4 ms·

Yeah, it does. People can use public transport. Or legs.

by ck425 8y ago

TomMarius 8y ago
Definitely not everyone and/or every time. Also time is a factor. And what about comfort? I'm not in favor of the current system, but your idea is wrong. It creates a centralized monopolized transportation system that serves well only a very small minority of people and might easily became a nightmare. There are other ways we could follow that would make much more people happy, support the economy and wouldn't make sick people stuck at home and everyone late. One such system could be a real time optimized network of self driving and self owning (limited AI) electric vehicles with various sizes and operation modes (on demand like taxi/bus-like/...) - and non-self driving vehicles wouldn't be allowed inside.
- 549362-30499 8y ago
  Driving in a city with even a basic public transit system is almost always slower than taking the train anyway, so time isn't really a factor. As for comfort, I don't think all the negative externalities of having a car-centric urban area are worth that trade off - what about the comfort of bikers and pedestrians that cars disrupt? In the US at least, we already massively subsidize road infrastructure and gasoline, I think it's fair to let people who actually live in cities enjoy them, rather than bend over backwards to accommodate suburbanites who only come in for work. Also, cars aren't a magic ticket to mobility. Elderly people often can't drive and end up stuck in their homes. They have to be purchased or leased, and maintained, etc.
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    > Driving in a city with even a basic public transit system This is not true for almost every major EU city I've been in. Yeah, many routes yes, the common ones - of course. Once you need something more specific, it can take hours to get to the other side of the city. > what about the comfort of bikers and pedestrians that cars disrupt This is bad planning, not a side effect of having 4 wheel road vehicles. It'd be exactly the same with only public transit if you wouldn't change how you design roads. > Also, cars aren't a magic ticket to mobility. Elderly people often can't drive and end up stuck in their homes. They have to be purchased or leased, and maintained, etc. Not saying they are a magical solution to everything, I'm saying they help a lot - because they do. I was ill three times this year and having a car was literally a life saver, I wouldn't even be able to buy groceries without it. My grandmother wouldn't be able to get to her cottage without a car because public transport simply doesn't go there. My parents wouldn't be able to raise 2 kids with wildly different interests at the same time because they wouldn't get them to school and then themselves to work on time without cars - actually they wouldn't be able to work at all because of how much time they'd spent in a bus (we calculated it one time). BTW with comfort I meant this: During summer I drive car exclusively (taxi or mine) because I physically can't go inside a bus - it's so hot, humid and smelling that I start throwing up and losing consciousness almost before I go inside. Yes, I'm a particularly sensitive person but I'm not the only one. > They have to be purchased or leased, and maintained, etc. That would be solved with the system I proposed above. When I'm saying cars, I mean four wheel vehicles for ~4 persons, not that I'd like to maintain the entire current system as it is. I'd like to see more much optimization and
    - 549362-30499 8y ago
      Better urban planning is not going to fix anything in cities that were constructed several hundred years ago. Plus the solution there seems to always be wider roads and separate bike lanes - once again subsidizing things for traffic at the expense of everyone else. Prioritizing car traffic is a trade off. For your individual situation, they offer you convenience and comfort. But that's at the expense of other people, especially people who actually live in the urban core and aren't just visiting or there for work. Your system of only allowing AI-driven electric cars is a nice compromise, but it's just speculation - we're a very long way from anything like that being realized. This is about policy changes today that create a dramatically higher quality of life for millions of urban dwellers.
      - TomMarius 8y ago
        Sorry but I'm pretty sure that banning cars would be much harder and take longer than implementing my idea, politics-wise. People value their individual mobility. It's a huge problem to remove a few parking places. At least in Prague.
- ta1234567890 8y ago
  > transportation system that serves well only a very small minority of people and might easily became a nightmare Why do you say that? Have you ever lived in a city with good public transportation? You should consider visiting Tokyo, the largest metro area in the world, with 38M residents. Almost no one drives there, public transportation is what pretty much everyone uses and it works. It's a clean and quite city where everyone can easily get around. Walking and biking there are really nice too.
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    I lived (and still live) in a city with good public transportation my whole life (Prague has reportedly one of the best in the world). This is an issue of economics. Government-provided services with no alternative tend to go very bad very soon. Tokyo has grown a lot - and they built their infrastructure well. My city has been built mostly 200-500 years ago.
- ck425 8y ago
  Sick people can often get public transport. I was seriously ill this year and got a bus to hospital. And your comfort comes at the cost of massive amounts of space, clean air and thousands of deaths each year. Sure, perhaps we need more gradual change, particularly in the states. But in Europe, especially the UK, we should be rolling out pedestrianisation to our busiest city centre streets and aggressively aiming for minimal traffic in the heart of city centres.
  - gaius 8y ago
    And your comfort comes at the cost of massive amounts of space, clean air and thousands of deaths each year. There should be a national registry of everyone who wants to ban cars, that every driver can check before anyone wants a ride, or anything delivered to their front door
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    > Sick people can often get public transport. I was seriously ill this year and got a bus to hospital. Sure they do. Not always though. Getting a bus to a hospital is impossible from my current place. And it's not just about driving yourself, you need to drive things (e.g. food) as well. Yes, I drove my car the 600 meters it is to the store - I simply wasn't able to walk it, and the idea of carrying things on the way back was truly sickening. It's 800 to the bus stop, I simply wouldn't make it. Food poisoning is a bitch (thankfully that was only one of the three occasions, the other ones were much lighter). > And your comfort comes at the cost of massive amounts of space, clean air and thousands of deaths each year. If you read my comment properly, you'd know that I'm against that as well as you are. I'm not in favor of the current system. I'm just more in favor of individual transportation, but that doesn't imply the current system.
    - ck425 8y ago
      Your system is still a ways off and even then still takes up a lot a room and is potentially just as lethal to pedestrians and cyclists.
      - 8y ago
- cft 8y ago
  That's how socialism works. Cars are individualistic.
sakopov 8y ago
I don't think I've ever seen this topic start a healthy dialogue on HN. Case in point.

Yeah, it does. People can use public transport. Or legs.

by ck425 8y ago

Yeah, it does. People can use public transport. Or legs.

Definitely not everyone and/or every time. Also time is a factor. And what about comfort? I'm not in favor of the current system, but your idea is wrong. It creates a centralized monopolized transportation system that serves well only a very small minority of people and might easily became a nightmare. There are other ways we could follow that would make much more people happy, support the economy and wouldn't make sick people stuck at home and everyone late. One such system could be a real time optimized network of self driving and self owning (limited AI) electric vehicles with various sizes and operation modes (on demand like taxi/bus-like/...) - and non-self driving vehicles wouldn't be allowed inside.

549362-30499 8y ago
Driving in a city with even a basic public transit system is almost always slower than taking the train anyway, so time isn't really a factor. As for comfort, I don't think all the negative externalities of having a car-centric urban area are worth that trade off - what about the comfort of bikers and pedestrians that cars disrupt? In the US at least, we already massively subsidize road infrastructure and gasoline, I think it's fair to let people who actually live in cities enjoy them, rather than bend over backwards to accommodate suburbanites who only come in for work. Also, cars aren't a magic ticket to mobility. Elderly people often can't drive and end up stuck in their homes. They have to be purchased or leased, and maintained, etc.
- TomMarius 8y ago
  > Driving in a city with even a basic public transit system This is not true for almost every major EU city I've been in. Yeah, many routes yes, the common ones - of course. Once you need something more specific, it can take hours to get to the other side of the city. > what about the comfort of bikers and pedestrians that cars disrupt This is bad planning, not a side effect of having 4 wheel road vehicles. It'd be exactly the same with only public transit if you wouldn't change how you design roads. > Also, cars aren't a magic ticket to mobility. Elderly people often can't drive and end up stuck in their homes. They have to be purchased or leased, and maintained, etc. Not saying they are a magical solution to everything, I'm saying they help a lot - because they do. I was ill three times this year and having a car was literally a life saver, I wouldn't even be able to buy groceries without it. My grandmother wouldn't be able to get to her cottage without a car because public transport simply doesn't go there. My parents wouldn't be able to raise 2 kids with wildly different interests at the same time because they wouldn't get them to school and then themselves to work on time without cars - actually they wouldn't be able to work at all because of how much time they'd spent in a bus (we calculated it one time). BTW with comfort I meant this: During summer I drive car exclusively (taxi or mine) because I physically can't go inside a bus - it's so hot, humid and smelling that I start throwing up and losing consciousness almost before I go inside. Yes, I'm a particularly sensitive person but I'm not the only one. > They have to be purchased or leased, and maintained, etc. That would be solved with the system I proposed above. When I'm saying cars, I mean four wheel vehicles for ~4 persons, not that I'd like to maintain the entire current system as it is. I'd like to see more much optimization and
  - 549362-30499 8y ago
    Better urban planning is not going to fix anything in cities that were constructed several hundred years ago. Plus the solution there seems to always be wider roads and separate bike lanes - once again subsidizing things for traffic at the expense of everyone else. Prioritizing car traffic is a trade off. For your individual situation, they offer you convenience and comfort. But that's at the expense of other people, especially people who actually live in the urban core and aren't just visiting or there for work. Your system of only allowing AI-driven electric cars is a nice compromise, but it's just speculation - we're a very long way from anything like that being realized. This is about policy changes today that create a dramatically higher quality of life for millions of urban dwellers.
    - TomMarius 8y ago
      Sorry but I'm pretty sure that banning cars would be much harder and take longer than implementing my idea, politics-wise. People value their individual mobility. It's a huge problem to remove a few parking places. At least in Prague.
ta1234567890 8y ago
> transportation system that serves well only a very small minority of people and might easily became a nightmare Why do you say that? Have you ever lived in a city with good public transportation? You should consider visiting Tokyo, the largest metro area in the world, with 38M residents. Almost no one drives there, public transportation is what pretty much everyone uses and it works. It's a clean and quite city where everyone can easily get around. Walking and biking there are really nice too.
- TomMarius 8y ago
  I lived (and still live) in a city with good public transportation my whole life (Prague has reportedly one of the best in the world). This is an issue of economics. Government-provided services with no alternative tend to go very bad very soon. Tokyo has grown a lot - and they built their infrastructure well. My city has been built mostly 200-500 years ago.
ck425 8y ago
Sick people can often get public transport. I was seriously ill this year and got a bus to hospital. And your comfort comes at the cost of massive amounts of space, clean air and thousands of deaths each year. Sure, perhaps we need more gradual change, particularly in the states. But in Europe, especially the UK, we should be rolling out pedestrianisation to our busiest city centre streets and aggressively aiming for minimal traffic in the heart of city centres.
- gaius 8y ago
  And your comfort comes at the cost of massive amounts of space, clean air and thousands of deaths each year. There should be a national registry of everyone who wants to ban cars, that every driver can check before anyone wants a ride, or anything delivered to their front door
- TomMarius 8y ago
  > Sick people can often get public transport. I was seriously ill this year and got a bus to hospital. Sure they do. Not always though. Getting a bus to a hospital is impossible from my current place. And it's not just about driving yourself, you need to drive things (e.g. food) as well. Yes, I drove my car the 600 meters it is to the store - I simply wasn't able to walk it, and the idea of carrying things on the way back was truly sickening. It's 800 to the bus stop, I simply wouldn't make it. Food poisoning is a bitch (thankfully that was only one of the three occasions, the other ones were much lighter). > And your comfort comes at the cost of massive amounts of space, clean air and thousands of deaths each year. If you read my comment properly, you'd know that I'm against that as well as you are. I'm not in favor of the current system. I'm just more in favor of individual transportation, but that doesn't imply the current system.
  - ck425 8y ago
    Your system is still a ways off and even then still takes up a lot a room and is potentially just as lethal to pedestrians and cyclists.
    - 8y ago
cft 8y ago
That's how socialism works. Cars are individualistic.

sakopov 8y ago

I don't think I've ever seen this topic start a healthy dialogue on HN. Case in point.