31–40 of 58 posts
Definitely a weird choice for the presentation: the best-served part of the best-served city in the US for public transport. Why not pick literally anywhere else?
Why should anyone pay extra from their income, if private companies are going to profit from providing a service to the public which was intended to be built using taxes by the government?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Buses are very unpleasant in the US. They stop too frequently so they are extremely slow. Most cities do not have enough routes or frequency to be useful. The cities that do have them tolerate belligerent people on them making the ride unpleasant. In other words, the high value, richer customers are already not riding the bus.
And they smell like urine, are generally filthy and they are the most likely place a middle class person is to be trapped in a small environment with a mentally ill person. If: - America solved its mental health crisis - Americans became cleaner - Americans became better behaved in public Then Americans who can afford not to take the bus would reconsider it.
Passenger cars-- heck, even coach buses-- are engineered for passenger comfort and convenience.
City buses are engineered to secure the driver against passengers, to be simply maintained and hosed out as needed, and to accommodate overcrowding standing-room-only discomfort. Seats are hard, leg room is deficient, shoulder room is deprived, and that's even before we talk about trying to time an irregular arrival or departure time on a wobbly bus schedule.
You only ride a bus if you're indifferent to personal inconvenience, have firm principles, or have no choice.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Buses are very unpleasant in the US. They stop too frequently so they are extremely slow. Most cities do not have enough routes or frequency to be useful. The cities that do have them tolerate belligerent people on them making the ride unpleasant. In other words, the high value, richer customers are already not riding the bus.
And they smell like urine, are generally filthy and they are the most likely place a middle class person is to be trapped in a small environment with a mentally ill person. If: - America solved its mental health crisis - Americans became cleaner - Americans became better behaved in public Then Americans who can afford not to take the bus would reconsider it.
A bit more money can find more cleaning, as well as giving places for the mentally ill to go other than riding around all day.
Ya know, as long as we're making up fantasies. Americans are not noticeably different on our levels of mental illness, but no power on earth will compel us to spend money that might help someone other than ourselves.
> Meanwhile, the federal government is cutting support for public services, including transit systems — many of which still haven’t fully recovered from Covid-era budget crunches. Though ridership nationwide is up to 85 percent of prepandemic levels, Bloomberg News recently estimated that transit systems across the country face a $6 billion budget shortfall. The gameplan is clear. Take the high value, richer customer…
Richer customers don't pay more for public transit. It's not like clothing, where they buy a better product and produce most of the profit.
Removing some customers from bus systems doesn't have much of an effect. Bus systems are very flexible in changing routes and times to meet demand. It's not going to cause a "complete demise".
Also, if private buses are profitable, they invite competition. Private buses are an incredibly easy business to start. So no, nobody's "free to jack up the prices to whatever you want them to be".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty easy to outcompete public transit on specific profitable lines. The problem is that public transit has to serve a lot of unprofitable lines and by having a private competitor putting pressure on the only parts that actually make money, the overall economics of public transit become much worse.
The same as package delivery - Amazon takes the easiest portion, FedEx/UPS the middle tier, and then USPS gets handed off all the most difficult addresses
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And they smell like urine, are generally filthy and they are the most likely place a middle class person is to be trapped in a small environment with a mentally ill person. If: - America solved its mental health crisis - Americans became cleaner - Americans became better behaved in public Then Americans who can afford not to take the bus would reconsider it.
You don't even need to go this far. Passenger cars-- heck, even coach buses-- are engineered for passenger comfort and convenience. City buses are engineered to secure the driver against passengers, to be simply maintained and hosed out as needed, and to accommodate overcrowding standing-room-only discomfort. Seats are hard, leg room is deficient, shoulder room is deprived, and that's even before we talk about trying…
Imagine the bus smelled like detergent and was spotless.
Piss, the occasional feces and I have to celebrate profane graffiti calling for cops' death as art.
> Meanwhile, the federal government is cutting support for public services, including transit systems — many of which still haven’t fully recovered from Covid-era budget crunches. Though ridership nationwide is up to 85 percent of prepandemic levels, Bloomberg News recently estimated that transit systems across the country face a $6 billion budget shortfall. The gameplan is clear. Take the high value, richer customer…
> Take the high value, richer customers from the public transit system as it declines and ensure its complete demise. Richer customers don't pay more for public transit. It's not like clothing, where they buy a better product and produce most of the profit. Removing some customers from bus systems doesn't have much of an effect. Bus systems are very flexible in changing routes and times to meet demand. It's not going…
I suppose that in New York and London richer people use the subway to escape traffic jams. They can tell their politician friends (or bought politicians) to keep subsidizing it.
In Europe privatization of public transport has been a disaster. Routes are cut, the trains don't run on time, etc.
> Meanwhile, the federal government is cutting support for public services, including transit systems — many of which still haven’t fully recovered from Covid-era budget crunches. Though ridership nationwide is up to 85 percent of prepandemic levels, Bloomberg News recently estimated that transit systems across the country face a $6 billion budget shortfall. The gameplan is clear. Take the high value, richer customer…
I don't especially like Uber as a company, but it's not reasonable to spin a service that outcompetes a publicly-funded competitor as a conspiracy against the public, and in many of the cities Uber operates in, the transit authorities had been faceplanting all on their own without any help.