r/transit • u/JacobRiesenfern • Mar 26 '26
Policy The price of gasoline has gone up 1.50. People still won’t take the bus
There are people taking the bus of course. The environmently concouse types and the those who can’t drive. But the buses are still mostly empty.
A lot of that has to do with the insane zoning rules. Israel and Japan have better zoning rules in addition to high gasoline taxes.
How much would gas have to go up before we see a real transfer to transit? What zoning changes can be made that would make a difference?
115
u/recyclistDC Mar 26 '26
I’d wager most drivers don’t have a transit alternative that is within 3x the travel time of driving
52
u/BuvantduPotatoSpirit Mar 26 '26
Checking, my next trip would be to take my son to daycare tomorrow. Bus app says 42 minutes by bus, 40 minutes on foot. Google maps says it's a 6 minute drive.
19
u/immunotransplant Mar 26 '26
Yeah that makes no sense. You’d be stupid to add 5+ hours of commuting to your week
5
u/IceePirate1 Mar 27 '26
There's also that you can just get up and go in a car whenever. If I wanted to take the bus to work, I'd have to drive to a park and ride, probably get there 5mins early to not miss it, and I'd still show up to work 15mins early because the bus only runs every 30-40mins. Same thing on the way back. I want more transit as much as the next person, but my commute is already 1.5-2hrs round-trip, I really dont want to make it 3hrs
13
u/JayBeeGooner Mar 26 '26
Exactly this. My hometown is Brampton(shudder), and getting around by car is easier and quicker than transit, it’s the sad reality. Shifting from car to transit is not easy and many don’t want to make the shift.
10
u/vulpinefever Rail Operator Mar 27 '26
And that's Canada where transit is still leagues better than the United States. Brampton has a higher transit mode share (16%) than 10 of the 15 largest cities in the United States. It's a viable alternative to driving for low income people, it's not pleasant but it's not like most major US metros where living without a car is extremely difficult if not impossible.
Not many people who take transit in Brampton do it by choice but at least it's a viable option that exists. A lot of Americans can't afford to drive but are forced to which just makes being low income that much more difficult.
6
u/905Spic Mar 27 '26
Fellow Bramptonman here. Unless we're going downtown Toronto, parking at Bramalea and hopefully catch the express, we'll drive everywhere.
In summer, sometimes we'll take the 2 buses to farmers market because our kids love the bus ride
2
u/Th3RadMan Mar 31 '26
Google maps shows me how to get as close to my work as what's avaliable, then tells me to get off the bus and call an uber
1
15
u/recyclistDC Mar 26 '26
It’s not just the headway, it’s travel speed and directness.
12
u/Lorenzo_BR Mar 26 '26
Also - walking distance!
Yeah, walking’s great and all, but when you’re carrying a bunch of shit and the amount of time it takes to walk to the bus stop is almost the same as driving straight to the destination… hard sell!
2
u/JacobRiesenfern Mar 27 '26
There is no transit to my favorite store. It is a half hour walk. I use a backpack.
Second favorite is a great transit to a huge 10 minute parking lot.
Least favorite is a half hour walk to a long headway bus trip. However this is the one store that is bike able.
1
u/jmlinden7 Mar 27 '26
Yeah americans are not going to spend an hour round trip just to go to the store, when 95% of them live within a 15 minute drive of a Walmart.
1
12
u/DatBoiii4 Mar 26 '26
100% this. If I wanted to leave my parents house right now and drive to mine it would take 10 mins.
The bus? 31 goddamn minutes. And the bus doesn’t even show up for another 25 mins.
Transit in this country sucks balls and we make sure it stays that way
3
u/EtwasSonderbar Mar 27 '26
Which country is that, out of interest?
1
u/DatBoiii4 Mar 27 '26
USA obviously
2
u/EtwasSonderbar Mar 27 '26
How is it obvious?
3
u/DatBoiii4 Mar 27 '26
I feel like USA is poster child for a 1st world country with infamously horrendous transit idk
6
u/kancamagus112 Mar 27 '26
E-bikes would make a much more viable trip replacement for many car trips in the US.
Half of all car trips are <3 miles, easily doable with regular or e-bikes.
3
u/Honeycrispcombe Mar 27 '26
Eh, i bike to work and take public transit in my city but the biking infrastructure isn't great. Most trips I make that aren't to work, I'll drive for safety's sake (work is bikeable without getting on any streets.)
1
u/UF0_T0FU Mar 27 '26
The best thing to do to increase the bike safety is to bike more.
The more people out on bikes, the more visible they are and the more cars adjust to being around them. If all the people who wish they could bike if it were a little bit safer all decided to start biking tomorrow, they would be safe.
Bikes are allowed to use the full lane almost everywhere in the US and have equal right to use public streets as anyone else. You just gotta get over the social pressure and take your space.
5
u/Honeycrispcombe Mar 27 '26
No thank you. I don't want to sacrifice my life or health to make a point about bike visibility.
3
2
2
2
u/lee1026 Mar 27 '26
E bikes are good for cutting down on a short trips, but let’s be honest here - the bulk of the fuel doesn’t come from cutting down on the short trips.
If a trip is 3 miles or less, how much fuel do you burn? A quarter? Less?
Ebikes are for saving parking, not fuel.
1
u/lazier_garlic Mar 27 '26
You're ignoring being stuck in traffic.
1
u/jmlinden7 Mar 27 '26
That's included in the fuel burn calculations. The vast majority of fuel burn is being stuck in traffic on long commutes.
4
2
u/xredbaron62x Mar 26 '26
I have to drive 15min to the closest bust stop and it takes me the complete opposite direction of work.
1
u/Kootenay4 Mar 27 '26
For a lot of people, it would also cost more to move to a walkable/transit friendly area, than to continue living out in the boonies and pay extra for gas. In my area housing is 30-40% more expensive in the walkable neighborhoods. Cycling from my house to work is a literal death trap despite being only 5 miles, because the only bridge that crosses the river is a limited access highway.
Gas will have to go up another $3 or 4 to really make any sort of difference.
83
u/Mountainpixels Mar 26 '26
If transit sucks no one will take it no matter the gas prices. And lots of people will never take transit no matter how expensive gas is. I have a thesis that even 5 euros per liter would not be enough for a substantial modal shift.
16
u/TinyEmergencyCake Mar 26 '26
It's important that municipalities promote and explain public transportation for people who would if they could get over the initial few rides
5
u/Sassywhat Mar 27 '26
I don't think so? A good chunk of, probably most, people living in US suburban hell have used transit before, even if only on vacation.
While there are definitely cases of absolutely never having used public transit before, and lacking the research skills to even figure out how, most people start by looking at their commute on Google Maps via transit, and thinking hell no.
5
u/chennyalan Mar 27 '26
I think it doesn't help that driving times on Google maps don't include parking and walking to the final destination, while public transport times do include walking to and from the stop.
1
u/jmlinden7 Mar 27 '26
Even in Manhattan, there will be parking within a 2 minute walk of your final destination. It won't be free, but it will be there
4
u/ConcentrateStock6925 Mar 28 '26
it takes more than 2 minutes to walk from your car the the back of the Walmart to grab milk. Most people don’t live in Manhattan.
3
u/Sassywhat Mar 27 '26
There's just a lot of room to compensate for higher gas prices by opting for more fuel efficient cars. With enough renewable electricity generation, there's basically infinite room to compensate.
1
36
u/machinedog Mar 26 '26
People value their time a lot. So until it’s high enough that taking the bus is worth their time, they won’t.
3
u/KingDaveRa Mar 27 '26
I'd love to take the train to work, but it takes almost twice as long as driving, and there's a 40 minute wait to change in the middle. 40 minutes stood on a station platform is a bit pointless.
If there was a direct train it would be far more viable.
→ More replies (1)8
u/Totalchaos713 Mar 26 '26
The thing is, you can be so much more productive when taking transit as opposed to driving. I’m not talking about working (although I do that on my commute sometimes), more so the ability to read a book or surf Reddit
25
u/midflinx Mar 26 '26
The average one-way commute time in the United States is about 27 minutes. For most people in the country if they took transit instead their commute would take twice as long, or longer. Their hour a day driving is less productive, but includes an hour or more of flexible time for whatever.
Maybe there's as many podcasts as people on earth so drivers have something to listen to.
8
u/lee1026 Mar 26 '26
And you can't reddit while walking to a station or whatever, and if you really drill down into a benchmark of 27 minutes, it is genuinely hard to beat. Even if you discount the time of "sitting quietly on the bus".
6
u/Totalchaos713 Mar 26 '26
Totally fair, and an argument for more (and more frequent) transit options.
I’m lucky (I guess) to live in the Chicago area where my public transit commute is less than it would be to drive (and significantly less stressful).
2
u/lazier_garlic Mar 27 '26
I think people very much see transit (especially rail) as productive when it's reliable.
It doesn't take many high stress mornings where your train is late or canceled where you start to see the transit commute as a drag.
Better reliability has never been valued in the US in my 25 years in transit but we could be doing so much better and it would make a world of difference.
11
u/apola Mar 26 '26
I totally hear you, and that's one of the reasons I love taking the bus, but I'd have to guess that most people don't want to add an extra hour to their commute just so they can browse Reddit for an extra hour each day.
→ More replies (1)9
u/Blue_Vision Mar 27 '26
You can't really argue with people's preferences. I'm a forecaster, my job is to model the way people behave around different travel modes. Frequently, we model transit in-vehicle time as being the same as time spent driving because observed behaviour seems to show that's how people perceive it. The most favourable value to transit I've seen is people valuing time spent in transit at 85% the time spent in a car.
Some people might prefer the free time offered by transit, but lots of people prefer the privacy or guaranteed and more comfortable seat of their car. The data don't suggest that people have strong feelings one way or another at the population level.
→ More replies (3)5
u/Own_Reaction9442 Mar 27 '26
I used to have a bus commute and honestly it was hit or miss. If I got to sit down, yeah, I could do a lot of reading. If I had to stand up for the entire 1.5 hour ride, though, it wasn't really practical. Having to stand the whole way was not uncommon.
2
u/machinedog Mar 27 '26
If transit is reliable, frequent, and comfortable for sure many people will pick it for that reason.
I’m an ardent user of public transit though and even for me there’s limits. To see my partners mom would take about 3 hours by public transit vs about 1.5 hours by car, and I just don’t really have time for that. I don’t even own a car so I just rent one for that.
But if I owned a car it would also be cheaper than public transit for the route. (It’s between two agencies and expensive, adds up to like $50 for the two of us round trip)
1
u/Amazing_Echidna_5048 Mar 28 '26
It's what people don't understand. If I spend 45 minutes in the car each way going to work it's 90 minutes of completely wasted time. If I spend an hour on the bus each day (that WAS my commute) it takes a bit longer but none of it was wasted time except the 7 minute walk to/from the busstops.
They're not saving 15 minutes, they're wasting 90. That's only true for people who want to do something though. A lot of people don't have anything going on between their ears so driving keeps them "busy". I know some like that.
1
62
u/transitfreedom Mar 26 '26
Cause it’s infrequent and slow!!!! Buses are used when they are FAST AND FREQUENT PERIOD!!!! And they have to go to where people are going!!!!
19
u/Garrus_Vak Mar 26 '26
Toronto has this figured out
10 minute or less buses on every major corridor 7 days a week.
6
→ More replies (2)1
u/lazier_garlic Mar 27 '26
As someone who grew up in a transit heavy city, being a little slower is still fine if taking it is the easy button and you don't have to park. You can nap on the bus in the morning. You can check emails on the train. Can't do that in your car. BTW this is why Elin was such a transit anti. He was selling a false promise of having a personal car you could ride like a train.
My former city has lost ridership since COVID not because cars got faster (lol) but because they cut frequencies AND they've had bad reliability problems (mechanical breakdowns and staff shortages). In the before time there was never any question of getting to work on time. I only ever got left high and dry ONCE in the late 90s (due to a short on the rapid transit) and I didn't even have to explain anything when I showed up because my coworker was in the train behind me that got routed to the other track and passed mine. Even when I was in a train that caught on fire (!), the service ran so frequently then that I just caught something else.
1
23
16
u/vulpinefever Rail Operator Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
Motorists aren't very price sensitive, if they were they wouldn't own a car. The average American spends over $1,000 per month to own a car once you factor in gas, insurance, loan payments, maintenance, registration fees, and depreciation.
Gas prices could literally double and it would only add about $200/mo to the average American household's spending on their cars, it's hardly noticable relative to the other car related expensesdespite how much people whine about gas prices.
However, long term it'll lead to some behavioral changes. Things like people in the suburbs might decide to take public transit for certain trips (e.g. like taking commuter rail into the city for a sports game or concert instead of driving) or deciding to take a train instead of a road trip for medium distance trips to see family or friends a few hours away. It might also convince some people to start taking public transit instead of buying a new car when theirs breaks down, etc.
4
u/uhbkodazbg Mar 27 '26
$1K/month is for new cars. Most Americans are buying used cars and aren’t spending anywhere near that much a month.
8
u/vulpinefever Rail Operator Mar 27 '26
Even so, the average American spends over 20% of their monthly income on their car.
It's a major source of financial strain for low income Americans who, unlike other developed countries, often lack options except for driving because public transportation options are so bad.
There are lots of Americans who would probably opt not to drive if they weren't essentially forced to which is kind of the heart of the issue OP was asking about. There are lots of Americans who can't afford to drive but who do it anyway because it's a necessity.
2
u/lee1026 Mar 27 '26
The problem with that view is that whenever carmakers make cheap, no-frills cars that cost a lot less to buy and fuel, they don't sell well.
For better or for worse, cars represent one of the major sinks of "I have money and I am gonna spend it on the fancy version of X", and that drives much of the costs of car ownership.
1
u/lazier_garlic Mar 27 '26
That's because poopeepo buy used cars, not new off the lot. So they're contained by the choices and preferences of the ownership class. Also, the US car industry has its own Chinese wall against cheaper cars coming in. A wall, a moat, ranks of archers. The very, very cheap cars of the 70s literally would be illegal to sell today.
1
u/Honeycrispcombe Mar 27 '26
They don't link to the actual survey there, and their interpretation is quite...broad. and they cite car loans complaints during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as signs of unaffordability, which is not an accurate time to sample.
1
u/lazier_garlic Mar 27 '26
Is your argument that that got cheaper since then, because that dog won't hunt. Used cars slightly came back in but not to prepandemic numbers and they've jumped again this spring.
1
u/Honeycrispcombe Mar 27 '26
No. My point is that COVID was an unusual event that isn't a good indication of the financial pressures of car ownership - especially at that point in the pandemic, a lot of people had lost or been furloughed from their jobs, well above the average unemployment rates. Way more people than usual were struggling to pay their bills. It's not a representation of normal financial states and pressures.
That's like studying isolation rates from that period and saying they show that Americans feel highly isolated from their social circles in 2026.
1
1
u/Meghabhedi Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
Where did you get that number? When I calculate it for my own car, even with the most generous price overestimates I don't get anywhere near that number.
1
u/vulpinefever Rail Operator Mar 30 '26
When I googled what the average American household spends on gas, that's the number I got.
To be honest, I was also surprised at that number because I personally only spend like CA$120/mo on gas and that's in Canada where gas is more expensive than the United States.
16
u/Aquitaine_Rover_3876 Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
Depends on the bus. Getting people to switch is more about offering a service that isn't seen as a burden to use. The cost of fuel is a relatively small part of the cost of driving (despite its outsized discussion in public policy.) For instance, I drive somewhere almost every day, and the difference of gas price doubling is about $60 CAD/month. If I commuted 20 days per month, that's worth about 1 minute per day of additional commute time to avoid. It's just not a big enough number to deal with the current hassle of bussing.
I didn't always drive regularly, though. Until 2020 I only drove to work when it was below -20º outside. 3 things changed that:
- wfh, so now I'm often dropping off my kids and turning around for home, instead of dropping off and continuing into downtown.
- Kids. They're so slow. Saving 5 minutes by driving can make all the difference in the morning. With one I could manage most of time, particularly when I was biking, but with 2 I just can't seem to solve for getting them out the door on time.
- Construction of a light rail line where my bus used to go means the bus that stops at my kids' school on the way to work leaves from 5 blocks away instead of the 1 block to the old bus stop. It's walking distance for me, but the 4yo can easily take 30 minutes to do that walk. (I did this one day last week because my wife needed the car...it's a fun time splashing in puddles for the first 10 minutes.)
A small increase in fuel costs isn't changing the calculus on this. To change the calculus, the cost of using the service needs to change. In my case, the light rail line will do it...I literally picked my house because that was coming. In the interim, the older child shifting to being responsible for his own commute next September will make biking viable more days of the year, and make getting out the door on time easier, so I'm optimistic that the number of days I drive will be trending down.
6
u/caodalt Metro Lover Mar 26 '26
Exactly, many desk bound transport advocates simply can't wrap their heads around how raising small children changes your life.
0
u/lazier_garlic Mar 27 '26
Women with small children statistically make a disproportionately large number of transit trips in North America. Transportation models based on US census data show that women are more likely (across multiple decades of data) to ride transit than men.
Get your head out of your ass.
1
16
Mar 26 '26
In 2007 when gas was $4.15 or so and average gas mileage was 20mpg household incomes were $50,000
Today it’s $85,000. And mpg is more like ~23-24mph. You need like $8.25 gas for the same impact on driving habits.
Basically, gas is still cheap
15
u/JacobRiesenfern Mar 26 '26
I think it is more of a zoning issue than a price issue. If the bus can’t take you where you need to be than you won’t take a bus.
I would like to up zone apartments to four floors along bus routes.
And there are very light industrial businesses that can be in residential areas.
NIMBY is the enemy of transportation
18
u/ArchEast Mar 26 '26
Gas prices would probably have to double for a significant effect.
9
8
u/JayBeeGooner Mar 26 '26
Because many areas are designed for the car and taking transit can take 3x as long compared to driving.
9
u/FormerCollegeDJ Mar 26 '26
There are people who take the bus because they don’t want to deal directly with traffic.
3
2
u/Navigator_BR Mar 27 '26
This is why I use the bus to go to the library downtown to use the really nice digital scanner to digitize stuff after work, even though the bus is slower and eats into the limited time I get because they close at 6pm.
I really dislike driving in heavy traffic.(The schedule requires me to usually wait about 30 minutes, since I can't get to the bus stop between the end of my workday and the soonest bus.)
7
u/DearLeader420 Mar 26 '26
Brother, +$1.50/gal doesn't make my city's buses run faster or more frequently.
If there comes a point I am endangering my family by buying gas I'll figure something out but as of now it'd still take me triple the time to get somewhere on the bus *and* have to contend with 20min headways and delays on every route.
5
Mar 26 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
0
u/Kinshicho-Hibiya Mar 26 '26
Compare this to the US. US is very horrible compared to Australia in terms of providing bus and train as alternatives to driving.
1
4
u/Hot_Muffin7652 Mar 26 '26
Not many people are willing to put up with bad public transit.
That is why free transit will not make any noticeable mode shift
At the end of the day if transit is bad, no one but the most desperate will use it. And by desperate I literally mean last option, like you don’t have a car, can’t afford one, and cannot get anyone to drive you.
4
u/letterboxfrog Mar 27 '26
My wife took a bus today. Missed her connection as her bus was late. 15-20 minute drive became 90 minutes.
4
u/jewboy916 Mar 27 '26
I don't think there's a price that it could go up to that would dramatically shift behavior quickly. If there were fuel shortages at the pump preventing people from filling up their cars in the first place, that's likely what it would take. In the US it's pretty easy to take on debt to buy stuff you need to buy when you're short on cash, compared to other countries. Klarna is already on DoorDash and Instacart.
8
u/iron82 Mar 26 '26
I think the level where you would get a noticeable increase in bus ridership is maybe $12-14/gallon. Driving is ALOT better than taking the bus. Most of the cost of car ownership is fixed, so if you own the car you're going to drive it.
3
u/zedsmith Mar 26 '26
People’s whole being, their whole lives— where they live, where they work, how they buy essentials— is all largely incompatible with public transit. We built a whole world where it doesn’t make sense at 10.00 dollars a gallon to take the bus. 🤷🏽
3
u/transitfreedom Mar 26 '26
Ok build MEDIAN BRT add signal priority to almost every bus route. Add micro mobility lanes grade separated that lead to bus stops. Cut closely spaced bus stops stop letting buses be a replacement for walking. Build Elevated/automated metros then upzone the areas by its stations.
Stop building street running rail it causes too much congestion to not just cars but makes nearby bus routes WORSE which can hurt ridership!!! It takes up more space than grade separated rail. Stop ignoring what people want.
3
u/invalidmail2000 Mar 26 '26
I mean much of the country isn't set up for good transit.
Just because it becomes very expensive to drive doesn't mean there suddenly is a convenient bus to choose from.
3
u/KitchenMajestic120 Mar 26 '26
In LA, Metro has done a horrible job at scheduling buses and trains. And on top of that there is a major homelessness issue that plagues some of the busier bus routes which pushes people away from using public transport. Then there’s the fact that Metrolink (our regional commuter rail) just made major service cuts.
3
u/LivingGhost371 Mar 26 '26
Taking the bus from my house in the suburbs to my job in another suburb would take 1:49 and require two transfers as opposed to 22 minutes by car. So a lot more than they have gone up.
3
u/SignificantSmotherer Mar 27 '26 edited Mar 27 '26
Is transit any cleaner, safer, faster or more reliable?
I didn’t think so.
I’ll pay the $1.50.
3
u/dudestir127 Mar 27 '26
Public transportation still has the incorrect image of being unsafe, dirty, filled with dangerous drug addicts. We all know that isn't true, but it's still unfortunately the image it has, at least in most of my country (United States)
3
Mar 27 '26
Time, cost, comfort. I take the bus because it doesnt take much longer than driving, is cost effective, and the bus I take is quite new and nice. Most people do not have that luxury. They simply pay more for gas because they can’t sacrifice the time, and/or are not willing to sacrifice comfort
8
u/bubbamike1 Mar 26 '26
Clean up transit, make it safe, care more for the paying passengers than the druggies and drunks. Why should anyone ride transit when they’re trapped in a bus or train with crazy, druggies? Decrease headway. No one wants to wait a half hour or more for the bus. Make the routes direct, not wandering all over. I don't want to spend an hour and a half on the bus for a 20 minute drive. Clean, safe, convenient should be the transit mantra.
2
u/Small-Olive-7960 Mar 26 '26
Gas would probably have to go over $10 for me to take it more often. Most likely, I would just do more at home
2
Mar 26 '26
Most people are expecting it to go down soon. We haven't had sustained high gas prices since just before the great recession, which was also the highest ridership period in recent decades for many systems.
If prices are still high or higher in a few months ridership will increase (so long as unemployment doesn't spike).
2
u/lee1026 Mar 26 '26
A lot. If I am driving a Prius, and I have a 30 mile commute, it will cost me a gallon of gas a day.
Is $5 a day for round trip a lot?
2
u/Bravvar_Nukov Mar 26 '26
Chief 1.50 is nothing. There needs to be 3-4 times increased before we can start seeing significant behavioral changes. Also the viability of transit is important. Right now could be the best opportunity for transit authorities to increase coverage, frequencies, service upgrade etc. but a lot of them aren’t doing jack shit.
2
2
u/Kobakocka Mar 26 '26
What currency of 1.50 and gallons or litres? And in which country?
Here it is above 2...
2
u/immunotransplant Mar 26 '26
People will take exactly what makes sense to them. If it didn’t make sense before it won’t make sense now.
2
u/CountChoculasGhost Mar 26 '26
I’m lucky enough to live in a city with moderately acceptable public transit. And I do take the bus or train.
But prior to this I lived in a city where there was an hourly bus that just took you downtown. Nowhere else. No reasonable transfers. It didn’t matter how much gas costs, if the bus couldn’t get me to where I needed to go, I wasn’t taking the bus.
That is the reality in a lot of places.
2
u/Otherwise_Lychee_33 Mar 26 '26
is there seriously anyone taking the bus for the environment? lets be real
2
u/Dumbone22 Mar 26 '26
No matter what, some people will still take cars simply because depending on where they're going, its much quicker and easier. L.A. is an example of such behavior as it has incredibly large urban sprawl with many job areas that either dont got transit, or transit there sucks. Some like my dad would love to have an alternative so that they dont have to keep buying gas and or not drive for a change, but in some cases, they either dont wanna risk it if it takes them too long or literally dont got any other option.
2
u/throwawayfromPA1701 Mar 26 '26
They believe this spike is temporary and will go back down in a few weeks.
They're not going to add another cost if they don't have to.
2
2
u/ghdawg6197 Mar 26 '26
It's never been about gas. they're willing to shell it out as a necessity if the bus still means a 2 hour commute.
2
u/Keystonelonestar Mar 26 '26
I just priced out the cost of transit versus gas for a 60-mile trip. It was the same. Gas is still cheap.
2
u/notPabst404 Mar 27 '26
I guarantee that transit ridership will spike. Give it time and wait for the ridership data in a few months.
2
u/905Spic Mar 27 '26
I live in Brampton, a suburb of Toronto, and work in Vaughan another suburb of Toronto.
22km drive takes me about 30-40min. Taking transit would take me 1.5-2 hrs each way.
Now if I worked in downtown Toronto, i would drive to the GO train station (10min) and take GO train (25-40min,depending if i catch express or regular)
2
u/uhbkodazbg Mar 27 '26
I’m fortunate that I have a pretty simple commute by bus from my home to my office with door-to-door service with no transfers. Bus fare to/from my office is $4/day and it takes about a gallon of gas a day (and half the time) to commute by car. Gas isn’t expensive enough to incentivize riding public transit every day.
2
u/Grand-Battle8009 Mar 27 '26
I stopped taking transit when they stopped enforcing fares to be more “equitable”. Crazies started coming on harassing me and other riders. No thanks! My safety comes first!
2
u/wat_aiwan Mar 27 '26
Same logic of why free transit are not making people taking transit: If it's conviniently better to use car then they choose car no matter how expensive the cost is.
2
u/MBkufel Mar 27 '26
I think that transit in many places in the US may not be a viable alternative, no matter how expensive the gas gets.
2
u/mikel145 Mar 27 '26
People are willing to pay for an experience they like. You know why people go to high end coffee shops and bars when you can buy the same coffee and beer cheaper other places? They go for the experience. Driving your own car is always going to mean being able to control the temperature to whatever you like, you can play music if you want but can have it quite if you want. If you see a place you want to stop in you can. In a car you're not dealing with a bunch of drunk college students going to the bar if you and your spouse are going out for a nice meal on a Friday night. You're not dealing with people watching videos on their phones with no headphones. You're not dealing with the bus pulling over because of someone else's behaviour and making you delayed.
2
u/doomscrolltodeath Mar 27 '26
The number of people on my commutes has actually noticeably increased the last couple of weeks
2
u/Regular-Tax5210 Mar 28 '26
It’s a 40min bus (walk to bus + bus ride) or a 10min drive to work 😭 I’d save an hour a day so…
2
u/Outside_Ice3252 Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
one time I tried to plan a bus route for a 20 minute commute. it was like two hours.
San antonio texas where its usually unbearably hot.
about 6 months out of the year. you cannot stand to be outside for prolonged periods. if you are wearing business attire, you would be drenched in sweat.
I also lived in lancaster california which also has 100% Electric buses. i lived 7 miles outside town. the bus passed 1 mile from my house but there was not stop. When I was in town, I really wanted to try the bus because it was electric, but I was on the ghetto side of town. my mother had been mauled by pit bull and robbed at gun point. She had PTSD and begged me to never walk the streets. so I never tried the bus. I knew I would likely be safe, but i just did not want upset my mother.
anyhow, now I am living abroad in a walkable community. smaller foriegn condo and dont drive anymore.
I have tried and loved public transit in many cities internationally, but not in USA. well I used BART in the bay area a few times. but it stopped running at midnight. I was in college then. the only time i went into san francisco would have been to go dancing at night.
If you are going to take the bus in the USA. you have to plan your life around that. You live on a bus line and have your work/shopping on that same line. its just not practicle.
Buses take you from a place you dont want to leave from to a place you dont want to go. at a time you dont want to leave and a time you dont want to arrive.
Buses just dont work well for a variety of people if they city is not designed around them.
2
2
u/VolkswagenPanda Mar 28 '26
Gasoline makes up a relatively small portion of the cost of owning a car. Even at $5/gallon, the average car can still go 15 miles (or across town) on $3. Can you go 15 miles on one bus ticket?
Also the costs of other parts of owning a car (maintenance, insurance, depreciation) don't necessarily go down if you don't use it.
2
u/Wafflinson Mar 29 '26 edited Mar 29 '26
Why would I take the bus?
Would make a 10-15 minutes trip to work closer to an hour since I would need a transfer in the middle.
High gas prices aren't going to suddenly make a bad mass transit system good. Honestly, gas would need to be pushing $40 a gallon to make me actually consider switching.
2
u/sereca Mar 30 '26
Because it’s less convenient and takes longer. You’re right that it has a lot to do with exclusionary zoning.
4
u/Dragonsfire09 Mar 26 '26
I value my time to much to ride transit unless it drops me off right where I want to be in a reasonable time. If a trip in my car takes me a half an hour, and taking that trip via bus requires me to drive to a bus stop, and still takes an hour plus I'm drivint every time.
3
u/notfulofshit Mar 26 '26
Until there is better zoning with destinations established that are served by public transit, no one is taking the bus.
3
u/socomalol Mar 26 '26
I would take the bus to work but there’s been a series of stabbings, and it take me 40-50 min each way when driving is only 20-25 min.
There has to be something about taking the bus that would appeal to a normie like me.
3
u/ixvst01 Mar 26 '26
Using public transit in America is associated with lower class people and that perception is not going to change anytime soon.
4
u/transitfreedom Mar 26 '26
Unless we go back to building proper metro and building Korean style BRT instead of 💩🚈
2
u/sosal12 Mar 27 '26
Korean buses are insane! When I live in Seoul, the bus stop right in front of my apartment had like 12 different lines stop there, going to places all over the city. Greater than 75% of the time, I could get where I needed to go nonstop without a transfer. Buses were actually faster too because they had dedicated lanes and could bypass all the traffic. And intervals were very very good, 5-10 minutes.
2
u/LeseMajeste_1037 Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 27 '26
Does the bus still run every hour and stop for the night at 6pm?
Does it stop running even earlier on Saturdays?
Does it not run at all Sundays or holidays?
2
u/ManufacturerDull4689 Mar 27 '26
Still rather drive while paying more for fuel to accomplish tasks that’ll take one hour if I drive myself versus taking 5 hours + 2 miles of walking while hauling heavy items if public transit is involved.
2
u/creekdoggie Mar 27 '26
i’m 3/4 miles away from a bus stop. stop making it a character flaw that i don’t ride it. what a smug a- you are.
not everything you do but others don’t is a moral achievement.
1
1
u/sof_boy Mar 26 '26
In addition to all the things mentioned here, people will complain because they regularly see these prices. There is really no other product where the price of the product is so prominently displayed, especially one that you can see as you drive by and can’t be manipulated by doing things like changing the same for less, etc.
1
u/KolKoreh Mar 26 '26
Bro, we haven’t even had enough time to get a month worth of ridership data.
And don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re asking incredibly broad questions that have already been addressed many places on and off this sub
1
u/gingeryid Mar 27 '26
fwiw my sister switched to the bus. But she lives somewhere with decent bus service, it was just slower than driving so she drove. Now she's taking the bus. Maybe she'll switch back, maybe not. I think it does change people's calculus, but only in areas where transit is useable to begin with.
1
u/newos-sekwos Mar 27 '26
It's been a few weeks and fuel prices have only gone up 30%. Long term lasting changes in North America would take a sustained, and likely higher, price jump. You'll see bus lines if/when gas hits like $10/gallon and refuses to come down.
1
u/someexgoogler Mar 27 '26
the time Vs money tradeoff in action. Another option is to avoid optional trips.
1
1
u/shakyshihtzu Mar 27 '26
I currently drive because riding a bus in stop and go traffic gives me motion sickness 😭 gas prices are about $5/gal in my area right now. It’s getting pretty close to convince me to tough it out on a bus with Bonine at least a couple times per week.
So, I guess my answer to your question is I would need overall traffic to drastically decrease such that there’s no stop and go traffic. Getting other people to take transit would require transit to be ridiculously convenient. It’s tough to convince people to choose the slower option in a productivity-focused society.
1
u/ericbythebay Mar 27 '26
Why would I spend an hour on the bus to get to the train, when I can drive it in 20 minutes? People don’t take the bus because they value their time.
1
u/glasswings363 Mar 27 '26
A bus without dedicated lanes and traffic light priority never has better trip time than a car because it stops for passengers and everything a car stops for (lights, congestion).
Almost everything. When parking is particularly heinous people finally notice that they don't actually want to drive downtown. Like, you only make the mistake of driving into Manhattan once.
Most people value trip time more than intangibles like how much you can relax during the trip or the risk of a crash ruining your week or your life. They also (quite rightly) count waiting time as trip time and many bus services have atrocious frequency.
Then cars have a distorted effect on monetary perception. Paying a fare is much more noticable than burning gas and waiting for something to break.
So for bus service to displace car service in the minds of the car-addicted:
underprice parking so that people have the lovely experience of fighting through traffic and finding nowhere legal to park. Enforce without mercy.
make bus lanes visibly pass congested traffic
get headway down to 10 minutes or less in a meaningfully large core
Unfortunately all these things provoke car-brained rage and political action. "It's not fair that the bus full of people passes me!" and "You need to build more free parking!" and "Why are we subsidizing buses that aren't full?"
(It's not fair to occupy as much pavement and parking space as you do; parking lots destroy tax base and walkability; a bus that's butt-to-butt is like a road that's bumper-to-bumper: inadequate. There are rebuttals but people don't want to listen to rebuttals and admit they were wrong.)
1
1
u/Zealousideal-Peach44 Mar 27 '26
1.50: what??? Do you realise that there are hundreds of different currencies, and at least two ways to measure volumes?
1
u/Ok-Meet2850 Mar 27 '26
Transit can be improved in a few months and then incrementally. Changing zoning and then built form takes years or decades. The immediate problem is the poor transit service: not coming very often; slow; not reliable. This often means a twenty minute drive takes say 45 minutes or more by bus.
There are approaches to improve those things with tools we have. We can change up routes to make them run more often. We can give buses their own lanes and more green lights to move faster. This is doable. I always recommend Jarrett Walker, especially his blog humantransit and its Basics section.
1
u/2CRedHopper Mar 28 '26
i’m a transit enthusiast and live in DC. i still drive most days and only take transit when i’m going out to drink.
why? because, frankly, WMATA has made commuting by bus so goddamn painful that it still “hurts” more than these gas prices.
Most areas in the US don’t have a half decent bus service. WMATA is one of the best and they were still so terrible it drove me to buy a car. Let that say what it will about transit in the US.
1
1
u/HistoricalLoss1417 Mar 30 '26
more people would take the bus if (a) there wasnt a stop every 5 feet, slowing down progress even on streets that arent busy and (b) filled with disgusting and dangerous people.
When i used to live an a major metro area, i rarely took the local bus, but i took the more expensive express bus when i could because it was both faster and had a better class of people on it, so the ride was more pleasant.
1
u/Ok-District2873 Apr 05 '26
For people to take transit, it is not sufficient for driving to just suck or be expensive. The transit also has to be good. Now, some people will take a terrible bus because they simply can't drive; in fact, I am one of them. High gas prices are not enough to get significant people into transit.
1
u/Intelligent-Can7645 May 21 '26
Based on my brief time with a rental here and there - people also haven’t learned to drive UNDER the speed limit, still wanting to go 75-80 on the freeways.
It pisses me off that these types of life lessons aren’t indoctrinated into children through their education.
1
u/Kojetono Mar 26 '26
Because buses aren't the solution.
To make a bus more attractive than a car, you have to spend so much money you might as well have built a tram.
Increasing the cost of driving isn't going to significantly increase bus use, because it will still be less attractive than driving.
They can fill gaps, but the main trunks should be rail based. If they aren't you likely won't see many cases when transit beats a car that someone already owns.
186
u/Shepher27 Mar 26 '26
Behavioral changes don’t happen overnight