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I'm continuously baffled by our (Americans') fixation with innovating on public transit technology instead of actually building any that people could use right

I'm continuously baffled by our (Americans') fixation with innovating on public transit technology instead of actually building any that people could use right now. Why focus money on developing a hyperloop++, when we could have something almost as good with technology that currently exists?

gberger 7y ago
Because Elon Musk is not the government
Pfhreak 7y ago
Seattle is full of this. Tons of people around Seattle vote against transit because it won't serve them directly. "The train doesn't visit my house, so why should we build it", or so the thinking goes. It's more than a little myopic, considering many of them commute via car into the city, and getting people onto the train would reduce their commute. But hey, the individualistic "I'm not going to use it, so why should I pay for it" is an accepted attitude in the states.
- Florin_Andrei 7y ago
  There's nothing magic about individualism and "freedom" (mind the double quotes). Past a certain point, more is not automatically better.
n4r9 7y ago
Sounds kind of similar to the prevalence of using cool tech stacks to achieve goals in complicated ways when you can do the same with a couple of bash scripts.
meddlepal 7y ago
Cynical: American's have accepted that the status quo really cannot be improved much due to a variety of factors including cost, politics/NIMBYism and environmental stuff. We can still innovate on the tech and make a profit by selling it to other countries even if we are utterly incapable of adopting it ourselves. Basically, America is done advancing it's infrastructure for the foreseeable future.
- simion314 7y ago
  What I seen here on HN from many topics from americans is the fact that they believe that for some reason US conditions are special, is largeror the density is not good enough or the work conditions are worse in other countries, I do not understand why there are not many private minibuses for short distances and nicer(private) buses for medium distances, from what I read here it appears like US has no private transport companies. At least those would work oh the high demand routes. Are there regulations that prevent this or is something more cultural (like only poor guys would use a bus or train). There is the issue that people in HN may live in larger cities and have more money then the average person.
  - meddlepal 7y ago
    Well we have Uber/Lyft which are private transportation companies... but that's not what you were thinking of I suspect. > Are there regulations that prevent this or is something more cultural (like only poor guys would use a bus or train). Mostly this. Busses are seen as transport for the poor and American's hate to identify themselves with poverty.
    - simion314 7y ago
      Let me give you examples on what I am thinking of. I live in a village 10Km from a city, there are private companies with buses or minibuses that operate on this route but that also go to villages that may be 50Km away from the city (people work in the city but own houses in the villages, some will do this route daily others only in weekends if they own an apartment in the city ) Many students in my area are studding in larger cities, maybe 300+ Km away (6 hours with a bus or 8 with a train) , there is a large number of private companies on this routes , you have a lot of choices like starting from 4AM until 16PM at every 2 hours there will be a bus (again from private companies). The trains are not as often, maybe only 1 direct train to one of the major cities.
  - dahdum 7y ago
    The only private railroad in the country opened a few years ago in South Florida, and is expanding from Miami to Orlando in a few years. Hopefully more will spring up around the country, but I'm not holding my breath. Florida is ideal because both parties are largely pro-development / pro-growth, so the regulatory hurdles are set much lower, and the geology is flat with large amounts of unused land.
praveenster 7y ago
I get your point and I somewhat agree with it, especially when I see a lot of cities worldwide having better public transportation than in places in my neighborhood (SoCal). But, the large benefit of working on these futuristic ideas is that it helps indirect innovation in other areas, similar to how the lunar missions helped build and shape a lot of other technologies.
r00fus 7y ago
It's a sign of disfunction that folks like Elon aren't getting government contracts (if only for feasibility review) rather than doing their own thing. In the end China/Japan will be selling this technology to us, not the other way around.
- Florin_Andrei 7y ago
  But don't you know, "government" is a bad word, and "socialism" is bad for you. /s
will_brown 7y ago
Because the US doesn’t care about helping people who would take public transportation...instead we prefer VCs funneling money into innovative startups disrupting transportation by littering scooters all over our public walkways and allowing them to eventually take these companies public for billions in return. God forbid you have an opinion other than US transportation is the best, US healthcare is the best, US education is the best...you can’t even look at other countries models or actual global rankings showing the US outspends every other country in those area yet our outcomes are nowhere near the top.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive flamewar comments to HN. I don't mean to pick on you personally, but rather on this category of comment: high-indignation, low-information. What kind of discussion follows from something like this? Worse discussion. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Shivetya 7y ago
because politicians are not interested in public transit unless it involves a ribbon cutting and or a naming celebration. throw in that within just the boundaries of one state and they could not even build a high speed rail without tripling of costs and involvement of hundreds of parties who all wanted their piece of the action. in some sort of perverse way we should be thankful for all the political hamstringing that public transportation suffers because it has forced private industry to innovate around that. the public transit bus is the most affordable and flexible means to move the people throughout the city yet it is regularly slighted in funds to promote rail which has more prestige attached to it.
api 7y ago
The US isn't even really building hyperloop. Even if it gets prototyped, it's not like governments are going to sign up. A generation of Americans were brainwashed that infrastructure equals communism. Nothing will happen in US infrastructure until the baby boomers retire from politics.
Yetanfou 7y ago
Because it is relatively easy to develop new technology, hard to build things in the US where the government can not just decide to build something without lengthy procedures to appropriate funds and property.

gberger 7y ago

Because Elon Musk is not the government

Pfhreak 7y ago

Seattle is full of this. Tons of people around Seattle vote against transit because it won't serve them directly. "The train doesn't visit my house, so why should we build it", or so the thinking goes. It's more than a little myopic, considering many of them commute via car into the city, and getting people onto the train would reduce their commute. But hey, the individualistic "I'm not going to use it, so why should I pay for it" is an accepted attitude in the states.

Florin_Andrei 7y ago
There's nothing magic about individualism and "freedom" (mind the double quotes). Past a certain point, more is not automatically better.

n4r9 7y ago

Sounds kind of similar to the prevalence of using cool tech stacks to achieve goals in complicated ways when you can do the same with a couple of bash scripts.

meddlepal 7y ago

Cynical: American's have accepted that the status quo really cannot be improved much due to a variety of factors including cost, politics/NIMBYism and environmental stuff. We can still innovate on the tech and make a profit by selling it to other countries even if we are utterly incapable of adopting it ourselves. Basically, America is done advancing it's infrastructure for the foreseeable future.

simion314 7y ago
What I seen here on HN from many topics from americans is the fact that they believe that for some reason US conditions are special, is largeror the density is not good enough or the work conditions are worse in other countries, I do not understand why there are not many private minibuses for short distances and nicer(private) buses for medium distances, from what I read here it appears like US has no private transport companies. At least those would work oh the high demand routes. Are there regulations that prevent this or is something more cultural (like only poor guys would use a bus or train). There is the issue that people in HN may live in larger cities and have more money then the average person.
- meddlepal 7y ago
  Well we have Uber/Lyft which are private transportation companies... but that's not what you were thinking of I suspect. > Are there regulations that prevent this or is something more cultural (like only poor guys would use a bus or train). Mostly this. Busses are seen as transport for the poor and American's hate to identify themselves with poverty.
  - simion314 7y ago
    Let me give you examples on what I am thinking of. I live in a village 10Km from a city, there are private companies with buses or minibuses that operate on this route but that also go to villages that may be 50Km away from the city (people work in the city but own houses in the villages, some will do this route daily others only in weekends if they own an apartment in the city ) Many students in my area are studding in larger cities, maybe 300+ Km away (6 hours with a bus or 8 with a train) , there is a large number of private companies on this routes , you have a lot of choices like starting from 4AM until 16PM at every 2 hours there will be a bus (again from private companies). The trains are not as often, maybe only 1 direct train to one of the major cities.
- dahdum 7y ago
  The only private railroad in the country opened a few years ago in South Florida, and is expanding from Miami to Orlando in a few years. Hopefully more will spring up around the country, but I'm not holding my breath. Florida is ideal because both parties are largely pro-development / pro-growth, so the regulatory hurdles are set much lower, and the geology is flat with large amounts of unused land.

praveenster 7y ago

I get your point and I somewhat agree with it, especially when I see a lot of cities worldwide having better public transportation than in places in my neighborhood (SoCal). But, the large benefit of working on these futuristic ideas is that it helps indirect innovation in other areas, similar to how the lunar missions helped build and shape a lot of other technologies.

r00fus 7y ago

It's a sign of disfunction that folks like Elon aren't getting government contracts (if only for feasibility review) rather than doing their own thing. In the end China/Japan will be selling this technology to us, not the other way around.

Florin_Andrei 7y ago
But don't you know, "government" is a bad word, and "socialism" is bad for you. /s

will_brown 7y ago

Because the US doesn’t care about helping people who would take public transportation...instead we prefer VCs funneling money into innovative startups disrupting transportation by littering scooters all over our public walkways and allowing them to eventually take these companies public for billions in return. God forbid you have an opinion other than US transportation is the best, US healthcare is the best, US education is the best...you can’t even look at other countries models or actual global rankings showing the US outspends every other country in those area yet our outcomes are nowhere near the top.

dang 7y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive flamewar comments to HN. I don't mean to pick on you personally, but rather on this category of comment: high-indignation, low-information. What kind of discussion follows from something like this? Worse discussion. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Shivetya 7y ago

because politicians are not interested in public transit unless it involves a ribbon cutting and or a naming celebration. throw in that within just the boundaries of one state and they could not even build a high speed rail without tripling of costs and involvement of hundreds of parties who all wanted their piece of the action. in some sort of perverse way we should be thankful for all the political hamstringing that public transportation suffers because it has forced private industry to innovate around that. the public transit bus is the most affordable and flexible means to move the people throughout the city yet it is regularly slighted in funds to promote rail which has more prestige attached to it.

api 7y ago

The US isn't even really building hyperloop. Even if it gets prototyped, it's not like governments are going to sign up. A generation of Americans were brainwashed that infrastructure equals communism. Nothing will happen in US infrastructure until the baby boomers retire from politics.

Yetanfou 7y ago

Because it is relatively easy to develop new technology, hard to build things in the US where the government can not just decide to build something without lengthy procedures to appropriate funds and property.