From the invaluable Via Meadia blog on the American Interest’s website comes the news, first reported by the Washington Post, that a startup company called Bridj is setting up a bus service in the District of Columbia using big data to establish where consumers are seeking rides. There would be no established bus stops; demand would determine where the bus would pick people up and where it would drop them off. Bridj has already started up a similar service in the Boston area.

What caught my eye was this sentence: “A ride from Coolidge Corner to Kendall Square, which Bridj founder Matt George says would likely [take] 42 to 55 minutes on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, has taken 15-18 minutes on his company’s buses.” Coolidge Corner is an intersection in Brookline, not far from the Boston city limits; Kendall Square is in east Cambridge, just across the Charles River from Boston. It struck me that 42 to 55 minutes was an awfully long time to travel that distance, so I clicked on my iPad map to see how long the journey would be by other means. Answer: 13 minutes to drive 3.5 miles, 58 minutes to walk 2.7 miles. Yes, you could walk the distance just about as rapidly as a slow mass transit ride. And unless your time is not worth a lot in dollar terms, a $5 Bridj ride that takes 15-18 minutes is a lot more attractive option than a $2-and-something T ride that takes 42-55 minutes. A 30-to-36-minute commute is a lot more pleasant than an 84-to-110-minute commute.