“To get one every half hour, it’s seven an acre, and for every ten minutes, it’s fifteen an acre.” That’s the number of houses—with their inhabitants—who will supply the needed riders to fill a bus at thirty- or ten-minute waits in residential areas. Downtown defines the mass needed for mass transit in terms of the commercial space that attracts these potential riders. “To get an hourly bus you need to have 5 to 8 million square feet of retail space in the retail district; for one to come every half hour, it’s 7 to 17; and for every ten minutes in the CBD (Central Business District) downtown
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