To follow up on my suggestion to run the numbers on mass transit bus systems, I surfed the internet for a while before I could find anything much, finally concerning I think Portland in this site:
http://www.saveportland.com/Car_Vs_Tri-Met/energy-cost-death-02d.htm
Reading through their numbers it appears that after diesel is equated to gasoline and looking at number of passenger miles, one figure in their tables indicate the buses achieved 34.96 passenger miles per gallon. Now, obviously some cities might be better while others perform worse, but here's my thoughts on it if we simply look at the 34.96. First of all, how many people can catch a bus that goes directly where they wish to go as you would by driving your own car? I tried taking the bus once to work, and ended up going in a zig-zag route that probably was 50% further than I would need to go directly by car, plus it took about 3 times as long to get there with all the stops. So I will be lenient and not factor in 50% further, but let us guess that the 34.96 would translate lower to at least somewhere between 25 and 30 passenger miles per gallon.
This exercise simply confirms the suspicions, and supports McGentrix observations. Buy an economical car that gets 30 mpg or better and it is possibly or probably just as economical or moreso than riding the bus, depending on where you live. Plus look at all the prevention of black clouds of poisonous, polluting diesel smoke that are spewed throughout cities every day. Plus save paying the drivers, buying the buses, supporting the management, and the millions that go into running the systems. Plus by removing the buses, we could remove a traffic blocker, as they stop all the time. Also factor in the help driving to work, heating their offices and bus garages and the like, and things really start looking bad for any possible energy savings by bus systems.
My guess is that many systems are less efficient than Portland's system and would therefore be obvious bureaucratic boondoggles that accomplish exactly the opposite of what they are designed to do, or at least accomplish very very little in terms of saving energy. And has anyone computed the tons of pollutants emitted by diesel powered buses in cities for an entire year?
If I can figure this out in 30 minutes of research on the internet, how come cities with all of their transit experts can't figure this out and tell the people the truth? The answer is probably they don't want to be out of a job, just like every bureaucrat.
I realize bus systems will probably exist simply as a convenience for some people that may not have cars or cannot drive cars. That is fine, but perhaps the people advertising bus mass transit as an energy saver need to face the truth, that it may not be much of a saver, and in fact probably is an absolute waste of energy for some cities.
McGentrix deserves an apology.
P.S. I equated the bus to a car that gets 25 to 30 mpg, I admit, so if everybody's car averages 20 or 18, then the Portland bus system might save a tiny bit of gasoline, but it all depends on a personal basis what kind of car you have as to whether the bus saves. A Toyota Prius would put the buses to shame. And if you carpool with only one other person, you really put the buses to shame. And in other cities where bus ridership is alot less, any kind of gas hog might be more economical.
