Expecting heavy industry greenwashing of this
Expecting heavy industry greenwashing of this
247 comments
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Where I live there is 0 public transport. I charge my EV with my own solar panels. So I think I am okay.
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You are way better than the average car owner but it still takes a lot of energy to build an electric car. For the environment it would be even better if the batteries are used in buses and electric bikes, then more people can transport themselves with less pollution.
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Electric cars are a type of vehicle. Public transit is a type of transportation system that include many different types of vehicles and can include electric cars.
You're comparing apples to orchards.
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They aren't doing that, you are. The apples to apples comparison that they are making is our current transit system; with the cars being fully electrified but otherwise as it exists today; versus a transit system that prioritizes mass transit (and walking and biking) over personal vehicles.
Electric cars are a solution to save the auto industry, not the climate.
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That's great if public transport goes from near where you are to near where you want to be, in a reasonable time.
For me that's not the case. Anywhere I want to go takes 27 changes over at least 5 hours for a net distance of three miles; it'd be quicker to hop backwards blindfold on a bent pogo stick.
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people who argue for public transport argue for better implementation of it (and also city planning that supports it). the idea isn't for everyone to just stop using cars in favor of public transport even if the public transport system is absolute shit. it's for systemic support of public transport in such a way that commuters would willingly choose it over being stuck in traffic in their little metal boxes for hours.
it's a criticism of the system, not the people.
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That's what decades of car centric urban design does to everyone; any transportation other than a car is treated as a second class
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While there's something to that, it's also a difficult fact that rail is just harder than roads, and by extension more expensive. You have hills? You are going to need to do tunnels and bridges for the rail because you can't turn that sharply and you mustn't have more than 1.5% grade. For road, just snake it around and up and down the hills.
You have a source and destination that not many people will be using? It's cost prohibitive to run a whole train or bus to cover that route.
Now it's one thing when the population distribution was based around settling around the harsh realities of needing to be along viable transit paths, but when a great deal of the population settled with the assumption of roads, you are going to have a hard time sorting out transit routes without mass resettlement.
Of course, if you apply mass transit to cities and nearby areas you've gotten the worst of the troubles solved and it's viable for mass transit. But cars are just part of the equation for longer hauls.
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Biking three miles takes about 15 minutes, you should do that instead
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While I agree that we need a national public works project worth of new modern trains.
Anyone who says stuff like this should be forced to drive 10 hours across the US first.
Anywhere to anywhere. Drive for 10 hours. Then plot your completed course on a map of the lower 48. Just to demonstrate how monstrously fucking huge this country is. So they understand that while trains are amazing. They aren't the panacea some seem to think.
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that's not a counter argument to better public transportation. That's a supporting argument for public transportation.
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It takes about 10 hours to drive 688 miles from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, an actual distance of 580 miles.
For more than double that distance, at 1238 miles, a high-speed train from Hong Kong to Beijing takes 9 hours.
"The US is way too big for trains and public transit to be feasible" is a lousy excuse for poor infrastructure and planning.
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Anyone who says stuff like this should be forced to drive 10 hours across the US first.
I am gonna be honest, this is such a lame, US exceptionalism line that people in the US repeat ad nauseam as if it adds anything to the conversation.
Nobody is saying for the couple of people living in North Dakota that they can't keep their truck and drive around everywhere, the transportation needs of people that live in rural places like this are vanishingly small compared to the problem we are talking about here. We are talking about MASS TRANSIT so places that actually have enough people for major industry, and for major movements of people and material that can actually clog transportation networks. Why when people try to have a conversation about the economic centers of the US that actually make this country run do people obsess about the guy living in the middle of nowhere Kansas who can go on happily driving a pickup for the rest of eternity and who has no impact on the places that actually matter in the US in terms of transit?
Nobody lives in most of the US, so no the fact that those parts of the US exist does not make the US uniquely difficult to make mass transit for because "it is too big", you just make the mass transit where the high population density is. Deep red rural government-handout states can continue to be based entirely around cars, great, it really doesn't affect much of the US population because most of the US population doesn't live in those places and don't desire to go to them.
Great now that we have been over this, please never throw this line out lazily again, it adds nothing.
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If i'm driving 10 hours across the US, it's going to be on the freeway between population centers. A relatively flat course between population centers... oh that sounds perfect for a train! I'd much rather take the train than drive!
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Are the roads any better?
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A 5 hour train ride sounds much better then 10 h by car. Even if the train would be as slow as the cars the experience would be much better.
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So in part, yes because of that's what we spent the money on and also yes, because we can do things with roads that we can't do with rail.
With rail, you generally don't want over 0.5% grade, maybe 1.5% grade. With roads 5% grade is considered no big deal, 8% for freeway ramps, and mountain roads commonly being 15-20%. Also turns can be much tighter with roads.
It's much much cheaper to do roads, particularly through hilly or mountainous terrain.
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10 hours only gets you 1/3 across the US. I drive that regularly. The US is huge, and so many places you could never get to in a train like you mention. Hell even any of the proposed train routes anywhere only touch the surface of anywhere in this country. If you live in a city, and never leave, it only occasionally travel to another major city, sure a train or a bus work, I spent 8 years without owning a car, I know more then most how limiting it is.
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Horses are even more sustainable and renewable. And tasty if done right.
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It's also collectivizing the solution rather than expecting us each to address the problem on an individual level that doesn't change the status quo one iota.
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US public transportation is pathetic, but prior to the 1960's it was quite extensive only to be destroyed by the oil and automobile lobbyists.
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It's amazing how much it takes for some to reach the conclusion that systemic change is both necessary and requires... systemic change. As in systems changing. As in greater change than your individual decision to ride an EV or ICEV or public transit. Change that would make it exponentially more intuitive for you to choose the most sustainable one of those options.
Especially if mass transit is not feasible for you, this post is not to shame you or call on you to try and do it anyways. It's a recognition that riding mass transit is not feasible or intuitive for most people, and a call to make mass transit available to more people rather than investing all that time and energy into the wild goose chase of EV adoption.
The crying indian really did a number on us.
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It's not even just about sustainability. It's also largely about comfort (public transport is just 10x as comfortable as any car could be), price to the end consumer (public transport is typically much cheaper to the end consumer than cars, and that's even by a lot), space management (compare how much space cars need vs. public transport) and all these things. it's not just climate change.
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Agree, it's so much nicer.
No stress about searching parking spots, no cursing people driving too fast or slow... and reliable, fast, affordable and comfortable.
Political will is not even the problem; corruption, ie. corporatism and oligarchs are. They stand in the way of a truly public transit friendly society. None of the oligarchs are part of 'us'.
And even if we consider cars,good driving experiences necessitate public transit, bicycle lanes, and walkability!
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... Have you ever used public transportation in any major city? It is about the only instance in modern age where you are in a vehicle that may be going 50 kph and you are standing. If you are going to be making claims, I would drop that "10x as comfortable" bit.
Comfortable is probably the biggest reason most people don't use public transportation. With their own cars, they don't need to wait, they don't need to worry about whether they are going to be packed like sardines because of the work rush, or forced to even wait for another pass because it got full before they were able to get on, or have to worry about getting cramps from not being able to sit, or having the transit take significantly more because it's not direct, or pickpockets..
About the only comfortable thing about public transport is if you can get on it during off-peak hours when seats are available, in a route that doesn't require a lot transfers, that isn't much longer due to the stops and side-routing, and that doesn't have a high wait time. All the stars have to align.
In comparison, bikes are probably the better option overall, and it would be epic if public transport started incorporating e-bike/scooter transit along with it. Unfortunately it seems to be quite the opposite where I live due to concerns about Lithium battery fires, but hopefully someone somewhere realizes that that is just a standardization issue.
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packed like sardines
Some users smell like them too.
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public transport is just 10x as comfortable as any car could be
Yes, nothing beats walking to a bus stop and waiting there in the cold, rain or burning sun, hoping the bus shows up in time or at all. Then stressing, because it being 15 minutes late probably means your connecting train will be gone. Oh yes, there it goes. Half an hour wait with no place to sit. And then repeat this two more times for more connecting trains and buses.
And I haven't even talked about not being able to sit during train rides, or having to sit on back wrecking seats. Unfortunately I have back issues and after having enjoyed the 'comfort' of our public transport I often end up just not being able to stand or sit anymore at the end of the day because my back hurts so bad.
That is my average commute, and as a bonus there ultimately isn't a difference in price here between taking the car or public transport. To top it off my average travel time is 60 minutes by car, 1.5 - 2 hours by public transport, often depending whether or not the first bus shows up in time.
It would be able to overlook a lot of this if it was feasible to do some work in the train, but with all the fragmentation on my route I never really get anything done.
I really would like to use public transport, as it is more sustainable than my gas guzzler, but each time I try it the experience just sucks so bad.
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I'm with you entirely except for comfort. I think the only comfort advantage is that trains can have comparable leg room and you can standup.
I have never been on any type of mass transit where the seats were as comfortable as even a crappy car.
That's ignoring system dependent stuff like cleanliness or the discomforts of being close to strangers.You can certainly clean more, put in better seats, and suck it up when it comes to strangers, but as it is right now, I struggle to see how you could say it's more comfortable based purely on the amenities.
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Bike/Electric scooter + public transport is a peak mobility, but public transport isn't even built for that :(
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Fr, if the British gov stopped arresting every one who rides an electric scooter then the bus might actually be an attractive option
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Something even easier to implement than public transit is treating e-scooters and e-bikes like first class citizens. Governments love to restrict their speed to make them uncompetitive with cars without an easy legal alternative.
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As a cyclist, electric motorbikes are already a thing and belong in the traffic lanes. I'm not sharing a cycle path with idiots doing 40mph.
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Yeah I've got an e-bike and there's no way those motorcycles belong in the bike lane. If the motor can send you that fast, it's no longer a bicycle...
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I was thinking of getting an electric motorcycle at one point but a regular bike is so much cheaper and I don't really need it.
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We recently moved to a very bike friendly city in California, and it's a night and day difference to where we had moved from in Texas. There are bike lanes, and bike racks EVERYWHERE.
There is also a heavily used e-bike/e-scooter service available as well. Its been a genuine game changer.
Separate lanes and bike racks all over the place means that the e-scooters aren't ditched all over the sidewalk AND the separate bike lanes do not disrupt traffic so the drivers don't hate them either. We've only used our vehicle for commuting to work since moving here. For everything else, we walk, bike, or scooter. Bought a little collapsible wagon for grocery shopping too!
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AND the separate bike lanes do not disrupt traffic so the drivers don’t hate them either.
Oh, they usually still hate them. In there minds, that's a lane of traffic that got taken away. For those people, I usually like to point out an unused sidewalk and complain that those damned pedestrians are also taking away perfectly good driving space.
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Speed while moving is almost never the most important variable in local transport time, waiting is. Just slow down. The same is true for cars.
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It's important for safety. Bike lanes are not common, and I don't want to be stuck going 15mph on a road where the cars zoom past at 35mph or more.
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I doubt speed is an adequate consideration here. Especially considering lack of dedicated protection like helmets and other coverings. Access, usability, price (assuming rental), and dedicated protected lanes for travel are much more important, but harder to manage.
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I'm talking about owning your own e-scooter. It's not hard to gear up for the ride. Protected lanes with limited speeds are an ideal, but the truth is that you need bursts of more speed on most of our sprawling suburbs in the US.
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My friend’s work is over an hour from his house by public transport—if public transport is working, and it’s a weekday. If it isn’t working well, if it’s late, if it’s a weekend or holiday, then it’s closer to two hours (or more).
It’s 15 minutes max by car.
And he lives in a place with good public transportation.
Until we improve how public transportation runs, so that it really is designed around how people need to get from A to B, cars are going to be the more popular choice.
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Yes but that is never going to happen without putting restraints on the auto industry, which puts big money into preventing public transit from being built, and if its already exists, to destroy it.
Car culture is killing us. I get you're trying to be pragmatic but more is necessary.
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Bikes combined with public transit usually cut down those times massively. And to ask---good, or good by usa standards? Cities in Germany or japan are impressive with how fast you can get places by train.
Also-- people being unwilling to trade a bit of convenience in exchange for a better world is a major part of the problem. I got off my car and started biking for everything, and it was easy. More people could easily do the same. Combined with trains, I can go very far.
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No, it's not good public transportation. Good public transportation is faster and cheaper than a car. That's terrible public transportation, just because other places are even worse it doesn't mean that one is good.
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Well, ‘good’ by US standards.
Wish we had Japan standards :(
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I really hate that shit. To suburbs? Sure, that's acceptable cox public transportation prioritizes high density areas.
To city to another city and public transportation takes double of driving? That's bad design. Infrastructure that prioritizes cars no matter the population density is not sustainable, whether that's shown as car traffic or massive deficit to keep roads maintained
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What about electric public transit? EV buses are becoming quite popular in Korea.
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The nearest major city to me has had electric buses since 1940. There are power cables overhead and poles that link the bus to the grid. No need for expensive flammable batteries that need extensive charging.
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As long as they're being purchased as a replacement for buses that are either at the end of their life or being donated to smaller communities, then sure. This said from the perspective of an American whose city, state and federal governments refuse to fund the public transit that we already have. (╥_╥)
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Also Germany
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Yes, though not always as accessible.
The problem with electric cars is two fold as far as I understand it:
- The electricity it uses is not sustainable.
- It has lots of tracking etc and in some cases remote control.
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While the power source that generated the electricity is not necessarily sustainable, power plants should have more at scale Features to limit the pollutants than a traditional petrol engine.
Or at least the power plants should if one lives in a civilized society....
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civilized society
I'm sorry sir but such a thing does not exist, I fear you must have dreamed it.
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The problem with EVs is that in almost all ways other than local pollution they are just as bad as ICE vehicles. They
- need massive amounts of asphalted space for roadways and parking
- use this space very inefficiently and cause traffic congestion at any given spike in traffic
- drive urban sprawl and thus make housing less sustainable (more sewage,water supply, electric supply, heating, roads/person required)
- urban sprawl stretches everything far apart and makes public transit much less feasible so people who can't drive cars struggle to get places, for example kids can't walk to school or take public transit, instead must be driven
- are loud (because tyres rolling is the driving source of noise)
- are dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists
- their dangers and tendency to cause traffic congestion inhibit other, more efficient and sustainable modes of transport so that when not regulated properly, they take over all of the streetscape as is evident in most western places
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This is a general complaint about vehicles, not necessarily EVs, and extends to trucks, motorcycles, and basically anything that gives humans more range than their feet.
This position would probably be best directed at the city planning office.
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Also, those tires on asphalt are one of the leading contributors to environmental pollution from all the shedded microplastics.
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I have never heard anyone claim EVs are loud before.
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Tracking is not unique to electric cars, just new cars.
Large power stations are more efficient than small engines.
Many electric car owners also have solar panels.Refining enough fuel to transport an average car 100km uses enough energy to transport an average electric car 50km. That's just refining, not including searching for or collecting the oil, or transporting the fuel to fuel stations.
It's so much electricity that most oil refineries have dedicated coal or gas power stations.As long as you are only considering cars, electric cars are superior in almost every way, and are constantly getting better.
A diesel bus is still better than an electric car (although an electric bus would be better still). Trains and trams would be ideal, but require more upfront cost, so are easier for lazy or corrupt politicians to oppose.
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I'd say long term, neither of those should be problems
The electricity it uses is not sustainable.
Many EV users also go for solar panels to alleviate energy costs. Also as a country's electrical grid modernises, it should make use of a greater share of renewables given they're cheaper than the alternatives now.
It has lots of tracking etc and in some cases remote control.
Slightly less certain, but I'd hope this kind of thing is legislated away at some point. There's also always customer choice, there will be manufacturers that compete on the privacy angle if enough of us care
The main problem with EVs is it doesn't solve any of the problems inherent to cars being treated as the main mode of transportation in a given area. Places like that will see EVs as the solution compared to an alternative of investing into better public transit infrastructure.
Infrastructure that is basically inevitable, since we know now that any town/city that eschews anything but car transit will ultimately bankrupt themselves on road maintenance alone.
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the wear of the tires constantly pollutes the environment with synthetic material dust (rubber, plastic, etc). much more so, than from buses, because every car has to move more of its weight around per passenger.
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I would suggest different downsizes:
- EVs are much heavies, and they wear down the road, and everything else
- tire particles are going to be the next problem after fossil fuels
Solution: trains, more trains, even more trains.
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You also need to fix the karen problem that plagues society. I don't like getting called a slur or "go back to where you came from", and its very bad when you're stuck inside the small space as them. (By "karen" I don't mean just white women, but the attitude of some people, anyone can become a karen)
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We really need to eliminate karen mentality.
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I really fucking hate that a normal ass female name became a synonym for "entitled person"
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In a car I am in constant conflict, constant in risk.
In a plane I am but a commodity, worth only my payment.
In a bus we are a union, to endure together, and one another.
In a train we are a tribe, fortified in goals, interests, as philosophers of old.
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I don't know what buses and trains you've been on.
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Okay I mayyyy be glossing over the occasional pee stains, bad scheduling, overly expensive tickets, and occasional fella high out of his gourd taking the occasional break from his hazed trance to scream at me because I'm secretly the devil.
Just the colors of life I say.
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Hate to break it to you, but you're a commodity on the train and bus too.
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Very true, but a happy commodity.
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Like ~15 years ago I heard peter singer saying that the emissions from the lifetime use of a car were lower than those from making it, so you should only ever buy a second hand car.
That was before widespread EVs though.
I often wonder how long you have to use a 2nd hand gas car for, before the emissions outstrip those of making a brand new EV.
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threeish years apparently, given you run it on green electricity.
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Something is screwy with the power generation part of that graphic, or the person who made it is basing it on a country that doesn't have much wind or solar power.
In the UK there are cheap tariffs for overnight electricity because of all the wind power.
If you're in America, you're pretty much fucked for green transport in any case. Canada has some great trolly bus and underground public transport because of all the hydroelectric power. My home city has only been buying electric buses for a long while now.
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Well, there is a good chance the data is distorted for fossil interests. It's from 2021 too!
2025 vehicles are miles ahead! (Literally).
They have those solid-state batteries that charge in 5 minutes. There is the lightyear prototype that was insanely expensive...but it could run for decades given optimal light, and 40km/h or bellow speed with it's solar panels.
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I got a 2019 used nissan leaf in 2020 (the lessee didn’t like it), but it looked new. My coworkers tripped over themselves to tell me that the production of a vehicle is worse for the planet anyway. Then, when I explained that it was used, they all responded that the electricity was probably dirty anyway. I charged it at the company garage or at my town’s public spots, both of which were solar powered.
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You always get FUD about EVs from people who don't like the idea that they might be responsible for unnecessarily harming the planet and their neighbours through their actions and would far rather believe that you're just as bad as them. It's BoTh sIdES but for polluters.
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My old petrol car consumes 4.5L/100km. New Hybrid EVs consume 4.5L/100km because it takes a lot to move the heavy hybrid system.
Solution: I use public transport a lot unless I can't. That's my hybrid mode of transport.
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Depends on population density. Even if there was passenger train service on the existing lines here, a lot of people would need a vehicle to get to the station, and I don't think public buses / vans could cover all the roads at a reasonable schedule.
But, also, you don't have to get very dense before public transport is better than individual vehicles for intracity trips.
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If public transit was valued by the local government, the city would be built in a way to make that work ok. If cars are valued, the city is built to be driven in.
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I could see some very well-meaning folks in local government being boxed in by citizens on one side that make their luxury SUVs and even more luxurious pickup trucks into major parts of their identities, and then the various layers of government above them driving the standards that make all of our towns samey-looking stroads. I'm in the US if that wasn't obvious, and the car-centrism runs deep.
I'm a middle aged dude and my house was build multiple decades before I was born. Back then my neighborhood was designed 100% for cars. They even put in drainage ditches that precluded the addition of sidewalks. But several years back the township did paint a walking path down one side of my street.
The new neighborhoods built in the last decade are mostly the same as far as being car-only. They usually have sidewalks and you will see people taking walks or children playing. But it's only local recreation, to walk the dog or to visit a neighbor. If you need to go to the grocery store, it's time to hop into the 2-3 ton family vehicle.
I will give my local government and developers credit though, that some recent projects have been to create what look like islands of walkable community. I have look through the businesses and see if they have groceries and the like. From what I've seen the neighborhood seems to be densely packed expensive apartments and townhomes that were rapidly built en masse, and then in the center there's a grassy field and some breweries and restaurants and stuff. So possibly some very American designs going on there.
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I agree, by the time you really deserve the term "city" you should provide public transit as a community good and it can be made so that most people want to use it.
I'm in the "city" of Cove, Arkansas. It's a 15 minute drive to the nearest produce section, and I have to work remotely because there aren't computer programmer jobs within a reasonable commute.
At low densities, EVs are the way to go. The more dense, the more public transit makes sense.
I do still wish passenger rail service was restored along the line through here to the county seat; there are days it would save me a drive.
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Even if there was passenger train service on the existing lines here, a lot of people would need a vehicle to get to the station
BIKE. BIKE TO THE TRAIN STATION
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It also solves the problem at the other end where I'm 4 miles from my office.
Trains don't make it easy to get bikes on but that's easily resolved also
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While a lot of people can, some live far away, or have small kids, or the weather doesn't allow it, or...
There is no one single solution, every bit helps, and often they help each other.
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Also, local bus that runs on the train timetable. Brings people to and from the train as well as the shops. Ideal.
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I prefer to arrive at work/school/shops not sopping wet, and it sometimes rains.
I, personally, could bike or walk because the station would be particularly close to my residence. But, there are others in the county where to get to the closest station they'd be biking much further than they are currently healthy enough to accomplish.
Bikes are not a good option at this density either.
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We've been trying to get a LRT in a 400k population area for decades and can't make it happen. There's even an old unused rail line with right of way all the way from the biggest nearby municipality that causes all the traffic problems to downtown.
They still don't think it's enough people to warrant the upgrade/conversion costs.
They have been adding bus only lanes between downtown and that area though including in town and on the highway, but they've maybe only connected half the highway with bus only. That has been helping, and more frequent busses on it.
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A universal building exemption would push a lot of things in the right direction
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also a 2nd hand ICE car is more sustainable than a new EV
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You are technically correct, but I think this fact is often used by new car purchasers to soften the blow: “Someone will buy my old car / this one when I’m done.” Actually committing to the implications of this fact is difficult.
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It actually depends on how many km each car will be doing in the future, and what power source will charge the EV.
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I agree, but, this country, unfortunately, is built around cars now, and I certainly can’t walk to work as it would take hours, same with biking.
We need more public transportation, but we also need electric cars.
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Stupid sexy skeletor
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Yes but only if you run it competently.
Source: live in Ottawa.
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What public transport?
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That's the problem they're pointing out.
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It's great to see that Skeletor and all his "likes" will be switching from gas cars to public transit.
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But I have to be together with people!
I'd rather drive my bike to work.
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I bought one specifically for work, flew into a dirch trying to ride up sidewalks (I didn't trust the drivers behind me at all), and my father straight up said "I'd rather kick you out than watch you get run over". So now I have to carpool.
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I am even more
hostile to capitalismsustainable, I use a bike. -
Yeah, the hope is that we transition from combustion engines to no cars.
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Given the price of electric cars, I'm expecting the electric vehicle for the masses will have two wheels.
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In South Korea u see a lot of electric unicycles and hoover boards. I think the west should adopt that way more. Good public transport + clean personal transport for where it's needed. There are even laptop sized transport solutions that u could store in your backpack. The Honda Motocompacto is also really cool!
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It already does. Where I live, you can just rent an electric scooter by the minute/kilometer. Just grab one from the street, scan it in the app and go. Plenty of people who never bothered to get drivers licenses or just haven't bought cars, have electric scooters.
Electric bicycles seem a bit more efficient and comfortable, but scooters are soooo portable. Easier to fit on trains, buses, hallways... And even in your car. Have a car and an electric scooter? Drive to another city, park the car in a lower density area, take your scooter out and go. No longer dependent on intercity transit times, and yet you save a bunch of fuel (because city consumption > highway consumption) and nerves (because fuck city traffic) and don't have to work about expensive and crowded city center parking...
Anyway, new electric scooters start at like 300 EUR for Chinese ones that probably spy on you somehow. Ones with more range and power cost a bit more.
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I'm all for public transit, but I will mention for the sake of honesty, Paul Weyrich, the creator of the Heritage Foundation had a bizarre fixation on trains from an early age.
Government funding for basically anything else related to common public good was forbidden, but for some reason trains were like his one "thing" he believed the government should fund.
Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation
So I'm all for public transit, but I would still demand public accountability. We deserve to know exactly who is profiting from any publicly funded projects.
Edit: He wrote a lot, and frequently found a way to sneak something about his public transportation fetish in just about everything he wrote (even somehow in a blog post shitting on New Orleans days after Katrina), but this is probably one of my favorite takes:
Bring Back the Streetcars! A Conservative Vision of Tomorrow’s Urban Transportation
What’s Right with This Picture?
Everything. It is a fine summer day in New Westminster, British Columbia, in the year 1909. Car 39 has stopped briefly on Park Row on its way into town. It carries its passengers through a world that is ordered, serene, at peace. Their eyes feast upon the glories of Queen Anne architecture. They hear the birds and the trolley wire sing a duet in an ether as yet unpolluted by engine noise or boom boxes. Their poised servants, the motorman and conductor of the car, stand as visible assurances of responsibility and reliability. God is in His Heaven and all is right with the world.
🤣 This would be so hilarious if we weren't all watching the U.S. being torn apart as a direct result of his life's work.
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We deserve to know exactly who is profiting from any publicly funded projects.
i'm not familiar with that information being hidden
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Public accountability for the plebs and not the oligarchs is standard operating procedure for these people.
Recent examples:
After promising transparency, RFK guts public records teams at HHS
Trump’s Declaration Allows Musk’s Efficiency Team to Skirt Open Records Laws
Interestingly enough, even though healthcare didn't make the cut for the current budget, it does appear there is still somehow money for transportation projects under this administration:
Lol what a crazy coincidence. Heritage was pumped to have this guy confirmed back in Jan.
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I may not agree with how you make your profits, but I'll kill everyone defending your right to make them
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What if I'd be the only one sitting in the bus on the way to work Monday through Friday?
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I'm a city bus driver. I can run more or less empty one way, and be slammed on the return. I can be running an odd, less populated route just to reposition. Also we run routes that have low ridership just so people have the option, these are the first chopped when we run into financial difficulties, but we do have them.
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You have the best username + job combo I've seen all day!
And honestly it works whether it's accurate or not, lol.
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First, that would be lousy public transit design and the route should be rethought.
Second --- does this hyppthetical bus run other routes? Is it electric, powered by overhead lines?
Of course you can up with niche counterexamples for an argument presented in meme format, but that doesn't mean it's not, broadly speaking, correct.
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Sounds like the build out of the transit hubs was bungled.
I've seen this happen once or twice in Houston. Tiny lines that go nowhere and are spun up just so municipal government leaders can say "This doesn't work! Build more highways instead!" Our new "Silver Line" is a great example. It was supposed to be a spoke within a larger spoke/wheel build out, but the state sabotaged roll out of the rest of the network.
Meanwhile, we've got a commuter rail line down Main Street (built back in 2012 for the Olympic bid) that's the third most utilized in the country, just because it gets you into downtown without fighting traffic choke points.
The difference in usage is Night and Day.
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Hybrid cars are up there, too. Range anxiety was solved more than 20 years ago by the Toyota Prius. Look it up
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Serious question: What about Alcohol cars?
I get it that there would be a need to develop better motors to run on alcohol alone and that alcohol's output is lower than gasoline but at least the first part is solvable in the same way that diesel motors got better over time (spending money on R&D).
I ask this because, here in Brazil, Lula tried to implement pure alcohol cars back in his first or second term but faced some backlash both because we didn't had the necessary tech to make good alcohol motors and from a lot of other reasons (one which is probably to be petrol companies fucking the project to keep their gains, which although sounds conspirational, may also be true since it is patently obvious that petrol companies lobbyed against climate change measures).
Also, as long as we don't fuck up the soil by mismanagement, it will be almost carbon neutral in emission since all CO2 output was used to grow plants, which is different from using petrol that needs millions of years to be put back under a rock deep down the soil.
I'd even risk to say that it could even be a net-positive(?) carbon capture since the fiber from sugar cane (for brasil's case) is captured carbon that could be used to fertilize the soil back again.
But I don't think we will see a resurgence of alcohol based cars because, as it seems, it failed here on Brazil and oil companies' greed definitivelly aren't the only reason for that (though I believe it played a smal to medium role)
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Serious question: What will replace large, diesel powered semi-trucks (or lorries) for cargo transport?
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Edison Trucks out of Canada is betting on diesel-electric hybrids. They're starting with logging trucks but if they succeed (or if someone copies their ideas) I expect they'd expand into long haul.
It still burns fuel for the generator, but with regen braking, charge-depleting during acceleration, an engine tuned for a narrow power band, start-stop for clean idle, and the ability to charge from the grid overnight before short hauls, it can't possibly pollute more than straight diesel.
Like for example, my gasoline car can do about 30 MPG highway and worse in the city. Pure ICE drivetrains suck balls in the city. A 10-year-old Prius on its original battery can do 50 highway and 50 city. I expect hybrids can squeeze some efficiency out of diesel the same way.
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Volvo also had their FH Electric lineup, claiming 300km of range with load.
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To add to what others are saying, you should consider the framing of your question. Progress isn't all-or-nothing. There will still be situations where a truck, van, or car is the best tool for the job, and electrifying them will take time, or require advances in technology. We would still benefit from expanding public transportation and decreasing the need to use a personal vehicle for everyday tasks.
Eventually, though, yes, it would be good to replace diesel trucks with trains where possible, and electrify the ones we can't, when we can.
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If you're actually serious, you could replace many of them with something like this: https://www.freightliner.com/trucks/ecascadia/
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Come to my mind, for a while back in the nineties and two-thousands, there was a push to abandon those dirty public transportation devices like buses and trains in favor of biking, walking, etc., but it mainly ended with people switching to cars. Maybe there was some industry push.
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Working from home is the best. Not everyone can do it, but those who can, should be allowed to. Return to office isn’t for us, it’s for them.
Very difficult to build class solidarity when you're atomized to the point of not even seeing one another's real faces.
You don't have to do that at work. You can do that at the library, bar, farmer's market, etc. In fact, I'd rather do it with people near where I live, instead of people that share the other end of my commute.