3 ms·

> More control of when you leave/arrive, storage space to transport things, not dealing with other people, ability to go wherever you want, air conditioning. B

by pkulak 8y ago

> More control of when you leave/arrive, storage space to transport things, not dealing with other people, ability to go wherever you want, air conditioning. But everything you listed there, except people and AC, doesn't apply to commuting, which is the main transportation people in suburbs rely on.

rayiner 8y ago
Sure it does. Want to pick up some beer on the way home from work? Kid had a rough night and you want to sleep in 30 minutes later than usual (taking you out of the AM peak train frequency)? Don’t want to have to walk 10 minutes through the rain (or a 150% humidity DC day) to get to your office? Driving is much better for that.
- pkulak 8y ago
  Yeah, I guess it depends on the person. I live on a pretty strict schedule, so if my kid has a bad night, we all still have to be up and out at exactly the same time. The closest parking garage is a lot farther than the closest train stop. I've taken small groceries home in my backpack pretty often; there's lots of shopping by my office. The thought of parking at a shopping center after work sounds really unappealing. :D
  - estebank 8y ago
    One thing to notice is that the groceries themselves are different in the us and Europe. Packages have a tendency to be bigger and the shops tend to be further away because the customers will be driving to the shop. It's a self reinforcing cycle.
- komali2 8y ago
  Interesting, the reasons you listed make a stronger argument for public transit than for cars, for me. 30 minutes sleeping in mean I've just added one hour to my car commute time (we joked that the difference between leaving at 6:30 and 7am is getting to work at 7am and 9am), whereas I just catch the next train and get there exactly at the same time as I would have before... plus 30 minutes. If I want to pick up beer, I just grab some from the liquor store on the way to the train or whatever, and carry it, no big deal. Re: rain, traffic accidents go way up in the rain and everything slows way down on the freeways, but the train doesn't feel it at all and still gets there exactly at the same time. It's got AC on it so I'm not uncomfortable on hot days. Public Transit generally sucks in America so yea, driving is better because the above reasons don't apply when the train comes once every 3 hours, is unreliable, and the AC is broken. But the option does exist to have good public transit, it just needs the funding. Other cities and countries have figured it out, it's possible. So given that good public transit is an option, is better for the environment, is cheaper in real costs, why not seek that out?
  - rayiner 8y ago
    > But the option does exist to have good public transit, it just needs the funding. Other cities and countries have figured it out, it's possible. Our public transit is actually very well funded. London’s Tube spends half as much money per passenger mile as New York’s subway. (And the New York Subway or DC Metro get half their operational funding from the government, while the London Tube pays for its own operational funding with fares.) Just because non-Americans have figured out how to do something doesn’t mean Americans can’t. (For example, we spend among the most on public education per student, but get worse results.) Good, well managed, public services is something that appears incompatible with our culture.
    - komali2 8y ago
      >incompatible with our culture. Culture, or system of governance? Culture is too wishy-washy a term. It seems to easy to give up - ah sorry, Americans are just too stupid/lazy to figure it out. Nah. I want to figure out what specifically about the structure of our infrastructure development is, and fix it.
      - rayiner 8y ago
        Our system of governance is an expression of our culture. In France, when the government wants to build a railroad, they do the studies, then they pass a law that preempts every other law, and the railroad gets built. In the US, the government does the studies, decides to build the railroad, and spends years tangled up in litigation. We created those legal structures to reflect what we think is important. Right now, folks in our county are trying to shut down three light rail stops that have already been built and are operating. (Transit is a “conduit for crime.”) If we do that, we have to pay the federal government back a bunch of money we got to build those stops in the first place. Americans hate infrastructure. And they don’t particularly like each other, so they have built a distributed society that doesn’t require as much centralized coordination. It’s not stupidity or laziness. Americans are too individualistic to build infrastructure. Nobody can put the needs of society over their own needs. That’s why every infrastructure project is a disaster of inefficient self-serving union workers[1] and endless litigation. (I have an acquaintance who is ethnically Japanese, and moved back to Japan after growing up in the US. She remarked to me: “Americans don’t really go around thinking about how what they’re doing affects other people.”) Once you really internalize all that, it’s pretty fine. I kinda like the suburbs. I like being able to roll right up to a chain restaurant and park, instead of having to shlep a stroller up and down stairs. In my old age, I’ve realized that if you’re living in New York or SF, you’re doing the whole America thing wrong. That just forces you to constantly confront all the things Americans do poorly (transit, zoning, social services). Kansas City! You can drive everywhere, traffic isn’t too bad, cost of living is super low, etc. [1] In the NYT piece on why the Second Avenue subway costs so much, there were French transit managers pointing out how ridiculously over staffed the project was. The French were pointing out how inefficient we were.

by pkulak 8y ago

rayiner 8y ago

Sure it does. Want to pick up some beer on the way home from work? Kid had a rough night and you want to sleep in 30 minutes later than usual (taking you out of the AM peak train frequency)? Don’t want to have to walk 10 minutes through the rain (or a 150% humidity DC day) to get to your office? Driving is much better for that.

pkulak 8y ago
Yeah, I guess it depends on the person. I live on a pretty strict schedule, so if my kid has a bad night, we all still have to be up and out at exactly the same time. The closest parking garage is a lot farther than the closest train stop. I've taken small groceries home in my backpack pretty often; there's lots of shopping by my office. The thought of parking at a shopping center after work sounds really unappealing. :D
- estebank 8y ago
  One thing to notice is that the groceries themselves are different in the us and Europe. Packages have a tendency to be bigger and the shops tend to be further away because the customers will be driving to the shop. It's a self reinforcing cycle.
komali2 8y ago
Interesting, the reasons you listed make a stronger argument for public transit than for cars, for me. 30 minutes sleeping in mean I've just added one hour to my car commute time (we joked that the difference between leaving at 6:30 and 7am is getting to work at 7am and 9am), whereas I just catch the next train and get there exactly at the same time as I would have before... plus 30 minutes. If I want to pick up beer, I just grab some from the liquor store on the way to the train or whatever, and carry it, no big deal. Re: rain, traffic accidents go way up in the rain and everything slows way down on the freeways, but the train doesn't feel it at all and still gets there exactly at the same time. It's got AC on it so I'm not uncomfortable on hot days. Public Transit generally sucks in America so yea, driving is better because the above reasons don't apply when the train comes once every 3 hours, is unreliable, and the AC is broken. But the option does exist to have good public transit, it just needs the funding. Other cities and countries have figured it out, it's possible. So given that good public transit is an option, is better for the environment, is cheaper in real costs, why not seek that out?
- rayiner 8y ago
  > But the option does exist to have good public transit, it just needs the funding. Other cities and countries have figured it out, it's possible. Our public transit is actually very well funded. London’s Tube spends half as much money per passenger mile as New York’s subway. (And the New York Subway or DC Metro get half their operational funding from the government, while the London Tube pays for its own operational funding with fares.) Just because non-Americans have figured out how to do something doesn’t mean Americans can’t. (For example, we spend among the most on public education per student, but get worse results.) Good, well managed, public services is something that appears incompatible with our culture.
  - komali2 8y ago
    >incompatible with our culture. Culture, or system of governance? Culture is too wishy-washy a term. It seems to easy to give up - ah sorry, Americans are just too stupid/lazy to figure it out. Nah. I want to figure out what specifically about the structure of our infrastructure development is, and fix it.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      Our system of governance is an expression of our culture. In France, when the government wants to build a railroad, they do the studies, then they pass a law that preempts every other law, and the railroad gets built. In the US, the government does the studies, decides to build the railroad, and spends years tangled up in litigation. We created those legal structures to reflect what we think is important. Right now, folks in our county are trying to shut down three light rail stops that have already been built and are operating. (Transit is a “conduit for crime.”) If we do that, we have to pay the federal government back a bunch of money we got to build those stops in the first place. Americans hate infrastructure. And they don’t particularly like each other, so they have built a distributed society that doesn’t require as much centralized coordination. It’s not stupidity or laziness. Americans are too individualistic to build infrastructure. Nobody can put the needs of society over their own needs. That’s why every infrastructure project is a disaster of inefficient self-serving union workers[1] and endless litigation. (I have an acquaintance who is ethnically Japanese, and moved back to Japan after growing up in the US. She remarked to me: “Americans don’t really go around thinking about how what they’re doing affects other people.”) Once you really internalize all that, it’s pretty fine. I kinda like the suburbs. I like being able to roll right up to a chain restaurant and park, instead of having to shlep a stroller up and down stairs. In my old age, I’ve realized that if you’re living in New York or SF, you’re doing the whole America thing wrong. That just forces you to constantly confront all the things Americans do poorly (transit, zoning, social services). Kansas City! You can drive everywhere, traffic isn’t too bad, cost of living is super low, etc. [1] In the NYT piece on why the Second Avenue subway costs so much, there were French transit managers pointing out how ridiculously over staffed the project was. The French were pointing out how inefficient we were.