The Bus is Lame. A Rant on the Ineffectiveness of Current Public Transit Incentives.
Okay, cars are bad right? Pollution, congestion, blah, blah, blah, CRAP. You want to know why public transit doesn't work in north america? Because buses are lame. It's as simple as that. You can take away car lanes, make buses cheaper, and have more routes, but the fact remains, in north america, if you ride the bus it's because you can't afford a car. No one in their right mind would prefer riding a bus to a car: they're dirty, there are creepy people, and it's never a direct route to where you're going. Therefore if the government wants people to use public transit they are going about it all wrong. Adding bus lanes and doing nothing for the car congestion hoping people will get fed up and take the bus is an inherently flawed method. The majority of people would rather get up earlier in order to maintain their appearance of not having to take the bus and for the convenience of going exactly when you want, where you want. It just makes people mad. You need to create a climate where business people can still feel 'cool' riding the bus.
Now I'm not sure at what point other countries, (Japan and England come to mind) managed to get everyone riding transit but I would wager they were never as emotionally invested in cars as we are. I would also like to point out that for some reason trains are definitely 'cooler' than buses, and for cities (like Victoria) that are just far too small for an effective train system of any type, that is another hurdle to overcome. There is also the fact that north american cities are highly invested in the suburbs, and in a city with no trains, riding a bus for an hour is just not fun. On top of that having populations spread out thins out the bus routes making them even more inconvenient for the very people the government wants most to force into public transit. Yes, the routes into cities are the most congested; however, these are also the routes with the fewest bus runs. And having to wait at a (dirty, creepy, cold, wet, etc...) bus stop because there is no direct route is another serious turn-off.
Instead of making it harder for drivers to get to work, what should be done is to make it easier for people to ride transit. And I don't know, I'm not experienced in psychology or marketing, but I would think some sort of campaign to show the business side or the professional side, or even just the 'we're not dirty' side of public transit would be far more effective than the current appeals to 'being green'. Yes, everyone already knows driving is bad for the environment but still, the bus is lame.
< /rant>
Blarh. Okay I wrote that quickly because I was pissed off. It's just that you keep hearing in the news that to relieve congestion they're going to make more bus lanes. And absolutely no new driver lanes. And it's just the most ridiculous, infuriating idea I can think of.
Also: whoa House.
WTF are you going to do with next season? Either you are going to have to come up with ways to bring them back (and if you just pretend it didn't happen or explain it away in five minutes I'm going to be pissed.) or come up with a whole new team. Surprisingly I find myself not caring which you chose. I don't know, maybe it's just because this last season was not as good as before, but I think you were going a bit stale, and I would actually vote in favour of a new team. I doubt you will actually go through with it and lose so much of the main cast, but it would be a fun, and unexpected jump for a TV show like this. I almost feel as if this is a quick fix however, because the majority of my dislike with this season was centered on the Tritter arc, and after that it got much better. (House has never been based completly in the real world, and I just felt like he was dragging it down into a place where the show could not function as entertainment. We're not watching House to see what would happen to someone like that in reality, we're watching to see him get away with it.) So I'm not sure how much of my displeasure is actually based on staleness and how much is just runover from Tritter. But I guess we'll see.
Now I'm not sure at what point other countries, (Japan and England come to mind) managed to get everyone riding transit but I would wager they were never as emotionally invested in cars as we are. I would also like to point out that for some reason trains are definitely 'cooler' than buses, and for cities (like Victoria) that are just far too small for an effective train system of any type, that is another hurdle to overcome. There is also the fact that north american cities are highly invested in the suburbs, and in a city with no trains, riding a bus for an hour is just not fun. On top of that having populations spread out thins out the bus routes making them even more inconvenient for the very people the government wants most to force into public transit. Yes, the routes into cities are the most congested; however, these are also the routes with the fewest bus runs. And having to wait at a (dirty, creepy, cold, wet, etc...) bus stop because there is no direct route is another serious turn-off.
Instead of making it harder for drivers to get to work, what should be done is to make it easier for people to ride transit. And I don't know, I'm not experienced in psychology or marketing, but I would think some sort of campaign to show the business side or the professional side, or even just the 'we're not dirty' side of public transit would be far more effective than the current appeals to 'being green'. Yes, everyone already knows driving is bad for the environment but still, the bus is lame.
< /rant>
Blarh. Okay I wrote that quickly because I was pissed off. It's just that you keep hearing in the news that to relieve congestion they're going to make more bus lanes. And absolutely no new driver lanes. And it's just the most ridiculous, infuriating idea I can think of.
Also: whoa House.
WTF are you going to do with next season? Either you are going to have to come up with ways to bring them back (and if you just pretend it didn't happen or explain it away in five minutes I'm going to be pissed.) or come up with a whole new team. Surprisingly I find myself not caring which you chose. I don't know, maybe it's just because this last season was not as good as before, but I think you were going a bit stale, and I would actually vote in favour of a new team. I doubt you will actually go through with it and lose so much of the main cast, but it would be a fun, and unexpected jump for a TV show like this. I almost feel as if this is a quick fix however, because the majority of my dislike with this season was centered on the Tritter arc, and after that it got much better. (House has never been based completly in the real world, and I just felt like he was dragging it down into a place where the show could not function as entertainment. We're not watching House to see what would happen to someone like that in reality, we're watching to see him get away with it.) So I'm not sure how much of my displeasure is actually based on staleness and how much is just runover from Tritter. But I guess we'll see.