[dpark]

> Buses will suck

Buses are only workable because of cars. We build roads for cars first and trucks second. Buses are at most 3rd in the list and getting to use them is an incidental side benefit.

No one builds enough roads for buses. They have to use the roads built for cars.

[dublinben]

Horse-drawn busses predate private automobiles by almost a hundred years.[0] The movement to pave roads was started by bicyclists decades before the rise of the automobile.[1] Cars usurped preexisting infrastructure and drove out other road users, like trolleybusses and streetcars.

We have so thoroughly remade society in the service of cars that it can be difficult to recognize any possible alternative.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsebus

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Roads_Movement

[dpark]

Paved roads have been around for thousands of years longer than the bicycle.

> Horse-drawn busses predate private automobiles by almost a hundred years.

And they used roads that already existed for transit and transport. People have always built roads.

> Cars usurped preexisting infrastructure and drove out other road users, like trolleybusses and streetcars.

This is some significant historical revisionism. You’re making it sound like all the roads were built for buses and streetcars.

The good roads movement is certainly interesting history. But I don’t think it changes the reality that buses are only workable because they are mostly piggybacking on infrastructure buit for other vehicles.

Of course, that’s rather the point of roads, that they are infrastructure that benefits many forms of transit and transportation.

[dublinben]

Roads that have existed for hundreds or thousands of years certainly weren't built for cars.

[lazyasciiart]

Many places build dedicated bus lanes, and a few places build roads specifically dedicated to buses, like the Queensland Busway system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busways_in_Brisbane

[dpark]

That’s cool but one counterexample does not negate the general trend. Most places have few dedicated bus lanes. Most cities have approximately zero dedicated bus roads.

Even the cited system seems to be limited and exists to connect with trains as well as buses that use normal streets. Wikipedia says that they chose buses for this expansion instead of trains specifically because there was already a strong bus system, which uses the same city streets as cars and trucks.