Overall more Diesel buses would result in less emissions. If it incentivises people to drive less.
Still, nice. I don’t like the vibrations on diesel buses, sometimes it makes me sick. And when I’m cycling im not exposed to their exhaust fumes.
I’m never going to understand how battery operated public transit makes more sense than trolleybuses in places where you need climate control for the cabin. Other than lack of political will, I suppose.
New buses should be 100% zero emissions, but nice I guess.
Wouldn’t long journeys make that somewhat infeasible?
Charging stations don’t look like they cater for buses, and I imagine charging the batteries of a bus to take a while, even at high KW.
That’s why my city runs hydrogen busses. Turns out they’re incredibly cheap to maintain. The biggest hurdle for them was purchase price but they managed to score a 75% donation from the EU.
Public transport buses won’t be charged on public chargers. They have service facilities where they will be charged and maintained.
Furthermore, I talk about new busses, not about replacing perfectly fine working existing busses. So parallel to the new busses you have time to increase the capacity of the infrastructure.
I don’t think the points you mentioned, are an actual problem. And remember they have planned to become climate neutral by the end of this decade. Obviously this want be the case, but nevertheless I don’t see the problem to invest in the infrastructure which will cost something now but will be cheaper by a substantial margin in the long run. This is just a logical process imo.
You are actually agreeing with me here :)
Yes they are aiming to be neutral, but the charging infrastructure isn’t ready yet. So it’s only 50% if new buses. In time it will be 100%.
Most countries have rules in place about how many hours a driver is allowed to drive without a break. It’s “after 4,5h, make a 45 min pause” here in Germany, which at 80km/h or 100km/h max for buses gives you a range of 360km - 450km, which is totally fine with current technology. The biggest problem here is that companies are totally ignoring the rules here
Warsaw public transport made a report few years ago about costs and issues with electeic busses. Main problem: Range, Second problem: Higher total cost over entire lifespan of the vehicle
Electric buses should generally be trolleybuses, I think.
Even better - make most of them trams
I don’t think anyone said reducing climate change would come free. It’s still more ethical and cheaper than killing all the people who will try to escape uninhabitable regions of the Earth.
I don’t think anyone said reducing climate change would come free.
Yeah, well, no, NO, then we can’t do that thing.
I know, but that’s what it currently fails because of in general adoption. Everybody complains about shareholders being shortterm-driven, but then everybody else personally is as well, at least on average.
These businesses still operate on profit and loss. They can’t just move to full electric because in 100 years world might warm up by 4 degrees. If you want electrification, then make electricity and batteries cheap in the first place
Public transport is not a for-profit business, therefore you should not expect it to generate cash. You wouldn’t expect highways, national defence or a hospital to bring in money. However a functioning public transport network reduces costs caused by high car usage such as pollution, parking, traffic accidents, traffic jams, higher road maintencance.
Public transport is not a for-profit business
In the end everything is for profit business. New fleets of buses won’t magically pay for themselves. City may subsidize the public transport, but it’s because the increased economic activity and quality of life attracts people and businesses resulting in higher tax revenue.
And in a democracy maybe because it is good for the citizens?
It’s not „might”. The alternative is to burden our children with horrifying cost. Yeah, we can be selfish - it’s more convenient. I don’t think regular people should bear this cost but everywhere I see people are against rising taxes for the rich so this is what they get.
Rich pay fuck ton of taxes. Most of EU has progressive taxation and capital gains tax. What else do you want? Unlike in USA there’s no ‘Buy, Borrow, Die’ loophole allowing tax escape when inheritance happens
When was the last time wealthy stopped getting wealthier faster than the rest of society? 70s? That’s about how long wealthy have been systemically preferred over everyone else.
You might say GDP grows but this is what’s underneath:
When was the last time wealthy stopped getting wealthier?
This isn’t even a problem. You should strive for increasing quality of life for everyone rather than some idealistic notion of equality. People aren’t equal, period. Some have great ability to run business or produce goods, others don’t. Inequality is inevitable.
Money is your vote on what the society should produce. Income inequality actually fucks over everyone except the wealthiest. That’s why everyone is bombarded with ads for luxury items. While housing, food, and medicine is becoming more unobtainable.
That’s very reductive and convenient for the wealthy. It will be convenient until we reach wealth inequality that US just reached. What they have now is about same as 30s Germany and 90s Rwanda. This alarms me but it doesn’t alarm you so I must assume you’re fine with the outcome.
It’s already warming, and the disasters are already happening.
Bring back trolleys :)
Even better: Hybrid Trolleys that can run prolonged distance without electrical traction
