Outsourcing is not a good solution, we should support our local manufacturers who have to follow our ethical rules on labor treatment, safety, and environmental damage. Outsourcing just allows the worst abuses to happen elsewhere. We should get rid of labor and environmental rules if we want to allow outsourcing.
US cities pay too much for buses
261–270 of 590 posts
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#262"Federal funding typically covers 80% of bus purchases, with agencies responsible for the remainder." Well, there is your answer. The one making the purchase isn't the one primarily paying for the purchase. This makes them less sensitive to pricing. Kinda like how expensive healthcare is since it is paid for by insurance. Or how you don't care how much you put on your plate or what you choose to eat at an all you can…
Shouldn't insurance care about the pricing though? I get why federal govt isn't sensitive, given 0 competition.
massive proportions of utilization come from govt subsidized plans
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#263"Federal funding typically covers 80% of bus purchases, with agencies responsible for the remainder." Well, there is your answer. The one making the purchase isn't the one primarily paying for the purchase. This makes them less sensitive to pricing. Kinda like how expensive healthcare is since it is paid for by insurance. Or how you don't care how much you put on your plate or what you choose to eat at an all you can…
It's even worse, I will use my healthcare just because it is free. I would feel like a moron not get my free physical, bloodwork and other labs every year. If it was $20 I wouldn't bother but its almost obligatory to take something "because its free". Once I learn something is free it is like I already own it, so now I don't get it if I take it, I lose it if I don't.
Preventative care is free because it saves a tremendous amount of money for the insurance company and physical and emotional hardship for yourself by catching bad things early.
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
When they're further away you can't read the signage, and long-distance buses have signage too. The paint job really is important because it's vastly more visible. It also often does things like distinguish between local buses and commuter buses, depending on your city.
I really don’t understand why long distance visibility/visual identification is such an important feature. Care to elaborate?
You see a city bus 4 blocks away, and the bus stop is 1 block away, and if you walk fast you can make it to the bus stop in time to catch it. If you didn't look and just walked at normal speed you'd end up having to wait 20 more minutes for the next bus.
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of those should be needed. Get more people riding and they take care of security. wheelchairs are hard - but the driver strapping them in is robbing everyone else of their valuable time so we need a better soultion anyway
>the driver strapping them in is robbing everyone else of their valuable time Oh so we're now fine putting more of our tax dollars into specialized disability services? If our time is more valuable, this is a steal.
It's paying either way. I'd rather pay with money.
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#266Don'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?
snip
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#267Don'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…
I'm hearing you say we should have self-driving buses... which is feasible since their route is fixed.
e: after looking at the numbers again, i was wrong.
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
We also don't know much about these so called purchasing contracts either. For example. do they contain sustainment services, maintenance equipment, storage facilities, or other sourcing requirements? When using federal funds, you're generally required to purchase all American products, I remember trying to furnish an office with just two desks and four chairs (nothing fancy), and the initial cost estimates were over…
All the contract stuff is too muddled to even consider debating online. I'd start with one HUGE obvious waste. Why don't the buses anywhere have some sort of uber style pickup. My point. I see countless buses running empty all the time through the day where I live outside of busy hours. It is so depressing to watch 3 empty busses pull up to an empty stop to not pick anyone up then do it again and again and again.. I…
So in my area, believe it or not, there is experiments with uber-style point-to-point pickup/dropoff and electric car short term "rentals".
https://www.cdta.org/flex https://drivecdta.org/
The few flex areas are small and I've never tried the electric rentals.
Every once in awhile I do use the bus system to check out how things are going and I get how depressive an empty bus is... I was just on an empty bus to the airport (which I have to take two routes to get there, another tough negative to solve).
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shouldn't insurance care about the pricing though? I get why federal govt isn't sensitive, given 0 competition.
Insurance profit is limited to a percentage of what they pay out. So the more they pay, the more money they make.
Also the largest insurers increasingly own the doctors you’re seeing too.
Also the pharmacy you get your drugs from.
Also the entity that negotiates prices between pharma companies and your insurer.
More healthcare consumption = better, across the board
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is something I would honestly expect if you try and get cheaper from market pressure.
Some of it is that "legacy" products often involve more difficult engineering than people think. Circa 1980 this bus design was a notorious failure in NYC: https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Grumman_Flxible_870 Buses get shaken really hard.
> Buses get shaken really hard.
In America they do, since we don't take care of our roads.