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> So its like a more expensive version of public transportation, Most US public transit systems are funded by taxes in addition to fares. The true cost of a bu

• tenebrisalietum 2y ago
  By your logic we should get rid of trucks and have all freight delivered by car.
  • xnx 2y ago
    My logic is trying to use the most efficient method to safely, efficiently, and affordably transport people. Deliveries are already scaled to the items they carry. No one is delivering a pizza in a semi-truck.
    • politelemon 2y ago
      Which is what buses do. They are the lesser polluters, safe, efficient. For reasons unknown you are assuming buses are statistically empty when comparing them.
      • LtWorf 2y ago
        They're empty at night in the parking lot!
• bluGill 2y ago
  Your criticism of buses is correct only if there is only the driver on board. Your typical large bus route has more than enough riders (except at the end where they are turning around) to more than make up for all the problems buses cause. You just don't see how much worse traffic / pollution would be if those people were driving a car instead.
  • xnx 2y ago
    Buses are very efficient at peak times, but run mostly empty the rest of the day. Better to have a system that can scale with demand.
    • bluGill 2y ago
      A mostly empty bus still generally has more than enough people to be more efficient than private cars (which is the real competition). And a mostly empty bus all day means people can trust it should something happen that makes them take an off-peak trip. Which is to say a mostly empty bus scales down very well. The limits to scaling a bus are up not down - a problem more cities should have.
    • orthecreedence 2y ago
      Buses can scale with demand and often do. This is a function of planning and has little to do with the mechanism of public vs private ownership.
    • surfaceofthesun 2y ago
      Transit agencies are also capable of demand response. For example, you'll see more articulated busses at peak times in Austin. Also, large transit stops are used as queues to maintain consistent headways. A great example of this in action happens each year for the Austin City Limits Festival [1]. A few routes have substantially more busses during those two weekends to deal with a couple hundred thousand extra passengers. --- [1] -- https://support.aclfestival.com/hc/en-us/articles/4405461498132-How-do-I-get-to-the-festival https://support.aclfestival.com/hc/en-us/articles/4405461498...
• gamblor956 2y ago
  Buses are huge obstacles to the free flow of traffic (e.g. blocking right turns, slow left turns, blocking car and bike lanes with width) and are heavy polluters (diesel powered, oversized for most of their operating time). This is all wrong. At any given moment, the average bus will replace at least a dozen cars, so a bus "blocking a right turn" for a few seconds is significantly less of an obstacle than a dozen or more cars in that lane. Buses make slow left turns, yes. But not much slower than normal cars, and it's far more likely that you'll miss a left turn due to a normal driver staring at Instagram on their phone instead of watching for the green turn signal. Buses do not take up more than their lane in the U.S. Also, buses and bus stops were around before bike lanes, which (being generous) serve 1/100,000th as many people. One diesel-powered bus still pollutes less than the vehicles it replaces. And finally, Chariot wasn't outlawed. It just couldn't compete on the basis of real-world economics even though it was charging a multiple of what Muni charged for the same routes. To put it bluntly: the private company so inefficient that it couldn't make the numbers work even charging 5x what the public agency was charging. (SF did suspend Chariot for a weekin 2017 because Chariot was found to have been employing drivers without licenses.)
  • Suppafly 2y ago
    > the private company so inefficient that it couldn't make the numbers work even charging 5x what the public agency was charging. That's not surprising because the public agency is mostly tax supported. Fares never reflect the true cost of the ride on public transportation.
    • ausbah 2y ago
      personal vehicles are also massively subsidized. the price of gas, registration, insurance, parking, purchasing, etc don’t reflective of their true cost
      • Suppafly 2y ago
        to a degree but most of those things you've mentioned, the owners do pay the full cost of.
• sundaeofshock 2y ago
  > Most US public transit systems are funded by taxes in addition to fares. The true cost of a bus ride can be many times the ticket price. If the services doesn't provide enough value for the service, let the customer decide. What about the true cost of cars? I don’t drive, yet my taxes are used to subsidize car ownership, including the storage of vehicles in public spaces. The various externalities — pollution, congestion, deaths, excess asphalt — are not included in the true cost of private car ownership.
  • Suppafly 2y ago
    >I don’t drive, yet my taxes are used to subsidize car ownership You still rely on roads, either for cars driven by other people to take you places or to service you with package delivery and fire and medical services at a minimum.
    • sundaeofshock 2y ago
      I rely on mass transit or walking for most of my transportation, so it is very rare for me to be driven in a car. Maybe 2 - 4 trips/month in a Waymo, and a monthly trip to Costco. Everything else is done on foot or transit, including thrice weekly commute and weekly grocery shopping. I have no problem with roads in the abstract for public services, including for fire protection and buses. I do have a problem with using my taxes to subsidize private car ownership. Again, why should I help pay for someone to store their private vehicle on city streets? I also have a problem with all the externalities of private car ownership that make me less safe. Yes, transit is subsidized in the US. However, I won’t ignore the fact that private car-ownership is just as heavily subsidized - if not more so — as mass transit. If we are having a conversation about the efficiency of one form of transportation over another, we need to look at them both through the same lens.
      • mateo411 2y ago
        It's true that there is tax money that is spent on infrastructure to support cars, but taxes are also collected from the use of cars through gas taxes and annual registration fees. If you include those taxes and fees it's not obvious how much other taxes are used to subsidize cars. It will be different in each state, since each state imposes different levels of gas taxes and has different registration fees.
• Suppafly 2y ago
  >Most US public transit systems are funded by taxes in addition to fares. As a homeowner this is abundantly clear by looking at your tax bill, and something that I suspect renters don't think about. I don't grumble much about paying my taxes, but when you look at the breakdown, it's insane how much goes to things I don't personally use or even get much benefit out of. I like the idea of public transit, but the design of the system in my area seems to be to get the poor where they need to go, not as an alternative transport method for people who can afford private vehicles. >Buses are huge obstacles to the free flow of traffic (e.g. blocking right turns, slow left turns, blocking car and bike lanes with width) and are heavy polluters (diesel powered, oversized for most of their operating time). They also something like 20x the damage to roads that cars and trucks do because of the way the weight is transferred to the axels. I think buses are important, but a lot of negatives are ignored because they are absorbed by the overall system.
  • xnx 2y ago
    > get the poor where they need to go The poor would probably be much happier with a $250 Uber voucher than a bus pass. > They also something like 20x the damage to roads that cars This is very evident in my city where they had to install huge concrete pads at every bus stop because of the deep ruts and potholes busses cause when they start and stop.
    • tdeck 2y ago
      In my city a $250 Uber voucher wouldn't go very far, I could take maybe 8 or 9 meaningful trips with that amount of money.
  • pixelatedindex 2y ago
    > but the design of the system in my area seems to be to get the poor where they need to go I don’t understand… do you not go to places where the poor go? Is there no transit to take you to parks and malls and theaters and stadiums? I suspect it’s more that taking your private vehicle is easier and faster, and not because there isn’t service - it probably just sucks.
• 542354234235 1y ago
  But your logic assumes first designing for cars, then looking at transport. A ton of infrastructure and design is subsidized for the convenience of cars, to the detriment of all other options. Putting in dedicated bus lanes make thing inefficient for cars abut make buses much faster. A bus that is only a quarter full (10-12 people) takes 3 to 4 times less space than the cars it replaces, and that is just bumper to bumper. With safe following distance, that is at least 8 times the space on the road for those cars driving. One diesel engine is better than 10+ car engines. Ten people moving by bus are 10 parking spaces we don’t need for the cars, which means you can build closer together and avoid sprawling parking lots, which means you can walk between things easier. In lower speed areas, bus lanes can be shared by bikes (or have bike lanes next to bus lanes instead of traffic lanes), which is a lot better than being right up next to the constant flow of distracted drivers. All those extra roads and extra parking spaces and extra land are subsidized for cars.