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These points are all relevant in an environment where cars dominate. In a big and dense city you would most likely be jammed in traffic while you could just wa

by yason 10y ago

These points are all relevant in an environment where cars dominate. In a big and dense city you would most likely be jammed in traffic while you could just walk to the nearest underground station or tram/bus stop and take the next transit towards the right direction. And the latter is what people do in places where taking the car is not a requirement and where the densities support public transit. In most American cities the densities are laughably sparse, and taking a personal car makes sense. In LA or Valley it would be a joke not to drive. In NY or London it would be a joke to try to drive.

sidlls 10y ago
In the Bay Area it's a joke either to drive or rely on public transportation. Choose the former and suffer in a slow-moving traffic jam in all directions. Choose the latter and be at the mercy of tepid schedules and relatively frequent delays. I live 25 miles by road from my office. Whether I drive to work or take Caltrain/BART my commute (including biking or driving to the train station) is a minimum of 70 minutes one-way. Traffic and transportation are hard problems, but this area seems to always choose terrible solutions for either of them.
- drdeadringer 10y ago
  How does pre-planning and forethought not get mitigate "tepid schedules"? Yes, I could want to go to an event all the way up in San Francisco whilst Caltrain shuts down at midnight, but that means only that I have a few decisions to make.
- mahyarm 10y ago
  You must live in the south bay. People in SF use public transport quite a bit and I commute in using BART every day. Caltrain is pretty horrible schedule wise.
  - sidlls 10y ago
    Nope, my office is in the city. I live in San Mateo and take either the San Mateo or Burlingame station depending on my mood and how far I want to bike on a given day. My experience with the Muni system in the city is that it is less than dependable. Frequent backups, delays or even skipped trains seem to be normal. When I have to use the Muni I basically leave work 10-15 minutes earlier than when I first started this job just because I can rely on the unreliability of the Muni system.
ryanwaggoner 10y ago
That's not as true for London as you might think: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/09/how-london-and-berlins-daily-travel-habits-compare-to-the-us/406840/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/09/how-london-an...
tomjakubowski 10y ago
I drive my personal car in Los Angeles rarely enough that I should probably sell it. Bicycling, subway, light rail, the occasional bus, and Lyft satisfy 90% of my "long distance" or "carrying lots of stuff" needs, and the remaining trips could be taken care of by Zipcar or rentals. At least as a person without children, the need for and experience of using a car is simply a matter of where I live and work (and for the weekends, where my friends live). When I lived in Pasadena, commuted to Irvine 3x a week, and didn't have a personal car, yes, life was miserable. When I lived in Venice Beach and drove downtown for work, the tedious, heavily trafficked freeway commute exhausted me by mid-week. Also, for what it's worth, greater Los Angeles has the highest average density of US urban areas by a pretty healthy margin. Yes, it's denser than the New York or San Francisco urbanized areas. And LA's decentralized commercial districts make it a prime candidate for an efficient, extensive public transit network [1]; there's just heaps of toxic cultural momentum to overcome in order to restore that former feature to our metropolis. [1]: http://humantransit.org/2010/03/los-angeles-the-transit-metropolis.html http://humantransit.org/2010/03/los-angeles-the-transit-metr...
- JBlue42 10y ago
  If LA could have a better bus lane situation, the buses would be more than adequate. That there aren't, and won't be, dedicated bus lanes put in the situation of not only waiting in the same traffic as you would in a car but also waiting for a bus (typically late, because of said traffic) and even switching and waiting. I'm 4 miles from work and the bus would include one switch and about 45-50 minutes. It's a 10-15 min car ride.

by yason 10y ago

sidlls 10y ago

In the Bay Area it's a joke either to drive or rely on public transportation. Choose the former and suffer in a slow-moving traffic jam in all directions. Choose the latter and be at the mercy of tepid schedules and relatively frequent delays. I live 25 miles by road from my office. Whether I drive to work or take Caltrain/BART my commute (including biking or driving to the train station) is a minimum of 70 minutes one-way. Traffic and transportation are hard problems, but this area seems to always choose terrible solutions for either of them.

drdeadringer 10y ago
How does pre-planning and forethought not get mitigate "tepid schedules"? Yes, I could want to go to an event all the way up in San Francisco whilst Caltrain shuts down at midnight, but that means only that I have a few decisions to make.
mahyarm 10y ago
You must live in the south bay. People in SF use public transport quite a bit and I commute in using BART every day. Caltrain is pretty horrible schedule wise.
- sidlls 10y ago
  Nope, my office is in the city. I live in San Mateo and take either the San Mateo or Burlingame station depending on my mood and how far I want to bike on a given day. My experience with the Muni system in the city is that it is less than dependable. Frequent backups, delays or even skipped trains seem to be normal. When I have to use the Muni I basically leave work 10-15 minutes earlier than when I first started this job just because I can rely on the unreliability of the Muni system.

ryanwaggoner 10y ago

That's not as true for London as you might think: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/09/how-london-and-berlins-daily-travel-habits-compare-to-the-us/406840/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/09/how-london-an...

tomjakubowski 10y ago

I drive my personal car in Los Angeles rarely enough that I should probably sell it. Bicycling, subway, light rail, the occasional bus, and Lyft satisfy 90% of my "long distance" or "carrying lots of stuff" needs, and the remaining trips could be taken care of by Zipcar or rentals. At least as a person without children, the need for and experience of using a car is simply a matter of where I live and work (and for the weekends, where my friends live). When I lived in Pasadena, commuted to Irvine 3x a week, and didn't have a personal car, yes, life was miserable. When I lived in Venice Beach and drove downtown for work, the tedious, heavily trafficked freeway commute exhausted me by mid-week. Also, for what it's worth, greater Los Angeles has the highest average density of US urban areas by a pretty healthy margin. Yes, it's denser than the New York or San Francisco urbanized areas. And LA's decentralized commercial districts make it a prime candidate for an efficient, extensive public transit network [1]; there's just heaps of toxic cultural momentum to overcome in order to restore that former feature to our metropolis. [1]: http://humantransit.org/2010/03/los-angeles-the-transit-metropolis.html http://humantransit.org/2010/03/los-angeles-the-transit-metr...

JBlue42 10y ago
If LA could have a better bus lane situation, the buses would be more than adequate. That there aren't, and won't be, dedicated bus lanes put in the situation of not only waiting in the same traffic as you would in a car but also waiting for a bus (typically late, because of said traffic) and even switching and waiting. I'm 4 miles from work and the bus would include one switch and about 45-50 minutes. It's a 10-15 min car ride.