@paultk@notjustbikes
Tho stuff like making bus lines is relatively easy and doesn't require much of a setup except marking bus stops, putting up posts, and getting buses and divers...
#PublicTransport is the key - Ideally using #Trolleybuses as this will reduce the amount of hazardously mined, energy-consumingly refined and unfair traded minerals needed...
To put it politely, this is greenwashing. To put it impolitely, calling these busses "green" or "zero emission" is a whopper of a lie.
If you read about these busses at the company's website, they're very careful not to reveal the source ("colour") of the hydrogen. https://www.transitsystems.com.au/hydrogen-bus-new
They're using grey hydrogen. "Grey" Hydrogen is not Zero Emission. It's made by extracting hydrogen from fossil gas, and there's no effort put into capturing the carbon during the processing.
These busses are just as polluting — considerably more polluting when you consider inefficiencies and losses due to processing, transport, and storage — as a bus powered by any other fossil fuel, but the pollution happens at a processing plant far away. The pollution is out of sight; out of mind.
@BinChicken There is no "zero emission" transportation on ruber wheels, since they'll inevitably emit particles from their brakes and microplastics from their tires whilst accellerating and decellerating.
That being said, hydrogen is a waste product of the fossil fuel industry and would otherwise get burned off via the safety fire...
Not to mention that the same "pollution out of sight" also applies to #battery-electric vehicles.
"Universal #farelessTransit makes fiscal sense. The report notes that for every fare dollar Metro collects, Metro spends $0.75 on the expenses of collecting & enforcing fares." 💸
US #transit agencies that must scale 5-10x to meet CO2/GHG emission reduction goals in the next decade need to learn how to run #trolleyBuses + create a sustainable funding source that can deliver that level of service, not nickle & dime riders while play-acting as a business. #transitTooter 🚎
Start of a thought: the reason why cars succeeded and trains failed in the US is because railroad rights of way were privately held and the private companies had to maintain track in addition to operating trains. Whereas the auto industry got the government to publicly fund the major roadways. Just like the airlines have the benefit of a federal national airspace system.
@scottsthoughts In how many cities did the auto industry need to dismantle the streetcar systems before inter-city travel by #trains was untenable due to lack of #transit in your destination city? Bonus question: how many electric #trolleyBuses and miles of overhead wiring can we run for the cost of one mile of freeway widening?