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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   34739 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026

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The state provides lots of public services that aren't supposed to be revenue-neutral though. Public libraries for instance or parks.

I think a razor focus on revenue and cost is besides the point. Public transport should be more systemically efficient (1 engine for 40 rather than 40 engines for 40: economies of scale), produce less pollution than cars, take up less space... The problem in Washington isn't just that it's expensive but that it's unsafe (catching on fire for instance), not transporting good numbers of people. Probably epic amounts of corruption going on too.

Cost is important, it shouldn't be excessively expensive, but taxes are a thing for a reason. If all government services were expected to recoup their costs why would we have taxes?

Public transport should be more systemically efficient (1 engine for 40 rather than 40 engines for 40: economies of scale)

It isn't, though. Because it turns out average number of riders on a bus is not 40 but 9.

The reason isn't a failure of public transport but a failure of Americans. Get rid of the lowlifes shooting up in train stations or pushing random people onto the tracks and then you can have an efficient public transport system. Normal people don't want to be around these net-negatives and will move out to the suburbs, segregate themselves away in cars because they, quite reasonably, don't trust others.

"Teens menace boy with machete and pepper spray on Queens bus" https://youtube.com/watch?v=qalXSOLvEAU

Why would you want to take a bus if this is what you might get?

Americans don't like to live in anthills where public transit can theoretically be efficient. That's not a failing of Americans.

"Americans" are not a homogenous group with uniform preferences about urban living - some like it, others don't. A lot more Americans want to live in places that resemble European or first-world Asian cities than are currently able to - we know this because such places (or even simulacra of them like New Urbanist suburbs) carry a price premium.

Americans living in suburbia is not a revealed preference because urbanism is mostly illegal - both in the sense that it is literally illegal to build at density in most of the US, and also in the sense that the system will not allow you to do the things you need to police somewhere built at urban densities - and I think we all agree that crime is a good and sufficient reason why nobody with options will live in the typical American inner city. If you ask Americans on this board why they don't like cities, most (not all - people who genuinely prefer more rural-like lifestyles exist) of the responses are about crime.

Empirically, where the system is able to put up low-diversity low-crime urbanism the way America puts up Pulte Homes tackyboxes with two-car garages (parts of Spain, South Korea, Japan), everywhere else depopulates. Even high-diversity medium-crime urbanism (NYC, London, Paris) is a build-it-and-they-will-come phenomenon.

"Americans" are not a homogenous group with uniform preferences about urban living

If RandomRanger can generalize, so can I.

Americans living in suburbia is not a revealed preference because urbanism is mostly illegal - both in the sense that it is literally illegal to build at density in most of the US, and also in the sense that the system will not allow you to do the things you need to police somewhere built at urban densities

For the past few decades the anti-sprawl people have been encouraging density and eliminating new suburban growth. And certainly density was not banned when the post-WWII suburbs were being built.

And yes, the system will not allow the kind of authoritarian policing that Japan has to maintain civility with that sort of density. That's not making urbanism illegal. That's just showing that Americans aren't yet comfortable with such authoritarianism.

No, Americans do like to live in cities like all settled peoples. Americans invented the skyscraper!

Until recently the US had dense and highly developed urban centres. Americans failing to defend and preserve their city centres is a serious failure.

No, Americans do like to live in cities like all settled peoples. Americans invented the skyscraper!

They're supposed to be offices, not residences.

Source for inflammatory claim

Average occupancies have declined as ridership has fallen faster than agencies have reduced service. In 1991, the average transit motor bus carried 11.0 people; by 2019, buses were no smaller yet they averaged just 8.0 riders. Trolley buses do a little better because they tend to serve mainly dense inner cities, but their average occupancies still dropped from 14.8 in 1991 to 12.8 in 2019.

The differences between cities are much larger than the changes over time. Honolulu, New York, and San Francisco motor buses carry an average of 17 riders. At the other end of the scale, Ft. Worth transit buses carry less than 4 riders, and buses in Columbus, Dallas, Indianapolis, and Salt Lake City average just 5. Honolulu, New York, and San Francisco are denser cities, of course, but the real problem is that transit agencies want to collect tax revenue from as many suburbs as possible and therefore become obligated to serve those suburbs even though most of the residents have two or three cars in every driveway.

With such low ridership, the promised emissions reductions from mass transit are pretty questionable, no? A city bus (<4mpg) with 5 riders is effectively 20 passenger-miles per gallon. A hybrid gets around 30mpg, even assuming a solo driver. Even the average 2020 model exceeds 20mpg! Maybe there are worthwhile access and congestion arguments otherwise, but it sounds like the Ft. Worth and Indianapolis buses may be a net emissions negative.

The article addresses this.

In 2017, the most recent year for which data are available, the average car consumed less than 2,900 British thermal units (BTUs) per passenger-mile while the average light truck used less than 3,400 (and both were almost certainly less in 2019). That’s far better than the national average of transit buses, as both motor buses and trolley buses used more than 4,600 BTUs per passenger-mile.

Only two of the transit agencies considered here—San Francisco Muni and Honolulu—used significantly less energy than cars in their motor bus operations. Dayton’s trolley buses did as well, though as discussed below that number may be questionable. Motor buses operated by another dozen agencies, including New Jersey Transit and Denver’s RTD, used a little less energy than light trucks but more than cars.

The remaining agencies all used more energy per passenger-mile than automobiles. The worst cases were buses in Bakersfield and Sacramento, which used more than 9,000 BTUs per passenger-mile, and buses in Phoenix, Kansas City, Orange County, and a few smaller areas, which used more than 8,000. Albuquerque, Dallas, Nashville, Phoenix, Raleigh, and Reno are among those above 7,000, while Indianapolis, New Orleans, San Diego, and San Mateo County are above 6,000.

And that's without accounting for circuity -- that is, a bus takes a lot more miles to get a given passenger from point A to point B than a car does.

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