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US cities pay too much for buses

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Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#71

Post by PaulHoule »

bluGill wrote: post #65
PaulHoule wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my town all the buses have a bus rack in the front that fits up to two bikes or e-bikes. I perceive buses in my town be very safe. I definitely see emotionally disturbed people downtown and near the homeless colony behind Wal-Mart, but I don't see them on the bus.

I hate those racks. 2 bikes capacity means the transit agency needs to ensure they are not well used since they will fill up fast if people actually use them. Also the time it takes to put a bike on/off them is time robbed from everyone else on the bus who is now 30 seconds latter to where they want to be. They just are not worth it, and cannot be. Either take the bike on the bus (good luck even getting it to fit, mu…

In Ithaca we have crazy hills so it is a good plan to take the bus up and then ride down although E-bikes change that equation.

In Ithaca we have great bus service between the Ithaca Commons, Cornell and the Pyramid Mall. Before the pandemic we had a bus every 15 minutes at the mall which was great -- it's still pretty good. There are 5 buses a day during weekdays to the rural area where I live. These are well timed for the 9-5 worker at Cornell and I'm going to be taking the late one back today because I'm going to go photograph a Field Hockey game over in Barton Hall and the timing is right -- it's OK but we did have more buses during the pandemic.

Bus service is not so good to Ithaca College. When I've tried to make the connection with my bus I've concluded that I might as well walk up the hill the IC rather than wait for the bus.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#72

Post by PaulHoule »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #67
bluGill wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honor system with regular fare inspection is a good best practice. However it only works when the fines for not having a fare are high enough that everyone knows it isn't worth the risk. If you are checked once a month the fine should be the costs of 3 months pass, though you can work the math in many different ways, just make sure paying for a ticket (preferably a monthly pass!) is cheapest and everyone believe that…

The problem with fining the homeless is that they don't pay , followed by being onboard the next day . This can't be solved without being a little mean. In 2023, Democratic lawmakers changed it from being a misdemeanor to being an administrative citation, with... get this... $35 for first offense, scaling up to $100 + 120 day ban by 4th offense. More merciful than going through a court system inconsistently, at least…

Many of the emotionally disturbed and criminal people aren't actually homeless, and many homeless people are basically law abiding and not so crazy.

About a year ago I went to NYC and it was a bit surreal. It didn't really seem unsafe but boy I saw a lot of people (mostly white) propping open the emergency exits so other people could sneak in just around the corner from New York Guard troops supporting the NYPD. Video ads on the subway were oddly calibrated: "Don't sleep on the subway because it makes you vulnerable to crime", "Don't jump the turnstile because we have roughly 30 programs that could get you free or reduced fares" together with ads for deodorant.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#73

Post by supertrope »

myrmidon wrote: post #7

I think this shows one of the downsides of trade barriers very well: You get stuck with undesirable industries (diesel bus manufacturing), binding capital and labor better used elsewhere (and you easily end up with underperforming, overpriced solutions, too). But I'm curious how much this actually affects transport costs. If such a bus is used 12h/day, then even overpaying 100% for the vehicle should get outscaled by…

2/3 of public transit budgets in wealthy countries is hiring employees. Vehicle costs are not the headline cost. However this cost does needs to be managed. Transit agencies are running on shoe string budgets.

Until recently the US Federal Government funded capital expenses but never operating expenses. This lead to outcomes such as the feds distributing grant money with the requirement that buses must last at least 12 years and transit agencies refreshing their buses on the 12 year mark. Buying a natural gas bus or battery electric bus lowers OPEX and the increased CAPEX is picked up by the feds.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#74

Post by xethos »

myrmidon wrote: post #26
mrits wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is wrong with diesel bus manufacturing? Just the exhaust pedestrians have to breath in? It seems near the bottom of the list for things we'd need to solve for carbon emissions.

I honestly don't think there is any future for them longer term (>10y). Long distance, diesel vehicles might hold out for a bit longer than a decade, but the situation looks kinda inevitable even there to me. CO2 wise, electrifying a bus like this should pay off much quicker than replacing individual vehicles, because utilization is higher (not a lot of people drive 12h a day).

Even more damning, diesel is objectively, inarguably more expensive to run, costing more than four times as much as [Vancouver's] battery-electric busses in fuel/electricity.

Even looking purely at the financials, diesel is fucked.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#75

Post by Mountain_Skies »

infecto wrote: post #22
lenerdenator wrote: post #2

> "A new paper argues that lack of competition, demand for custom features and “Buy America” rules have driven up costs for transit agencies in the US." If that's not the most NYC finance-centered headline ever, I don't know what is. "If we just offload our bus-building industry to somewhere else, we could save $x on taxes each year. Yeah, it eliminates jobs and is another blow against strategically-important heavy i…

One of the worst takes I have ever seen. It’s not about offloading an industry but if another geography has a comparative advantage everyone benefits. I would also argue that customizations are indeed a total waste of money for systems that already cash strapped.

What geography allows for worker oppression and environmental degradation as a competitive advantage?

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#76

Post by stronglikedan »

bluGill wrote: post #46
SoftTalker wrote: post #4

Not sure why transit agencies are still paying for custom paint schemes or colors when they just turn around and wrap the whole bus with advertising. Just buy a plain white bus. The article didn't mention corruption but I would not rule it out. Follow the money. Whose pockets are being filled when one transit agency is paying 2x what another one does for the same bus.

I hate those advertising wraps. Most of them cover the windows that I as a rider want to look out of (you can see out, but they are not clear). If I don't want to look out give me a window shade, but when I want to look out I want to be able to see.

get your own bus and you can do what you want with it! /s

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#77

Post by supertrope »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #10
lenerdenator wrote: post #2

> "A new paper argues that lack of competition, demand for custom features and “Buy America” rules have driven up costs for transit agencies in the US." If that's not the most NYC finance-centered headline ever, I don't know what is. "If we just offload our bus-building industry to somewhere else, we could save $x on taxes each year. Yeah, it eliminates jobs and is another blow against strategically-important heavy i…

imagine how much money the government could save by just continuing to collect taxes and not providing any services! we could privatize everything!

That's running the government like a business!

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#78

Post by Volundr »

xnx wrote: post #48
michaelt wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whose pockets are being filled when one transit agency is paying 2x what another one does for the same bus. I mean, that could just be normal, routine failure to negotiate effectively. If every bus vendor says "call for pricing" and your organisation has "always" paid $940k per bus, when you're told to buy some more buses, you might not even know you can get them for half or a third of that price by getting competi…

> And if you're an ambitious, hard-nosed type that can really turn the screws on vendors, Absolutely not. Cost savings is career suicide in the public sector. The goal is to spend all budget and then beg for more. Regardless of ridership, the ironclad rule is "budget must go up".

It funny because having worked both in private industry and public (transit!) service, my experience is the exact opposite. In private anytime my department were coming in under budget on anything, there was always the end of the year pressure to spend it on something lest accounting take it away. Meanwhile in the public sector my team went to great lengths to get rid of vendor services that weren't providing value.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#79

Post by SoftTalker »

bluGill wrote: post #66
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Minnesota, we built light rail... with an honor system for boarding. It got so bad, especially on the middle cars (the "party cars") after COVID, that the middle car was retired and they are now in Year 3 of a security improvement plan. https://www.metrotransit.org/public-safety They are also retro-fitting screens into the buses, showing the buses' own live camera feeds, to further reinforce the perception of bein…

Honor system with regular fare inspection is a good best practice. However it only works when the fines for not having a fare are high enough that everyone knows it isn't worth the risk. If you are checked once a month the fine should be the costs of 3 months pass, though you can work the math in many different ways, just make sure paying for a ticket (preferably a monthly pass!) is cheapest and everyone believe that…

Honor systems only work with honorable people.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#80

Post by bryanlarsen »

jmyeet wrote: post #27

As people should know by now, in the last few decades China has built a massive amount of public transit infrastructure, both within cities and regional [1]. Some of the subway systems are pretty amazing (eg Chongqing [2]). I'm interested in how they did this and I think it comes down to a few major factors: 1. They standardize rolling stock. The same stuff is used across the country. I think this is really important…

The "nail house" phenomenon in China is counter-evidence to your point 3.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2014/apr/15/china...

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