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US cities pay too much for buses

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Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#81

Post by SoftTalker »

crazygringo wrote: post #43
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.

> still paying for custom paint schemes or colors Because you need to be able to recognize from a distance, hey that's a city bus. Not a charter bus. Not a school bus. Not a long distance bus. And buses aren't usually wrapped with advertising. It's usually just a banner on the sides below the windows. Some ad campaigns pay much more money to extend it over the windows with that mesh material. But that's generally a s…

School buses are a distinctive bright yellow, there's no mistaking them for anything else. Charter and long distance buses don't stop at the city bus stops. City buses will still have a sign/screen displaying the route number/name.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#82

Post by Jcowell »

SoftTalker wrote: post #81
crazygringo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> still paying for custom paint schemes or colors Because you need to be able to recognize from a distance, hey that's a city bus. Not a charter bus. Not a school bus. Not a long distance bus. And buses aren't usually wrapped with advertising. It's usually just a banner on the sides below the windows. Some ad campaigns pay much more money to extend it over the windows with that mesh material. But that's generally a s…

School buses are a distinctive bright yellow, there's no mistaking them for anything else. Charter and long distance buses don't stop at the city bus stops. City buses will still have a sign/screen displaying the route number/name.

There’s a difference between spotting a bus at the stop and distance away and the actions you will take accordingly.

You want the bus to be identifiable as possible.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#83

Post by xnx »

Volundr wrote: post #78
xnx wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Good example. That budget behavior is common. Fortunately, if that has true negative effects, the market corrects by putting one company out of business.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#84

Post by Volundr »

xnx wrote: post #83
Volundr wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good example. That budget behavior is common. Fortunately, if that has true negative effects, the market corrects by putting one company out of business.

Let me know when the market gets around to that. At this time it's ignored all the ones I've worked for.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#85

Post by crazygringo »

SoftTalker wrote: post #81
crazygringo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> still paying for custom paint schemes or colors Because you need to be able to recognize from a distance, hey that's a city bus. Not a charter bus. Not a school bus. Not a long distance bus. And buses aren't usually wrapped with advertising. It's usually just a banner on the sides below the windows. Some ad campaigns pay much more money to extend it over the windows with that mesh material. But that's generally a s…

School buses are a distinctive bright yellow, there's no mistaking them for anything else. Charter and long distance buses don't stop at the city bus stops. City buses will still have a sign/screen displaying the route number/name.

Yeah but the point is you want to look down the street and see if there's a city bus a few blocks away or not. If so, hurry up and walk the block to the bus stop. If not, quickly grab a coffee or decide to grab a Citibike or whatever else that depends on that information.

Spotting buses a few blocks away is a crucial skill in cities.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#86

Post by jlhawn »

One of the issues that AC Transit (SF East Bay bus agency) has is that it purchased a lot of Hydrogen Fuel Cell busses which have issues which dramatically impact their reliability. It's also very expensive technology. There's a decent argument that public agencies _should_ invest in early emerging technologies like that but the costs should not be borne by the transit agency alone, at the cost of poor service for its riders.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#87

Post by mschuster91 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #37
mschuster91 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between private companies and state-run companies / authorities. When a US airline thinks it's better for them to switch over to Airbus, by all means do so, that's competition. But taxpayer money should not be used to prop up other countries' economies unless explicitly designated that way (e.g. contributions to international agencies, economic aid), and certainly not if that replaces domestic un…

The thing is the public sector does have competition. We have a surplus of houses with XXL master bedroom suites in Arizona and a deficit of high speed rail. If they used union labor to build houses in Arizona and non-union labor to build high speed rail it would be the other way around. If it costs the public sector 3x as much to do things as the private sector people are going to turn against the public sector. Hav…

The problem with rail isn't just labor, it's land acquisition. For the old freight lines that was done centuries ago, now that virtually all land has been claimed by someone it's much more expensive by default. On top of that, California got Musk disrupting everything with Hyperloop.

You need to use eminent domain on straight lines as much as possible for HSR, both to keep costs low and to allow for actually high speeds, but that's risky for legal challenges and even then, horribly expensive at US scales.

Yes, China has larger scales and still gets it done, but they a) just throw money at the problem and b) just do what the CCP wants.

> Have crazy people screaming on the street corner in the city and people will retreat to the suburbs and order from Amazon instead of going shopping, order a private taxi for their burrito instead of going to a restaurant.

That's not made easier by the fact that many cities just hand one way bus tickets to local homeless and nutjobs that bus them off to somewhere else [1], often to Democrat-run cities. In addition to that, there are almost no asylums left to take care of the nutjobs because a lot of them had been forced to shut down for sometimes atrocious violations of human rights many decades ago. Some areas now (ab)use jails and prisons to punish homeless people for being homeless, a practice that has also come under fire for creating the same abusive conditions, on top of scandals like "Kids for cash" [2].

The obvious solution to a lot of the problems with nutjobs, homeless and drug addicts would be a sensible drug policy combined with a "housing first" policy. Both of that has been tried in the US and in other countries worldwide to a sometimes massively positive effect, the problem is it has to be done federally - otherwise you end up like Frankfurt here in Germany, where Frankfurt pays the bill for drug addiction treatments and somewhat safe consumption facilities, but ended up having to pay that for people from almost across the whole of Europe.

> If the public sector were efficient, responsive and pleasant people would be voting for more of it.

It could be at least pleasant and responsive, the problem is you need (a lot) of money to pay for it, and no one likes paying taxes. It's a chicken and egg problem across Western countries - ever since up to the 80s, when neoliberal politics, trickle-down and lean-state ideology took over, public service has been cut and cut and cut. People don't believe any more that paying higher taxes would yield a net benefit because they lost all trust in politicians, and I don't see any way of fixing that - not without a stint of a good-willing dictator at least, and I don't see that on the horizon at all.

[1] https://awards.journalists.org/entries/bussed-out-how-americ...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#89

Post by isthispermanent »

So the authors basic argument is to offshore bus production. As if that doesn’t carry any negative side effects.

This is exactly what the majority of Americans voted against and exactly why the left can’t find its footing. Everyone is now fully aware that offshoring for a cheap sticker price comes with higher, harder to price costs elsewhere.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#90

Post by MisterTea »

xnx wrote: post #45
SoftTalker wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern diesels emit almost no particulates. The older ones yes, but few are still on the road in public transit service.

> The older ones yes, but few are still on the road in public transit service If only that were true in my major US city. The public buses are probably the most filthy vehicles on the road. Every fourth one lets out a cloud of acrid black smoke every time it accelerates. I have to assume they are officially or informally exempt from emissions testing.

I assume those are older busses in fleets that don't have the money to buy new cleaner busses. This is what I observe out on Long Island. You see maybe one or two people on a bus ant any given time because LI is dominated by the car. The busses are a total loss so there's no money to upgrade.
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