331–340 of 590 posts
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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.
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You can have a fleet of specialized self-driving taxis for people with disabilities. They can have articulated ramps or other special accommodations.
You could have trams and trains with level boarding which helps people who don't have disabilities too, costs less, takes less space in the city, makes less noise, needs less maintenance, and moves more people.
But otherwise,yeah. Sure.
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It's not that pushing buses onto surface streets makes it worse for cars. It's that it makes it worse for buses, which then leads people to take cars instead, which makes things even worse.
1. Priority bus lanes are solving that problem. 2. If getting through downtown by bus is slow, getting through it by car isn't any faster. Anyways, Seattle's transit problem isn't bad downtown bus service, it's godawful spoke-and-last-mile coverage, which eviscerates ridership, makes the overall network less efficient, and forms a negative-feedback-loop that blocks transit improvements. Nobody likes sitting around fo…
Not many people per bus are needed for a bus to be better than the equivalent number of cars. And no, carpooling is not a useful option to rely on to reduce the impact. At least not until some of the occupancy rules are enforced.
200 buses equal cheaper buses, nothing surprise here
"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…
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It is absolutely not feasible (yet), most of the job of the bus driver is knowing when to break the "rules", because someone is parked in the bus stop, or traffic is backed up so it make sense to stop a bit before the stop to let people off, or when to stop for longer than usual because someone needs to use the bike rack on the front, or when to use the bus kneeling feature because someone with mobility issues needs…
You could help set up the self driving bus for success. Make bus stops a clearway for other vehicles. In other words, if you stop there you get fined and possibly towed. Bus dashcam can help here. The bike rack is an excellent feature where US beats my country. Well done. I think you'd need a button to ask for more time. And a Tokyo-like culture of respect for this all to work.
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Your view is a commonly-held one, and makes a lot of sense; unfortunately there is very little support for it. One data point to the contrary is the Oregon Health Care Study, which showed that 'free' preventative care increased healthcare spending, but did not improve lifespan or reduce long-term cost.
But it only looked at two year outcomes, yet you made a claim about long-term health and cost outcomes. For example, it found that diagnoses and medication increased. If you are diagnosed with heart disease and you begin an intervention, you probably see no change in mortality in two years especially since it took decades for you to progress to that point in the first place.
Otoh this is why we invented reinsurance
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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.
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Your excerpts don't divulge whether one of the bus manufacturers is required by law to pay health insurance, social security, and other labor costs. Are they required by law to treat the water from their cooling towers before they dump it in the river? Do they have to pay a 50% tariff on imported parts? I'm sure there is a lot of slop in different purchasing departments. They can probably all tighten things up. But t…
The 2 bus contracts were with the same manufacturer, which is headquartered in California.