About a year ago a few backwards-looking deadbeats in Bristol decided that to save a penny a year each on the council tax they’d like the excellent Supertram scheme postponed. These idiots seem to think that cars (LOL!) and, extraordinarily, buses!! (double LOL!!) can carry the traffic ...
And this is before Peak Oil hits. When we can perhaps for a few more years expect road traffic to actually INCREASE.
Over the long term buses have an even darker future than cars. At least a few rich people will have a private road and a preserved car and some black market biofuel to play with a few times a year, but I can’t see how buses have any future. Even today most bus journeys are bleak and slow affairs, as they compete with road traffic - lorries, tractors, cyclists, horseriders, dithering eighty year olds driving Morris Minors - slowing everyone down. The Supertram in Bristol would have avoided all of this, and be useable for freight traffic as well in the future.
As prices rise petrol and diesel will begin to be rationed in favour of the military, essential workers, the government etc. Black market petrol and ethanol will soar in price so a few rich people could continue driving. But the majority of people - that’s you and me - will be left without any. Railways will of course be expanding rapidly, but the limited skill base and economic resources will mean that this doesn’t happen as quickly as it should. Many will be stranded, miles from a railway, and be left to fall back on their own resources. There’ll be a huge increase in cycling and horse riding, but many will still only have the option of walking. Buses won’t be there because they will not be able to get fuel, or if they can it will be so expensive that nobody will be able to find the fares. Railways, being electric or steam worked, will have little or no fuel problems. There will be sidings full of decaying diesel locomotives of course!
Roads will become less and less useable as repairs are no longer undertaken. Some cities will retain their road networks for a while, but they’ll be fighting a losing battle. Eventually most if not all roads will be abandoned altogether, leaving rail, bicycle, horse or foot as the only way of getting around. Buses will be as obsolete and unuseable as those decaying lines of diesel locomotives.
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