bus hours. Or 11.6 busses per hour, every hour, 365 days a year.
Edit: added up front summary