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US cities pay too much for buses

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Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#171

Post by bluGill »

bombcar wrote: post #94
bluGill wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bus - because of the issues with shipping is something worth building not "too far" from where used. There is value in scale manufacturing so it won't be every city, but making buses for a different continent probably isn't right either. Note that engineering can be done in one location for multiple factories.

The cost to ship a bus anywhere in the world approaches the cost of shipping a container - $2 to 10k probably. A tiny fraction of the price.

That is still a lot of money. There is only so much scale before you want a seperate factory anyway and shipping is a consideration then.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#172

Post by Symbiote »

bombcar wrote: post #97
xethos wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more damning, diesel is objectively, inarguably more expensive to run, costing more than four times as much as [Vancouver's] battery-electric busses in fuel/electricity. Even looking purely at the financials, diesel is fucked.

Diesel’s last remaining benefits are of no value for a bus (locomotive-class horsepower possibilities and rapid refueling) as a bus never weighs much and goes in a circle.

I think existing electric locomotives are more powerful than existing diesel locomotives.

The "most powerful diesel–electric locomotive model ever built on a single frame", the EMD DDA40X, provides 5MW.

The EURO9000, "currently the most powerful locomotive on the European market" provides 9MW under electric power.

USA-made locomotives are so far down the list on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_powerful_locomoti... that I suspect there's some other reason they're not needed, e.g. spreading the braking force across multiple locomotives throughout the train.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#173

Post by jmyeet »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #105
jmyeet wrote: post #27

As people should know by now, in the last few decades China has built a massive amount of public transit infrastructure, both within cities and regional [1]. Some of the subway systems are pretty amazing (eg Chongqing [2]). I'm interested in how they did this and I think it comes down to a few major factors: 1. They standardize rolling stock. The same stuff is used across the country. I think this is really important…

The “tiny towns” like merced where the HSR will stop are some of the fastest growing cities in California.

There's a whole host of concessions and project redesigns that occurred for essentially political reasons.

Just look at the currently proposed route map [1]. It deviates to the east side of the valley because that's where these towns are vs the west side, which is more direct.

Deviating a supposedly high speed route for small towns doesn't make a ton of sense. Not only does it increase the cost and travel time directly, but extra stops slow the overall travel time. This could've just as easily beeen on the west side of the Central Valley and had feeder lines and stations into a smaller number of stations.

Look at any high speed rail route in Europe or China and you'll see fairly limited stops for this reason.

The biggest and easiest win for a high speed rail should've been LA to Las Vegas. It's a shorter distance and through mostly desert and other uninhabited land. Ideally LAX would've been one of these stops but I'm not sure how viable that is. Then you add a spur that goes north to SF so you avoid building through LA county twice, which is going to be one of your most expensive parts.

Instead we have a private company (Brightline) building a LA to Vegas route.

As an aside, Vegas desperately needed to build a subway plus light rail from the airport up the strip. The stupid Teslas in tunnels under the strip was another of those efforts of billionaires proposing and doing projects to derail public transit. Like the Hyperloop.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_of_California_High-Speed...

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#174

Post by bluGill »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #70
bluGill wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homeless should be on a different program that gives them a free pass anyway. The pass should be paid for by the service that deals with the homeless not the transit agency (note that I just forced a lot of budget changes!). The service wants to hand out those passes because it is a chance for them to see what else they can do for those people (who often don't want help and so they need to be careful what they offer…

Believe me, visit Reddit for Minneapolis, the most transit-optimist place you can find, and see what they think about their light rail. Full grown adult women won't ride it. Children? That's almost child endangerment by itself. I have no problem with homeless people getting free transit if they need it. However, the subset of homeless that are consistently riding for free and making nuisances, they may need to be for…

i lived in minneapolis until 15 years ago. Transit is getting better but it is still useless for the majority. Even those who live near light rail often findiit useless because it doesn't 'go where you want to go, when you want to go, for a reasonable price, in a reasonable amount of time'. (there might be more in that list?) Priceiis reasonable but the others are too often lacking.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#175

Post by SpicyUme »

ecshafer wrote: post #133

I think that the authors solution, outsourcing production is not quite right, they gloss over other issues. >In a large country like the US, some variation in bus design is inevitable due to differences in conditions like weather and topography. But Silverberg said that many customizations are cosmetic, reflecting agency preferences or color schemes but not affecting vehicle performance. This is kind of absurd, I hav…

But a bus isn't just a bus, there are differences in what is needed in different cities. Some need heat, some need AC, some need both. In Utah there are buses that go up the canyons and they have gearboxes focused on climbing steep hills, while a bus in the valley might never need that ratio and can be optimized for efficiency on the flats.

Seattle has buses with electric trolley lines above, and buses that were designed to go through the tunnel under downtown on battery power to avoid causing air quality issues in a confined space. https://bsky.app/profile/noahsbwilliams.com/post/3lx4hqvf5q2...

Maybe SORTA wanted more customization on the interior of their buses? I'm not sure but in the last year I've been riding buses to work much more than before and I've been interested in the different seating configurations on buses from the same service and route. That shouldn't explain $8 million in differnce but I'm sure that semi custom work isn't cheap. A friend worked on airline interiors which might be reasonably analogous, I wonder what the cost for say Lufthansa seats/upholstery is vs Southwest?

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#176

Post by gruez »

isthispermanent wrote: post #89

So the authors basic argument is to offshore bus production. As if that doesn’t carry any negative side effects. This is exactly what the majority of Americans voted against and exactly why the left can’t find its footing. Everyone is now fully aware that offshoring for a cheap sticker price comes with higher, harder to price costs elsewhere.

>So the authors basic argument is to offshore bus production. As if that doesn’t carry any negative side effects.

How's American shipbuilding faring, after companies were forced to "buy american" for domestic shipping?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#177

Post by mike50 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #72
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with fining the homeless is that they don't pay , followed by being onboard the next day . This can't be solved without being a little mean. In 2023, Democratic lawmakers changed it from being a misdemeanor to being an administrative citation, with... get this... $35 for first offense, scaling up to $100 + 120 day ban by 4th offense. More merciful than going through a court system inconsistently, at least…

Many of the emotionally disturbed and criminal people aren't actually homeless, and many homeless people are basically law abiding and not so crazy. About a year ago I went to NYC and it was a bit surreal. It didn't really seem unsafe but boy I saw a lot of people (mostly white) propping open the emergency exits so other people could sneak in just around the corner from New York Guard troops supporting the NYPD. Vide…

The New York Guard is not the New York Army National Guard (which were the personnel actually deployed). The New York Guard is less then 1000 personnel. The entire operation was a transparent psyop when some brainwashed tv news views saw a crime on the 6 o'clock news. The governor of New York might as well be from another planet when it comes to understanding New York City.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#178

Post by bluGill »

logifail wrote: post #145
bluGill wrote: post #63

Don't be fooled, paying less won't help much since the cost of a bus is a small part of the costs of running a bus route. about half your costs are the bus driver. The most expensive bus is still only 1/3rd of your hourly cost of running the bus. If a more expensive bus is more reliable that could more than make up for a more expensive bus (I don't have any numbers to do math on though). Half the costs of running a b…

> about half your costs are the bus driver (Genuine question) is this true around the globe, or is that US-specific? We were in Portugal over the summer and travelled with Flixbus (for the first time ever) to get from Porto to Lisbon. Were impressed by the high-quality service and great value for money. Wonder how much the driver makes per hour?

US - though richer countries arounde the world have wages close to the us. Portugal as the other reply said will have different numbers. Still labor is going to be a large factor.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#179

Post by pasc1878 »

Symbiote wrote: post #146
roryirvine wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's causing the rattle? In the UK, there were always a few buses in any given fleet that rattled more than others, especially when idling or at low revs - something to do with resonance with the body panels, I think. But that was back when diesel engines were universal, so hasn't really been a thing since hybrids and (more recently) BEVs took over. Looks like New Flyer hybrids use BAE Systems' Hybridrive, which wa…

I once complained to Transport for London when a bus I was using regularly was rattling so much it made me feel ill. They said the driver can change gear (put it in neutral?) which reduces the rattle, and they are supposed to do this, but some drivers don't bother.

The rattling I find on my TfL route is whilst it is moving. However I do think they are nearly the oldest busses in London 2008

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#180

Post by cwmma »

ecshafer wrote: post #133

I think that the authors solution, outsourcing production is not quite right, they gloss over other issues. >In a large country like the US, some variation in bus design is inevitable due to differences in conditions like weather and topography. But Silverberg said that many customizations are cosmetic, reflecting agency preferences or color schemes but not affecting vehicle performance. This is kind of absurd, I hav…

Off the top of my head, road salt, used in the northern areas of America to melt snow can cause corrosion of metal pieces on the underside of the bus. So Chicago or Boston might need to take that into account but Miami probably doesn't.
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