5 ms·

I crunched the math on this a little while back as a fun exercise: To replace a single rush-hour NYC subway train with all single-occupancy vehicles, based on

I crunched the math on this a little while back as a fun exercise: To replace a single rush-hour NYC subway train with all single-occupancy vehicles, based on the average length of car in the US, would occupy every lane in a single direction on Market St in San Francisco from the waterfront all the way to Van Ness. In other words, in order to get a subway train full of people into the city, but in cars instead, the lineup of cars (spread over multiple lanes!) would stretch the entirety of downtown SF. And this assumes perfect packing - i.e., bumper to bumper. Side note: I'm quite optimistic about self-driving cars, but it never ceases to amaze me how many self-driving car proponents seem to be utopian futurists who are entirely reality-resistant. No, self-driving pod cars will not produce greater capacity than a heavy rail mass transit network, are you even serious. They may very well become a key fixture of our transportation infrastructure, but there is simply no physical way fleets of taxibots will ever rival the throughput of a NYC subway train at rush hour.

bane 11y ago
I totally agree with you on the capacity standpoint. Door-to-train and train-to-door remain stubborn issues with "circuit" style transport systems though. I don't live in either city, but I do live in a top-10 metro with the second largest subway system in the U.S. For me to get to the train system from my house is currently a 30-45 minute drive (there's a bus, but for "reasons" it's even worse). Stop-to-stop my ride is 40 minutes. To get from the nearest station to my work is a 50 minute walk or a half hour bus ride. My commute then using the best available mass transit is a little over 2 hours or 3 hours if I assume we live in a post-surface vehicle world. Even if I move my household to one of the single bedrooms built right next to the station, it's still over an hour door to door with half of it on a surface bus or most of it walking (and now it's 2 hours again). Ignoring all that mess, I can just drive and it's a 30-45 minute (the length of just the train leg) easy drive from my garage to my work's garage. So I can spend 4-6 hours a day taking mass transit, or I can spend 1-1.5 hours a day in a car. For what it's worth, I'm a huge proponent of mass transit and subways, and think the U.S. is pitifully behind in every way, I personally wish we engaged in the articles plan, and in many of the proposed mass transit and livable cities initiatives. But there are sometimes good reasons why people take cars over mass transit, even when it's as good as it gets where I live or in NYC and all of these plans are decades away from happening and changing things. The important thing is for stopgap ideas like cars not to get in the way of these kinds of improvements in they way that they have.
- TillE 11y ago
  The car is not a "stopgap idea". It is the direct cause of the terrible design of most American cities (ie, urban sprawl). It is, in several important ways, the reason why public transit in the US is terrible.
- dublinben 11y ago
  1. You should live closer to the train station. 2. Your company's office should be closer to the train station. How can you be in the city, and still 50 minutes away from a station?
  - bane 11y ago
    1. Not everybody can live close to a train station. 2. Not every office can be close to a train station. 3. Building more trains and more stations is a long and expensive process.

bane 11y ago

I totally agree with you on the capacity standpoint. Door-to-train and train-to-door remain stubborn issues with "circuit" style transport systems though. I don't live in either city, but I do live in a top-10 metro with the second largest subway system in the U.S. For me to get to the train system from my house is currently a 30-45 minute drive (there's a bus, but for "reasons" it's even worse). Stop-to-stop my ride is 40 minutes. To get from the nearest station to my work is a 50 minute walk or a half hour bus ride. My commute then using the best available mass transit is a little over 2 hours or 3 hours if I assume we live in a post-surface vehicle world. Even if I move my household to one of the single bedrooms built right next to the station, it's still over an hour door to door with half of it on a surface bus or most of it walking (and now it's 2 hours again). Ignoring all that mess, I can just drive and it's a 30-45 minute (the length of just the train leg) easy drive from my garage to my work's garage. So I can spend 4-6 hours a day taking mass transit, or I can spend 1-1.5 hours a day in a car. For what it's worth, I'm a huge proponent of mass transit and subways, and think the U.S. is pitifully behind in every way, I personally wish we engaged in the articles plan, and in many of the proposed mass transit and livable cities initiatives. But there are sometimes good reasons why people take cars over mass transit, even when it's as good as it gets where I live or in NYC and all of these plans are decades away from happening and changing things. The important thing is for stopgap ideas like cars not to get in the way of these kinds of improvements in they way that they have.

TillE 11y ago
The car is not a "stopgap idea". It is the direct cause of the terrible design of most American cities (ie, urban sprawl). It is, in several important ways, the reason why public transit in the US is terrible.
dublinben 11y ago
1. You should live closer to the train station. 2. Your company's office should be closer to the train station. How can you be in the city, and still 50 minutes away from a station?
- bane 11y ago
  1. Not everybody can live close to a train station. 2. Not every office can be close to a train station. 3. Building more trains and more stations is a long and expensive process.