The most telling thing about mass transit? How many of the people running the damn thing make use of it in their daily lives. They mostly… Don’t. There’s a reason for that, and one should pay attention to it. Mass transit has become an expensive vanity affair in most US cities, and would have become such no matter what, given the economics. Once people could afford to go where and when they liked, in their own affordable vehicles, mass transit was doomed. And, I will continue to assert that it should be–The infrastructure waste and the amount of time/money dedicated to mass transit solutions would have been better utilized by improving cars and roads.

Mass transit is mostly something we think would be good for other people, and we behave accordingly. Seattle, for example? They could have gotten the same result, in terms of ridership and utility for the less-well-off by subsidizing things like taxis and Uber for the poor. In terms of dislocation, excess cost, and under-utilization, the mass transit systems are an utter waste, just as ever single “mass” solution is bound to be. Why run a train for three people…? And, that’s what you’ll often see on a lot of systems.

It would, just like the high-speed train system in California, be cheaper and more effective to just subsidize other solutions for the poor. But, just like with most of this other communal BS, the real agenda isn’t to provide services, but to acquire control. That’s the real story of mass transit, and one you should pay attention to. If the only way of getting around is the train, then the people that run the trains get to decide where and when you’ll go places. If you own your own transportation, they have no effective control over you, and that’s the whole point of taking away cars…

Mass transit had a place, back when the automobile didn’t exist, and the technology wasn’t yet in place for it. Once that changed, the economics and personal choice efficiencies intervened, and you’re where we are today, despite the atavistic goals of the control freaks.

It’s going to be interesting watching the effect of mass automobile ownership in places like China. My guess is that there are going to be lots and lots of unexpected effects, out in the culture, that the Chinese Communist government isn’t going to like, or be able to adapt to.

The thing is, I hate driving in traffic. If they ever get the bugs out of self driving technology, that might work for me.

Driving in Boston is a nightmare. The subway is a bit of a shambles, but it’s still better than driving.

I understand all the reasons why the US doesn’t have decent trains and probably never will. But I’m not happy about it.

City buses overseas can be… scary.

Oh, and… why no decent coach bus service in the US? Greyhound is surly. The whole franchise seems to have a bad attitude.

The rider and user is the victim of many strikes, no matter how expensive their fares. the unions always claim they are ‘on the side of the traveller’ but if they are naively aiming at the bosses, those are the people who always travel by car, not by public transport. It is the public who pays again and again and again for unionised public travel.

On rail, the government aids in chaining operators to the technology that matured over a century ago.

If rail were seen as an opportunity, and rights-of-way matched the Eisenhower Interstate System, except operators bought rail slots in the manner air operators buy terminal and route time, competition would quickly catch up the technology to autos.

Imagine for a moment, all the package and freight operators putting automated cars on rails, replacing the tractor trailer routes for local and regional operations. In 25-45 years, the technology would be caught up to the point operators were running red-eye sleepers on regional runs, safely.

Most of the focus I have seen on “solving” transportation issues revolves steadfastly on the micro operators: people. Maybe individual transports for individual routes is the most efficient, for now.

But there is great opportunity just in separating the types of operators, and freight looks to be a “safe” way to get the ball rolling. Except that rail is resolutely bound to the 19th century and will not move.

The failure of transit, and rail in particular, is simple economics.

Is it cheaper to (a) hire unionized labor and a massive piece of capital equipment maintained by monopoly labor, or (b) use your own labor in a small piece of capital equipment maintained by competitive bidding?

For all but the densest of dense source & destinations, (b) is far, far cheaper. And that’s true even for young, single, healthy people traveling with minimal luggage. For a families or other situations it can be up to another order of magnitude less economical.

The only real counterargument is that the roadways themselves are massively subsidized. Whether that is actually true is hard to tell; I’ve tried & failed to compute road spending vs gas tax revenues from Fed & State budgets; and I haven’t found a believable summary. My instinct is that road costs are born mostly by users, but who knows. If such a subsidy exists, it would need to be truly massive to change the economic calculation (since the structural costs of rail travel are so enormous).

In general what kills mass transit is trains. Their operating and construction costs, energy consumption and emissions when calculated on on a passenger-mile basis are much higher than any other form of transit, including specifically private automobiles. And if the train is actually a trolley (how 19th Century) operating on streets, it significantly increases traffic congestion and traffic accidents.

Moreover, these costs force transit authorities to actually reduce available transit capacity by cutting bus service. There are only about a half dozen cities in the US that can make good use of rail transit. Nearly every city is best served by buses.

In addition, trains are the very definition of inflexibility and inconvenience. They cannot respond to changes in passenger sources, and passengers are dumped off away from their actual destination. That is something Uber and Lyft don’t do.

One might also note that in major cities travel on public transit of all type is actually dangerous, and passengers are subject to attack and robbery by black and hispanic gang bangers.