Cheap, Decentralized Mass Transit
Via Michael Wilson on LeftLibertarian. An interesting story in Sierra about Curitiba, Brazil's experiments with a low tech and inexpensive rapid transit system: a streamlined network of privately owned bus lines. It's ten to twenty times cheaper than light rail and can actually operate without government subsidies to keep it going. It's also fast, efficient, and popular.
posted by Kevin Carson | 9:07 PM
4 Comments:
I think it could probably be done in a society where those rights of way were common rather than government property, though, and the up-front capital investments were voluntary.
...and part of getting that kind of society is to create more decentralized local alternatives to the state. :)
The "revolution" such as it is, is an emergent phenomenon going on everywhere, as you and I read and write this.
(so is the counter-revolution...)
Nifty! I especially like how the level entry system would make it easier for people in wheelchairs to get on. Currently, special buses have to be built that are lower than standard, which means a) big costs to convert bus fleets and/or b) some routes are not wheelchair accessible, period. It seems you could retrofit buses to make them accessible with this system, even if they hadn't been before.
Downside, I imagine it's difficult to attach a bike to one of these things with the tube-entry. I suppose local modifications could easily be made.
Kevin:
Here in Bogotá we have a very similar experiment, but is not precisly decentralized. The company (called Transmilenio) is owned in part by many of the old bus companies that had transformed traffic into a mess, with the complicity of politicians they bribe in the city council. The rest belongs to a french company and the goverment.
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