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What I collect from my discussions with HNers on car use / public transit (I believe car use should be severely limited to cases where it's indispensable, and g

by gkya 9y ago

What I collect from my discussions with HNers on car use / public transit (I believe car use should be severely limited to cases where it's indispensable, and general public use public transportation, including taxis) is that Americans just don't like public transit. A frequent theme is the fact that in public transport you need to share space with other people and sometimes it's uncomfortable and crowded. Many think they're too good to "suffer" that, and they want to be in their private tonne-heavy metal and plastic bullet possibly speeding along or drowsily waiting in traffic. Public transportation is for those who can not afford a car. Also, running public transportation is not a very profitable, if at all, business, so government enterprise is required to run it. And the US seems to lack that.

watersb 9y ago
Lived in USA all my life. Wish that private autos were illegal. Have always been considered insane.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  I am American. I never liked driving. At some point after my divorce, I was able to give up my car. I eventually gave up my driver's license. I don't want to make it illegal, but there are lots of people with long, miserable commutes they hate and we really need a world with more viable options.
- tjr225 9y ago
  I wish there were some way to change people's minds.
- r00fus 9y ago
  What is insane is that most people who love driving would probably be happier if those who didn't want to drive were happily serviced by decent public transit. So everyone has to be more miserable because of myopia and indifference.
- int_19h 9y ago
  Lived in a country where public transport is predominant most of my life. Hate public transport. Moved to US, it feels like heaven.
sdrothrock 9y ago
> A frequent theme is the fact that in public transport you need to share space with other people and sometimes it's uncomfortable and crowded. Many think they're too good to "suffer" that 1. Crowded/uncomfortable 2. Very late/early 3. Unhygienic I think I most people could deal with one or two of those, but in my personal experience in the US (PA, NY, DC), it's frequently all three.
- jrnichols 9y ago
  4. unsafe. the biggest reason I know of for people not wanting to take public transit is safety. In the SF Bay Area, MUNI has not always had the best track record for safety and recently BART has had some unfortunate incidents of groups of criminals getting on a train car at one station, robbing everyone in the car, and getting off (and away..) at the next station. And then there's always the stereotypical intoxicated/homeless/mentally unstable individual that poses a safety threat. Sadly something I personally witnessed on BART more than once.
  - dionidium 9y ago
    So, first of all, I'm sympathetic to this concern. I don't think all risks are equal. We're humans, not statistical robots, so we fear some things more than other things and that matters. But it is worth remembering that you're still far, far less safe in your car. In the United States 40,200 people died in automobile-related accidents last year. [0] It's not like it's just a little bit less safe to drive. It's orders of magnitude less safe. How many people died on public transit last year? 20? Is it even 20? Again, I understand why people accept that risk, while not accepting the risk of violent crime, but the numbers are what they are. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/business/highway-traffic-safety.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/business/highway-traffic-...
    - mikeash 9y ago
      Annual public transport deaths in the US are around 2-300. And the number of passenger miles is vastly smaller than cars, so you can’t just compare the raw numbers.
dionidium 9y ago
"Public transportation is for those who can not afford a car." There's a first-mover disadvantage here. In cities where this isn't true, the bus is a much better experience. Take a bus in St. Louis and then take one in Seattle and see for yourself. The experiences won't even be recognizable as belonging to the same category of activity.
tzs 9y ago
Unless you are in an area where parking is not easy, for most Americans taking their own car easily beats taking public transit, especially if the public transit is buses. 1. No long walk to a bus stop or train station. In good weather, such a walk can be good, pleasant exercise. In bad weather...ugh. 2. If you have several places you need to go, the wait time at the start of each segment can really add up. Consider a trip where you want to go to (1) the bank to get some cash, (2) the post office to mail something, (3) your pharmacist to pick up some medicine, (4) a grocery store for some food, and (5) back to home. That's at least 5 waits at bus stops. Maybe more if those places are not all on the same route. A car will usually be much faster (especially if the bank has a drive up ATM and the pharmacy has a drug through pick up). (The post office probably has a drive though mail drop, but I'm assuming the post office is on the itinerary because you need to buy postage--otherwise you'd be mailing the item from home). 3. Public transit too often is treated as a collection of independent routes, each assessed in isolation when the bean counters tweak things, rather than as a complete system that should be assessed globally. If I buy a house or condo or rent an apartment based on a good car commute to my work and good car access to the other places I need to or like to go to, there is a good chance 10 or 20 years from now I'll still have good car access to those places. If I buy a house based on good bus routes to those places with stops close to my house and to my destinations and buses running frequently enough that the waiting is not too bad, what are the chances that will still be true in 10 years? In 20 years? Much lower than with the car, I think. It's far too easy for the transit authorities to decide that my important routes are not getting enough ridership, and that some other, more popular router, need more resources, and shift buses away from my routes or even cancel mine completely. I think #3 is the big one. It means that even if the public transit is good enough in my area that #1 and #2 are acceptable now, I can't count on it remaining that way long term (and in some cities, probably not even short term).
- gkya 9y ago
  Hi, thanks for this response! I think actually it's #2 that is the big one. See, I live in Istanbul province, in a European quarter rather up north by the Bosphorus, so nowhere near the city centre, but when I go to the centre of my quarter, I can easily do all of the things you list there in about half an hour, the time spent at each place included, only by walking from one place to another. And my quarter is part of a comune (tr: ilçe) with a population of slightly more than a hundred thousand people (the province itself counts upwards of 15 million people). I guess what is different between here and the usual US city/suburb is that there shops and stuff are more laid out, where here instead they're congregated in the central areas. So once you're there often you can get all the things done, and catch the bus back home. Also, because urban trains and busses are frequent enough, we seldom need to think about the wait times. Except for the villages you can get hold of a bus in at the worst case about ten minutes everywhere. I do have to walk quite a bit to the bus stop, but that's because my part is like a little instance of a suburb between the Belgrad forests and the strait, thus scarcely populated and an exception to the general situation with the bus network. But after a 10 minute walk to the main street, it'll take less than 5 minutes to get a bus or minibüs (a private/cooperative alternative to the council's busses, pricier but more frequent) to the closest metro station. But I guess the general density of the population helps keep all this network in service, and get it to be built in the first place.

by gkya 9y ago

watersb 9y ago

Lived in USA all my life. Wish that private autos were illegal. Have always been considered insane.

DoreenMichele 9y ago
I am American. I never liked driving. At some point after my divorce, I was able to give up my car. I eventually gave up my driver's license. I don't want to make it illegal, but there are lots of people with long, miserable commutes they hate and we really need a world with more viable options.
tjr225 9y ago
I wish there were some way to change people's minds.
r00fus 9y ago
What is insane is that most people who love driving would probably be happier if those who didn't want to drive were happily serviced by decent public transit. So everyone has to be more miserable because of myopia and indifference.
int_19h 9y ago
Lived in a country where public transport is predominant most of my life. Hate public transport. Moved to US, it feels like heaven.

sdrothrock 9y ago

> A frequent theme is the fact that in public transport you need to share space with other people and sometimes it's uncomfortable and crowded. Many think they're too good to "suffer" that 1. Crowded/uncomfortable 2. Very late/early 3. Unhygienic I think I most people could deal with one or two of those, but in my personal experience in the US (PA, NY, DC), it's frequently all three.

jrnichols 9y ago
4. unsafe. the biggest reason I know of for people not wanting to take public transit is safety. In the SF Bay Area, MUNI has not always had the best track record for safety and recently BART has had some unfortunate incidents of groups of criminals getting on a train car at one station, robbing everyone in the car, and getting off (and away..) at the next station. And then there's always the stereotypical intoxicated/homeless/mentally unstable individual that poses a safety threat. Sadly something I personally witnessed on BART more than once.
- dionidium 9y ago
  So, first of all, I'm sympathetic to this concern. I don't think all risks are equal. We're humans, not statistical robots, so we fear some things more than other things and that matters. But it is worth remembering that you're still far, far less safe in your car. In the United States 40,200 people died in automobile-related accidents last year. [0] It's not like it's just a little bit less safe to drive. It's orders of magnitude less safe. How many people died on public transit last year? 20? Is it even 20? Again, I understand why people accept that risk, while not accepting the risk of violent crime, but the numbers are what they are. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/business/highway-traffic-safety.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/business/highway-traffic-...
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Annual public transport deaths in the US are around 2-300. And the number of passenger miles is vastly smaller than cars, so you can’t just compare the raw numbers.

dionidium 9y ago

"Public transportation is for those who can not afford a car." There's a first-mover disadvantage here. In cities where this isn't true, the bus is a much better experience. Take a bus in St. Louis and then take one in Seattle and see for yourself. The experiences won't even be recognizable as belonging to the same category of activity.

tzs 9y ago

Unless you are in an area where parking is not easy, for most Americans taking their own car easily beats taking public transit, especially if the public transit is buses. 1. No long walk to a bus stop or train station. In good weather, such a walk can be good, pleasant exercise. In bad weather...ugh. 2. If you have several places you need to go, the wait time at the start of each segment can really add up. Consider a trip where you want to go to (1) the bank to get some cash, (2) the post office to mail something, (3) your pharmacist to pick up some medicine, (4) a grocery store for some food, and (5) back to home. That's at least 5 waits at bus stops. Maybe more if those places are not all on the same route. A car will usually be much faster (especially if the bank has a drive up ATM and the pharmacy has a drug through pick up). (The post office probably has a drive though mail drop, but I'm assuming the post office is on the itinerary because you need to buy postage--otherwise you'd be mailing the item from home). 3. Public transit too often is treated as a collection of independent routes, each assessed in isolation when the bean counters tweak things, rather than as a complete system that should be assessed globally. If I buy a house or condo or rent an apartment based on a good car commute to my work and good car access to the other places I need to or like to go to, there is a good chance 10 or 20 years from now I'll still have good car access to those places. If I buy a house based on good bus routes to those places with stops close to my house and to my destinations and buses running frequently enough that the waiting is not too bad, what are the chances that will still be true in 10 years? In 20 years? Much lower than with the car, I think. It's far too easy for the transit authorities to decide that my important routes are not getting enough ridership, and that some other, more popular router, need more resources, and shift buses away from my routes or even cancel mine completely. I think #3 is the big one. It means that even if the public transit is good enough in my area that #1 and #2 are acceptable now, I can't count on it remaining that way long term (and in some cities, probably not even short term).

gkya 9y ago
Hi, thanks for this response! I think actually it's #2 that is the big one. See, I live in Istanbul province, in a European quarter rather up north by the Bosphorus, so nowhere near the city centre, but when I go to the centre of my quarter, I can easily do all of the things you list there in about half an hour, the time spent at each place included, only by walking from one place to another. And my quarter is part of a comune (tr: ilçe) with a population of slightly more than a hundred thousand people (the province itself counts upwards of 15 million people). I guess what is different between here and the usual US city/suburb is that there shops and stuff are more laid out, where here instead they're congregated in the central areas. So once you're there often you can get all the things done, and catch the bus back home. Also, because urban trains and busses are frequent enough, we seldom need to think about the wait times. Except for the villages you can get hold of a bus in at the worst case about ten minutes everywhere. I do have to walk quite a bit to the bus stop, but that's because my part is like a little instance of a suburb between the Belgrad forests and the strait, thus scarcely populated and an exception to the general situation with the bus network. But after a 10 minute walk to the main street, it'll take less than 5 minutes to get a bus or minibüs (a private/cooperative alternative to the council's busses, pricier but more frequent) to the closest metro station. But I guess the general density of the population helps keep all this network in service, and get it to be built in the first place.