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Busses are a band-aid that get employed as a cure too often. Ideally, you're running trams at surface level with decently-distanced stops and biking/walking inf
by h2zizzle 1y ago
Busses are a band-aid that get employed as a cure too often. Ideally, you're running trams at surface level with decently-distanced stops and biking/walking infrastructure in between. Busses require infrastructure - large roads - which discourage pedestrian activity and encourage personal vehicle use. You want people walking near businesses that they might patronize, not flying past in large vehicles that make the space uncomfortable for pedestrians.
- putpoointheloo 1y ago[dead]
- some_random 1y agoIs there a single city in the world with trams/subways/trains/etc but no buses?
- h2zizzle 1y agoVery few, if any, but there are cities that use busses for what they're good for, and not as a bad urban planner's trams.
- bluGill 1y agoYou need roads anyway! Most of the businesses need to get trucks in to deliver the things they need. Thus you can reuse those roads for buses for places that are less busy and this is cheaper than a train. The real trick is how to get private one passenger automobiles off the roads. In very dense areas you should have both roads and trains. However only the most dense cities in the world can support that, and then only in their most dense which is often small. For everyone else buses save money over trains.
- trainsarebetter 1y agoBut buses actually don’t. you just pay for it later. Roads are one of the fastest deteriorating forms of infrastructure. the hole “ but rail dosnt make money” argument ignores the fact that… roads don’t ether
- gamblor956 1y agoThe time frame before a rail line will save money over buses is measured in decades. With buses, you don't include the cost of road maintenance because buses share the roads with millions of other vehicles so the allocable cost is neglible.
- bluGill 1y agoExtept that you have to maintain the roads anyway. taking a few buses off won't save much so long as the road for trucks exists.
- dzhiurgis 1y agoRoads for buses and trucks are far more expensive than for cars. Car drivers are absolutely subsidizing bus passengers by order of magnitude. Per passenger mile even Uber is cheaper.
- h2zizzle 1y agoNot when car volume is several orders of magnitude higher than bus volume. Bus passengers are subsidizing car drivers.
- dzhiurgis 1y agoBusses and trucks damage roads up to 30,000 (yes 30k) more than cars. Cars absolutely subsidise all roads. And btw neither buses nor trucks nor cars have some constitutional right of way.
- bgnn 1y agoMost European cities are transitioning towards dedicated bus lanes. In that case, in principle, that can be light rail or tram too. The biggest problem is crossing with normal roads. Trams are more tricky to implement than busses.
- Retric 1y agoA one lane road with minimal parking can handle a crazy number of deliveries and busses. Allow cars on that road and suddenly it’s almost useless as a transportation option. Thus the urban infrastructure dilemma.
- wodenokoto 1y agoI’m not sure it’s fair to call them a bandaid. But fixed transportation infrastructure like trams, metro and other trains have a tendency to define and connect a city in a way that bus routes don’t. The stops along Tokyos Yamanote line grew into major cities in their own right. Copenhagens first metro was planned to be financed by building stops in in or underdeveloped areas and selling the land (it failed as the financial crisis of the naughts coincided with the selloff) Bus routes have never invigorated or defined a city like fixed infrastructure. a part of a city does not become desirable just because you set up a bus stop, but a tram or metro station?