Buying the Tesla of Buses
1st April 2015
$1.2 million will buy you a bus that can go 170 miles on a single charge of batteries. The bus has 60 seats, which is just what is needed in Spokane, where the average bus carries just 9 people.
Spokane Transit previously persuaded voters to double the sales tax in 2004. The improvements made with that money led to a small increase in per capita transit ridership from about 25 trips per person per year to 27. Based on this, it doesn’t seem likely that another 50 percent increase in funding will do much to boost ridership.
Public transit in Left Coast cities is rather like the ICBM and nuclear weapons programs of countries like North Korea. It spends money that they really can’t afford on things that are pretty much for show, to demonstrate they they’re In With The In Crowd, but with little advantage for ordinary people.