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US cities pay too much for buses

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Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#401

Post by marcosdumay »

bpicolo wrote: post #376
marcosdumay wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true in developed and developing countries, it's probably not true in all poor countries. I'd guess the driver makes for a larger share of the cost in Portugal than in the US. But the one most important factor defining the total cost by trip is the number of passengers by trip. If 60 people all show up to pay the driver's daily salary, it gets quite cheap.

Portuguese salaries are miserable

"Miserable" like in "covers the cost of a $300k machine in 15 years"?

Bus drivers don't get software developer salaries.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#402

Post by cyberax »

dns_snek wrote: post #277
cyberax wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> general rule of thumb is 5 passangers for a but to break even. "Break even" how? A bus has a road footprint of about 15 cars (it's more than the physical bus length because it also occupies the road during stops and is less maneuverable). 15 cars have the occupancy of about 25 people. > even with those unrealistic assumption a typical bus will do well overall. Nope. Buses absolutely fail in efficiency. They pollute…

> A bus has a road footprint of about 15 cars What's this supposed to mean? I can't even try to take it at face value, it's ridiculous. In bumper to bumper traffic they might take up 2 cars worth of footprint. At higher speeds it's even less as the footprint of each vehicle equals "vehicle length + following distance". At 30km/h (8.3 m/s) and minimal 1s following distance, the "footprint" of a 5m long car is 13m, and…

> What's this supposed to mean?

A single bus creates as much congestion as around 15 cars. It's a fairly well-known result in urban planning. You can verify by looking at the maximum lane throughput in vehicles per hour.

> At higher speeds it's even less as the footprint of each vehicle equals "vehicle length + following distance".

The commercial speed of buses in cities is around 10-15 mph. There are no "higher speeds" when talking about the city traffic.

> I've never seen a bus block a busy city road. Either way this is an easily solvable problem stemming from poor design and lack of investment and not some inherent issue with this mode of transportation.

I've seen buses blocking multiple cars for a traffic light cycle because buses take so much space. These days, it is apparently considered a feature in the pro-misery community...

> Citation?

For example: https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint

This is a very loaded topic. The average raw bus pollution is about 75g CO2e per kilometer, and a passenger EV is around 50g. However, these calculations neglect that a bus needs about 3.5 drivers per bus to be viable. And these drivers become by far the most polluting factor.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#404

Post by estearum »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #397
estearum wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Uh, no… they want to deny claims. The best situation for insurers is that you are healthy for a while, then abruptly die of something that cannot be treated.

Uh no, they don't. Not if they're also the ones who provide healthcare. Simply denying claims isn't even remotely close to the financially (and obviously not the politically) optimal strategy.

The optimal strategy if you own both the insurer and the provider is a combination of premiums, copays, deductibles, and maybe even some totally unnecessary care to drive up volume.

Lower margin on dramatically higher volume is still dramatically more money. Lower margin actually provides political cover for your $400 billion revenue years.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#405

Post by psunavy03 »

SpicyUme wrote: post #258
psunavy03 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. And then the city government, in its infinite wisdom, decided to shut the tunnel down and make it light rail-only, forcing the buses up onto the surface and clogging up the street grid.

I go back and forth on that, the bus tunnel was useful. But a tunnel with 3(4?) stops seems like a good place for a train of some sort. I guess the buses are why there are no center stops in there? It seems like a missed opportunity. Not sure about the history of the tunnel but there were tracks there years ago so they must have planned to put trains in eventually.

The Link light rail uses it.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#406

Post by tiagod »

bpicolo wrote: post #376
marcosdumay wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true in developed and developing countries, it's probably not true in all poor countries. I'd guess the driver makes for a larger share of the cost in Portugal than in the US. But the one most important factor defining the total cost by trip is the number of passengers by trip. If 60 people all show up to pay the driver's daily salary, it gets quite cheap.

Portuguese salaries are miserable

As in $1000/month before taxes, with rent for pretty much any apartment costing quite a bit more than that.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#407

Post by ethagknight »

qgin wrote: post #398
RobKohr wrote: post #202

"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…

I have a $6500 deductible. I definitely care what things cost because my insurance almost never actually helps pay for anything unless I have an unbelievably bad year. The problem is that literally nobody can tell me how much anything is going to cost until I get the bill in a month. Not even because they don't want to tell me. Nobody at the desk even knows what my price is going to be because it's all numberwang.

You are the best customer, thinking you’re a smart customer!

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#408

Post by moduspol »

qgin wrote: post #398
RobKohr wrote: post #202

"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…

I have a $6500 deductible. I definitely care what things cost because my insurance almost never actually helps pay for anything unless I have an unbelievably bad year. The problem is that literally nobody can tell me how much anything is going to cost until I get the bill in a month. Not even because they don't want to tell me. Nobody at the desk even knows what my price is going to be because it's all numberwang.

Not defending insurance but theoretically you do also get a better rate than the uninsured rate just by having it go through the health insurance.

I say “theoretically” because I’ve also heard they’re often willing to cut some pretty good deals if you don’t have insurance and pay cash. And I mean “good” relative to the initially billed amount, not “good” relative to what it should actually cost.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#409

Post by darkerside »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #331
SoftTalker wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance profit is limited to a percentage of what they pay out. So the more they pay, the more money they make.

wow, why would they cap it that way? that makes no sense.

It makes a ton of sense in theory. In a fair market, you would want to prevent the insurer from charging super high premiums that let them make a large profit relative to the cost of care provided.

The problem is that it doesn't stop there. There is a second order effect.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#410

Post by hotstickyballs »

breatheoften wrote: post #360
phil21 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm convinced that a great majority of problems in the US these days fundamentally boils down to principal agent problems. The 2008 financial crisis is a great example. Once banks no longer kept mortgages on their own books, it just became a matter of time until that was going to blow up. The incentives change.

It takes more than just misaligned incentives to get a banking crisis -- you have to have structural corruption preventing the transfer of the loss gradient back to the "misaligned" decision makers. It's somewhat disingenuous (or overly innocent) to reimagine the pathways which power structural corruption as "innocent ignorance in the face of bad incentives". The real world has "actually bad" actors -- not just misal…

I disagree with the characterization of structural corruption. Every rationale actor will seek to capture all the benefits and pass on the risks. The real corruption is when decision makers know that they can’t be held responsible through corporate or political structures. See also [moral hazard](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard)
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