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Comment by timthelion | Hacker News Reader

Do you have any experience with busses? Was that experience "great"? For example, have you lived in Hong Kong, which I understand is a Bus city? I live in Prague, and the trams are great. It is a 100% better experience than driving. Smooth, quiet, usually plenty of leg room. Doesn't smell. The busses, however, are hell. That low key vibration of the motor, the smell of the gass, the cramped spaces, the steps, all add up to a horrible experience.

I think a lot of people in the US associate mass transit with sociallism and associate socialism with "everyone should live like the dirt poor live". But come to Prague and ride the trams, and you will find that mass transit can be a luxury item.

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> I think a lot of people in the US associate mass transit with sociallism and associate soccialism with "everyone should live like the dirt poor live".

No, it's because busses in the US are actually full of dirt poor people. I know it sounds cruel, but given the choice, most Americans would rather drive than sit next to dirty, smelly homeless people and also have to listen to shouting matches, sit in close proximity to fist fights, etc. Oh, and did I mention that they're rarely on time? Busses in the US are legitimately not a pleasant experience, it's really that simple.

I'm not saying they are. I am simply giving an example, Prague, where things are very different. Here, you don't have to suffer to be eco, you choose to go by tram because it is legitimately better.

I've had some good bus experiences, in Mexico City and KunMing I've ridden in nice clean busses with dedicated lanes and raised platforms for easy entry/exit[1]. It's near as nice as rail and from what I understand quite a bit cheaper to build

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Estaci%C3%B3n_SetDomingue...

It may be cheeper to build, though that is questionable. It is cheeper only because it takes advantage of existing roadway, but if you factor in the root cost of all of the existing infrastructure it uses than there's not much of a difference in cost between steel+gravel and concrete is there?

In any case, over time the price of the busses goes up steeply. You need to replace a bus after 20 years, where-as trams last 50-60 years. Prague is replacing their Tatra T3 [1] trams from the 60s, not because they are worn out (they still run like new) but because they are more dangerous in accidents for the driver (they have no crumple zone and worse brakes) and because they don't have wheel chair access. Other, poorer cities have even older trams that still run fine. When they upgrade, those old machines aren't scrapped, but are sold to more eastern ex-soviet contries as working vehicles and actually put into service there. When was the last time you road in a 50 year old bus?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_T3

> there's not much of a difference in cost between steel+gravel and concrete is there?

There is a difference, because a pure asphalt track is easy to lay, and especially easy to rework.

Train tracks, especially those running in asphalt (shared road between cars and trams), have a host of problems:

1) It's really expensive to build them - trains weigh a LOT and the rails need adequate foundations

2) It's really expensive to maintain them - you can't just go with a miller over the asphalt, because there are, obviously, the rails themselves but also delicate wiring for positioning/switch controls, signalling etc.; also, in most cases there are no alternate routes, which means you have two weeks of no service at all where a bus might just be re-routed one parallel street away.

3) It's really expensive to keep them operational: unlike with rised rails, street-level sunk rails act as sinks for everything from ordinary dirt from leaves to stones idiots place in the rail or stuff that falls into the rail from improperly secured vehicles.

4) They're friggin' dangerous hazards for bicyclists! I can't count the number of falls and crashes I had due to being forced to escape into a sunken rail.

5) Idiots with huge trucks or who are not careful when operating stuff like lifters or excavators near the overhead wiring. Happens surprisingly often that someone accidentally damages or destroys overhead wiring.

On 2) you say "which means you have two weeks of no service at all". Well in Prague, we just use busses when the tram line is being repaired. Its like a downgrade. "Oh, tracks are being worked on, I'll have to take the x6 bus rather than the 6 tram." It sucks, but its far better than using busses all the time ;). And of course, you might think that it is wastefull to have a host of busses just waiting around to be turned into "replacement lines" for metro and tram and other busses that break down, but it is really usefull. And when there is a big event at the convention center at the edge of the city, those busses get used then too. So its not wasteful at all.

3) I know that they have to sweep the tracks, (Modern trams actually have brushes installed in the front) but when you have tram lines with a tram comming through once every two minutes at rush hour, carying thousands of people in a day it hardly seems like a large expense to have an old man in red overalls come in at night sometimes an polish and sweep out the tracks.

4) I know, this sucks. Especially when there is an illegally parked car, forcing you to lane change.

> Well in Prague, we just use busses when the tram line is being repaired. Its like a downgrade.

Yeah, we do that in Munich too, but it sucks real hard. Especially when the replacement buses are also in the same traffic jam created by the construction site... and all the replacement buses cost big money these days, given that there are nowhere near enough bus drivers to serve the demand.

ad 3) Yeah of course, but it's still a huge cost factor ;)

ad 4) I know someone who carries self-made stickers with penis stencils. He places these on idiot car owners' cars.

We made paper stickers reminding people that they are illegally parked and we place them on the wind sheild. If it rains, then the person will spend a good 15 minutes getting the gunk off.

Reminds me of Russia's "Stop a Douchebag" (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMrKscEv_Ri1pvlRsLxsqJQ). Except those stickers are intentionally very sticky.

This is great!

One real problem with Pragues tram system though, is that we use island stops (stops that are in the middle of the street, so you have to cross a lane to get to the tram stop). You can see why this is bad in this map of pedestrian collisions and deaths https://samizdat.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?a... The blue and yellow bubbles are pedestrian injuries, the red ones deaths. You see that along the grey lines (tram lines) there are clumps of injuries and deaths, those are where the tram stops are. So far, we haven't found a great way to solve this, except to put fencing up to discourage people from jumping out into the street to catch the tram...

Taken the bus occasionally in Melbourne and Brisbane. Brisbane went hard core for buses even giving them separate roads/overpasses to take in some sections and it was very efficient and also heavily used. Melbourne is more mixed and the trains and trams are definitely used more than buses. The bus system wasn't scary, but it is underutilized in the suburbs and just as crowded in the inner city as other options. But with much longer wait times.

The biggest problem with mass transit in most of the US isn't "socialism" it's that everything is so spread out that it's impossible to make it economical. The attitude is kind of a way to help people ignore the fact that alot of people can't drive and have trouble getting around to where they need to go with the way the cities are set up. I think the best solution I've seen is for the city to contract for minibuses or other transport to help pickup some of the people. But that only works because they are often disabled and get special funding to get transport that can pick them up.

I agree and dissagree. I lived in Kirkland(outside of Seattle) and spent time in LA. LA would really benefit from a real tram system. It is not too spread out for it, and it is a great candidate, because so much of it is just shitty strip mall and parking lot, that simply bulldozing half the city and building something decent along with a tram line would be a good idea. Kirkland, not so much. Too much suburb, you are right. But despite the spread of many american cities, there is still a hole lot of urban core, which is desparately lacking any sort of real mass transport infrastructure, and too often I hear eletist sentiments as being the reason not to build real infrastructure.

Ironically, a kind of anticapitalism, unionism, plays a big role in this. Unions in the construction industry have played a big role in making prices in the US higher than they should be, though even this cannot be the entire explanation. Prague has its corruption, I like to think of it as being a %20 tax on all government projects, but still we manage to do things for prices that are reasonable, even within the context of our economy. And the price of concrete aint any cheeper here than it is anywhere else, and the Czech Republic is far less wealthy than America. Somehow, America has learned to oscify itself to the point where it is less capable of building real infrastructure than the average eastern european deap state protodemocracy, it is really strange.

Pragues transit system is very good.

I used to code on a bus-commute in germany, i honestly must say i liked it more then driving around in a car. Its quiet, you can focus, and its the perfect length to create a feature.

The problem with buses is they attract those who are no longer allowed to drive (alcoholics, drug-addicts) - but overall.

Maybe something like the african Matatu system for comuters would be ideal? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matatu

Kinda related to what you talk about, one problem is that lots of buses are just old. In Massachusetts, over the past year or so the MBTA has been rolling out new buses that are comfortable, smoother, rather quiet, and more energy efficient than the older buses. I'd actually argue that our bus system is far better than our train system.

I wonder if it's a feedback loop sort of issue. The buses are old and crummy -> people avoid the bus -> bus modernization is deprioritized -> buses get older and crummier. If a city invests in buses that don't feel like an afterthought, then perhaps more people would use them.

But a new tram is EVEN BETTER than a new bus, and Prague has 50-60 year old trams that are as good as a new bus.

Yeah, I hear you, and agree. My point is more just that buses nowadays don't have to be a miserable experience if cities are willing/able to pay for it.

There are wayyyyy too many problems with public transportation in the US that stem from decades of car-centric urban and suburban growth. It seems like nobody wants to pay for public transit development and maintenance around here.

Sorry, but what makes a tram better than a bus? I'm genuinely curious.

As far as I can tell they're much more expensive per mile, have difficulty on hills, and make the street more dangerous for cyclists. The only advantage trams seem to have is that they don't have the stigma of busses.

There are several reasons. I'll devide them into to groups.

Fundamental reasons:

  1) The tram is a heavy vehicle running on rails and uses heavy spring shocks with one degree of freedom of movement (to tilt side to side). The bus is a light vehical with softer shock springs which have 360 degrees of freedom of movement. That is, that the bus can shake up/down, side to side, forwards/backwards and anything inbetween. This is the biggest difference. It is much more comfortable to be in a stable vehicle than one that rocks like a boat. You can read much more easilly on a tram than on a bus.

  2) Related to the first reason, the tram has no rocking caused by breaking, as the forward/backwards up/down rocking motions are impossible due to the restriction of movement caused by the rails and the weight of the vehicle

  3) The fact that the wheels are hard means that it is much more efficient.

  4) Tram cars are significantly wider than busses and therefore have much more comfortable inside spaces.

  5) Since the rails are always in the same place, you can design a tram with almost no gap between the platform and the floor of the tram, so that a person in a wheel chair/with a stroller can ride in without any ramp!!!!

  6) Due to the heavy build of the tram, and the fact that there is no internal combustion engine or batteries that would wear out, trams last cca 3x longer than busses. This will always be the case. It is like the difference in lifespan between a brick house and one made of mud.

  7) The wheel wells of the tram are shorter, making for a much more open, less awquard space.

  8) Due to the width, stability, and length of the tram, it is possible to walk to the other side of a non-crouded tram to get away from an alcholic person.

Non-fundamental reasons:

  1) Electric is better than deisel. Deisel busses are noisy, vibrate, and make toxic fumes which give many people nausia. (this isn't fundamental to busses, you can have trolley busses, or electric ones)

  2) Trams have much larger windows/more window space making for a less claustrophobic ride.

  3) Trams use a cellphone based tracking software for determining which stop they are at, which makes for very very smooth audio indications of where you are. The anouncment system on busses is manually controlled and sometimes the bus driver forgets to announce a stop. We even have digital reader boards with the amount of time it will take the tram to arrive, and those numbers are accurate. For busses this system also exists, but it is worse.

  4) On rainy days, the bus comming into the bus stop may splash you with mud, trams never do that.

  5) The trams have closed cabins for the drivers, meaning that stupid tourists cannot be tempted to ask the drivers for directions, thus delaying the journey and causing everyone stress.

Thanks for the thoughtful response! I definitely agree that trams offer a better rider experience.

However, I'd argue that these benefits are outweighed by their prohibitive cost. According to the American Public Transportation Association it's roughly $30-$70m per mile, as opposed to $3-$30m per mile for busses. For example, with the $133m spent on Cincinnati's 3.6 mile tram line, you could have purchased about 300 electric busses.

Additionally, trams in the U.S. usually end up running in lanes that are also occupied by traffic, which means that they have to start/stop much more frequently and can't achieve the speed/efficiency that many european trams can.

Please don't use code blocks with long paragraphs like this. It requires horizontal scrolling which makes it really hard to read.

Non-code-block for easy reading:

There are several reasons. I'll devide them into to groups. Fundamental reasons:

1) The tram is a heavy vehicle running on rails and uses heavy spring shocks with one degree of freedom of movement (to tilt side to side). The bus is a light vehical with softer shock springs which have 360 degrees of freedom of movement. That is, that the bus can shake up/down, side to side, forwards/backwards and anything inbetween. This is the biggest difference. It is much more comfortable to be in a stable vehicle than one that rocks like a boat. You can read much more easilly on a tram than on a bus.

2) Related to the first reason, the tram has no rocking caused by breaking, as the forward/backwards up/down rocking motions are impossible due to the restriction of movement caused by the rails and the weight of the vehicle

3) The fact that the wheels are hard means that it is much more efficient.

4) Tram cars are significantly wider than busses and therefore have much more comfortable inside spaces.

5) Since the rails are always in the same place, you can design a tram with almost no gap between the platform and the floor of the tram, so that a person in a wheel chair/with a stroller can ride in without any ramp!!!!

6) Due to the heavy build of the tram, and the fact that there is no internal combustion engine or batteries that would wear out, trams last cca 3x longer than busses. This will always be the case. It is like the difference in lifespan between a brick house and one made of mud.

7) The wheel wells of the tram are shorter, making for a much more open, less awquard space.

8) Due to the width, stability, and length of the tram, it is possible to walk to the other side of a non-crouded tram to get away from an alcholic person.

Non-fundamental reasons:

1) Electric is better than deisel. Deisel busses are noisy, vibrate, and make toxic fumes which give many people nausia. (this isn't fundamental to busses, you can have trolley busses, or electric ones)

2) Trams have much larger windows/more window space making for a less claustrophobic ride.

3) Trams use a cellphone based tracking software for determining which stop they are at, which makes for very very smooth audio indications of where you are. The anouncment system on busses is manually controlled and sometimes the bus driver forgets to announce a stop. We even have digital reader boards with the amount of time it will take the tram to arrive, and those numbers are accurate. For busses this system also exists, but it is worse.

4) On rainy days, the bus comming into the bus stop may splash you with mud, trams never do that.

5) The trams have closed cabins for the drivers, meaning that stupid tourists cannot be tempted to ask the drivers for directions, thus delaying the journey and causing everyone stress. reply

Difficulty on hills is just a matter of going cheap.

Putting a motor on each axle or wheel normally solves the problem.

For more extreme situations: cable car, cog railway, linear motor... all of which can actually go vertical but then we call it an elevator.

I think you live in a different Prague than I do, or you don't travel near the city centre often. When I tried to use trams in summer, they were full of people, so much I couldn't move, smelling and incredibly hot. I was very happy when my car finally got fixed. Yes, there are a lot of problems with driving (parking, one-way roads, ...), but it's much more comfortable, so much, that the discomfort caused by traffic is next to none.

Sometimes the trams are full, yes. And sometimes there is trafic on the roads.

It's not about traffic, it's about comfort. In car, I'm comfortable even when I'm stuck in a traffic jam.

Also, it takes 39 minutes to go to my office using public transit, and 18 by car, and that's the worst case.

It is only so fast, because the rest of us are in the tram though.

Nope. It's fast because the local government decided to support individual transport for once and built the tunnel complex.

LA has far more highways and roads. They support individual transport far more than Prague does. But they don't seem to be doing so well do they...

IMO, because of other regulations and taxes. Prague used to be mostly unregulated.

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