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It has buses more efficient than cars, but not by much. It depends on what average car occupancy and mileage you assume for cars. 1.14 people/ car was used for car occupancy because that's the average commute occupancy. It's interesting how much pollution by rapid rail transit is determined by the cleanliness of the power source. San Francisco's BART is the winner here as much of its energy source comes from drowning a U-shaped mountain valley rather from than from burning fossil fuels. Chicago's L and Atlanta's MARTA did especially badly from heavy reliance on coal.
Looks more like Victoria than Vancouver, maybe one one of the islands around there.
Not far from Manhattan are some really nice places as far as nature goes, actually. Some of them you can even take a bus to :-)
Nope, that's near Vancouver, Victoria doesn't have such tall mountains like that to view the Gulf Islands from. Specifically, that was a pucture of Howe Sound and that spot is a about a half hour drive from Downtown Vancouver, just around Horseshoe Bay from West Vancouver.
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Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist
The people I know who've visited Vancouver have been there for both work and for pleasure. I don't know anyone who has lived there, though. Just being there for a visit obviously isn't the same thing as living there permanently, but the overall comments I hear tend to be along the "what an amazing city! How do I get visa?!" variety. I don't know if they were evaluating costs -- but there are plenty of people out there who are willing to pay the premium to live in the right city.
To get back at least a little on topic, I think the ease of public transportation was part of the appeal. I can imagine that perhaps to someone who doesn't like cities they wouldn't understand the appeal. (no idea if your husband likes cities or not, but I'm assuming he's not a big urban fan if he doesn't like crowds)
I live in Vancouver, and Katiana's husband's criticisms have validity. Everything costs more in Canada then it does in the US generally due to some complicated economic reasons, but the defining fact of Vancouver is that real estate is outrageously expensive which leads to cramped living conditions and even more expensive items then the rest of the country (because rent for retailers is also high). Salaries aren't high to cover the costs as they are in NY and SF, much of this is driven by wealth earned elsewhere rather than local incomes.
Despite all that, this is a truly exceptional city. There's so much about it that is completely unique and while I didn't love it right away, living here for a year and half its charms have very much grown on me.
Anyhow, end of the day, you're right, it's about personal preferences and tastes. As regards the actual topic of the thread, we've got many electric trolley buses here in Vancouver. How do these compare as far as energy efficiency? Local power comes from hydro and wind, but if it were partially powered by coal, what percentage of coal would be enough to make it less green then a regular bus?
B. Consolidate stops and eliminate non direct routes, to increase efficiency'
While too many stops can be a problem too few are also not good. Not everyone who uses transit is young and in good health.
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C. Use appropriate sized buses for the route - run small minibuses on less heavily utilized routes
This adds costs and interchangability issuses(i.e Large bus breaks down and smaller bus can't handle the load). In general the fewer different types and models there are the easier it will be to repair(i.e. scavange parts from other bus), fewer different types of parts you need to stock, fewer training issuses. Also adds delay if drivers need to change busses.
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D. To improve the economics of keeping a seperate fleet of such small minibuses, use lower paid, nonunion if necessary, drivers
Union busting in the name of being green....not a good idea.
Have you also considered the fact that some localities use Trolley busses(SF still uses them but most cities no longer have them, however SF buses can use desiel if the power line is down and some can operate on battery for a distance), some bueses don't use gas or desiel but use natural gas, some use biodesiel, and some use hybrid technology(which is more costly but the bus lasts longer)?
Guy never said it was a city, said it was very near a city. And it is, like I said it's a 20-30 minutes from downtown Vancouver and there's a suburb just a little to the left of that image if I'm not mistaken. It's Cypress Mountain, you can take the city bus to it and go skiing there.
Guy never said it was a city, said it was very near a city. And it is, like I said it's a 20-30 minutes from downtown Vancouver and there's a suburb just a little to the left of that image if I'm not mistaken. It's Cypress Mountain, you can take the city bus to it and go skiing there.
But we were discussing a city! Oh, never mind. You can take a city bus in downtown Denver to Eldora ski area in Nederland as well.
I apologize for posting a gorgeous picture and derailing the thread!
*Flogs self*
"Hail Mary, full of grace..."
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