US cities pay too much for buses • Hacker News Board

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#501

Post by airstrike » Sat, Sep 27, 2025, 1:35 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #469

doctorpangloss wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your personal life is abundant with meaningful human activity that cannot at all be explained by money incentives. The principal agent problem has this same problem: once we stop talking about money, “interests” can be vague and overlapping, making the problem disappear with scrutiny. To me, a great majority of problems in the US fundamentally boils down to people looking for markets and money where there aren’t any.…

> To me, a great majority of problems in the US fundamentally boils down to people looking for markets and money where there aren’t any. Your examples are mostly things where there are, though, e.g.: > rising healthcare costs (what is the right price to pay for saving a child’s life, for example? Culturally, it’s basically unlimited!) This is confusing value with cost. If you had to pay a million dollars to save a ch…

I think you have the cars issue backwards

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#502

Post by p_l » Sat, Sep 27, 2025, 1:46 PM UTC

reverius42 wrote: post #424

AngryData wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The left? The US doesn't have a leftist party. Any time a leftist starts looking like they are gaining both parties do everything possible to shut them down.

In American parlance, Joe Biden is "the left" and Nancy Pelosi is "the far left". I'm guessing both are probably considered center-right from an international perspective?

right wing to center-right for most reformist-minded Democrats. Maybe Bernie alone as center-left.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#503

Post by p_l » Sat, Sep 27, 2025, 1:51 PM UTC

namibj wrote: post #388

Spooky23 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m on a city e&a board. A couple of PE groups have rolled up the remaining fire truck manufacturers. 3 companies own 75% of the market. This is a well known issue… Google away and there’s lots to read about. I know nothing about cement mixers. A rig that was $500k in 2010 is $2-2.5M now. That’s “cheap” —- volunteer fire companies tend to pimp up the trucks (usually they are paid via grant), cities are cheap on capit…

I assume buying from the European supply is federally banned due to truck import rules? Or would the insurance companies not recognize their capabilities?

There's at least some difference in design and requirements due to different assumptions about how high one needs to go on external rig, equipment in use, and fire codes.

None of it insurmountable but essentially means european vendors would need to make US-custom trucks which wouldn't make for cheap option at least for starters

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#504

Post by cptnapalm » Sat, Sep 27, 2025, 1:55 PM UTC

Y_Y wrote: post #254

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…

And congratulations to any of today's lucky ten thousand who are just learning of the Principal-Agent Problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...

I didn't know this had a name! Thank you!

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#505

Post by ThinkBeat » Sat, Sep 27, 2025, 2:04 PM UTC

The biggest killer are all the specific changes each city decides they need. If a standard feature set could be achieved mass production would be easier to arrange.

Perhaps with a module system to remove or add some subset of feature that are easily to adapt to it.

The 80% of federal funding¹ should be based on a "universal common standard", and cities pay 20% plus the city pays 100% for various customisations they need.

¹ I have not made any effort to verify this data but it's in hte article. It seems more generous than the federal government tend to be.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#506

Post by bloomingeek » Sat, Sep 27, 2025, 2:14 PM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #499

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Nah, you can do it just on the basis of information asymmetries. Banks can sell mortgages. People think buying mortgages is safe, because banks don't loan money to people they don't think can pay it back, and even if th…

Let me tell you something about people... You can sit them down and explain precisely why buying something, like a new car, is a bad financial decision and that they cannot afford it anyway, and then watch them go buy it anyway. To the point where I have seen people laugh about how dumb of an idea it is, while in the act of doing it. The "I wish someone explained to me..." that comes later when it all falls apart is…

This is a big "hell yes" for me! Some seem to think that mortgaging themselves up to their eyebrows with huge houses and the latest vehicles is a good idea. As an example: I needed a pickup truck back in 2021. I settled on a ram and purchased the base model. The only options were a towing package and the medium level smart audio/display system for a cost of $27K. I could have easily spent $50K and got a whole lot of other options, but determined the extra cost was too much and the options weren't needed. (The only reason I purchase a new one is people tend to drive like maniacs in trucks where I live, so I didn't trust a used one.)

I digress, the numbers alone are the reason for the base model, because I could use the extra money somewhere else. And yes, new vehicles do depreciate too much. However, if you keep the vehicle for it's entire lifespan, the hit isn't so bad.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#507

Post by iamtheworstdev » Sat, Sep 27, 2025, 2:16 PM UTC

Article leaves out how Private Equity has moved hard into the supply chains for buses and fire trucks and started taking advantage of their positions.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#508

Post by notmyjob » Sat, Sep 27, 2025, 2:18 PM UTC

Public transit is intersectional. It helps poor and elderly people while also being climate friendly (assuming enough ridership). It’s often not used enough to satisfy either goal. California’s high speed rail boondoggle comes to mind as a great example.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#509

Post by stackskipton » Sat, Sep 27, 2025, 2:23 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #108

stackskipton wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Because you need to be able to recognize from a distance, hey that's a city bus. Sure, but fix here seems to be that DOT Regulations state that transit buses are painted "Lime Green" (example) and other companies should not use said color. People would quickly learn that Lime Green = transit bus in same way School Bus Yellow means school bus.

People already recognize their city bus colors just fine. I don't see any reason why it would need to be standardized to the same color in every city nationwide. School buses are the only ones that do that because it's a safety issue as opposed to a convenience isuse.

If you read the article, one of the reasons the cost has gone up is supporting all the different bus colors because they have to keep 20 of same panel in different colors for different governments. If they had single color, then they could unlock better economies of scale.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#510

Post by analog31 » Sat, Sep 27, 2025, 2:32 PM UTC

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…

It could also be like health care, where the cost goes down when the government is paying for it. In fact my knee jerk reaction to the title of the thread was: Let the government buy generic buses in volume and give them to the localities.