tandempower

Wheel chair lifts/ramps are a necessity for those passengers who need them, as is air-conditioning. The problem is that there's a large population of people who don't need air-conditioning and because it is normativized culturally, it becomes a widespread waste of energy and money throughout the economy.

The net result is that we end up with less frequent bus service because of high costs, which stimulates more people to drive private vehicles, which drives up infrastructure costs because of all the lanes needed for all the cars. Then the roads soak up all the sunlight because they're no longer shaded by trees and heat stimulates more air-conditing use, while the land dries up from all the dry heat and tree-removal/deforestation.

All these problems are connected but because we only focus on one problem at a time, we fail to adopt a policy orientation that would solve all problems simultaneously by simply working toward integrating more traffic onto narrower roads with more tree shade. If it takes building some cheap open-air buses/trolleys that allow healthy people to board and exit at their own risk while the vehicle is moving, that's what should be done. This doesn't mean there shouldn't be some buses with air-conditioning and wheelchair lifts/ramps for those who REALLY need them.

Roody

Do you have any evidence that AC and WC lifts significantly increase costs? My guess is that they don't have much cost impact.

I would guess that a more significant "luxury" is the practice of many domestic companies buying new buses after only 5 or 10 years of use on the old buses. A bus can easily last 50 years if properly maintained, but people don't seem to want old buses in this country.

CliffordK

When I was driving, I always found it frustrating that the government would regularly sell and replace vehicles with half the mileage and 1/4 the age of any vehicle I was driving, all on my taxes.

Where do old police cars end up? Many find their way to taxi fleets. Or they are driven locally for years. And buses? Some find their way to other countries where they continue to drive. Yeah, being broken down beside the road is a major hassle, but most government fleets also have their own skilled maintenance staff, shops, preventative maintenance, and record keeping.

How much would it cost to do a complete refurb on a 10 year old ½ million dollar bus?

tandempower

Technically, costs are dictated by manufacturers, who pass their input costs, labor costs, management costs, and profits on to customers in the form of final price. By that method, you can look at whether ac and wheelchair lifts give you an edge in either soliciting more sales, leveraging a higher price, or both. By that same logic, you could sell buses for a million dollars each by stamping them with a 'fair trade' label because you believe the guy who polishes everything up before shipping it to the factory should make $50/hour.

In terms of actual labor/energy efficiency, "significant" is relative. If you say a bus is getting 5mph anyway so burning a little extra fuel for a/c is not significant, then the question is whether it is significant to bike or walk a few miles to LCF each day to save a little gas on driving. On the other hand, you can also look at the big picture and see how much energy, labor, and money are spent on a/c in the entirety of industrialized societies and thus how much would be saved and reduced if it was all eliminated. Some people would then complain about eliminating jobs while others would say modernization gives us more opportunity for more leisure time.

In terms of labor, manufacturing resources, and refrigerant, air conditioning units leak refrigerant, breakdown, and require maintenance and replacement. This can be considered waste if people don't require a/c because of health issues. I.e. a/c for comfort wastes various resources for no good reason, as does every other form of non-essential industrial activity.

People call me extreme, but I simply believe that it makes the most sense to reduce industrial activity to the minimum necessary in order to maximize conservation and environmental regeneration/reforestation. I think industrialism has created a persistent deficit in our relationship with nature as a species. I believe there are sustainable levels of industrial activity, but if we want to allow population room to grow, we have to continue to reduce industrial activity per capita and focus our efforts on developing ways of living that keep people healthy and happy while reducing resource use as much as possible.

Basically, nature would regenerate best without the presence of humans on the planet but human life is precious so the challenge is to protect it as much as possible without allowing it to undermine the natural systems that make the planetary ecology sustainable.

I agree but I think it's too common for status-quo defenders to shift the focus around by citing something else as being a more significant target for reductions. E.g. I recently heard someone say that ocean shipping generates more fuel than all the cars in the world so there's no reason to worry about cars as long as ocean shipping isn't decreasing. Everything is less significant in light of something else that is more significant. The goal should be to reduce where you can reduce and look at the bigger picture of one form of consumption/waste promotes others; e.g. a/c in public buses and buildings promotes the expectation that private households should be entitled to a/c. In truth, most people simply don't need a/c and very few need wheel-chairs, so why should every single bus be required to have both these features except to create more revenues for the company and jobs,? It's a never-ending source of waste if you start promoting everything to create more jobs and revenues.

Roody

I'm sure you're right on an abstract level. But AC is a selling point for buses, and now that almost every car has AC, it would be a tough sell to get people to ride a bus that does not. As for wc lifts--they are required because of a social goal of equalizing travel access for everybody. It's true, as you say, that only a small number of people actually use the wc lifts. But why should they be required to wait longer for buses than everybody else does?

Walter S

In any case, it might cost more to get a bus manufactured without these items. Or at least the savings will be a tiny fraction of the total cost.

SamSpade1941 

I cant speak for the bus, but I am assuming you have never worked in or around Law Enforcement. Most police cars live really hard lives with an insane amount of operating hours on the power plants and depending on the agency a lot of miles on the odometer. It was my experience that the cars that went to auction were usually pretty well used up, the supervisor cars had less miles than the vehicles used by patrol officers and less abuse.
You are right though about the maintenance, they are all mechanically maintained to the letter of the maintenance schedule.

CliffordK

Around here, for small vehicles, 100,000 miles, and they're sold off for pennies on the dollar.

It may be put on the vehicles in a short period of time, but it is not an insane amount of miles.

tandempower

Because there is government intervention to stimulate GDP growth and prevent recession, there's no free-market pressure to give up superfluous creature-comforts like a/c. What's strange to me is that the mainstream left supports both environmental reform and economic growth packages that provide people with the means to choose environmentally unsustainable things to spend money on. I wonder if, at some point, the left will actually require people to give up things like a/c for the sake of environmental/resource reforms, or if they will just continue to make it a free choice for people by giving them the money to spend on it.

They shouldn't, but why should people who don't need wc lifts be required to wait longer for a bus because of budgetary limitations on how many buses are purchased at the price a bus costs with the wc lift? One solution is to use smaller shuttles to provide rides to wc passengers on routes whose wc-lift buses run less frequently.

If the supply chain for buses was fragmented, it could result in more competition at the level of bare chassis and various parts. Then, you could definitely get a chassis and basic engine, etc. without buying anything else you didn't want. If government wanted to, it could prohibit bulk sales on total-package finished vehicles in order to stimulate price competition.

Roody

I think AC is one of the advances that has added much to quality of life. I would hate to see it discarded because of some misguided belief that it's bad for the environment. Of course it's bad when the electricity used to power AC comes from dirty and non-renewable sources, but that's a separate issue.

But many of the subsidies proposed by "the left" have to do with increasing the use of cleaner alternatives for electricity production and transportation.

For example, state and federal subsidies have enabled local bus companies to purchase hybrid buses that use low sulfur diesel fuel. Even with AC, these buses get better than double the mileage of the older 5mpg buses that you mentioned earlier, and also emit considerably less CO2 and other pollutants.

And federal subsidies for alternative energy such as solar and wind have stimulated one of the fastest growing industries in the world. Already, AC is becoming much less negative because of cleaner power.

Again, this is a social policy, not a transportation policy. The goal, held by many on both the left and the right, is to provide access to everybody, even if there is some expense and inconvenience for those of us who are fortunate not to use wheelchairs. Most communities provide on-demand shuttle service, but also make the more convenient fixed-route buses available to most individuals.

I'm not certain, but I believe that the primary bus manufacturers already supply mainly chassis and engine. I think most of the body work, including wc lifts, is provided by secondary manufacturers working to the end users' specifications.

tandempower

At one level, it's the power used. Basic household appliances, such as refrigerator, cooking, lights, hot water, fans, and electronic media can use as little as 100kwh/month or less, when used judiciously and efficiently. That is not much and can be powered by a solar panel or two. Most households in this area use between 500-1000kwh/month because of a/c, though, and those are the 'greener' users. Once upon a time, it was not uncommon for households to use between 1000-2000kwh/month or more, all to make their homes into big refrigerators.

Solar and wind power may reduce/eliminate CO2 emissions, but you still have the problem of waste heat from usage. 100kwh dissipates as 340,000btu, so 1000kwh makes 3.4 million btu, etc. Before CO2 'blankets' heat, that heat has to be produced. Sunlight shining on trees and plants gets absorbed and turns into growth IF moisture levels are sufficient for the trees/plants not to wither and die. Gradually, I think people are going to grasp that the carbon cycle occurs in tandem with water cycles and the whole system mitigates energy and temperature. That's why deserts have extreme day and night time temperatures in contrast to forests, which are naturally thermostated according to the operating temperatures of the living water in the trees and other ecological organisms.

As I said, I don't think renewables can eliminate the need for conservation through reduced usage. Minimizing usage has to do with restoring the balance between planetary energy-absorption and ecology. Electrical power bypasses the 'living water' mechanism of energy-absorption designed into nature, which necessarily shifts the balance of energy/heat to life away from living thermostat temperature regulation, which is what optimizes life and growth in the biosphere.

Oops, just saw the time. More later.

tandempower

I love innovation but I am just cautious about celebrating achievements as if they are ultimate solutions. If there's anything I've found, it's that there is always more work to be done. It's when we get too attached to the progress we've made that we resist the pursuit of further progress. I believe there will always be further to go in refining goodness and it's not increasingly painful to go further and make further sacrifices because the pain of the sacrifices comes from superficial feelings of attachment that dissolve once attachment is overcome. This is the case with driving and air-conditioning as much as it is with abused substances like alcohol and tobacco. Living without a/c is similar to living without driving, alcohol, and smoking; just another form of sobriety that removes a layer of haze between you and reality.

I keep trying to think of advances in AC technology that would help it be greener. I have been working on a ceiling fan design that incorporates the AC compressor into the fan housing so that the fan blades are cooled, eliminating the need for a large air handler system and outdoor heat pump. This would solve the big problem with AC in terms of its psychological effects by making it more of a thing that blows cold air within an otherwise natural environment instead of a total climate-control system where you walk through a door into a completely altered climate. Spending time within such altered climate-controlled environments is bad for physiology because your body adapts to the climate it gets used to and is then maladapted to other climates, which take time to adjust to.

What about the fact that routes are less frequent and there is less transit coverage when local planners and politicians choose to save money on expensive buses?

Great, so why can't we increase transit service and routes by adding open-air buses to local fleets? I'd rather ride on one of those than an A/C bus anyway.

Walter S

If you want open air buses then knock yourself out. The idea of riding at 40 mph on a noisy multi lane road on a hot day doesn't appeal to me.

Pup7

Someone mentioned taking a/c off of buses to make the whole thing cheaper...I wonder if buses without lifts or a/c might cost more....if those are standard, to order one without those options might be a special build - which may mean the purchaser would be charged for the inconvenience. And while I grew up without a/c and I know I won't die without it, I wonder also how many people would actually ride a bus with no a/c in, say, Atlanta or Raleigh or Orlando or Houston in August. I know I wouldn't. I'd pay for the privilege and wait a bit longer for the next bus! Being on my bike in August is one thing. Being packed into a city bus with sixty other people in city traffic in August with no air conditioning is a whole other discussion.

Ekdog

How about banning AC in cars first? Only then might we transit users consider giving it up. What they ought to do is prohibit those windows that can't be opened. There are many occasions when simply rolling them down would make it possible to turn off the AC.

Walter S

+1. Then there's more incentive to ride the bus. Of course this is all idle fancy. Neither bus riders nor car drivers nor movie goers, shoppers, or people loafing at home are about to give up AC.

tandempower

Googling "open air trolley bus" produces plenty of results. No, mutli-lane roads aren't the best places to enjoy open-air transportation, outdoor seating, etc. but that is why I'm always reiterating the importance of narrowing roads and/or shading them with trees. An unshaded patch of road or parking lot is essentially a desert, even if it's landscaped with irrigated plants. Because the heat rising off the pavement is hostile to life, humans hide in air-conditioned motor-vehicles and buildings, which add to the heat with the waste-heat they dissipate. It's a vicious cycle of heating and escaping from the heat in ways that produce more heat.

Somewhere the cycle has to be broken, so why not start with more open-air (trolley) buses?

Do you ever think about how the climate-controlled buses are not exchanging air with the outside, only cooling and filtering the air being breathed and sweated-in by everyone in the bus? When you think about that, you might find you prefer a steady stream of fresh, albeit hot, outdoor air to the chilled recirculated air of an air-conditioned bus.

This will only happen if the surgeon general or other governmental agency publicly acknowledges the health problems and addictive nature of climate-controlled areas. More research needs to be done into how bodily processes adapt to seasonal temperatures and how bodies persistently exposed to unnaturally low temperatures maintain homeostasis with higher core temperature, etc. that cause people to overheat more easily at higher temperatures. I believe this is as simple as understanding how digestive flora adapt to summer or winter temperatures.

Even if that happens, however, there will probably never be more than warning labels, the same as there are with tobacco and now "added sugar." Plenty of people will choose comfort over health, and they will do so vocally and insistently.

There could be a cultural shift toward preferring fan-blown cool air over wholly-refrigerated environments. People dislike the idea of simulated realities al la the Matrix so they can theoretically be made aware of the simulated-environment aspects of entering a building or vehicle where the indoor temperature is many degrees different from the outdoor temperature. If the health-altering aspects are publicized, however, there will be a counter-ideological campaign on the part of the climate-control/energy industries to promote more radical indoor climate interventions over subtler ones.

Walter S

Nope

Pup7

Neither do I.

Having lived in a couple of countries in Asia where the only choice was non-air conditioned public transportation - and having used said transportation - no, I don't think about it. And I'll continue to prefer the A/C. Call me a first-world snob - I don't care. It is a luxury I consider myself fortunate to have.

I grew up in at least Korean War era (and possibly some WWII era - I'm sure some of that stuff we lived in in the late 1970s was from WWII) Navy housing without air conditioning - in southern California, in North Carolina, on the Gulf Coast of Florida, in Lakehurst....I've been deployed in tents in the "Sandbox" for more than a month or two....I'll take my recycled air with a smile.

jon c. 

And how about in a typical summer afternoon thunderstorm.

tandempower

I don't think it's about 'first world' snobbery as much as it is about clinging to a culture of industrialism that feels it still needs to fight off nature aggressively lest we backslide into a state of pre-industrial desperation.

I think many aspects of industrialism have been overdone because of this culture of fear that's emerged, and many aspects of nature have become targets of prejudicial dismissal because of the fetishization of everything industrial power can create.

I think certain applications of industrial technologies are beneficial but, for the most part, less is more. I think as science continues to progress, we'll find that there are so many ways that natural processes of evolution have created 'technologies' that work far better over a longer term, and are more scalable, than artificial technologies we produce using industrial power and methods.

Humidity is probably the main problem without air-conditioning, but I think that will eventually be resolved by some technological development at the nano scale or genetic engineering of insects or insect-sized robots that seek and consume dust, molds, and whatever else grows in humid environments. Best of all, these technologies will be powered by the filth they are consuming, so win-win in terms of both comfort and power-conservation, not to mention health since indoor temperatures will not deviate as much from natural outdoor climate.

Walter S

You've gone off the deep end. It's about improving one's level of comfort - often quite substantially. It's really very simple. There's no "fighting". Unless you try to take away my AC!

Walter S

I forgot about a whole dimension of fun!

Dahon.Steve

Buses without wheel chair lifts hurt the disabled as they may have to wait hours for a vehicle with lift. It's unfair they have to suffer to keep the fare down. You want to keep the fare down, start riding the bus every day and support the system.

I-Like-To-Bike

Here is another reminder of the open air transit fun enjoyed by our third world friends: