[estebank]

> urban areas, defined as densely developed residential, commercial, and other nonresidential areas, now account for 80.0% of the U.S. population

> (as of 2018) 31% of the U.S. population lives in urban core counties

Improving public transportation in cities, makes those cities better for those who live and/or work in them. In downtown SF I counted the number of people in cars backed up in a single city block. The traffic looked miserable. It was ~30 people, less than a single bus' ridership that passed by. The only way reducing the supremacy of cars in cities affects people who don't live in "concrete jungles" is that they either have to pay for the externalities of their chosen transportation mode when they visit cities, or "park and ride" from the periphery into the the city proper.

No one wants someone in a Montana ranch to take the bus. That's either a misunderstanding or a purposeful straw man.

[hot_gril]

I'm pretty convinced that if they expanded or reduced the roads in SF or other dense cities, the traffic would be the same. The traffic reaches an equilibrium with the alternatives. I used to ride BART from Berkeley to SF every day, and it was consistently slower than the driving route despite being a straight shot.

About the externalities, you already pay a lot to cross the more popular bridges into SF by car, you probably pay for parking, gasoline is taxed heavily, and the police don't really protect your car from break-ins. Yet some people want to drive for one reason or another.

Disclaimer: Everything above based on pre-2020 SF cause I left for good.

[FredPret]

Yes but the bus in SF isn't a place where the people in those cars would like to be. For anyone who has ever been on a bus, and who has the money to never get on a bus again, buses are a non-starter.

[estebank]

> For anyone who has ever been on a bus, and who has the money to never get on a bus again, buses are a non-starter.

Feel free to elaborate, because that's not a universal position.

[FredPret]

You ever been on a bus with a raving lunatic?

Wiled away the hours as the bus chugs along circuitously to a point that is not quite at your destination?

Tried to carry heavy shopping on a bus?

Walked to a bus stop through bad weather?

Taken one mode of transport that was delayed, making you miss the next leg?

Waited forever for a bus that never comes?

Public transport sucks balls. In the world's densest, biggest cities, you can make it kind-of-tolerable by throwing a ton of tax money at it, but it will never hold a candle to the most basic of cars / bikes / mopeds.

[bluGill]

None of those problems you name are inherent in a bus though. Those are common problems with buses, but they don't have to be. A bus should not "chugs along circuitously to a point that is not quite at your destination" - design a better network. A bus should stop so close to where you shop that it is easier than carting that stuff to your car. A bus stop should not be so far away that bad weather is a problem. You should never miss your next leg because the next leg bus is never long in coming. The bus should always come.

The only part of your list that your transit agency shouldn't solve are the raving lunatic. This is easy to solve though as there are not many raving lunatics in the world and so the number of not lunatics riding great transit means they are rare (and there are plenty of others to help deal with them when they get on).

Running great transit costs a lot more $$$ than most transit agencies get though, so they make the best of what money they have. (not really - most waste a lot of money on things that do not make for great transit, but even if they spent everything perfect they don't have anywhere near enough money to run great transit)

[FredPret]

These problems are inherent in buses.

Buses will always be open to the entire public. If "the public" includes raving lunatics, then they will find their way onto the buses.

To build a better network, you need to either throw a vast amount of money at it, or have a super-dense city. The public transit in London & NYC is merely OK. In other cities, it will always be prohibitively expensive.

And to say that "the bus should always come" is not exactly an argument in favour of transit. We all know the damn bus should come. But sometimes, it just doesn't.

[ryukafalz]

> And to say that "the bus should always come" is not exactly an argument in favour of transit. We all know the damn bus should come. But sometimes, it just doesn't.

A big reason that the bus doesn't come is that it's gotten stuck in traffic. As in, behind cars. Give the buses their own space so they don't get stuck behind cars and they can be a whole lot more reliable.

Of course, since we've handed over essentially all our street space to cars already, doing so involves taking some space away from them, and drivers will scream about that.

[JAlexoid]

There's a world of difference between having to use a car every day of the week to do literally anything (as the case with multiple suburban areas) and using it for it's intended purpose of hauling things.

Having a lunatic on the bus is hardly an excuse to force everyone to use cars and the systematic destruction of walkable human scale neighborhoods.

But sure. Let's abolish all public transit just because sometimes there are lunatics. US had a raving lunatic as a president, we definitely should abolish US.

[smileysteve]

Your problems seem to highlight especially America's problems, where "raving lunatics" seem to be found also in road rage, at groceries, churches, and schools (highway shootings, especially).

But in Japan, Switzerland, Barcelona, Italy, Ireland, Austria, Sweden, or the Netherlands I've not experienced this much; in many of these cultures since the public bus also serves schools and the elderly, they solve these problems.

[8bitsrule]

> You ever been on a bus with a raving lunatic?

Ever been in a car driving next to a raving lunatic? Nearly get forced offroad at 60mph into a gully by a braindead 'passer'? 'Throwing tax money...' ... you mean, like building yet another $500M freeway that almost immediately becomes congested? (Heavy shopping: Did that recliner fit in the back of your BMW?)

I've ridden metro buses since I sold my Dodge van in 2006. Total raving lunatics: 1. Collisions/repairs,oil changes, tires, license fees: $0. Total buses that chugged: none. Grocery-shopped by bus? Always. Waiting for a bus that never came? 1.

Heavy shopping? delivered. (It's a thing now.) Bad weather: usually I wait until tomorrow.

Edit: 17 years * 10,000 mi/yr = 170,000 miles. @10 mpg = 17,000 gallons. @$3/gal ≈ $50 grand. P.P.S.

@Car engine efficiency 25% .... ≈ 12,700 gallons wud have gone directly to fumes and heat. ≈ $38K.