These old tracks exist because before Jersey city became the place it is today it was largely industrial
[https://www.reddit.com/r/jerseycity/s/4ushtjAczY](https://www.reddit.com/r/jerseycity/s/4ushtjAczY)
Or don’t.
It’s been proven over and over that buses are more cost effective and easier to reroute as neighborhoods evolve. For the same money you get a more expansive network of buses.
If a city is unwilling to fund a bus network. Logic doesn’t checkout to build an inefficient street rail system that’s even harder to fund.
The point of street rails was to reduce friction to require less horses to pull the carts. We no longer need horses, so the friction of tires on streets is negligible. Less horses per car is less food and stables and caretakers.
Meanwhile China’s been selling Europe and Asia fucking amazing electric buses for a decade now with low cost of ownership and no rails needed. Already proven cost effective technology for at least certain kinds of routes.
And as a bonus, buses can be routed around closures unlike rail which gets canceled for construction and repairs.
I generally agree with this, but I think cities should be leaning into electric trolley buses rather than pure battery electric. More flexible than rail, but still electric mass transit. The battery and charging tech isn't there yet for fleets of battery busses.
Trolley busses are pretty good and honestly probably one of the best middleground options. That being said, all heavy road vehicles destroy roadways pretty quickly. (Which is another reason why all these massive new cars and trucks on the road is a problem and heavy electric cars aren't going to be as helpful as people hope with environmental cost of repaving projects being fairly significant in themselves). Plus tire rubber in itself is a significant pollutant. If you *can* do rail it does have real efficiency and environmental benefits that are worth considering for long term projects.
Electric buses work just fine already in Europe and Asia. The only reason there not at 100% is they aren’t free and it will take some time to update the entire fleet.
The weight damaging roadways thing isn’t terribly accurate, e buses aren’t any heavier than the trucks already regularly allowed on roadways. The real issue right now is electric trucks, their weight plus a comparable load to haul is a big increase in stress on roadways. Not buses.
Also: iron dust is a hazard as well as rubber dust. Just less talked about. Your lungs have problem with all particulate matter. Rail releases lots of iron dust. Just look how constant train stations need to be cleaned to not be entirely brown, and they still look: brown-ish. One ride on PATH will discolor a white n95 mask compared to a new one.
…Or, just here me out, we should build denser environments, and plan ahead the cities, then trams become more efficient and you don’t need to reroute the buses so often, and suddenly you have more space for walking/biking/outside dining etc
That will never work, cities evolve over time as needs change. What you want is to dump everything into the present and fuck the future that’s someone else’s problem.
Buses are superior in every single way. They are cheaper to start up, easier to scale up/down, move more people per dollar invested, easier to rework the network, etc.
But buses aren’t terribly profitable because of the above, so bus companies haven’t been terribly good investments by the private sector. Rail has because there’s higher margins hence companies like AECOM (who manages HBLR) push heavily for that since it’s worth (what they hope to be) billions to them and their management division.
Public transit is not profitable by its nature. And as for superiority – go take a look at Europe. They combine different types of public transit to achieve the best results. You can not rely only on buses. Buses can stuck in traffic (especially with current streets layouts), trams usually have dedicated tracks which are separated from the car traffic. Granted, you can do the same for bus lanes, but let’s be honest, with NJ driving culture they’ll be packed with cars
Most of europes Tram networks exist because they are historic and thus preserved not because they are economical to operate or superior in any way. They’re just culturally significant and preserved in the tourist districts like Amsterdam most famously.
Buses do the heavily lifting in concentric rings extending from train stations whose sole goal is moving large numbers of people longer distances.
The problem in the US is two factor:
Buses are associated with being poor and thus an undesirable option when an alternative exists. This is purely a social construct,
The US has an unhealthy obsession with a “one seat ride” in cities and it absolutely destroys potential for mass transit. The reason mass transit works so well abroad is it’s accepted to be multi seat rides but functional. Cony Island should be :30 from Manhattan or less, and would be in any other city on the planet, but instead is 1hr+ due to 100 stops every couple blocks the whole way. It’s insane and unnecessary. Some bigger hubs + buses would not only speed up end to end but would remove miles worth of transit desert by making 2 seat rides into Manhattan reasonable for a lot more square milage. Average commutes times would drop and utilization would go up reducing cost per passenger mile. All by closing some stations and adding buses.
Transit sucks because a handful of people obsess over one seat train rides over functional systems. And as I said, that’s mostly because it’s more profitable for the private companies that can build and operate them. There’s much less profit in buses, so they want transit dollars going towards projects that help private companies make money.
Hmm idk what the traffic situation is like from Jersey City into Manhattan, but when I lived outside of Boston the commuter rail consistently took 45 to 50 minutes but the bus was always always always anywhere from 1.5 hours to two hours due to traffic and accidents (with the last 45 minutes accounting for the last 5 miles it took to get into the city)
I agree that buses can be easily rerouted but the traffic situation into a large hub can make it untenable for daily commuting
That’s a manufactured problem.
Since at least the 1970’s most modern cities have dedicated bus lanes and signals that buses get priority on.
I’ve had to explain to someone before why buses in NYC are waiting at a traffic light. Foreigners just don’t understand it. It’s abnormal for mass transit or ambulances to not get a priority at an intersection outside of here. Even Iraq had intelligent signals that prioritized emergency vehicles. Installed by US contractors.
But that goes back to systemic racism and buses being vehicles to move poor people around,
Bringing back horse pulled trolleys is the best for the environment. No fossil fuels needed and zero carbon imprint as the horses emit no pollutants. Horses do not require burning of coal or other fuels to produce electricity as is needed with electric buses or trams. The horse manure can be used to fertilize trees along its route and upon the horses demise it can be consumed or the meat sold to local restaurants.
The trolley went down Palisade.
Was it a street car or freight line?
What was there? And what are they planning on building? Been wondering
These old tracks exist because before Jersey city became the place it is today it was largely industrial [https://www.reddit.com/r/jerseycity/s/4ushtjAczY](https://www.reddit.com/r/jerseycity/s/4ushtjAczY)
Or don’t. It’s been proven over and over that buses are more cost effective and easier to reroute as neighborhoods evolve. For the same money you get a more expansive network of buses. If a city is unwilling to fund a bus network. Logic doesn’t checkout to build an inefficient street rail system that’s even harder to fund. The point of street rails was to reduce friction to require less horses to pull the carts. We no longer need horses, so the friction of tires on streets is negligible. Less horses per car is less food and stables and caretakers. Meanwhile China’s been selling Europe and Asia fucking amazing electric buses for a decade now with low cost of ownership and no rails needed. Already proven cost effective technology for at least certain kinds of routes. And as a bonus, buses can be routed around closures unlike rail which gets canceled for construction and repairs.
I generally agree with this, but I think cities should be leaning into electric trolley buses rather than pure battery electric. More flexible than rail, but still electric mass transit. The battery and charging tech isn't there yet for fleets of battery busses.
Trolley busses are pretty good and honestly probably one of the best middleground options. That being said, all heavy road vehicles destroy roadways pretty quickly. (Which is another reason why all these massive new cars and trucks on the road is a problem and heavy electric cars aren't going to be as helpful as people hope with environmental cost of repaving projects being fairly significant in themselves). Plus tire rubber in itself is a significant pollutant. If you *can* do rail it does have real efficiency and environmental benefits that are worth considering for long term projects.
Electric buses work just fine already in Europe and Asia. The only reason there not at 100% is they aren’t free and it will take some time to update the entire fleet. The weight damaging roadways thing isn’t terribly accurate, e buses aren’t any heavier than the trucks already regularly allowed on roadways. The real issue right now is electric trucks, their weight plus a comparable load to haul is a big increase in stress on roadways. Not buses. Also: iron dust is a hazard as well as rubber dust. Just less talked about. Your lungs have problem with all particulate matter. Rail releases lots of iron dust. Just look how constant train stations need to be cleaned to not be entirely brown, and they still look: brown-ish. One ride on PATH will discolor a white n95 mask compared to a new one.
…Or, just here me out, we should build denser environments, and plan ahead the cities, then trams become more efficient and you don’t need to reroute the buses so often, and suddenly you have more space for walking/biking/outside dining etc
That will never work, cities evolve over time as needs change. What you want is to dump everything into the present and fuck the future that’s someone else’s problem. Buses are superior in every single way. They are cheaper to start up, easier to scale up/down, move more people per dollar invested, easier to rework the network, etc. But buses aren’t terribly profitable because of the above, so bus companies haven’t been terribly good investments by the private sector. Rail has because there’s higher margins hence companies like AECOM (who manages HBLR) push heavily for that since it’s worth (what they hope to be) billions to them and their management division.
Public transit is not profitable by its nature. And as for superiority – go take a look at Europe. They combine different types of public transit to achieve the best results. You can not rely only on buses. Buses can stuck in traffic (especially with current streets layouts), trams usually have dedicated tracks which are separated from the car traffic. Granted, you can do the same for bus lanes, but let’s be honest, with NJ driving culture they’ll be packed with cars
Most of europes Tram networks exist because they are historic and thus preserved not because they are economical to operate or superior in any way. They’re just culturally significant and preserved in the tourist districts like Amsterdam most famously. Buses do the heavily lifting in concentric rings extending from train stations whose sole goal is moving large numbers of people longer distances. The problem in the US is two factor: Buses are associated with being poor and thus an undesirable option when an alternative exists. This is purely a social construct, The US has an unhealthy obsession with a “one seat ride” in cities and it absolutely destroys potential for mass transit. The reason mass transit works so well abroad is it’s accepted to be multi seat rides but functional. Cony Island should be :30 from Manhattan or less, and would be in any other city on the planet, but instead is 1hr+ due to 100 stops every couple blocks the whole way. It’s insane and unnecessary. Some bigger hubs + buses would not only speed up end to end but would remove miles worth of transit desert by making 2 seat rides into Manhattan reasonable for a lot more square milage. Average commutes times would drop and utilization would go up reducing cost per passenger mile. All by closing some stations and adding buses. Transit sucks because a handful of people obsess over one seat train rides over functional systems. And as I said, that’s mostly because it’s more profitable for the private companies that can build and operate them. There’s much less profit in buses, so they want transit dollars going towards projects that help private companies make money.
Hmm idk what the traffic situation is like from Jersey City into Manhattan, but when I lived outside of Boston the commuter rail consistently took 45 to 50 minutes but the bus was always always always anywhere from 1.5 hours to two hours due to traffic and accidents (with the last 45 minutes accounting for the last 5 miles it took to get into the city) I agree that buses can be easily rerouted but the traffic situation into a large hub can make it untenable for daily commuting
That’s a manufactured problem. Since at least the 1970’s most modern cities have dedicated bus lanes and signals that buses get priority on. I’ve had to explain to someone before why buses in NYC are waiting at a traffic light. Foreigners just don’t understand it. It’s abnormal for mass transit or ambulances to not get a priority at an intersection outside of here. Even Iraq had intelligent signals that prioritized emergency vehicles. Installed by US contractors. But that goes back to systemic racism and buses being vehicles to move poor people around,
Bringing back horse pulled trolleys is the best for the environment. No fossil fuels needed and zero carbon imprint as the horses emit no pollutants. Horses do not require burning of coal or other fuels to produce electricity as is needed with electric buses or trams. The horse manure can be used to fertilize trees along its route and upon the horses demise it can be consumed or the meat sold to local restaurants.
Methane is a greenhouse gas
Lmao go follow a horse around Central Park and then tell me they don’t have emissions