9 ms·

For sure, let's charge methods of transportation based on negative externalities such as how much space they take, safety, and noise/particulate pollution.

cyberax 3y ago
I'm all for it! It would suck for transit, though: 1. It has a higher CO2 footprint than small/medium EVs. 2. Transit forces people into smaller and denser housing, resulting in suboptimal living conditions. 3. Buses in particular result in excessive road wear&tear. It's really amazing that people say things like "car owners should not get subsidized" (by whom?), while talking about transit that is literally infeasible without massive subsidies.
- zip1234 3y ago
  > It's really amazing that people say things like "car owners should not get subsidized" (by whom?), while talking about transit that is literally infeasible without massive subsidies. If road usage fees cover less than half the cost of roads then clearly someone is subsidizing roads.
  - alphanullmeric 3y ago
    Sounds like roads should be paid for only by their users, and proportionally to their use. Then it would be irrelevant whether it’s a sedan or bus since everyone pays their fair share. But of course, such solutions are not acceptable to those that do not intend to pay their fair share.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  > 1. It has a higher CO2 footprint than small/medium EVs. This is too misleading to be unintentional. I don't know if you're comparing buses to small/medium EVs 1:1, but even if you aren't, the environmental footprint of replacing all bus services with EVs would be extraordinary. > 2. Transit forces people into smaller and denser housing, resulting in suboptimal living conditions. Transit doesn't force people into housing. It creates new housing options that previously were not tenable. Rivers don't create port congestion, rivers create ports. Not having enough ports, or enough rivers, creates port congestion. > 3. Buses in particular result in excessive road wear&tear. In proportion to human-miles, or is this a 1:1 comparison?
  - cyberax 3y ago
    > This is too misleading to be unintentional. It's not misleading. On average, buses in the US carry around 15 people. A car carries around 1.5, so the raw multiplier is just 10. But wait, there's more! ALL buses have an incredibly polluting component that is fundamental to their functionality: the driver. You need around 3 drivers to cover the useful service time (from 5am to midnight). And drivers are POLLUTING AS HELL. > I don't know if you're comparing buses to small/medium EVs 1:1 Yes, I do. Here ya go: https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint > Transit doesn't force people into housing. It does, via market forces. > It creates new housing options that previously were not tenable. No. It _destroys_ affordable housing to pack people into smaller and smaller footprints. Tokyo is a _great_ example of that. > In proportion to human-miles, or is this a 1:1 comparison? In proportion to passenger-miles. Road wear scales approximately as the 4-th power of the axle weight, and under-loaded buses still have to haul around their massive bulks even if there's just one passenger inside. Honestly, it's amazing how bad public transit turns out to be when you actually start looking at its negative sides.
    - acdha 3y ago
      > On average, buses in the US carry around 15 people. A car carries around 1.5, so the raw multiplier is just 10. Buses in the US are largely avoided due to the last century spent prioritizing suburban car commuting over everything else. What you should be looking at are the averages on bus routes where the buses run regularly and aren’t blocked by solo drivers. That means that the floor for a bus is 10:1 but it can easily rise to 50-70:1 with cheap policy changes (e.g. put a $500 camera on the bus to ticket drivers and suddenly headways improve by 50%). In contrast, the large EVs people are actually buying will never become more efficient over the lifetime of the vehicle.
      - cyberax 3y ago
        > What you should be looking at are the averages on bus routes where the buses run regularly and aren’t blocked by solo drivers Le sigh. If you want more bus passengers in each bus, you either need to run buses with longer intervals (making them completely useless) or you need to pack people together. Packing people together densely enough to make buses work inevitably requires living in small apartments. The US in the last century decided to focus on comfortable human-oriented housing, and not on building Soviet-style human anthills. > In contrast, the large EVs people are actually buying will never become more efficient over the lifetime of the vehicle. Large EVs have lifecycle CO2 footprint of about 70g/km. Buses are ~100g/km, and EV buses (trolleys) are 60 g/km. Moving to mid-sized EVs, such as Tesla Model 3/Y, cuts that to about 35 g/km (it depends on the US state). This is definitely something that we should encourage. The US addiction to huge barn-sized SUVs is unhealthy.
- klipt 3y ago
  Transit is completely feasible without subsidies if the transit company owns the land near the stations, which generate generous rents. Of course if the land is owned by other people, the increase in value provided by transit should be recaptured through a Land Value Tax which is then used to fund the transit.
  - cyberax 3y ago
    > Transit is completely feasible without subsidies if the transit company owns the land near the stations, which generate generous rents. So basically, you want to subsidize transit by making the transport authority be a slumlord. Got it. There are no unsubsidized urban transit services in the US. Even operating costs are not paid from fares. And new transit construction is COMPLETELY subsidized. I live in Seattle and I will have paid around $20k in car tab fees alone by the time the choo-choo subway train expansion here is done. It won't go anywhere near me and it will make my life worse, by inducing even more traffic.
    - nimbleplum40 3y ago
      There are also no unsubsidized fire departments, police departments, public schools, public parks, etc. Analyzing only the first order costs/benefits is really not a good way of analyzing any infrastructure project.
      - cyberax 3y ago
        > There are also no unsubsidized fire departments, police departments, public schools, public parks, etc. My fire department, police, and parks are certainly not subsidized. I pay for them from my taxes.
        nimbleplum40 3y ago
        That’s what a subsidy is my dude. The money obviously has to come from _somewhere_. Are you saying that if taxes pay for transit then transit isn’t subsidized?
- kelnos 3y ago
  Car owners are already hugely subsidized. Toll roads cover only a tiny fraction of road maintenance. The rest is paid by taxpayers, even those who do not drive.
  - ApolloFortyNine 3y ago
    Could easily make the same argument when some city spends 3 billion to build a 4 mile subway extension. The fare recovery rate is absolutely terrible in the US. Expecting 100% isn't exactly necessary, but NYC is at 20%. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio
    - rafram 3y ago
      The “farebox recovery ratio” of a road is usually zero. Roads are funded through taxes (with the exception of some toll highways). Why can’t transit be the same?
      - ApolloFortyNine 3y ago
        There's not only the gas tax to think about, but also that every road also enables the truck that inevitably delivers goods to your grocery store to get there. The subway system is only possibly used by those who live near a station and are traveling near another station, and tourists.
  - cyberax 3y ago
    > Car owners are already hugely subsidized Around 80% of all commutes in the US are by car. You can't subsidize 80% of the population. Drivers simply pay for their road use through various taxes, and not directly.
    - ryukafalz 3y ago
      > Drivers simply pay for their road use through various taxes, and not directly. Taxes that are also paid by those who don't drive, yes?
- seadan83 3y ago
  > 1. It has a higher CO2 footprint than small/medium EVs. If mass transit _and_ also EVs are incentivized over petrol cars, that is not bad [1] > 2. Transit forces people into smaller and denser housing, resulting in suboptimal living conditions. My anecdotal experience is that areas around light rail stations gentrify and luxery style condominiums pop up like mushrooms around them. A 10 minute and consistent train ride into dowtown is compelling when that same journey can take 30 to 120 minutes by car (this is Seattle, it can take 20 minutes to just cross the U bridge and travel a quarter mile). > 3. Buses in particular result in excessive road wear&tear. If a bus is actually taking 50 cars off the road, and is traveling on lanes that are built for the excessive wear; then it is still a net benefit. > "car owners should not get subsidized (by whom?)" Point 3 discusses the wear and tear of roads. Drivers do not pay fully for the wear and tear of roads (and road construction, etc). Road funds come from many funds and car traffic does not generate enough in fuel and car-tab taxes to fully pay for roads. Hence, it is subsidized by other people that pay those taxes. ----------- The comparison perhaps should not be also strictly of just buses against EVs.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

cyberax 3y ago

I'm all for it! It would suck for transit, though: 1. It has a higher CO2 footprint than small/medium EVs. 2. Transit forces people into smaller and denser housing, resulting in suboptimal living conditions. 3. Buses in particular result in excessive road wear&tear. It's really amazing that people say things like "car owners should not get subsidized" (by whom?), while talking about transit that is literally infeasible without massive subsidies.

zip1234 3y ago
> It's really amazing that people say things like "car owners should not get subsidized" (by whom?), while talking about transit that is literally infeasible without massive subsidies. If road usage fees cover less than half the cost of roads then clearly someone is subsidizing roads.
- alphanullmeric 3y ago
  Sounds like roads should be paid for only by their users, and proportionally to their use. Then it would be irrelevant whether it’s a sedan or bus since everyone pays their fair share. But of course, such solutions are not acceptable to those that do not intend to pay their fair share.
pessimizer 3y ago
> 1. It has a higher CO2 footprint than small/medium EVs. This is too misleading to be unintentional. I don't know if you're comparing buses to small/medium EVs 1:1, but even if you aren't, the environmental footprint of replacing all bus services with EVs would be extraordinary. > 2. Transit forces people into smaller and denser housing, resulting in suboptimal living conditions. Transit doesn't force people into housing. It creates new housing options that previously were not tenable. Rivers don't create port congestion, rivers create ports. Not having enough ports, or enough rivers, creates port congestion. > 3. Buses in particular result in excessive road wear&tear. In proportion to human-miles, or is this a 1:1 comparison?
- cyberax 3y ago
  > This is too misleading to be unintentional. It's not misleading. On average, buses in the US carry around 15 people. A car carries around 1.5, so the raw multiplier is just 10. But wait, there's more! ALL buses have an incredibly polluting component that is fundamental to their functionality: the driver. You need around 3 drivers to cover the useful service time (from 5am to midnight). And drivers are POLLUTING AS HELL. > I don't know if you're comparing buses to small/medium EVs 1:1 Yes, I do. Here ya go: https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint > Transit doesn't force people into housing. It does, via market forces. > It creates new housing options that previously were not tenable. No. It _destroys_ affordable housing to pack people into smaller and smaller footprints. Tokyo is a _great_ example of that. > In proportion to human-miles, or is this a 1:1 comparison? In proportion to passenger-miles. Road wear scales approximately as the 4-th power of the axle weight, and under-loaded buses still have to haul around their massive bulks even if there's just one passenger inside. Honestly, it's amazing how bad public transit turns out to be when you actually start looking at its negative sides.
  - acdha 3y ago
    > On average, buses in the US carry around 15 people. A car carries around 1.5, so the raw multiplier is just 10. Buses in the US are largely avoided due to the last century spent prioritizing suburban car commuting over everything else. What you should be looking at are the averages on bus routes where the buses run regularly and aren’t blocked by solo drivers. That means that the floor for a bus is 10:1 but it can easily rise to 50-70:1 with cheap policy changes (e.g. put a $500 camera on the bus to ticket drivers and suddenly headways improve by 50%). In contrast, the large EVs people are actually buying will never become more efficient over the lifetime of the vehicle.
    - cyberax 3y ago
      > What you should be looking at are the averages on bus routes where the buses run regularly and aren’t blocked by solo drivers Le sigh. If you want more bus passengers in each bus, you either need to run buses with longer intervals (making them completely useless) or you need to pack people together. Packing people together densely enough to make buses work inevitably requires living in small apartments. The US in the last century decided to focus on comfortable human-oriented housing, and not on building Soviet-style human anthills. > In contrast, the large EVs people are actually buying will never become more efficient over the lifetime of the vehicle. Large EVs have lifecycle CO2 footprint of about 70g/km. Buses are ~100g/km, and EV buses (trolleys) are 60 g/km. Moving to mid-sized EVs, such as Tesla Model 3/Y, cuts that to about 35 g/km (it depends on the US state). This is definitely something that we should encourage. The US addiction to huge barn-sized SUVs is unhealthy.
klipt 3y ago
Transit is completely feasible without subsidies if the transit company owns the land near the stations, which generate generous rents. Of course if the land is owned by other people, the increase in value provided by transit should be recaptured through a Land Value Tax which is then used to fund the transit.
- cyberax 3y ago
  > Transit is completely feasible without subsidies if the transit company owns the land near the stations, which generate generous rents. So basically, you want to subsidize transit by making the transport authority be a slumlord. Got it. There are no unsubsidized urban transit services in the US. Even operating costs are not paid from fares. And new transit construction is COMPLETELY subsidized. I live in Seattle and I will have paid around $20k in car tab fees alone by the time the choo-choo subway train expansion here is done. It won't go anywhere near me and it will make my life worse, by inducing even more traffic.
  - nimbleplum40 3y ago
    There are also no unsubsidized fire departments, police departments, public schools, public parks, etc. Analyzing only the first order costs/benefits is really not a good way of analyzing any infrastructure project.
    - cyberax 3y ago
      > There are also no unsubsidized fire departments, police departments, public schools, public parks, etc. My fire department, police, and parks are certainly not subsidized. I pay for them from my taxes.
      - nimbleplum40 3y ago
        That’s what a subsidy is my dude. The money obviously has to come from _somewhere_. Are you saying that if taxes pay for transit then transit isn’t subsidized?
kelnos 3y ago
Car owners are already hugely subsidized. Toll roads cover only a tiny fraction of road maintenance. The rest is paid by taxpayers, even those who do not drive.
- ApolloFortyNine 3y ago
  Could easily make the same argument when some city spends 3 billion to build a 4 mile subway extension. The fare recovery rate is absolutely terrible in the US. Expecting 100% isn't exactly necessary, but NYC is at 20%. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio
  - rafram 3y ago
    The “farebox recovery ratio” of a road is usually zero. Roads are funded through taxes (with the exception of some toll highways). Why can’t transit be the same?
    - ApolloFortyNine 3y ago
      There's not only the gas tax to think about, but also that every road also enables the truck that inevitably delivers goods to your grocery store to get there. The subway system is only possibly used by those who live near a station and are traveling near another station, and tourists.
- cyberax 3y ago
  > Car owners are already hugely subsidized Around 80% of all commutes in the US are by car. You can't subsidize 80% of the population. Drivers simply pay for their road use through various taxes, and not directly.
  - ryukafalz 3y ago
    > Drivers simply pay for their road use through various taxes, and not directly. Taxes that are also paid by those who don't drive, yes?
seadan83 3y ago
> 1. It has a higher CO2 footprint than small/medium EVs. If mass transit _and_ also EVs are incentivized over petrol cars, that is not bad [1] > 2. Transit forces people into smaller and denser housing, resulting in suboptimal living conditions. My anecdotal experience is that areas around light rail stations gentrify and luxery style condominiums pop up like mushrooms around them. A 10 minute and consistent train ride into dowtown is compelling when that same journey can take 30 to 120 minutes by car (this is Seattle, it can take 20 minutes to just cross the U bridge and travel a quarter mile). > 3. Buses in particular result in excessive road wear&tear. If a bus is actually taking 50 cars off the road, and is traveling on lanes that are built for the excessive wear; then it is still a net benefit. > "car owners should not get subsidized (by whom?)" Point 3 discusses the wear and tear of roads. Drivers do not pay fully for the wear and tear of roads (and road construction, etc). Road funds come from many funds and car traffic does not generate enough in fuel and car-tab taxes to fully pay for roads. Hence, it is subsidized by other people that pay those taxes. ----------- The comparison perhaps should not be also strictly of just buses against EVs.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]