4 ms·

I would rephrase this question as: How do we make public transportation more convenient? The price of convenience is increased cost, which leads to fewer custo

by bravura 17y ago

I would rephrase this question as: How do we make public transportation more convenient? The price of convenience is increased cost, which leads to fewer customers. So luxury will be a by-product of your approach, at least initially. But yes, I really want more convenient public transit.

dnsworks 17y ago
I think it is more than convenience. The real question is, how do we make public transportation less like a public service, and more like a profit-driven business? Call me a classest, but I don't want to have to share my commute with a schizophrenic who thinks the floor is a public bathroom, or with someone that's about to make Youtube's "best of fistfights on transit".
- rue 17y ago
  Proper health care and social services would probably go a long way. But I suppose that is not compatible with a world of "profit-driven businesses"?
  - dnsworks 17y ago
    We'll spend an incredible amount of money on health care and social services, but they will never be terribly effective. I've never seen a social service that was effective at anything but spending money. However a profit-driven business could make headway towards solving many transportation issues en masse.
    - rue 17y ago
      "Proper." Anyway. I live in a place where public transportation is plentiful, convenient, and rarely beset by attacks from the less-fortunate.
- potatolicious 17y ago
  Classist. There. I've seen and experienced my fair share of sketchiness on public transit, but I think it's something important enough that I cannot imagine supporting a tiered transit system. I can afford to drive - I choose to use public transit for lifestyle reasons (and the big bundle of cash it saves me sure isn't burning a hole in my pocket) and to support what I think is one of the great remaining equalizers in our society. I will gladly and willingly pay higher fares than poor people if it means increased accessibility for them to a system that, in all honesty, they need more than I do. When I walk into work 20 minutes late because the bus broke down, nobody yells at me - for people in less fortunate positions in life, it can mean getting fired. An effective transit system that is affordable, accessible, and reliable is an absolute requirement if you want to even begin fixing the poverty problem. And none of this can possibly occur if we create multi-tiered transit. All you will get is super-effective transit that only connects wealthy areas, and a barely functional lower tier that subsists on government handouts, and can't even get poor people to work on time. It will simply become a gaping money-hole that serves no one - it will make taxes higher for you, and make transit much less effective for the poor, and worsen the poverty situation in your city. Transit is one of those issues that is close to my heart, and one where I'm willing to tolerate a lot of imperfections, because IMHO it's bigger and more important than me, or you, or wealthy people in general. Hell, even just as a simple reality check public transit has benefited me greatly - I find that tech people are paid well, and many seem to lose touch with reality "on the ground" after a while - I've heard some truly idiotic and insensitive words uttered by my coworkers about the homeless, for example. My nightmare is becoming yet another pretentious, arrogant upper-middle class suburbanite tech worker, and I think riding transit daily at least does something to keep that in check. At least it won't let me dehumanize people poorer than I am like so many wealthy people seem to do.
rue 17y ago
> The price of convenience is increased cost, which leads to fewer customers. Yes and no; all public transportation in the U.S. save a few exceptions is vastly underused in my experience. An influx of people to meet even expanded capacity would also mean more revenue...with sufficient patronage, convenience and coverage can be increased without bringing up the price much (if at all.)
- sigstoat 17y ago
  transit usage in the denver area jumped with the gas prices, and the cost of rides increased repeatedly, and more than the gas prices increased, as far as i could tell.
  - rue 17y ago
    I am sure it did. I do not see, however, what that has to do with capacity/patronage?
- dnsworks 17y ago
  All is quite a generalization. Try cramming yourself on any of the buses that run through Chinatown in San Francisco between the hours of 7am and 10pm.
  - rue 17y ago
    "all public transportation in the U.S. save a few exceptions"

by bravura 17y ago

dnsworks 17y ago

I think it is more than convenience. The real question is, how do we make public transportation less like a public service, and more like a profit-driven business? Call me a classest, but I don't want to have to share my commute with a schizophrenic who thinks the floor is a public bathroom, or with someone that's about to make Youtube's "best of fistfights on transit".

rue 17y ago
Proper health care and social services would probably go a long way. But I suppose that is not compatible with a world of "profit-driven businesses"?
- dnsworks 17y ago
  We'll spend an incredible amount of money on health care and social services, but they will never be terribly effective. I've never seen a social service that was effective at anything but spending money. However a profit-driven business could make headway towards solving many transportation issues en masse.
  - rue 17y ago
    "Proper." Anyway. I live in a place where public transportation is plentiful, convenient, and rarely beset by attacks from the less-fortunate.
potatolicious 17y ago
Classist. There. I've seen and experienced my fair share of sketchiness on public transit, but I think it's something important enough that I cannot imagine supporting a tiered transit system. I can afford to drive - I choose to use public transit for lifestyle reasons (and the big bundle of cash it saves me sure isn't burning a hole in my pocket) and to support what I think is one of the great remaining equalizers in our society. I will gladly and willingly pay higher fares than poor people if it means increased accessibility for them to a system that, in all honesty, they need more than I do. When I walk into work 20 minutes late because the bus broke down, nobody yells at me - for people in less fortunate positions in life, it can mean getting fired. An effective transit system that is affordable, accessible, and reliable is an absolute requirement if you want to even begin fixing the poverty problem. And none of this can possibly occur if we create multi-tiered transit. All you will get is super-effective transit that only connects wealthy areas, and a barely functional lower tier that subsists on government handouts, and can't even get poor people to work on time. It will simply become a gaping money-hole that serves no one - it will make taxes higher for you, and make transit much less effective for the poor, and worsen the poverty situation in your city. Transit is one of those issues that is close to my heart, and one where I'm willing to tolerate a lot of imperfections, because IMHO it's bigger and more important than me, or you, or wealthy people in general. Hell, even just as a simple reality check public transit has benefited me greatly - I find that tech people are paid well, and many seem to lose touch with reality "on the ground" after a while - I've heard some truly idiotic and insensitive words uttered by my coworkers about the homeless, for example. My nightmare is becoming yet another pretentious, arrogant upper-middle class suburbanite tech worker, and I think riding transit daily at least does something to keep that in check. At least it won't let me dehumanize people poorer than I am like so many wealthy people seem to do.

rue 17y ago

> The price of convenience is increased cost, which leads to fewer customers. Yes and no; all public transportation in the U.S. save a few exceptions is vastly underused in my experience. An influx of people to meet even expanded capacity would also mean more revenue...with sufficient patronage, convenience and coverage can be increased without bringing up the price much (if at all.)

sigstoat 17y ago
transit usage in the denver area jumped with the gas prices, and the cost of rides increased repeatedly, and more than the gas prices increased, as far as i could tell.
- rue 17y ago
  I am sure it did. I do not see, however, what that has to do with capacity/patronage?
dnsworks 17y ago
All is quite a generalization. Try cramming yourself on any of the buses that run through Chinatown in San Francisco between the hours of 7am and 10pm.
- rue 17y ago
  "all public transportation in the U.S. save a few exceptions"