Bus Boom
1st January 2012
Bloomberg News has a dispatch on the surge in intercity bus operators like Megabus.com and BoltBus. Left unexplored are two policy angles: first, how inconvenient and intrusive federally mandated airport security procedures, which don’t apply to bus travel, have helped to make buses a more attractive option than flying for some trips. And second, how the market is meeting the same need for intercity transportation that President Obama wants to address by spending $53 billion in taxpayer dollars on high speed rail. What a contrast between the efficiency of an entrepreneurial, market-driven, dynamic approach and the cost of a government-driven, central planning approach.
Compared to trains, buses are more flexible (using the existing road network, their routes and destinations can be changed ‘on the fly’), less expensive (no need for costly rail infrastructure), and safer (they don’t fall down if the engine stops), more secure (nobody highjacks a bus to Cuba or drives it into an office building). So, of course, ‘progressive’ politicians and activists are all for rail.
January 1st, 2012 at 12:10
I *think* that you might want to review that last paragraph. I don’t believe that there have been any attempts to hijack a bus to Cuba, and driving them into buildings is usually a byproduct of pharmaceutically enhanced operation. As for falling down if the engine stops, YMMV.
January 1st, 2012 at 16:38
Precisely my point. There have never been any attempts to hijack a bus to Cuba, because even Third World terrorists aren’t that stupid. Nor is it likely that anyone would try to drive one into a building to make a political point, because the laws of physics are against you.
Except in point of speed, buses are preferable to planes in almost every respect. If you arrange your life so that you don’t need to be in LA by tomorrow morning, you don’t need a plane. You’ve head of the ‘slow food movement’? I hereby inaugurate the ‘slow mood movement’. There are few things in life not improved by doing them more slowly.