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Wirelessly Charged Buses Being Tested Next Year
An anonymous reader writes "From the article: 'Bombardier's electric transit technology will be tested next winter on buses in Montreal, followed in early 2014 on a route in the German city of Mannheim. The transportation giant's Primove technology is designed to allow buses to be charged by underground induction stations when they stop to let passengers hop on and off.' This technology while impressive may not make it to the U.S. even if proven successful due to the lack of popularity of public transportation. If they could only get my phone to charge wirelessly."
The article says that the induction charging stuff could also be used to charge trains.
If you carried a coil of wire with the correct circuitry attached you'd be able to charge your cell phone at the bus/train stop as well.
For most places, it's because the service is so crappy. And in places like Chicago, they think the solution is to cut services and raise prices. The auto/oil industry also has a lot of say in policy.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
That sounds kind of dumb. Why would a train need batteries for propulsion?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This technology while impressive may not make it to the U.S. even if proven successful due to the lack of popularity of public transportation.
OK, if you live in the U.S., why don't you ride the bus or train to work?
Chicago is better then other citys and price is better then driving in and parking also faster and less stress some times when walking you have to deal with turning cars that can stack up.
For me... its the smell of urin and human misery. But perhaps that's just a SF MUNI thing.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
A distinguishing characteristic of trains is that they run on fixed tracks. The kind of thing that's easy to put a third rail beside or a wire overhead. Why TF would you need to charge them?
-- Alastair
The anonymous writer behind the summary slipped in his or her own opinion about the US's appetite for public transit, and the likelihood of such an innovation ever reaching our shores. Speaking as a New Yorker, we *love* public transit. If this proves to be successful, cost effective and green, I bet there would be a major push to adopt it - here at least.
Nope, machine politics is what made Chicago famous. However big oil has far too much influence on transportation/energy policy in general in all parts of the world.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Induction charging, that's rather inefficient. Better to fit the trains with connection pads at the bottom, and have them stop along a solid-contact charging strip in the designated stop area, for direct-wire charging.
Much less to maintain, too.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Americans love public transport, look how often they catch cabs!
I said - don't look Ethel!..., but it was too late..., she'd already looked.
A city's mass transit system is a reflection of its land. blaming transit systems for poor ridership is like blaming a fat man's obesity on his big pants.
with a nice little carbon tax with a "starter" rate of say $5 per gallon of gas imposed.
It would kill two birds with one stone:
1. Put the brakes on the rate of expansion of fossil fuel use and GHG emissions growth
2. Start making a dent in the US deficit and debt
But of course, being a rational, sensible, simple, and effective policy, this would naturally be political suicide.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Plus the bus schedules never line up with work schedules. Might have to get up at 4AM to catch the 5AM bus in order to work at 7. And god forbid you miss the bus and the next one isn't until two hours later. Then if you have to work on a weekend shift or late hours... Bus? Nope!
There's only a few major metropolitan areas where buses are any good. (Usually about 15 min apart in those cases.) Head out to the burbs or anywhere else and buses tend to really suck. (They're pretty much neglected in the U.S. in a manner similar to bicycle and pedestrian friendly transportation infrastructure. In other words: If you live in the U.S. outside of a major large city and don't have a car, you're gonna have a bad time.)
In the USA the charging stations would be stolen for the copper.
Population density, the auto/oil lobby, the universality and the affordability of the driver license in the US, road subsidies vs. low taxes on gasoline, and last but not least: the divide between rich and poor. Those are some of the reasons public transportation is not faring well in the US.
Doesn't seem like the bus would get much charge for the short time it's parked. I can't see the benefit.
It is in NYC, but most of the US isn't a major population center.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
You really think the problems in Chicago's public sector institutions are the result of big oil, huh?
Hell no, Chicago politicians have too much integrity to accept bribes from Big Oil, and Big Oil's own integrity (and razor-thin margins) precludes them from offering them. :o)
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
If its like here in Miami, then it sucks. Busses are never on time. Pass once in a blue moon. Lots of busses stop running after midnight. And the price per ride is 2 dollars.
I'm from Australia, have lived in Japan, and am now living in the US. I think the US is a great country to live in (especially if you're a software engineer) but one of the things that I find strange is that the downtown areas of cities are so desolate, particularly at night. In every other country I've been to, the "downtown" area is the beating heart of the city - it's the center of business, culture and nightlife. It's a desirable place to be and you have to pay more money to live in or near it.
But in the US, urban environments are for some reason associated with crime, homelessness, the smell of urine and human misery, and so most "normal" (middle-class) people avoid the area. People don't want to live there, let alone be in the area outside of business hours. I find it bizarre that inner city neighborhoods are considered to be bad areas - in Japan and Australia, inner city neighborhoods are the most expensive ones because they're so convenient to live in.
Since most of the normal people (i.e. people who wouldn't urinate in a train) have moved out into the suburbs, American cities are usually left with a decaying urban core and endlessly sprawling suburbs. Public transport requires a certain level of density before it is worthwhile, and most US cities don't meet that level of density. That's the reason why public transport doesn't work here. In the few cities where there is a good level of density (e.g. New York City) there is a good public transport system. But New York is not a typical American city...
Australian cities have sprawling suburbs too, but the urban cores are not full of homeless people and does not smell of urine! The dole bludgers are usually living somewhere in the outer suburbs where land is more affordable.
Don't forget that, with a few exceptions (transit friendly NYC, for instance!), our inner cities have no shortage of low income housing. In Europe and many other countries, the working poor and lower middle class commute in from the suburbs.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
In Chicago, ANY method of transport is faster and cheaper than driving.
I knew someone who managed to get stuck in traffic for 4 hours on 294 while trying to get through that area once.
Tesla's dream. induction charging. OK not long distance. Tesla got that wrong. If every stop/station had an induction charger it might be able to re-charge the bus. this isn't an easy problem. think about it!
Dude. Punctuation - it's your friend. As is grammar and spelling. I still don't know what you mean by the last half of your giant sentence.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Come to Vancouver some time.
How are they going to stop electrickery thiefs
Exactly. My car broke down last week. What should be a 10 minute drive now takes me the better part of an hour and a half on the bus. You have to wait for the bus because it might be 5 minutes early or up to 20 minutes late, and then the route goes all over the god damn place. Of course, I have to arrive at least 5 minutes before my shift at work to get ready and that means that I have to catch the bus that shows up 30 minutes before my shift. It's ridiculous. I waste several hours per day dealing with the fucking bus. Getting work done on the bus is a laughable proposition. It's hard to work on a bouncy, shifting platform, you might not be able to get a seat, and taking a laptop on board is simply asking to get mugged.
The only people that wonder why public transportation isn't popular are people that don't take public transportation.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
I would love to use public transportation to get to my job.
A bus nearby would get me to the electric line in the chicago area to board in Richton park. An hour and twenty minutes later I could switch trains and head to naperville. After that hour and twenty minute ride I could walk three blocks to work.
Or I can drive for forty minutes and get to work.
I would love to actually move to naperville, but when I bought my house at a fantastic price (it was worth 40 thousand more than I agreed to pay for it) I can't actually sell it cause I'm 60 thousand in the hole due to the market crash.
I can't get a job locally that pays a living wage, crook county has made sure not only to overtax, but to actually chase businesses away. So either I commute or lose everything.
The mass transit system in the chicago area sucks. Unless you manage to live in the city itself, and work in the city itself it's worthless. It would fold overnight if it couldn't tax all the collar counties that can't use the system anyway.
It's a collosal mess and money pit. Just like everything that Chicago runs.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Dude. Punctuation - it's your friend. As is grammar and spelling. I still don't know what you mean by the last half of your giant sentence.
You really shouldn't be giving advice on punctuation or grammar. Your spelling is great, though.
If by private you mean publicly funded infrastructure such as roads, bridges, highways, traffic systems and policing then you are correct. The only thing private are the cars.
No it's not the existence of this vast asphalt and concrete ball and chain that prevents the US from having a good public transportation system.
It is however the fact that land is plentiful outside metro areas and many people prefer to commute. There are a variety of reasons for this. Historically it has been the industrialization of the inner city areas with businesses wanting to be close to the transportation hubs the cities grew up around. This lead to the residential areas moving further away to avoid pollution and activities they wanted to avoid (bars, worker riots, etc). Which turned the inner city residential areas into lower class neighborhoods and eventually impoverished areas.
So now we have huge suburban communities that sprawl across the land and require decentralized transportation as each area may have residents commuting to entirely different business regions. People now choose where to live based on many factors other than where they work (neighborhood, price, schools, amenities like parks or natural environments) but they still need to commute to work each day.
Centralized transportation of any kind is a failed proposition for many US metro areas. At best it could be a long term strategy if attractive housing and amenities can be set up within walking distance so that young workers can have the choice rather than impoverishing themselves trying to afford a downtown lifestyle.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Many US cities are trying to reinvigorate their downtown but it is a chicken and egg problem. They need the density to make the services profitable and they need the services to generate the density. The crime, etc is just an excuse to avoid investing.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
(reposted after logging in from anonymous coward status) I was in Shanghai in January, and observed supercapacitor (as labeled) buses operating on major routes on-loading and off-loading passengers. Overhead cables lined the route, and at every stop the bus would extend a superstructure to the cables, make contact (whether directly or inductively - unobservable), wait 5-10s, retract, and onward the bus would go. I don't know who manufactured the buses. I simply thought it notable that the Chinese were fielding such a system. I'll leave the questions about liability, etc. to the floor. In any case, and irrespective of where the bus was manufactured, guess who's going to learn whatever shortcomings may lie in this technology and improve on them first for having deployed it. And if the buses were designed or made in China, then . . . props to them. Not trying to create xenophobic bogeymen here, quite the contrary, it's worth observing how different folks operate.
now if I can just figure out how to modify an EV to take advantage...
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
US Cities are inside out compared to Australia. People pay a fortune to live in Brunswick and ride a bike to work in Collins street. Maybe in the US those people just want a nice freeway to drive on.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
"This technology while impressive may not make it to the U.S. even if proven successful due to the lack of popularity of public transportation."
America is too busy. I was in Chicago and found the traffic pretty unreal. It's also very difficult to walk in some areas - almost as if you don't have a car, you're not really a valid citizen. What happens with peak oil and people only lose money by having a car? They'll need new public infrastructure so in a way America is an ideal candidate for this. They just don't know it yet. America has plenty of domestically sourced oil and gas but I can't help that think that's planned for something else - like permanent wars maybe.
cause in most places its worthless
like my city, you got to drive to catch the bus, then it takes what would be a 20 min drive to a 3 hour hostage situation
or how about the train that only goes to between only 2 parts of the city?
Can't wait to have GREEN buses for Congress to throw me under.
Why can't we go back to using jumpers to configure slot adapter cards? Why? I say!
CALTRANS had an induction-charged bus deployed in Berkeley in the 1980s. It required precise parking at bus stops, so the two halves of the split transformer could connect magnetically. The system worked OK, but wasn't a huge win.
GE once patented a system where an entire lane had transformers, so vehicles could run on ground power. That was too expensive. It would cost like a maglev track.
I agree that the tax would be unfair if alternatives were not funded well at the same time.
As well as transit infrastructure, it could also fund battery and ultracapacitor R&D, so you could buy an electric car that would compete with a regular car on range, performance, and price.
We have to make a fundamental change in transportation and energy infrastructure as fast as turning on a dime, in case you've been living in a cave and haven't heard or haven't done the math. We have the technology and innovation capacity. We just can't get out of the fossil fuel energy trap because we've optimized the economy for its exploitation. Pricing carbon emissions is the only way to make that leap. Those who do not make that leap will be utterly condemned in the tales told by the next few generations.
And no I'm not rich. I just have my blinders off and my priorities adjusted to know that I can't justify being part of the incredibly destructive status quo.
And why don't you take that time on the bus not stressing out about manouvering in traffic to program the next big thing on your laptop.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Tesla did it, Tesla did it.
... is EvoBus, a subsidary of Daimler-Benz. And that's why the second test track is in Mannheim, Germany, because there EvoBus builds their busses (coaches are build in Ulm, Germany). To be more exact, it's a Citaro bus Bombardier is using.
Nikola tesla called me last night....from beyond the grave. He said, And i Quote "FUCKING CALLED IT CHAPS"
There's also the problem that zoning departments (in Miami, at least) have this fetish with imposing street-level boutique retail that's economically non-viable due to small size and limited parking. You can walk all over downtown Miami and see buildings with street-level boutique-sized retail spaces that can't get leased (or stay leased, because the tenants go bankrupt within months). But if a developer planning a square-block skyscraper wants to configure the space for one huge urban big-box store in the basement with 6 floors of free parking for shoppers stacked above it and the tower's ground-floor lobby, the New Urbanists get all bitchy about it (example store from New York: http://www.trbimg.com/img-4f897067/turbine/chi-best-buy-20120414/600 )
lol. *giggle like a school girl* they are never going to do that. NEVER they totally suck at planning at least in my state. They have know about the issue witht he traffic and freeway and have only made it WORSE. They are completely inept and ignorant of planning or modeling. It is all cronies and white hairs who have all the power. They only exist to get richer and protect each other the people be damn.
NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER GIVE UP! "No limitations, no boundaries, there is no reason for them."
Awesome. While you are building Japan's transportation and mini-downtown system complete with pedestal malls supporting office towers, don't forget to build high-priced designer residential housing in those towers (if possible an adjacent tower or private elevator) and the bullet train network that goes with it! I can't see any good reason not to draw people away from the coasts if there are going to be more super storms and flooding anyway...
In London, a bus ticket costs £1.40 ($2.17). Lots of people there do travel by bus, but the difference is that they are so frequent that you don't care whether or not they are on time.
They also have a huge number of electric vehicles. You'd be amazed at how many people drive them. Why? Because they're incredibly cheap, and with vertical development totally suitable to get from A to B. I've driven one to the office a number of times. They're surprisingly powerful, far more than you might expect.
The capacitor technology may or may not be great (I'm not able to comment on that part), but they are experimenting with the infrastructure you'd need should that turn out to be effective. I can also quite happily say it works, at least from an end user point of view.
One of the problems in the US is that buses and bus systems are generally viewed as something only poor people use whereas in other parts of the world (London for example or here in Australia) they aren't viewed so negatively.
It's not the homeless people peeing everywhere. No, it is the schools. You put your kid in a public school and he will get the shit beaten out of him on a regular basis, be exposed to drugs, gangs, teachers who cheat on behalf of the students on the standardized tests so they won't get fired for being incompetent, children who have been in prison and will be there again, and many other horrors. THAT'S why nobody lives downtown.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
How much is petrol there tho. At 4 dollars a gallon here, its cheaper to drive than ride the bus, even if you have a car that likes to sip gas.
http://www.proterra.com/ makes a wireless charging electric bus that is in use in the Greenville SC area. Obama was down here not long ago celebrating its rollout in the upstate, and my little town was one of many that received federal grant money to help buy and deploy these systems.
So, I don't know why the article poster though this technology "mignt not make it to the US." Perhaps just a lack of journalistic research... who knows?
About £1.30-£1.40/litre, so about US$2.10/L.
Also, parking for a day in central or central-ish London can easily cost £20, and the congestion charge is another £10. Except at night, the journey is likely to be slower.
[Metro] trains are preferable to buses. The cost is 10-100% more for normal distances, or up to quadruple for long distances (beyond what most people would sit on a bus for, e.g. over 45 minutes).
Anyone who needs to change buses to get to work probably has quite a low income. However, there's no stigma for taking a bus if it's convenient -- if I don't cycle (too wet/windy) I'll take the bus, it goes from past my house to my office. Contrast the US, where in Atlanta buses wouldn't stop for me. I'm told this was because I'm white, i.e. not poor.
The fact is that induction is inefficient and expensive. Instead, put a charge bar on top of the bus similar to what you see on LRT. Far more efficient and easy to install.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This seems like a perfect use for Ultra-capacitors. While they do not have anywhere neat the energy density of modern batteries they do have several other advantages. They can be charged quickly, put high rate recharge stations under a majority of bus stations and they could top off their capacitors in the time it takes for one passenger to get on. They last VERY long with no maintenance and very little degradation of performance, some are rated to over a million charge/discharge cycles. They can operate in extreme temperatures, some from -40c to +65c. They are made out of far less toxic materials. While a bus running on ultra-capacitors would not be able to go very far, buses in urban environments don't usually go very far between stops. Combined with regenerative braking, which ultra-capacitors are very well suited for, they would likely have more than enough range for most urban bus transit.
You made the classic mistake of treating public transport as an all-or-nothing proposition. Public transport is designed to help large numbers of people who make similar journeys, and even in decentralized cities there will still be plenty of opportunities to do that. Maybe it will mean people drive to the outskirts of the city centre and then get a subway or bus, maybe it will mean they have to walk a block or two at either end. It is still more efficient and faster for them if done right.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Public transport requires a certain level of density before it is worthwhile, and most US cities don't meet that level of density.
That's a town planning issue. In Japan when they decide to build a new town they build it around public transport hubs, because people want to live near them so they can get around cheaply and quickly. Businesses want to be near them because people go there anyway, and it makes shops and offices easy to access. The US version is to build a giant car park on some cheap land out of town. Cheaper for the individual business building the car park but not good for the city or the people living in it as a whole.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I was impressed with the city of Ottawa's bus system in the early 90s when I lived there for a short time. The hubs outside the downtown core were well situated, and the schedules were tight - unlike Toronto where if you are supposed to have 4 buses an hour they'll all arrive at a stop at the same time instead of 15 minutes apart. :)
The big gripe was that the last bus out of Nepean was at 1230 at night, so more than once we missed it heading back home. More than once a bus driver returning to the maintenance bays pulled over on the side of the secondary roads or expressway to pick us up and drive us into town. My roommate and I only lived a couple of blocks from it. Usually there'd be half a dozen other people they picked up along the way.
Nice employees
Low income African-Americans ruined most of the inner cities. Black gangs dominate many of these districts, committing a horrific number rapes and robberies. The newspapers long ago stopped reporting the level of crime because it was "racist". These neighborhoods are no-go zones for respectable citizens and even cops. Most of the violence is black-on-black, and the resulting downward spiral has produced such a level of lawlessness that many of them are beyond redemption.
Under these circumstances, it's no surprise that the downtown districts have turned into rats' nests. The solution is a total law-and-order crackdown, zero tolerance of any infringement such as Giuliani implemented successfully in New York City, and long-term incarceration of the hard core. Get them off the streets, and respectable people will return to the downtown districts and mid-town residential areas and the cities will certainly revive.
Are you figuring in the $16,000 to $18,000 cost of an economy sedan?
Or the $24,000 for an SUV or more option-laden vehicle that many opt for (on monthly payments)?
Even if you're paying $100 for a public transport monthly pass, it would take around 15 years to make up for purchasing a vehicle, and that's not even counting fuel, insurance, and maintenance costs. Then there's the risk to life and limb that is much lower for bus/train riders.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Can't we just shut down the inner lanes of all interstates and lay rail already? How long does it take government to catch on that the public would like this if they do it. "If you build it they will come!"
Just because you can't use the transit system in the Chicago area, doesn't mean it sucks. It's actually quite good, at least compared to most cities in the US. I live in a collar county, and I use the mass transit system just fine; because I work downtown, it saves me at least 1/2 hour each way and $28 parking a day, and I can sleep or work on the train, rather than paying attention to driving. Public transportation around here is city-centric because it was built that way over the years to serve the workers and businesses who could use it. A lot of it was built when towns like Naperville and Richton were not considered suburbs, but independent towns where people worked and lived. At that time, very few people commuted beyond the city and adjacent suburbs. Because they serve a purpose in keeping the economy moving, the government long ago took over the systems from the private companies who first built them but were closing them due to unprofitability . There hasn't been much expansion of them since, because of costs and political fallout. Yes, the light rail has been extended to the O'Hare and Midway airports, and the North Central service has been added to run on CN freight line tracks, but all of the proposed routes not going downtown have gone unbuilt. Meanwhile several high capacity expressways and highways hvae been built for cars both through and around downtown and the collar counties.
Doesn't say how long it takes to charge the bus. Originally I was thinking it was just on the platforms at the stations but it sounds like they plan on putting it at several/all stops on the route. A bus only stops for ~20s at a stop not sure how much charge could be transferred in that time especially if part of the time is spent detecting that the bus is there, getting it lined up properly etc. But if a lot of the stops are charge stations too I suppose you only need to charge enough to get to the next charge station (or at least enough so that your starting full charge lasts the whole day). Interesting anyways go Quebecois maple syrup and trains :)
Are you figuring in the $16,000 to $18,000 cost of an economy sedan?
He's most likely figuring on the marginal cost. You see, if I need a vehicle 3 times a week, it's cheaper to buy it than to just rent it when I need one. Once I own it, there's all sorts of static costs such as registration and insurance that I have to pay whether I drive or not. For that matter, the vehicle only depreciates slower if I don't drive it. As such, if it costs $2 to take the bus, but I figure it's 20 cents to the mile(gas+maintenance+depreciation), anything less than 10 miles is cheaper to drive.
Here's the kicker though: I value my time at ~$12/hour. A trip that takes 10 minutes by car, might take 30 minutes by buss. So that extra 20 minutes 'costs' an extra $4. If you value your time moderately high, it often comes out that even if the bus was free it's effectively sucking money out of your life by taking up extra time. Though one mitigating factor is that if they're nice enough in your area you could do something else during the ride - read or something. But I get motion sick just enough that reading isn't fun for me anymore on a bus. :(
Or the $24,000 for an SUV or more option-laden vehicle that many opt for (on monthly payments)?
Somebody buying a $24k SUV isn't doing it just for common transportation. Heck, even a $16k vehicle isn't a common commuter.
I don't read AC A human right
It was done, half a century ago. Energy was saved in kinetic form - by using flywheel. Overhead direct contacts which can be used even today, if some form of near wireless communication (Xbee, Bluetooth) is used to turn electricity on and off. History repeats itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrobus
Are you sure the parking is free?
Even if validated with a 3 hour time limit, such a parking lot in the city is going to fill to capacity immediately and Best Buy is not going to be getting any of those customers.
why did you buy a house an hour's walk from the nearest stop?
Because someone may have inherited the house instead of having bought it. Or because there is so much more demand for houses near bus routes that their price has shot up. Or because not everybody lives alone, and the SO works on the opposite side of town.
Have you ever tried to use a laptop on a fucking bus? It's about as easy as doing it in a car
I use my 10" laptop on a bus. I use my 10" laptop in a car. I have had no problems with it. The only problem is that they don't make 10" laptops anymore because the rest of the market failed to appreciate their versatility advantage over tablets that run smartphone operating systems with their all-maximized-all-the-time window management policies.
Add in the probability that someone will try and steal it
It's a bit hard to steal it when it's stuffed in a messenger bag with the strap across my chest and back. One advantage of the 10" laptops was that they would easily fit in such a bag.
One can't necessarily choose where one works. If the jobs in one's field are concentrated in cities with poor public transportation and cost-prohibitive housing near the office, it's either drive or retrain to a different field.
Being crushed by a vehicle tends to be hazardous to health.
And you've explained half of why much of the United States prefers SUVs over compact cars. (The other half is CAFE forcing automakers to phase out station wagons, but that's another topic.)
I do take the bus to and from work but often not elsewhere. In some cases, it takes as long to walk from home to the nearest bus stop and from the nearest bus stop to the destination as it takes to just drive to work. In other cases, buses don't run at all at night, on Sundays, or on the six major holidays. There are even parts of Fort Wayne that Citilink doesn't serve at all on Saturdays.
People now choose where to live based on many factors other than where they work (neighborhood, price, schools, amenities like parks or natural environments)
Or two-income households, with one adult working on one side of town and the other on the other. Or the business relocating to a different location.
Even if you're paying $100 for a public transport monthly pass, it would take around 15 years to make up for purchasing a vehicle
And how much for a taxi to get somewhere at night or on Sunday, when no buses run at all in my home town? And how would you haul a week's worth of groceries for the family?
If it's so close why not just ride a bike?
Today's forecast for Fort Wayne, Indiana: High temperature 26 (-3 Celsius), winds from the south that could gust over 40 mph (60 km/h).
Nothing bad EVER happens in small towns or the suburbs, I guess.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Grammar Nazis, UNITE! Form: MEGRAMMARTRON!
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Except you can buy a reliable car for $1000-2000. Even if you want to add in another 1k for yearly maintenance and 700 for insurance. At 2 dollars a ride its cheaper to drive a car here. Especially if you have to catch muliple busses to your destination. Nevermind that with busses not running past midnight here,it lets one be able to commute to places otherwise impossible to reach with public transportation. And the countless hours you save when you can make a commute in 15-20 minutes instead of 1-2 hours. And if you get to work at lets say 4pm and the only busses that pass are at 3:15 and 4:15, you are doubly screwed as you waste 45 additional minutes just sitting there waiting.
Portland has a nice downtown. Concentrated clubs, restaurants, shops, etc.. Ditto New York and Seattle. What city are you in?
Land.
Cars.
You can point to the vast road network and I can point to the vast number of vehicles in the US. Most urban public transit schemes (taxis and airlines being the biggest exception) have nearly pure public funding for them.
If by private you mean publicly funded infrastructure such as roads, bridges, highways, traffic systems and policing then you are correct. The only thing private are the cars.
And cars are a huge component to "only" about. Consider this report. It claims just under $0.05 per mile of road travel in costs on the road, including maintenance and interest payments on road-related debt. In contrast, one has to pay quite a bit for the car or other vehicle, gas, maintenance, and insurance. I figure a bit less than ten times as much (based on reimbursement rates which probably overstate the average cost by a set fraction).