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US cities pay too much for buses

(www.bloomberg.com)
355 points pavel_lishin | 7 comments | 26 Sep 25 13:57 UTC | HN request time: 0.99s | source | bottom
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myrmidon ◴[26 Sep 25 14:24 UTC] No.45386847[source]▶
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 labor + maintenance pretty quickly, long before the vehicle is replaced...

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mrits ◴[26 Sep 25 14:33 UTC] No.45386958[source]▶
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.
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1. mschuster91 ◴[26 Sep 25 14:36 UTC] No.45386995[source]▶
It's not just pedestrians, but residents who gotta breathe in the particulate and other exhaust emissions. That, in turn, significantly affects poorer parts of the population who have no other choice than to live and rent near heavily trafficed roads.
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2. SoftTalker ◴[26 Sep 25 14:39 UTC] No.45387024[source]▶
Modern diesels emit almost no particulates. The older ones yes, but few are still on the road in public transit service.
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3. xnx ◴[26 Sep 25 14:51 UTC] No.45387190[source]▶
> 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.

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4. MisterTea ◴[26 Sep 25 17:32 UTC] No.45388976{3}[source]▶
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.
5. paddy_m ◴[26 Sep 25 17:41 UTC] No.45389066[source]▶
Busses are loud, but not nearly as load and polluting as cars in aggregate
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6. cocoto ◴[26 Sep 25 17:56 UTC] No.45389217[source]▶
Completely false, buses are way louder than multiple cars. Buses make tons of noise when accelerating and many have obnoxious added sounds at stops for security reasons. As a full cyclist I would gladly prefer no bus and more cars. Moreover the bus are more dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians.
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7. mschuster91 ◴[26 Sep 25 18:24 UTC] No.45389512{3}[source]▶
> Moreover the bus are more dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians.

Avid cyclist myself, personally I'd rather see the stiff necked 80 year olds in cars as old as them (so barely any safety features) with tiny tiny mirrors gone off the road.

Bus drivers are at least regularly examined for their health, the buses themselves have a lot better maintenance done on them than the average private person, they got more mirrors than a disco ball, and at least here in Germany, the bus fleets are routinely updated to have allllll the bells and whistles. Lane keeps, dead-spot alerts, object tracking/warning and collision avoidance...

As for the noise: yes a bus is louder, but (IMHO, having lived on a busy road that was suddenly not so busy at all during Covid) I can handle the occasional bus every 5 minutes way better than the constant car noises.