Bus vs Car emissions

In a thread I started here, I asked why Politicians haven't been saying we should get rid of individually-owned car.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Well, funny thing, I found an article that says it's better to take the bus.

www.citylab.com...

...a 2009 study of American transit buses. The research indeed reveals that a full bus (70 passengers) emits only .14 pounds of carbon per passenger mile, leagues better than the .89 pounds for a typical car with one occupant. It also shows that even buses with 11 passengers — right around the average stated by Morris — still have a slightly better emissions rate than cars at .87 pounds.

I wish there was a way to merge the two threads. I'd like to see this with my first post in the other thread.

a reply to: CryHavoc

you can ride the bus all you want . I want my car so I can go where I want when I want .

Im still not riding that kakadoodie bus! I dont care if it harvests termite farts for fuel... Im still not doing it. Termite farts make up 5-19 percent of global methane emissions a year. You could power a lot of buses with those farts my friend. I prefer to burn dinosaur bones in my individual and non contaminated with human grossness vehicle.

Now stop making threads about this subject.. it weirds me out and I have to go wash my hands and spray lysol...

a reply to: CryHavoc

So the bus actually emits 9.8 pounds per mile. A car emits .87.

Now, what car emits 0.87? A small one or a big one.

You are quoting an article that has no data.

Does the term ' passenger mile ' include idling in traffic, stopped at the stop ... probably not considering who is making the claims. O dear, it is a bus company!

Who would have guessed.

Please find some real data to go by. This and the previous thread had the same problem, taking the figures in the article in blind faith.

P

a reply to: CryHavoc

An airliner puts out less carbon than cars and busses so everyone should fly to work...

originally posted by: CryHavoc
In a thread I started here, I asked why Politicians haven't been saying we should get rid of individually-owned car.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Well, funny thing, I found an article that says it's better to take the bus.

www.citylab.com...

...a 2009 study of American transit buses. The research indeed reveals that a full bus (70 passengers) emits only .14 pounds of carbon per passenger mile, leagues better than the .89 pounds for a typical car with one occupant. It also shows that even buses with 11 passengers — right around the average stated by Morris — still have a slightly better emissions rate than cars at .87 pounds.

I wish there was a way to merge the two threads. I'd like to see this with my first post in the other thread.

Buses obviously emit less carbon per person since each trip is moving way more people. However, it is unrealistic to think that people will get out of cars in MOST cities as they simply don't have the infrastructure in place to make it feasible.

The best thing to do is incentize people to get out of cars.

Motorcycles / Scooters. Cities can be more motorcycle/scooter friendly to encourage people to get out of their cars. Allow legal lane filtering, free city parking. Two wheeled vehicles take up far less space than a typical car. There have been studies done showing that rush hour traffic would be practically non existent if about 5% or 10% of cars where motorcycles.

In addition, allow golf carts/ATVs as a form of transportation in cities. Some cities like Peachtree City in GA were built around golf carts being used as transportation.

This would have far greater impact on traffic congestion at a far cheaper cost than trying to continue to build out public transportation.

A few things I feel the need to point out...

1) The busses run all day every day- riders or NOT. I know someone who drives a bus, outside of peak hours in that city you'd be lucky to see 10 people on any given bus at a given time. The emissions math really changes when you stop assuming the buses are full.

2) The busses don't run outside of the city. Nearest bus stop to my home is 40 miles, and it doesn't go to any of the places I want to be.

3) Yesterday, I had to go to a place near where the busses DO run- less than a half mile walk! But I was there in a truck, because I was picking up lumber and lubricants. You might be daft enough to carry a 5 gallon bucket of oil on a bus- but you're not getting on with a dozen 2x4's and a sheet of OSB.

4) up here in the north, we have this thing called winter. Only the inner city welfare folk have the time to sit around at the bus stop for a half hour waiting for the bus... which is inevitably running late because its snowing and the roads are slippery.

5) back to emissions... you can't tell me what my car emits for gasses. At any given time I have three vehicles available to me to leave the yard with- one gets ~40mpg. Another gets 8.
I can tell you that at 8mpg I'm not going anywhere public transportation would be helpful. I can also tell you that at 8mpg I'm emitting a hell of a lot more crap into the air than I would be at 40. Probably right around five times as much...

Of course, I wouldn't expect a politician to understand any of these points- they have drivers, and a car is always ready and waiting to take them to their private jet, where they'll land and have another car waiting.
Not up here, though. They don't fly to anywhere cold.
Why would we expect them to have any idea what they're trying to legislate? Most of these people have never set foot on public transportation in their lives. If they ever did it would be a guided tour planned by their staff, and they'd be riding with armed guards. The visit would be planned by the transit authority and the riders would be screened- many would have to wait for the next bus because captain bigpants is on that one.

The only move they've got is to make it even MORE expensive to drive your own vehicle, and they do it regularly. The hoops we have to jump through each year to drive are insane. The taxes are worse. All they're doing is making it harder and harder for young people to escape the city, forcing the city to grow.
Yuck.

originally posted by: 10uoutlaw
a reply to: CryHavoc

you can ride the bus all you want . I want my car so I can go where I want when I want .

Exactly,

Unless I absolutely must ride a bus into a built up area due to a lack of parking spaces, I will not be stepping on a bus to get around. I don't want to catch an illness from passengers or stand around for hours waiting to get on.

Also I love driving

Ever notice how riding on the bus, makes you feel like a guy in a boat ?


Sometimes at night, we see a bus with the following sign on it's rear-end: "Because this bus is here, there are 70 cars less on the roads".

Then the bus goes-by, and you see that it's empty...

Must be some kind of new math again ?

a reply to: Nothin

because of this bus,
traffic will come to a crawl every bus stop

Saving the world by congesting traffic and adding hundreds of tons of rolling stop and go roadblock to a city near you!

The public transit in this state is an absolute joke. As I said, I know people who work there. Nobody pays to ride the bus- only the welfare bums ever use it- their given a bus tab each month. Tax dollars are allocated to cover their fare on the bus, which is then counted as revenue by the public transport authority- that way they can claim that the service isn't 100% paid for by tax dollars, when it clearly is.

a reply to: CryHavoc

If they make a bus that can do CA4WDC rated 10 trails, I'll buy one!!!

Extreme Trails

Extreme (10)

Severe conditions. Extreme caution recommended. Impassable by stock vehicles. Winching required. Trail building necessary. May be impassable. Impassable under anything but ideal conditions. Vehicle damage probable. Personal injury possible. Extreme caution necessary.

Until then...

Just no.

no
thank
you

a reply to: lordcomac

The last mayor left this city with a parting gift:
They installed extra modules onto almost every existing traffic light, don't know the cost.
These modules contain a sort of slitted white light, for the busses only.
When all of the lights go red, the white light comes-on for 6 seconds, to let the bus pull-out of the right lane, and get going in front of the traffic, before they get a green light.

The necessity of this is arguable, since folks were generally very accepting to give priority to the busses, and give them a space to pull-out.

Anywhoo: the result is that these white lights work 24/7, whether there is a bus there or not.
So for a bus route that runs once every 30 minutes: you've got 29,5 minutes of cars sitting-around on idle, waiting for green, for 6 seconds longer than necessary.
Think of all of the wasted fuel, and not only that, but every car is on the road longer, increasing overall congestion, rather than reducing it.

And that's not the only 'benefit': for boulevards where the lights are sequenced, or partially sequenced; you don't get the consequential runs like before.
You maybe get 3, 4, 6 greens, then you get the yellows earlier than before.
Noticed this on multiple regular routes.

So again: slower, more vehicles on the road, and more fuel being burned.

The twit probably lists it as his greatest accomplishment. Like some kind of 'green' initiative. LoL !