The point was that ~~EV~~ bus manufacturing is definetly not free of emissions. Operating busses is definitely not free from emissions either.
The point was that ~~EV~~ train manufacturing is definetly not free of emissions.
Buying an EV instead of an ICE reduces net emissions. Riding the bus instead of buying an EV reduces emissions more, but it is still not zero. Should more people ride the bus? Sure! But I'm not in charge of my city's planning, I can't make them buy more busses and hire more drivers.
I bought an EV when a family member was needing a cheap car, so I sold them my old cheap ICE. I was probably going to buy a new car anyways, so its not like I went out and crushed my ICE and dropped it in the lake and then suddenly willed a new EV into existence creating new emissions. A car was going to get built, I was going to buy one.
Nothing is ever free from emissions, but people taking buses is still more eco friendly than those same people riding alone in expensive EVs.
> But I'm not in charge of my city's planning, I can't make them buy more busses and hire more drivers.
Sure, but we do live in democracies no? Where we have the power to change those in charge to others who will if our goals if we desire our goals to be betters public services including transportation.
Simply starting with a defeatist mindset of "nothing will ever change from our leadership so it's every man for himself to better his own situation, I got mine you go get yours" will never work for the environment. It does work for selling a lot of cars though.
If we can't change anything collectively, what about those living in less democratic countries?
And I'll vote for it to change and lobby the people around me for change and ride the bus when it makes sense, but what to do for the decade+ until things change and I need a new car?
If the answer is "buy a used car", well, we'll quickly run out of those.
Of course, but politicians have no incentive or pressure to improve public transportation when everyone already owns cars and is contempt with this status quo.
I've seen this play out lots of times.
Public transportation only improves when the vast majority of citizen depend on it because then have skin in the game, otherwise it gets shelved and forgotten and stays run down as a charity to the poor.