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If you increase wages you make buses either a) more expensive - less incentive for car drivers to switch (and you're hurting low-income passengers) or b) more l

If you increase wages you make buses either a) more expensive - less incentive for car drivers to switch (and you're hurting low-income passengers) or b) more loss-making - easier for car drivers to lobby politicians to kill them off. Bus fare is already pretty expensive when you consider the quality of service, speed, and convenience outside major metro areas. > due to lack of funding If there's a lack of funding, and there's tech that will make buses cheaper, it's a no-brainer to adopt it. > the political will to allocate it Willpower and political capital are limited resources. Why squander them when there are alternatives?

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
> more loss-making - easier for car drivers to lobby politicians to kill them off. This logic only holds if you assume public services must make money and this is not a universal rule. Tons of public services hemorrhage money. It's called "spending money to get things" and we as a society have been doing it for basically as long as money has existed. > If there's a lack of funding, and there's a tech that will make buses cheaper, it's a no-brainer to adopt it. A regular car retrofitted to operate "autonomously" costs upwards of 100k by a quick google, and we're not talking a Mercedes here, we're talking a bog standard crossover. Busses cost near 6 times what that "autonomous" car costs for a boring one that a person drives, how much do you think a robo one will cost? Also worth noting, the prototype pictured in the article looks to move WAY fewer people than a standard city bus.
- triceratops 2y ago
  > if you assume public services must make money and this is not a universal rule I don't assume that. But I'm not the electorate. > Tons of public services hemorrhage money And that makes them easy targets for cuts. I personally prefer having public services stick around to serve people. That means stiffening them against political attacks as much as possible, and taking easy wins if they're available. > how much do you think a robo one will cost? So now we're arguing the actual cost-benefit of the technology. That's a much better way to approach it than reflexively dismissing it.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  i was just thinking that we aren't doing enough deficit spending and mortgage rates are not sufficiently crowded out by public borrowing

ToucanLoucan 2y ago

> more loss-making - easier for car drivers to lobby politicians to kill them off. This logic only holds if you assume public services must make money and this is not a universal rule. Tons of public services hemorrhage money. It's called "spending money to get things" and we as a society have been doing it for basically as long as money has existed. > If there's a lack of funding, and there's a tech that will make buses cheaper, it's a no-brainer to adopt it. A regular car retrofitted to operate "autonomously" costs upwards of 100k by a quick google, and we're not talking a Mercedes here, we're talking a bog standard crossover. Busses cost near 6 times what that "autonomous" car costs for a boring one that a person drives, how much do you think a robo one will cost? Also worth noting, the prototype pictured in the article looks to move WAY fewer people than a standard city bus.

triceratops 2y ago
> if you assume public services must make money and this is not a universal rule I don't assume that. But I'm not the electorate. > Tons of public services hemorrhage money And that makes them easy targets for cuts. I personally prefer having public services stick around to serve people. That means stiffening them against political attacks as much as possible, and taking easy wins if they're available. > how much do you think a robo one will cost? So now we're arguing the actual cost-benefit of the technology. That's a much better way to approach it than reflexively dismissing it.
whimsicalism 2y ago
i was just thinking that we aren't doing enough deficit spending and mortgage rates are not sufficiently crowded out by public borrowing