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we already have a massive road infrastructure in place, might as well use it before updating major rail lines.
the biggest problem with buses is that there's a fed gov't req. that all gov't agencies (state, county, city, etc) that take fed money must buy a percentage of those elephant sized big buses. for many communities such buses are impractical and regular shuttles could maintain the needs for the subdivision. in fact, it would be more efficient to get them to nexus transit sites where big buses gather more regularly. but some corporation needs its kickback.
there's several good things about buses and shuttles answer. first, it's immediate. the infrastructure is right there, right now. the shuttles are right there, right now. second, it saves gas by the sheer fact of more riders in a single vehicle. it's a multiplier of however many seated equaling removing that many individual cars, roughly. most cars are 1 person per vehicle, which is grossly inefficient. but this is applicable to all mass transit.
third, there's many alternative fuels for buses and shuttles at the moment. whole towns either run off of natural gas, methane, electric, etc. Davis, CA (my old college town) has a bus system that pretty much runs off of methane, and the methane is derived from the local landfill of the town and campus. in fact, they also drive in large pipes into the landfill and take out this methane (which is being created and aired out anyway. y'know, can't stop composting...) and using it to power a bit of the town as well, street lights and such.
fourth, it can be managed easier, and be remanaged more flexibly, than rail installations. this is a huge boon. you can find that certain routes lose popularity in time, as towns go through their natural population redistributions. this way you don't have to keep building rail to accomodate each nook and cranny, all you gotta do is to re-assign parts of the fleet accordingly -- or even redraw some routes wholesale.
fifth, if using shuttles or small cabs, can be redirected into a modest taxi service. granted some cities' cab companies should be left well enough alone, they are efficient for the needs of the community and the gov't doesn't really need to intervene. but some areas are so distant, and so meager, from the major urban hubs that cab service is all but an impossibility, unless you make a huge income. just making the cab come 3 suburban cities out of the way starts to rack up the cost fast. what could be better is county subsidized shuttle and cab services that have regular routes, but also a spare contingent of the fleet that accomodates cab-like service. i.e. you step outside of the supermarket, but you are 2 miles from the major bus stop by the library/city hall. 2 miles with a shopping cart of groceries (americans buy roughly a weeks worth at a time, unlike europe and japan. this can't be fixed, due to the low density of suburbia, part of suburbia's inherent flaw) is pretty intense and unrecommended. but imagine calling on a cell phone and getting a shuttle or sedan service, split with another shopper if available, and getting door-to-door partially subsidized (aka. reasonably priced) taxi service.
sixth, implementation of such projects would immediately assist in unemployment issues. in fact, even small and dying communities can get a boost from this. it's a working class job, and that helps the economy in terms of consumer spending. and it isn't ridiculously specialized, so even the non-higher education crowd can make a decent living (if it is payed for adequately). also, it doesn't leave the employed so divorced from their community; they can do their job locally and have a normal commute back home. no 4 hour commutes. a possibly good management system would be large buses and shuttles for whole counties, while having shuttles and sedans servicing cities, possibly even just neighborhoods.
seventh, it revitalizes those who would normally be cut off from a full and interactive civic life due to our obsessive car culture. we already have elderly and disabled shuttles in many towns, but i think it's a project worth expanding to as many towns as possible. something most people don't realize, but as poor as our mass transit facilities may be compared to japan and europe, we are excellent when it comes to accomodations for the disabled in many ways. when visiting europe and japan (and elsewhere in the world) i was stunned what i took for granted in the level of independence our disabled and elderly had in facilities that accomodated them. it was so hard to find a kneeling bus, or train platforms flush and level with the train, or consistent elevators and networks of information letting you know which are in service, ramps, wide doorways, bathrooms, sinks, paper towel/hand drier, and ramped sidewalks in europe and japan at the same level that i experience daily in northern california and much of elsewhere in america. but the big trouble seems to be getting people to the facilities. everything is so spread out. so if we could get more service times, and on-call taxi-like services, we could easily help more people.
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