I used to live in Pittsburgh, PA. I worked downtown and I never drove to work. I took the bus. Everyday. Twice a day. I had the choice of 3 different bus routes to choose from. On nice days I walked a little farther and took the express bus. Those buses had their own road. No stop signs. No other traffic. Those buses hauled thousands quickly. And the best part was, there were enough of them that I never really missed a bus, and even if I did, there was very little waiting.
Pittsburgh has 228,000 weekday passengers. If we shrink that by half we get 114,000 commuters and some of those have to transfer and may be counted twice. So let’s say 80,000 commuters. That is probably 75,000 less cars being driven each day. And with an average commute in Pittsburgh of about 22 minutes, that ends up to a lot of hours of cars not running. 56,000 hours per day. That is a lot of gas.
Now I live in the Richmond, VA suburbs. Buses are not even an option here. The closest bus stop is about 4 miles away and the frequency is not enough to make it a good option for those that even live there.
We are all going to have to demand better public transportation that works for our workday commute. I need a lot of options and a lot of times to get a bus. Sometimes, I had to work late in Pittsburgh and I knew there would be a bus. The frequency was less later at night, but I knew I could get home.
I want dedicated bus routes. I want more buses. I would love to be able to read again on the way to work. And yes, my space would be shared with other people. But for someone like me, who cannot remember where I park my car on a given day, I can remember where the bus stop is. I am also more than willing to give up yelling at the other idiots driving in front of me. Let the bus driver deal with all that.
There is something so soothing about being on a bus and knowing that the stress of driving will not affect you. I wholeheartedly agree! Every single city should have a well thought out transportation plan. Instead, we spend all our time funneling tax dollars into silly projects that don’t make good sense. Well said!
I agree we need to demand more public transportation. I would also like to add I feel it necessary that as a society we all stand up and demand that our government not only say they are pushing for alternative fuels but put their money where their mouth is. What i men here is that the government needs to assist in building an alternative fuel infrastructure. It would be very simple, it’s as easy as a national bill and each state having bills passed that require ALL public transportation and Government owned vehicles to be operated with alternative fuels ONLY. This would generate a demand enough to require stations all over the country to begin carrying the alternative fuels. Since most auto manufacturers are now making vehicles that can use E-85 and all diesel vehicles can easily use biodiesel there is no excuse. I would also like to see a biodiesel-electric hybrid made. diesel-electric has been used for many years in the railroad industry and is very effiecient lets just use only biodiesel for it and place the technology in vehicles. The torque of a diesel engine can turn very high efficiency/high power generators and only run a short time to recharge battery banks in hybrid cars instead of lower torque gas/e-85 engines.
This is my opinion and i thought it would be good to get it out here, I have no clue who to contact or where to go to begin to get any ideas like this pushed, lobbied for, or even noticed.
Hiram
I totally agree – public transit can be much more pleasant than driving. Properly designed transit systems are imperative for cities to be able to grow sensibly without sprawl.
Make some noise. Demand it from city officials. Look at the money spent on roads and compare it to that spent on public transit. The former is usually several times larger than the latter.
A change in mindset is indeed needed.
The absence of mass transit is constitutes a very real ‘poor tax.’ The automotive lifestyle can be quite an albatross. Unfortunately American policymaking is predicated on the assumption that only the middle class (and up) vote.