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Public buses have poor ridership in the USA because they are not as convenient as cars nor as fast and comfortable as trains. Cars are allowed to delay buses in traffic, making them unreliable and forces the bus to weave around cars to get to a stop, making the ride unpleasant.
There is a fallacy among planners and activists that bus riders skew lower income as a choice. Folks who ride the bus often cannot afford a car. Their presence on the system is not a matter of preference. As soon as an American can afford a car in most cities, they ditch the bus.
The US can learn from the rest of the world on how to run a functional bus system. Bus stations with well managed outdoor seating, no fare queuing, protection from weather, and priority lanes would eliminate these problems. But private business interests keep ruining these plans.
The myth that middle income people wont ride the bus out of fear of poor people ignores that in places with density like NYC or San Francisco, ridership is far more income diverse. This myth is just rationalizing bad bus service with anti-poor projection.
Cities with high bus ridership have one common feature: it's really difficult to own a car there. Parking fees are high, older buildings have no parking, parking enforcement is strict, freeways are fewer. The inconvenience of urban car ownership makes public transit competitive.
As the car and fossil fuel industry dismantled city streetcars and electric trains, more people abandoned mass transit except those who could not afford cars. In turn the revenue reduced, quality was cut, which pushed more riders off, and now we have a degraded subpar bus system.
And until poor bus service, slowness, and quality is fixed, lower middle class and right on up will always opt for trains over buses.
Buses shouldnt be so bad in most cities that the only folks who use them are those who have to.
Buses shouldnt be so bad in most cities that the only folks who use them are those who have to.
