https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport
that table is thoroughly fascinating. i mean all of them, there’s more than one table on that article
apparently walking is the most energy-efficient transport mode of all?!?!? apart from bicycles
what i find mind-blowing is that airplanes consume approximately the same amount of energy as cars and trains. I mean i can easily see cars and trains being on the same level, but i always thought that airplanes consumed like an order of magnitude more fuel than cars. considering how everybody keeps saying that “airplanes consume so much fuel” and such. crazy.
and also boats are less efficient than i thought? boats consume 16 L/100 km while cars, trains and airplanes consume 6 L/100 km?
Your assumption that busses exist so they can be improved is quite telling. Huge swaths of the population, even living in million inhabitants+ cities, simply are not served by any form of mass transit.
The reason public transit works so well in Germany (where I did live for a bit) and Holland (visited and read about) is not because taking a car is more expensive. It’s because mass transit works well, it’s there when you need it, gets you to your destination in reasonable time and comfort, and is easy to use.
The very urban fabric in the USA is car oriented. Every little bodega has to have a dozen parking spaces built by law. Supermarkets have 3 to 4 times their store area wasted in parking lots. Everything is far apart because of this, so walking is impractical. With everyone driving to places, you need wide, fast roads, which makes biking places very unsafe. Every once in a while I see a white painted bike attached to a memorial in a light post, commemorating a life lost. And I live in the suburbs.
It’s not an insurmountable problem, the Netherlands did that in the 70s. But any solution that proposes a simple fix is doomed to failure. This has to be a concerted, intense effort to work.