Dramatically improve quality of life for low-income residents
Reduce cities’ carbon footprint, air pollution, and traffic congestion
Neglectedness: City buses probably don’t get much attention because most people don’t think very highly of them, and focus much more on novel transportation technologies like electric vehicles.
Tractability: According to Higashide, improving bus systems is a matter of improving how the bus systems are governed. Right now, I think a nationwide movement to improve bus transit would be less polarizing than the YIMBY movement has been. While YIMBYism has earned a reputation as elitist due to some of its early advocates’ mistakes, a pro-bus movement could be seen as aligned with the interests of low-income city dwellers provided that it gets the messaging right from the beginning.
Also, bus systems are less costly to roll out, upgrade, and alter than other public transportation options like trains.
Interesting post! Curious what you think of Jeff Kaufman’s proposal to make buses more dangerous in the first world, the idea being that buses in the US are currently too far in the “safety” direction of the safety vs. convenience tradeoff.
GiveWell also has a standout charity (Zusha!) working in the opposite direction, trying to get public service vehicles in Kenya to be safer.
Allow the driver to start while someone is still at the front paying. (The driver should use judgment if they’re allowed to do this, because the passenger at the front might lose their balance when the bus starts. Wheelchairs might be especially vulnerable to rolling back.)
Allow buses to drive 25mph on the shoulder of the highway in traffic jams where the main lanes are averaging below 10mph.
Higher speed limits for buses. Lets say 15mph over. (I’m not so sure about this: speed limits exist in part to protect pedestrians. Buses still cause fewer pedestrian and cyclist deaths than cars, though.)
But these should be considered only after we’ve exhausted the space of improvements to bus service that don’t sacrifice safety. For example, we should build more bus-only lanes first.
I don’t have statistics, but my best guess is that if you sample random points across all public buses running in America, in over 3⁄4 of the time, less than half of the seats are filled.
This is extremely unlike my experiences in Asia (in China or Singapore).
I think improving bus systems in the United States (and probably other countries) could be a plausible Cause X.
Importance: Improving bus service would:
Increase economic output in cities
Dramatically improve quality of life for low-income residents
Reduce cities’ carbon footprint, air pollution, and traffic congestion
Neglectedness: City buses probably don’t get much attention because most people don’t think very highly of them, and focus much more on novel transportation technologies like electric vehicles.
Tractability: According to Higashide, improving bus systems is a matter of improving how the bus systems are governed. Right now, I think a nationwide movement to improve bus transit would be less polarizing than the YIMBY movement has been. While YIMBYism has earned a reputation as elitist due to some of its early advocates’ mistakes, a pro-bus movement could be seen as aligned with the interests of low-income city dwellers provided that it gets the messaging right from the beginning.
Also, bus systems are less costly to roll out, upgrade, and alter than other public transportation options like trains.
Interesting post! Curious what you think of Jeff Kaufman’s proposal to make buses more dangerous in the first world, the idea being that buses in the US are currently too far in the “safety” direction of the safety vs. convenience tradeoff.
GiveWell also has a standout charity (Zusha!) working in the opposite direction, trying to get public service vehicles in Kenya to be safer.
I like Kaufman’s second, third, and fourth ideas:
Allow the driver to start while someone is still at the front paying. (The driver should use judgment if they’re allowed to do this, because the passenger at the front might lose their balance when the bus starts. Wheelchairs might be especially vulnerable to rolling back.)
Allow buses to drive 25mph on the shoulder of the highway in traffic jams where the main lanes are averaging below 10mph.
Higher speed limits for buses. Lets say 15mph over. (I’m not so sure about this: speed limits exist in part to protect pedestrians. Buses still cause fewer pedestrian and cyclist deaths than cars, though.)
But these should be considered only after we’ve exhausted the space of improvements to bus service that don’t sacrifice safety. For example, we should build more bus-only lanes first.
Wait, do buses some place not start moving until… everyone’s sitting down? Does that mean there’s enough seats for everyone?
I don’t have statistics, but my best guess is that if you sample random points across all public buses running in America, in over 3⁄4 of the time, less than half of the seats are filled.
This is extremely unlike my experiences in Asia (in China or Singapore).