351–360 of 607 posts
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The cost of providing a bus exceeds the cost of operating a car in many cases, like lower population density neighborhoods. It may save the public money to centralize transit on major corridors and then subsidize trips on Waymo in some areas and at some times.
how many people can fit in a bus compared to a car?
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Even five dollars a ride would be twice the price. It's just not comparable.
How many tax dollars go into subsidizing a public transit ride? Varies from place to place but it's not insignificant.
Tax revenue was $555mm
https://trimet.org/about/pdf/trimetridership.pdf
~122,300,000 rides (originating + boarding)
So about $4.53 per ride.
The Portland metro is ~2.5mm people, so about $222/resident/yr.
Portland metro area residents pay on average about sixty cents per day to subsidize TriMet.
Roughly 1/43rd the average cost of ownership for a new car in Oregon.
https://info.oregon.aaa.com/how-much-does-it-really-cost-to-...
I wonder how long Google will continue to subsidize this at a substantial loss? Estimated $30–40 billion spent in the last decade that only really pays off if they dominate the market.
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Doesn't matter if there's only four people willing to ride on a given schedule.
That is an argument for buses on well-designed routes and schedules, not an argument against buses. It is like saying “that bus would be useless at the bottom of a lake” well, yeah. The first step would be not driving it into a lake
Different population densities have different optimal vehicle sizes. It's the same reason a small city airport might have one or two regional jets per day serving it instead of 2 747s per week.
I've determined that my ultimate dream car would be something like a Rivian but with Waymo tech, so I can drive it manually when I want/need (snowstorms, off-road), but I can also let it drive me across the country at night while I camp in the back. Would absolutely change the way we move across the US, especially if you have hobbies that involve a lot of gear and equipment.
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That is an argument for buses on well-designed routes and schedules, not an argument against buses. It is like saying “that bus would be useless at the bottom of a lake” well, yeah. The first step would be not driving it into a lake
It depends on the population density. You may have a perfectly well designed route for the area, but there are only so many people per hour that want to take a trip. You can delete routes and make people walk further, but that makes the trip take longer and not everyone can or wants to walk a long ways to the bus stop. Different population densities have different optimal vehicle sizes. It's the same reason a small c…
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Snowstorms are probably when I’d most want self driving. Back in February driving from Tahoe to SF, they closed the road, not because of conditions, but because too many impatient drivers spun out. I trust Waymo to go the recommended speed and not get impatient.
After skiing in Utah, I wonder why the driving conditions around Tahoe get so bad. In comparison, for most places around Salt Lake/Park City, you never need chains or 4-wheel drive.
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IIRC, in SF they're slightly more expensive before tip, but having ridden in them in SF, LA, and AZ I've always felt they were cheaper. Over the long run, they will probably end up being cheaper from the wholesale perspective since eventually the parts and technology cost will come down with time and scale while human wages will continue to rise. That said, it doesn't really matter if they're cheaper as long as they'…
Alphabet/Google/Waymo is a technology business, with emphasis on business. They're not running a charity. They're in it to make money. If it's a $20 Uber ride to somewhere, they're not going to leave money on the table and charge $10 because they don't have a driver to pay. They're going to charge $22 for the premium experience because they know people will pay that.
If we're in a world where human driven Uber's are $30, you're right that Waymo probably won't charge $20 just to be nice, even if it only costs them $10. They might charge $20 though if their data shows that it would 10x the number of riders or if they're also competing with another autonomous taxi company.
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>Trains are great I wonder how much that sentiment is that based on steampunk and 1880's nostalgia?
Also just like... looking at a train and noticing it can carry a ton more people than a car, has no concept of traffic, and can theoretically go as fast as possible.
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> Brightline in Florida was able to get around this buy working in an existing highway ROW. And will probably go bankrupt this year: https://www.wlrn.org/business/2026-01-23/brightline-business...
Oof their debt is now considered junk bonds huh. They missed some loan interest payments? Yeah not looking good...