Lemmy is weird. They downvote people for liking cars, but they upvote this. :)
This is still an anti-car post. The point is that anyone can get to experience this feeling for the price of one bus ticket at an off-peak time.
Me every day cause i live in a remote part of a smaller city, that is directly next to a larger one. Very goofy setup cause the people who designed the bus lines though it was completely reasonable that from a satellite settlement with a population of about 1000 people would want to commute to the center of the smaller city with population 24k and not to the center of the larger city, which is 5kms away, with a population of 130k. What this causes is that with bus it takes me an hour-ish to commute(because i have to change over) while everybody else drives, which takes 15 minutes. So yeah i either bike(also much shorter, 30 minutes) or take the first bus alone cause its stupid. The bike ride also has a pretty fucking steep, 150 meter elevation at the end which means that if im carrying stuff, or not sure about the weather, or something else i have to take the bus. Theres also the factor that the bike roads are so much less smooth than the roads which means you are encouraged to ride on the road while the bike path is literally 2 meters from you. Yay, swedish public transit(seriously i love this country but the politics and public transit are just so fucking dumb)
If you think about it, if you are the only one on the bus it’s basically a limo minus the frills.
You have not been in a limo… :) The public bus is like an animal transport compared to a good car.
Some cars are like living rooms on wheels. Quiet, comfortable, amazing suspension so every bump is just like floating above it.
No, i’d call that a taxi or an uber, since those go straight to your destination.
I had a couple times where I was alone on the bus for the entire ride.
Buses could also just be like that… Like they actually don’t need to be shitty and crowded.
Hell, people had whole private train cars before automobiles were a thing.
… But it’s not efficient for a bus to not be as full as possible. You’re paying more per person per kilometer.
Cars also aren’t efficient though? I feel like there could be some compromise.
Cars aren’t paid for by taxpayers. Roads are, true, but then both buses and cars need those anyway and buses do far more damage.
I feel like people should be paying their taxes even if they own a car
They’re paying more taxes if they do own cars though?
All I was saying that it’s technically a waste of taxpayer money to run buses half empty so it’s inefficient. Yes, cars are inefficient too, but that extra cost lies more on the car owners themselves and it’s voluntary.
No it’s not voluntary if public transit gets dismantled look at the US. Running buses half-empty is also more efficient by your calculation if all those people were driving a car. That’s by your calculation 2 ton/person road wear and not whatever it was for busses.
Cars need to go.
Your comment makes no sense.
Running buses half-empty means you pay for 2x as many buses, 2x as many drivers, 2x as much fuel.
The road wear point was there to illustrate that buses don’t magically require less infrastructure maintenance than cars - they require more of it. And in no universe will even 50 cars cause as much road wear as one bus.
The only thing a half-empty bus is more efficient at is the reduced road wear. But overall if the goal of a bus is mass transit, it should be filled to the brim to get the most out of it.
Also I’m not sure why people keep bringing cars into this? The original statement was that full buses are more efficient than empty buses. If they’re full, that means people are actively using them rather than driving.
Idk where you’re from, but in my hometown the morning bus was always filled to the brim because people needed to get to work or school. Half the people had to stand up and honestly it was kinda crowded standing up. But everyone still got on the bus. If they’d had another bus 5 minutes later, that’s 2x as much fuel and other costs for the same amount of riders. If the bus is too full, you just squeeze in somewhere and shut the fuck up because you need to get where you’re going and this is cheap and efficient.
Lmao leave it to Lemmy to downvote basic facts like “heavier vehicles cause more wear to roads.”
And not linearly more wear either. It’s the fourth power of axle load.
My 2 ton car (rounded up) is a ton per axle, a 12 ton bus (empty weight of a common city bus here) is 6 or 4 tons per axle. 3rd axle seems to be more common in buses weighing 15 tons or more (empty). So let’s say 6x more weight per axle. That’s 1296 times more wear.
That doesn’t mean I hate public transit but it does mean it comes with additional hidden costs to the taxpayer. Well, buses do at least. The whole equation is rather different for trains.
You still can. Amtrak will haul it around for you. https://www.amtrak.com/privately-owned-rail-cars
