
A Private Bus Company Debuts in Detroit - kshatrea
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/alternative-fuel/biofuels/a-private-bus-company-debuts-in-detroit-8657656
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akgerber
This is a party bus service to allow bar hopping in a car-dependent city when
passengers are too intoxicated to drive. It only runs on Friday & Saturday
nights between a couple of suburban bars & the downtown & university district
of Detroit. It might well be a good business (and certainly better than drunk
driving), but it's not a meaningful substitute for functional mass transit.

Public transit systems require subsidy to permit service at unprofitable times
of day & to unprofitable regions of the city, interconnecting parts of a
region to permit greater economic activity. Roadway systems are likewise
unprofitable on their own. Most transit systems have at least a couple lines
that are profitable.

In the New York City area, there is significant "dollar van" jitney service &
a large number of private bus companies, especially in New Jersey that provide
commuter service, rather than serving as a substitute for drunk driving.
Dollar vans of varying legalities are also common between Chinatowns &
Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, as well as down Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn.

Flatbush Avenue also an easy place to observe the downside to privatized
transit run by independent contractors-- the vans usually speed & make
dangerous maneuvers to move more fares more quickly, with the safety of other
motorists, pedestrians, and cyclists often disregarded. This could be improved
by the NYPD enforcing traffic laws, which would be my preference to replacing
a useful service.

Unfortunately, nearly all American cities have onerous regulation on selling
automobile rides to other people, while it's incredibly easy to get a driver's
license and private automobile. This raises taxi prices & means there often
isn't timely bus/jitney service between popular destinations, which motivates
a lot more people to purchase cars & drive them.

The cost in car ownership is also mostly in the depreciation of the car &
insurance (which is monthly, rather than per-mile), so once a person purchases
an automobile because they can't make a few trips by walking/biking/transit,
they'll make a lot more trips by car.

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rayiner
Onerous ride regulations are usually the flip side of requiring cab companies
to service everyone.

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jlgreco
In reality we usually get the worse of both worlds. There has been some
progress in eliminating discrimination (Uber's system in particular resists
driver discrimination), but it is still rampant.

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rickyconnolly
As a European, I don't understand the significance of this. Why is the
establishment of a private bus company such a big deal?

Is this not America, bastion of free market capitalism? Surely many cities
must have private services.

Here in Ireland we have many private bus services running alongside public
companies.

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sneak
Everything you have come to know about living in the first world becomes
negotiable in Detroit.

There are huge chunks of the city where there is no postal mail delivery. The
streets are not plowed or salted. Calling 911 because an ambulance is required
can mean hour-plus waits.

America is an insane place, and Detroit is a special microcosm within that
insanity.

Another thing to consider is that most major urban centers have huge amounts
of regulation prohibiting new business operations like this (or rendering them
practically impossible). Detroit is fairly unique in that almost anything you
can think up, you're free to just go ahead and do it. (The cops are too busy
even to deal with all of the big, real crimes.) It also means you're basically
on your own if someone decides to torch your whole bus fleet - the city that
would regulate transit stuff is too busy to do that - but also too busy to
properly patrol everything and deter crime. It's a mixed bag.

It really is the closest thing to a functioning anarchy that one can find in
the first world. I think it's wonderful, but I wouldn't want to live there
(again).

(I am a born-and-raised Detroiter living in Berlin by way of Manhattan.)

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rickyconnolly
How far down the libertarian utopia rabbithole does this go? Could Mr Didorosi
hire armed guards to protect his fleet? Where is the line drawn? I knew
Detroit was bad, but I did not know it was this semi-anarchy you describe.

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tsotha
It's funny you should rail against libertarians when discussing a city that's
where it is at least in part because the productive people were driven away
through extra taxes and regulation.

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rayiner
The "productive people" were driven away because they didn't want to live next
to black people. The Detroit metro area isn't any smaller than it used to be--
people just moved to the suburbs. There aren't appreciably fewer regulations
in the Detroit suburbs, and taxes aren't any lower either (what you save in
sales tax you more than lose in property taxes).

It's also a little funny considering that 27% of US GDP comes from just seven
heavily regulated, heavily taxed metros: NY, LA, Chicago, DC, Philly, SF, and
Boston. And it's not just population, these cities only account for 20% of the
US population.

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prostoalex
Isn't that just the headquarters trick? Someone like Wells Fargo is SF-based
and someone like Chase is NY-based, yet economic activity of those two is
happening all around the world, and just gets reported in SF and NY.

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seanmcdirmid
Yep. Cities act to attract and redistribute capital, this has been true
probably for the last 6 or 7000 years (Babylon, Athens).

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mukaiji
It's an interesting experiment. If it succeeds, it would be ironic that the
solution to America's public transportation is coming from Detroit: after all,
GM & co are the guys who bought America's trolleys in the 1950's and
disassembled them to boost sales of cars.

EDIT: related story on SF's private lines <http://stamen.com/zero1/>

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matznerd
I've heard that NYC had an incredible trolley system where you could get
anywhere in manhattan in about 10 minutes. Such a shame that cars displaced
true public transit solutions.

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akgerber
That isn't right. NYC's trolleys/buses were more efficient in the pre-
automobile era when there was much less other traffic to block them, but
Manhattan is about two miles wide and about 15 miles long; covering even 10
miles in 10 minutes would mean travelling at 60mph on city streets without
stopping, and mass transit obviously needs to stop at least every couple
miles. The express subway lines still take you up & down the island as quickly
as ever (about 25 minutes from 125th St. to the Battery, apparently).

Manhattan's mass transit system is largely intact from its peak (except for
the incomplete Second Avenue Subway, to replace the demolished Second Avenue
Elevated the East Side), and has become better integrated from the private era
when there were three competing systems. The trolley lines were more
significant in the outer boroughs, and could reach speeds & frequencies
similar to their best years with proper implementation of modern light rail or
bus rapid transit. That would require the political will to take away surface
right-of-way from the (boisterous, wealthier) car-driving minority.

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ebiester
What I don't understand is how the Jitney hasn't been allowed by regulation in
the US -- they're incredibly convenient, and a fleet of minivans from the key
districts to various park n' ride locations would make a ton of sense.

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rayiner
Taxi companies are required to service the whole city. If you allowed jitney
service without that requirement in popular areas, the taxi services couldn't
compete.

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Evbn
This seems easy fixable by subsidizing fares to unpopular areas, financed by a
tax in fares in popular areas.

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jivatmanx
Governments tend to think in terms of Bans and Mandates, rather than taxes and
subsidies.

The result is poorer, more expensive services, limited to ancient business
models.

~~~
astrodust
More specifically: Lobbyists tend to pursue an agenda of bans and mandates,
and so long as your political system is dependent on the interests of
lobbyists and their associated campaign financing, these goals will often be
achieved.

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rayiner
More specifically, you're just making up theories.

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astrodust
I guess having followed US politics for the last two decades has taught me
nothing.

I'm sure it's all attributable to "The Government" being sinister and evil.

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rayiner
My point is that you have no basis for your claim re: lobbyists and campaign
funding. Use of government-granted monopolies to achieve particular ends
predates modern media, and campaign funding was a much less pivotal issue back
in the day when all the money in the world wouldn't buy you anything more than
a newspaper ad.

~~~
astrodust
Lobbyists have been around since there've been people to lobby, but the more
money is involved in getting elected, the more acute the problem becomes.

You can't honestly think the billion dollars required to become president
doesn't come with strings attached.

Money buys you influence. Don't think advertising is entirely in terms of
media. Campaigns need a lot of people involved, and many of those people have
to get paid. Modern media just means you need to spend even _more_ money than
you did before.

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thrownaway2424
This guy seems a bit mislead. There are definitely not 15 million people in
metro Detroit. There are only 5 million people in the census area that
includes Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Flint, and has an area over 15000 square
kilometers.

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encoderer
Nonsense!

As long as I can remember the Detroit metro area has always included the
entire state of Michigan. And Toledo, Ohio. And Indiana. All of indiana.

(Some joking aside, Indiana as the destination of the next round of white-
flight from the Detroit suburbs is amusing to me.)

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icebraining
Related: <http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2008/Mungerbus.html>

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aristidb
If they need to be five times more efficient, why is the plan to spend a lot
of money on things that do not directly impact customer service, like giving
away rides to poor people, and using self-produced Biodiesel?

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gvb
Giving away rides: makes paying riders feel good about paying, good
advertisement.

Self-produced biodiesel: beyond the "feel good" advertisement, they may
actually be saving money if they get the used cooking oil for free. "Right now
we’re starting with a downtown loop, which serves primarily entertainment
venues, bars, and restaurants." -- Restaurant owners likely are donating their
used cooking oil to the bus that stops at their establishment and drops off
patrons.

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sfall
I know $5 for an all day pass is not bad, cta in chicago is 5.75 for an all
day pass but that is all the buses and the l train, but it also is bigger and
subsidized. I only hope that they quickly add a 30 day pass.

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darklajid
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