If only buses could fly…
High-speed rail may be getting lots of attention — and money — from the Obama administration, but it turns out the transportation success story of the last few years is the bus.
At a time when flights have been cut and ridership on trains has been relatively flat, traveling by bus has been on the rise. Last year, bus service increased 5 percent, and it rose nearly 10 percent in 2008, according to Joseph Schwieterman, a DePaul University professor who has studied the decline and comeback of bus travel. In fact, in 2007, when he and his team of transportation researchers began studying why travelers shunned buses, they found themselves in the midst of a turnaround.
While 18-to-35-year-olds were the first to embrace new bus lines like MegaBus and BoltBus, which offer cheap express service between major cities in the Midwest and Northeast, the appeal of bus travel has expanded to include business travelers and riders older than 35 who want to avoid the stress of driving.
[…]
“I normally don’t mind driving, but at that particular time the thought of hitting traffic somewhere around the New Jersey Turnpike was really off-putting for me,” Mr. Petty said. “So we took the bus, and I really enjoyed having someone else in charge.”
While the appeal of bus travel has long been low fares (which are still often less than $25 one way), what has spurred their revival is the focus on improving the entire experience, from ticketing to arrival
This was the first prototype although much improved with the wing thingy on sides.
I know bikes fly in air,but buses too,this is a good photoshop work i can say.,.ha ha
Given the level of ‘compensation’ to our elected representatives by airlines, and the car industry.
I assume we will see calls for TSA to be involved in bus travel – perhaps a mandatory 24hour waiting period to buy a bus ticket, or a limit of 2oz of water to be taken on.
Or perhaps all bus journeys will be required to route via Chicago or Dallas – depending on which has worst weather
#3: Both pictures are from the movie Speed.
Nice to think that the image of bus travel is improving somewhat since this article was written for TheOnion.
http://tinyurl.com/3374met
Unfortunately, in this country, both bus and train are horrifically slow means of transport. We need high speed trains. I was going to take the train skiing one year. A 4.5 hour drive would have been 10 hours on the train, and not even gotten me very close to my destination on the other end.
Twenty five years of using public bus transport, now I drive and will never go back. I lived in a rough part of town and rode the last bus home on most college nights. Never again.
The effectiveness/utility of mass transportation relies on the mass density of people and destinations. You can’t have a society intentionally built on spreading things around and then switch overnight to one based on piling them on top of one another. Two different approaches to regional planning.
I had the pleasure of visiting Curitiba, Brazil and seeing their Mass Transit System by Bus. Still requires mass density but it was nice to see a place like Curitiba doing something new and something that actually worked.
Remember a couple of years ago when that Canadian guy cut the head off of his fellow bus passenger?
Now, that’s just wrong.
#8 bobbo,
Good point about population density. We had the option of having cities with good transportation and places nearby worth going. Instead, we did what was profitable for GM, Ford, and the oil companies. We built suburbia and actively dismantled much of the mass transit infrastructure that was already in place.
We will dismantle the slumburbs. But, it will take time.
Suburbia is simply not a sustainable way of life. And, that which is unsustainable will not be sustained.
http://tinyurl.com/yj5dbz4
#12. I come pretty close to your description and yes I have used the bus and other public transportation! In San Fran it’s actually dependable, cheap and fun to watch people of all sorts. The underground BART system is best for me however because I have big bucks.
You? Do you have a Humvee? Ive see a few but not sure what it looks like inside. I suppose the outside tells the whole story. I’ve never actually seen anyone get in or out of one however. Is there a hoist system?
Just wanna say I like the title…”gooder” made my day 😀
The appeal of America was space, space that wasn’t owned by an oppressive ruling class. Just like a fish will grow to the size of a tank, North American cities grew to fill the space they had, the problem for mass transit is that there was a lot of space to grow into and the space between those cities is insanely vast because they country was built with modern, for the time, transportation – be it mass availability of horse and ox wagons to early rail. Also don’t forget that up to a certain size it is easier and cheaper to have personal transportation, it is only when you hit a certain density that the tide turns towards mass transit.
Also, don’t discount the effects of WW2 and how that had an effect on both sides of the Atlantic. Much of Europe was tremendously rebuilt with an eye to fix the problems of the previous centuries, it was easy to push through large mass transit, transportation plans, and increase density in what used to be built and populated cities. Building were destroyed and huge populations killed. In the US and Canada a lot of public transportation was already aged before the war and was then run into the ground during that war. It was easier and cheaper, at the time, for post war Vancouver to replace the 1930s system of inter-urban and street cars with a modern fleet of 1950 buses. In the post war boom…Europe had rebuilt space to grow into, in the US and Canada it was just easier to explode into suburbia.
That being said, quality bus transportation is more appealing these days, especially with the advent of the HOV lanes.
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