As I crossed the border into Canada during my roadtrip this summer, I was told that my passport had expired several months prior. The Canadians didn’t think it was a problem and let me enter, and the American border guards on the return trip didn’t even notice, so it somehow all worked out.
However I did need to get it renewed. The closest place for me to do so is in downtown Denver at the office of the Honorary Consul of the Federal Republic of Germany as I am (still) a German citizen.
Normally this would be a quick one-hour drive (possibly more in traffic), but with my right knee temporarily kind of out of commission due to some torn cartilage driving a car without being able to adjust the knee’s position for over an hour was a no-go.
Luckily for me, the State of Colorado’s Department of Transportation (CDOT) in 2015 funded a new project called Bustang wherein a fleet of comfortable buses rides up and down I-25 and along parts of I-70 for commuters.
So I decided to give that a shot, which was especially appealing since one of the stops in Denver was very close to my destination. I must say I’ve also tremendously enjoyed Jim Brophy’s series on buses here on CC, so I was pleased at the opportunity to give something back in that regard.
On the appointed day my wife gave me a ride to the stop nearest our house and right on time Bustang pulled in and I climbed aboard with two other people, paid my $10 fare and sat down for the ride.
Bustang consists of a fleet of MCI D4500 buses painted (or wrapped?) in a somewhat obnoxious (ok, distinctive) black and purple motif.
Manufactured in Pembina, North Dakota, the D4500 is the current designation for what was originally called the MCI 102DL3 in 1992 and renamed in 2001. It was the first 45-foot coach in service and is one of the more popular intercity coaches in the US.
My particular bus was built in October 2014 per the data plate that I snapped a picture of (maybe someone can decipher more info from it?) and while it didn’t exhibit new-bus smell, it thankfully didn’t emit old-bus stank either. It was extremely clean and comfortable.
The fleet consists of thirteen buses acquired at a total reported cost of just over $7million but CDOT claims that the goal is not to break even or turn a profit but just to try to keep some cars off the road. I suppose this is a realistic option for them since they are funded by taxpayers through a portion of vehicle license fees.
Each of the 51 seats on each bus is cloth covered, well-padded, comes with a seatbelt and fold-down foot rest as well as a USB port and a 110V outlet to recharge phones or other electronic devices. The bus provides free WiFi which worked flawlessly.
There are three routes in total: Denver/Fort Collins, Denver/Colorado Springs, and Denver/Glenwood Springs and you can obviously transfer from one to another in Denver which covers the majority of the population centers in Colorado.
Once we were aboard, the driver shut the door, exited the lot and proceeded to the freeway. We had one stop in Loveland just a few miles South where we picked up a few other riders which was still few enough so nobody had to share a bench with anyone else and soon enough we were on our way to Denver.
I wasn’t sure how the ride would be since I have not been on a bus journey of any significant length in some years, but I was pleasantly surprised. The engine, while not completely silent, was hardly intrusive and made very good power.
We had no problem keeping up with traffic that seemed to be moving at or above the 75-MPH speed limit and regularly pulled into the left lane to pass slower traffic. I would not have travelled any faster had I been driving my own car.
Once in Denver we pulled into the Denver Bus Terminal and those of us that wanted to exit there, did so. I disembarked and took some more photos of the bus while the driver watched me, no doubt wondering what I was up to.
After that I found a breakfast place nearby, took care of my business at the Honorary Consulate, and then hobbled with my bad knee to a different station a mile away for the mid-day return trip as for some reason that departure time did not include a stop at the Denver Bus Terminal.
The return trip was just as uneventful as the trip into town, the bus (an identical but different one) was just as clean and quiet and progress as just as swift.
I didn’t need it but there is even a lavatory on board as well as a bike rack attached to the front of the buses which actually could have been useful had I known about it earlier.
For one person, the round trip from Fort Collins to Denver and back cost me a total of $20. Driving any of my cars would have cost almost that much in gasoline, never mind the mileage and any parking charges.
Of course I did impose on my wife to drive me to and from my local station but could have driven myself there and parked for free. Or ridden my bicycle. By taking the bus I was able to relax and catch up on the latest articles on CurbsideClassic.com and leave the driving to someone else while sprawling out in comfort.
Given a similar set of circumstances (single rider, somewhat flexible schedule) I would absolutely ride the Bustang again. On the whole Bustang has been a success for CDOT, in its first year of operation ending in June of this year a total of 102,577 people had ridden on it, which exceeded expectation by about 15%.
Revenues were 57% higher than expected at $1,014,781 recorded in the first year which would seem to indicate that people are riding it for longer (more expensive) distances than anticipated. Overall CDOT had expected to cover about 30% of the bus system’s operations, however the revenues actually covered about 38% of first-year operations.
As CC’s accidental resident alternative transportation advocate (early NGV car-sharing program, Casual Carpool, and now Commuter Buses!), I was very impressed by this service.
As a commuter it makes a lot of sense and if you, dear reader from far away, are coming into Denver via the airport you could now take the new light-rail service from the airport into town, then transfer to Bustang and get to the Northern or Southern cities and even into the mountains.
Will it be as painless as renting a car or getting someone to pick you up or paying for door-to-door service? Probably not but it’ll be an interesting experience and likely a lot better than the airplane trip itself. And who doesn’t love looking out the giant windows of a new bus? Go Bustang!
Looks like the same basic bus as the Greyhound I rode a couple of years ago from Portland to Boise to pick up our TSX. I was alsp pleasantly surprised at how comfortable, quiet, roomy and pleasant the ride was, compared the the tired old Greyhounds I rode on in the 70s.
And I can well see why this service is being offered. The problem is what happens when congestion gets worse to the point where the bus has difficulty in making its schedule.
This is the problem we’re facing here. The I5 corridor between Eugene and Portland was generally quite decent. One could predictably make the drive in about 2 hours, or even a bit less. But Portland has exploded in the past 5-10 years, and the the congestion has become a real issue.
We have train service too, three times a day. But because it runs on the UP freight line, speeds are limited, and much of the trip is at modest speeds, so the train schedule is like 2.5 or 2.75 hours. Which means that folks drove or took the bus, and the politicians didn’t see fit to ever spend anything to improve speeds on the train line.
But now that driving is often taking as long as the train, it’s starting to look like a much more attractive alternative, and there is now growing interest at the state level to invest in it, and make the service faster. Folks have cometo realize that I5 is reaching its limits, and the train is the solution to reliable quick trips up to Portland and back.
The Bolt bus is a great option for Eugene to Portland (and stops in between).
I believe those are operated by greyhound.
Yeah, the Naugahyde bus days are long since passed. I believe I’ve been on one of these on GoBuses in Boston
Portland has been extremely short sighted when it comes to upgrading it’s highway system as population expands. I used to drive from Beaverton to Vancouver from about 1997 to 2000, and it was bad enough even back then. I wouldn’t even think about doing this commute today.
Nice to see new buses coming equipped (finally) with 3 point belts. That’s something that should have been required decades ago. Cool looking bus.
Even when the highways were built in Portland they were functionally obsolete in places in my opinion. I-84 east to I-205 north consists of only one edit lane which is foolish and I-84 west merges into I-205 as well right afterwards.
Not to mention that I5 traffic comes to a complete halt more often than not at the Columbia River. They should have built a third bridge 20 years ago. At nowhere else on the entire west coast is the only N-S corridor I5 more vulnerable than the Columbia River. Loose just one of the bridges(1\2 of one is almost 100 years old) and the the entire west coast economy including California’s and probably every state west or the Rockies goes in the toilet.
When we first moved to Vancouver last year my wife looked into taking the bus to work which is near Portland Airport. The ride would be 21\2-3 hours each way. Needles to say she drives.
TriMet definitely needs to extend the Max over to Vancouver. It would cut back on traffic so much. So would a third bridge. But the powers that be in Vancouver keep blocking both projects.
I concede that I-25, from the north end of Fort Collins to the south side of Colorado Springs, is becoming steadily a more crowded and slower drive every year. It is unpleasant at almost hour during daylight. I plan my drives from Wyoming to New Mexico and beyond in order to avoid traffic on this I-25 section – exactly the one Bustang now covers.
The answer of Colorado to overcrowding on I-25 is not to relentlessly build more lanes of roadway. In some sections (north of Longmont, south of Castle Rock) I-25 is still just two lanes each direction – exactly as it was in the early ’70s. Back then, even with a 55mph speed limit, one could drive faster between downtown Denver and Fort Collins but today the daytime traffic makes the drive usually slow and often with long delays for accident clearance.
It is interesting that Colorado is willing to recover only 38% of the cost of Bustang. Obviously no private company in the free market could do this and therefore the market demand for this service does not justify providing it.
This is typical modern Colorado transport think – light rail, bus service, train to the airport, bike paths – that ignores or impedes roadway use by private vehicles. The state government wants us in public mass transit and drivers still love using their own vehicles. Rather than accommodate the needs and wants of residents by building good roads (like Texas), Colorado seeks to shift us from our preferred mode of travel to their loss making public means. They do a very good job of making I-25 drivers miserable in order to induce use of their public facilities.
So, as a driver trying to get through Colorado, I resent Bustang and its complimentary cousins in public transit. I will also concede that I might use it at sometime if the need arose for a specialized trip like the one described, but I do not admire it and wish that Colorado would pay attention to drivers over riders.
They do seem to be (slowly) working toward making things better but, although unsaid, I agree that the population is growing faster than the traffic solutions. Even though Bustang costs the state money (well, OK, it costs drivers money being funded through vehicle license fees) it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of building and expanding roads. I don’t want to get into a discussion regarding the failing grade that most of the country gets in regard to infrastructure maintenance and expansion, we all know it sucks.
On the section north of Longmont they seem to be beginning to widen (adding a lane to the main congestion points (grades). When there is an accident though it does get bad. This isn’t helped by the limit of 75mph, which is great 99% of the time, except for when there IS an accident it tends to be exponentially worse with a rollover being a common result, not helped by the fact that the roads are often so much higher than the land next to the road as opposed to the referenced Texas and its flatness. When the limit was 55 I expect people would have a better chance of going off the road and “riding it out”. Now they overcorrect and roll.
Denver has the HOV/Express lane which was just expanded all the way North to or past Thornton. That doesn’t help single commuters if they are unwilling or unable to pay for the use as the ExpressLane option (free if enough occupants, a fee if one occupant).
Bustang seemed to be more geared toward commuters based on the hours of operation as well as the fact that the majority of people had laptops and were dressed more “businessy” than I was. In regard to Paul’s comment above, I expect these people are aware of how long it would take them to get there normally via single occupant car and if the bus meets or beats that time it’s a win. The bus can use the HOV lanes as well so that helps to alleviate the time loss from the (minimal) stops as well as the fact that you don’t have spend time to refuel ever two to three days if this was a daily trip. Most people seemed to be productive on the bus as well, with so many people able to be productive in places other than just their desk these days, this option helps in that way as well. Even if the bus takes longer, if you can be productive it’s time better spent.
Obviously it doesn’t work for everyone, but it’s a step in the right direction. Nobody will use transit if it isn’t available but it won’t be available if nobody uses it when it does work for them. It also opens up new opportunities for people that want or need to live further away from their workplace but can’t stomach the thought (or costs) of driving for at least an hour each way or more on a bad day. This makes the cost part of the equation more predictable for them.
I’m in Austin TX & traffic here is awful. They cannot build more roads here as there just isn’t room to add another bridge over the Colorado river which bisects the city. Unfortunately a “Bustang” service is not available, instead we have sorry bus service in a hub & spoke pattern which requires multiple transfers to get across town & a rail system that has no park & ride facilities and doesn’t go much of anywhere – it’s great for folks who live in Leander & work downtown but for the rest of us it was a major waste of money…
100 years ago, streetcars and interurbans had door-to-door service, or pretty damn close. Most of the interurbans ran 70 mph on private right-of-ways. You could walk a block or two to the streetcar, take the streetcar to its terminus, then hop on the interurban for the longer journey. (My house stands exactly at one of those junction points.)
We had it, then we lost it.
I don’t know much about this history- do you have any recommendations for web resources? This is something that interests me greatly
Here is one in Oregon. You could go up and down the entire Willamette Valley.
http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/interurbans.html
What a really nice bus. They sure have come a long way since the last time I was on one!
Thanks for the article. I see it as a potential great job. Being paid to drive to Glenwood Springs, not a bad gig. I-25 OTOH, you can have it.
There has been talk of linking the light rail in Denver to the New Mexico Railrunner service. I had reps from Denver on one of my runs before Denver Light Rail was built, they had a lot of questions for me when we reached Santa Fe. The issue is that once it becomes interstate then the crew are more likely eligible for Railroad Retirement (parallel and more expensive universe that replaces social security for railroaders), but NMDOT does own the line right to Raton, and they have run demo sets up there.
As far as ODOT paying for upgrading UP’s track, that is an old blackmail con on the public. The state pays and then their trains get held up anyway because some of the intermodal is time-sensitive. I have heard Class 1 railroad managers laughing out loud while discussing holding Amtrak trains in sidings while they run freight around them. Which is contrary to the agreement they signed when they begged the US Gov’t to take passenger service off their hands back in the 70’s.
UP has plenty of money. If your legislature started enacting regs about the state of that track affecting oil train traffic, UP would be out there tomorrow fixing it. But your politicians are no smarter or independent than any other ones. Those companies need to be treated with all the compassion that Stalin could muster on a bad day.
Railroad retirement is two tiers. Tier 1 is equivalent to social security, and is what social security was modeled on. Tier 2 is funded by the employees themselves through a payroll deduction.
A little known fact is that railroad workers have no workman’s comp. If they are injured on the job, unlike other workers who are covered at employer expense or insurance paid for by the employer they are on their own. Unless an RR employee has his own personal injury policy paid for out of his pocket, if he gets injured or killed he is own his own. That and RRA are leftovers when the railroads were the largest corporate entity in the US and had the political clout to get their way. Kind of like postwar GM up until the 70’s. As far a RR being more expensive there is no tax dollars involved other than regulatory oversight. Railroads in general from their low point in the late 60’s have regained their characteristic late19th century Robber Barron type swagger today.
It may be nice and quiet inside but the style… Dear oh dear. It looks like the sort of thing EU coach manufacturers had on sale 20 years ago. Whatever happened to the elegance characterizing US-made coaches all the way to the 60s? Can they really not design something that does not look like a coffin?
Look at it like the 1997 Camry that we all were discussing a few days ago. If the bus (service) is reliable, clean, comfortable, a good value for money and gets you from A to B, then… 🙂
But yes I completely agree that from a style standpoint there could be many improvements as compared to the buses you see on a regular basis. Functionally though it’s perfectly fine and an improvement on many other similar services available in the US (in my opinion). This basic bus model has been around since the early ’90’s. I don’t know what buses should (or do) cost but if they spent 7 million on 13 buses that equates to around US$538k each for what is a known product that presumably has benefitted from improvements over time.
For sure. But maybe I’m spoiled – this is what gets you to the airport here (Vienna). I’m sure MCI could engage someone to design the American equivalent, perhaps using motives from the glory days of US bus transport.
T. Turtle: America is a failed, borderline third-world state, unlike prosperous Europe. Have pity on us for having to drive Camrys and ride in ugly buses.
The last few times I was in Austria visiting with relatives, who are educated professionals, I was astonished at the huge knowledge gap about what America is really like. “What, you have a state pension system?? A state-administered medical system for seniors and the poor??? Unemployment insurance???? That’s not the impression we get from what we see on tv!!” Seriously; they had no idea Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid existed. They assumed everyone in America has to just fend for themselves like in the 1800s.
When I explained that my daughter, who has a genetic developmental disability,lives in a lovely group home with two other women, has 24 hour staff, a dedicated car, and gets taken to her volunteer job (along with a one-on-one aide) and recreational activities, and has an excellent quality of life, they all asked: “How can you afford that!?! It must be very expensive??”
When I told them it’s all 100% paid by the state and feds, they were again astonished. “What is this?? That’s better care than our people with developmental disabilities get. We though America has no social welfare and other programs for the disabled, poor, retired, etc.”
Frankly, T.Turtle, there’s a lot about America you seem not to get. That’s ok. But please stop with the endless put-downs. Have some sympathy for us poor Amerikaner! 🙂
And by the way, we do have modern-design buses here. The one below runs in Eugene. Is that modern-looking enough?
One final thought: as much as I love going back to visit in Austria, I’m always very happy to get back home to Oregon. I can drive or hike for hours on end and not see another car or person. Try that in Austria! Even the hiking trails are crowded, along with everything else. To each their own. And yes, your buses are beautiful. Congratulations.
Below is our local MAX Bus. Very similar to Paul’s and Eugene’s I think, perhaps one generation newer design (maybe).
I vividly remember my Dad trying to get my Grandmother to visit us in the states. She was astounded that we had trees in the US. No kidding, she heard the term “concrete jungle” to describe American cities and took it literally.
To be honest though it can go the other way too in some respects. Plenty of Americans (without passports, generally, it’s a big country and not everyone has the opportunity or feels the need to travel outside of it) cannot fathom that plenty of European families can happily use a VW Golf as a family car or that VW’s are considered to be generally reliable and a decent value equation. And that it’s a wonder that there are actual buildings in the world that were constructed without the use of a single F-250 to haul a hammer and a box of nails.
Paul,
Looks like I steered up a hornets nest here, but, with respect, I think you are barking up the wrong tree. I have searched my memory and I do not dully recall where I was critical of the US per se. In fact, having grown up in Israel, where we for a long time had closer connections with the US I am familiar with many of the facts you pointed out. I have great admiration to the achievements of your country during its existence. I also realize that historic development resulted in very different political and economic systems here and in the US although – please do not fall from your seat – I think Europe has more to learn from the US than vice versa and that it would be a grave error for you to Europeanize the US (as the tendency has been during the last 20-30 years). More specifically, with respect to the Camry, mine is not critique but rather puzzlement: it is not that the car is successful, it is the “how successful”. But I concur in the sense that the Camry – for its anvil-like reliability – shows, for example, what might have been had GM been able to engineer such reliability into its FWD X-bodies.
As for the MCI, I accept that it does the job (and again, growing up in Israel surrounded by Macks, Autocars, GMCs, Whites, Caterpillars and Electro Motives I need not be told about US-made heavy equipment’s robustness). My critique was aimed at the fact that whoever designed it could have done a better job style-wise, and there was a time when MCI did do just that, as the below would attest. In fact, US bus and coach manufacturers were – until the mid-1960s – world leaders in ingenuity, style and reliability. Something took place in the 70s and (with exceptions) styling seemed to have stagnated.
Perhaps Scoutsdude’s comment explains the position, and here I would readily admit not being informed but my feeling is that bus travel became looked down on in the US; the sort of thing you do if you have no choice. The Bustang service is a move in the right direction. However, when you are trying to get people to use buses again (and there are some benefits for the public if it’s done right), particularly with the image bus travel had for the last 30 years or more, some pizzazz / style would be a factor in giving the public a feeling taking the bus is not a step down. So to me the styling factor is a valid point.
Hope I made my self clearer…
T
PS: Edited to add that now that my Italian masters seem to have keep my services for a bit longer, I will be looking at getting an older car, and it is 99.9% likely to be US-made, so no bias here.
T.T.: I understand, and I’m sorry if I came on a bit strong.
Here’s the thing: the Camry is the #1 selling car here for a number of good reasons which really are difficult to explain to Europeans. That was my point in my comment: we think we understand how life is across the Atlantic, but in reality, I find that unless folks have lived on both sides, it’s actually difficult for them to really understand. Understandably so.
One of these days I’m going to write an article “Why The Japanese Invasion Of Europe Failed”. It’s a subject that I followed quite closely in real time, and I think I can shed some light on the subject as well as shed light on why the Japanese Invasion of America was so successful.
Then hopefully you’ll really understand why the Camry is so successful here. And why VWs and Audis still have an iffy reputation here.
The reality is that for many the Bus is seen as the last resort and is looked down upon by many due to many of the clientele you’ll see on many routes. On the other hand in Seattle there are a fair number of people who are dressed in business attire at the stops during the evening commute time.
I’m sorry but that bus is ugly as are the ones that Paul and Jim posted, the featured bus looks like a bus should simple. Spending extra money to make a bus look cool in someone’s eye and usually more expensive to maintain and repair makes zero sense. The buses are being bought with tax payer money and as a tax payer I don’t want them spending more money to have a stylish bus.
OK Paul, help me out here: so the Camry is like a Skoda Superb that never ever – and I mean never – breaks down, right? It makes sense if I think about it this way – I feel much better now.
That purchase of buses probably included $500k or more of spare parts, much of which will probably sit around unused and be sent to surplus when the buses are retired. The recent county auction had 6 1/2 pallets of 20 brake drums for the middle axle of a particular model of bus. Six were still shrink wrapped and banded as received and the shipping tags were from 09. Additionally they had several bumper covers, suspension pieces ect that had been collecting dust for many years.
I fully understand that you need parts so there is zero down time in peak times but on the other hand it certainly seems like they keep way too much stock. Sure it could take 6, 8 weeks or more to get those brake drums from China on the slow boat, but is there really going to be a time when 70 buses needed brake drums in that short of a time period.
MCI is the manufacturer of the featured bus…..It is their workhorse model, popular for commuter bus lines, etc…..MCI also manufacturers several more modern models of buses.
It is the same for a few manufacturers of over the road truck tractors…..Peterbilt and Kenworth offer a wide range of modern Aerodynamic truck tractors but they also still offer traditional models with long hoods and large grills with designs dating back to the 1970’s for truckers that prefer the traditional look
The Bustang is kinda cheesy looking, but a nice way to ease commuting in the Centennial State. Why is there no route heading Eastward toward Kansas on I-70?
Hey now, don’t be bagging on the looks! ? I’m just glad it isn’t sporting some kind of green leafy motif and that they didn’t call it the Mile High Bus.
I assume there is nothing to the east because…there is nothing to the east! There is no real major population center east of the Denver Metro Area within CO. Yes, Glenwood Springs isn’t major either but the line affords a way to cross or get into the Rockies and also stops at a few places (Eagle, Vail, and Frisco) along the route.
Agreed, the looks could have been worse and I like the current quirky design though a bigger bike rack might be needed. I agree about the lack of population and elevation change east of Denver which is a route I am somewhat familiar with. Nice to know the light rail runs to the airport now since when I was in Denver 2008-2009 I heard a bunch of talking about it.
I have to wonder why they don’t sell advertising on the sides of the buses. The local buses usually have at least some cards along the side and one on the back. Occasionally they do full wraps. Not sure how much they get but I’m sure it adds up across all of their buses.
Colorado does look like a piece of paper that was picked up loosely by its’ east and west edges with the population falling in the center on the I-25 corridor.
Had a similar passport snafu a few years back flew into nyc took bus to Canada only one who noticed expired passport was ticket sales lady at bus terminal in New York Including airport security because I used it for ID. Norm
Great post Jim – one I’d been hoping someone would post for awhile now. Being stuck here in Japan, I don’t have the opportunity to try some of the new bus experiments occurring there in the US. I was actually thinking of writing a post on Greyhound’s current coaches but your thorough article summed up the D4500 superbly.
Kudos to the folks in Colorado for giving this a try – I do agree with you and some others here – I’m not sure who signed off on the paint scheme or wrap – maybe Tim Burton?
But its clear that in terms of styling, our European friends are out in front. However, below is an MCI J4500 that shows these buses can look a little better.
Thanks again for the informative and entertaining post. Jim Brophy.
Thank You, that’s high praise indeed from The BusMan! I think I still left some meat on the bone though if you ever want to pick it up again.
There is only so much that bus designers can do in regards to the shape of a bus…..The bus is designed to carry people so a rectangular shape is basic to the requirement….The fancy headlights and taillights do nothing in regard to the functionality of the bus…..Most improvements in design are with the interiors or under the skin.
The article author’s observation that the bus engine was powerful without being too noisy is an accurate assessment in comparison to busses of 30 or more years ago…….Up until the mid to late 1980’s, Detroit diesel two strokes dominated the bus industry……These engines provided hp anywhere from 238 to 350 hp but were not particularly fuel efficient and were somewhat dirty in regard to exhaust emissions.
EPA regulations required busses to meet stricter pollution standards so 2 cycle diesels were replaced with 4 cycle diesel designs which were more powerful and cleaner running……..Busses nowadays have engine power options up to 435 hp which do indeed make them more powerful than busses of the past.
I have no quarrel with the appearance of this bus, but the name?? Bustang? Ford should sue. Made me think of that ’70’s epithet for a Mustang with severe patina, “Rustang”. Sorry, it’s just a bust.
“Bustang” – yes, when it was first introduced to the front range I too had negative thoughts about “Bustang” – and more precisely exactly how it does or does not relate to Ford.
Certainly there can be no confusion between the two (one real, one artificial) words. Does the use of the six letters “ustang” by never for profit, state owned public transit authority damage Ford? Well, it is not a competitor. But is the shining, valued brand “Mustang” diminished by the appropriation of 85% of its consecutive letters for use on something so tacky? I don’t know. I am sure Ford has thought about it.
“Mustang” is a unique English noun that has no similar ones using those six final letters. Those six letters can only be reasonably associated with an untamed, spirited western horse – the mustang.
What is a “Bustang” but a play on the noun for the revered horse, car and airplane? None of the good qualities associated with the horse, car or airplane is in anyway part of the character of a public transit service.
So yes, an odd and less than appropriate word has been used by Colorado.
Wow, revenue covered 38% of costs, up from a predicted 30%. So, if the average cost of a trip looks to be about $26.00, the rider pays $10…who pays the other $16? Uninvolved taxpayers. Although the concept is fine, the execution of programs like this almost always strike me as more “feel good” than a practical solution to what some see as an ongoing transportation problem.
Sure but it has to start somewhere. The buses are nowhere near full at this point. The cost per trip figure I assume you figured out by the relationship between costs covered and revenue procured from the current ridership. However if the ridership were to for example double then the cost PER RIDER trip would be cut in half to $13 as it really costs effectively the same to run the bus with one, ten, or fifty passengers. A few more passengers than that and it breaks even. So the $26 figure is not the cost per seat per trip but the cost per current paid trip.
People who pay are those that register their cars as it’s funded by a portion of the VLF. Even if they never take the bus, they do get a (very small) benefit by there being less other cars/traffic on the road if you presume that riders would otherwise have driven their cars. Scale it up big enough and there can be real benefits. However, as we all know, if traffic gets bad enough to induce drivers to get out of their cars, once a critical mass of them does so then the traffic congestion disappears and people will hop back in their own cars.
Yes, this is my hesitation. Governments everywhere seem intent on promoting alternatives to private vehicles. I get their intentions, and most of them are good ones. However, there are economic wastes involved. Folks are quick to point out that governments subsidize roads too, and that’s true, but we already have the roads, and in any case they will be necessary for the buses as well. The bottom line is that Colorado’s taxpayers just shelled out about $24 for Jim to make that trip. It is true that quite a few of those taxpayers likely make more annual income than Jim does, but it is also true that quite a few of them do not.
I get that governments can provide certain perks for their citizens. But when the price system is not there to provide some discipline and feedback, decisions often get made for political reasons. The $24 spent by Colorado on Jim’s ride is $24 not being spent on the homeless – or on some football coach’s salary. Or not spent at all. These decisions made without some kind of price system feedback are like asking me to make a trip maximizing both speed and fuel economy but without the aid of a working speedometer, odometer or gas gauge. I might get it right, but likely not. Gad but life can be depressing having been an econ major in college. 🙂
All that said, if a subsidized ride in a nice bus were offered to some place I wanted to go, I would likely take advantage of it too.
Keep in mind that it is funded by part of the Vehicle License Fees, not general state taxpayers as a whole – I would rather those funds go towards a bus program (as they are) or roads etc than toward a State University’s Football Coach or the homeless or a stadium that benefits a private entity. Presumably those are funded other ways.
City buses and regional trains aren’t often profitable either but the population generally approves of their existence even if members of that population don’t use them.
These buses could be a lot fuller than they are, economically they do make sense for a single rider at the price level that is charged. Time-wise as well if you can make the ride time be productive. It’ll be interesting to see how next year’s numbers look and the year after that etc to see if there is progress in that regard.
Looking at the most recent numbers I could find for our local Bus service they show that the fare recovers about 30% of the cost of operation. Some of the money to cover the gap comes from advertising revenue and the rest comes from tax payers one way or another. Of course that is a fleet wide average and certainly there are differences from route to route as well as time and day of the week.
Jim – I object to license fees paid by car/truck owners to register their vehicles going to any government purpose other than paying for more, better and safer roadways for use by those vehicles. I do not like the transfer of benefit from vehicle driver/owner to public transit user – seemingly to satisfy some social agenda.
Americans needs to get over its phobia about buses.
Jim, et al,
If ifs and buts were candy and nuts…Look, the point is that these programs, historically, have NEVER reached ridership levels that made economic sense. Sure, if the governments continue to do a crappy job on road building and maintenance, maybe a few more riders will appear. But, in Houston, light rail has been light on ridership since day one, dedicated HOV lanes run a per mile cost about 10 times higher than regular lanes, and bus use has remained stable or declined (due to neglect because of these other programs). You can play games with “diverting” funds from other programs (never mind that the people paying the tab were told that it was for the original project), or ignoring the capital costs, or messing around with expense allocations, my point is that, whatever the reason for the program…it will cost some taxpayers in favor of others. That’s all.