Remix clone Hacker News

This is a reason why buses are not as cheap as they seem at first glance.

Often times, buses are favored because they require low capex (adding lines is easy, politically palatable, etc).

But in practice, on really busy bus lines with high throughput, it shreds the roads, to the point where you really need to re-pave the whole road every 10 years -- in which case, why not just put a rail line in and use a train!

▲

animal_spirits 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

That is similar to the reason trackless trams are not economically viable. They are essentially just busses that are guided, but because of their precision the cause really bad erosion on the parts of the road where they drive. At least with busses there is variability on the parts of the road that are eroded and it affects the whole road more evenly

	▲	entropicdrifter 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		There are certain places/conditions where trackless does make more sense, however. Philadelphia still has several trolleybus lines active for instance, in addition to buses, trolleys, subway, el-train, and traditional rail. My guess is that it works here because our roads turn to shit anyhow from the freeze/thaw cycle, so it's not adding as much maintenance burden as it would elsewhere.

▲

tallanvor 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Assuming you don't have the ability to separate traffic, you don't really gain anything. Cars have to be able to drive in the same lane, so the tracks have to be level with the roadbed and asphalt gets torn up very quickly along the tracks.

▲

asdff 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Usually they pave the bus stop as cement and then its fine