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The biggest issue I've seen with public transportation is it almost always works on some varient of a hub and spoke system. If you don't a) Live downtown and c

The biggest issue I've seen with public transportation is it almost always works on some varient of a hub and spoke system. If you don't a) Live downtown and commute to a suburb, or b) Live in a suburb and commute downtown it's basically useless. I live SE from downtown and work due south of downtown. To bus to work, I'd have to take a 30 minute bus downtown, then a 45 minute bus back out to work. My drive is only 25 minutes. Until they dramatically expand the bus lines, my only option is to either move or pursue a job that matches our transportation system.

hateful 7y ago
The only thing that's going to change things is the freedom of being able to travel directly from point A to point B without having to go to other points in between. Right your at your house "A" and you need to go your job "B", but to take public transportation you have to go to bus stop "C" and take it to bus stop "D", and then on to "B" (and that's best case scenario). Where I'm from (Long Island, NY) most of the public transport goes either east to west or north to south, with more going east to west (including trains). So if you want to go North East, forget about it. The only way to solve this is through more automation - not just self driving automation, but even just the automation of a matching system. Sometimes I wonder if someone like Uber came out with an "Uber-Commute" service, if it would take off. You could pay a monthly fee, so you pay even when you don't use it. We could have self-driving now, if we started with the infrastructure for it, but unfortunately that's not easy. At the very least we could have "self driving" lanes everywhere for single person "pod" vehicles - that would be neat.
Merrill 7y ago
More metro areas should have mass transit along the ring highways connecting the edge cities and close in suburbs. Airports and commuter rail stations are also often along the ring highways or on short stubs off them. There is no reason to focus business in the urban core, rather than in office parks and industrial areas around the periphery. People who want to live in the urban core can reverse commute to jobs on the ring.
- smileysteve 7y ago
  > There is no reason to focus business in the urban core, Given your example, effective land use via parking is one. In a spoke and hub transit model; if people go to the hub, they can use central transit to get there; If they go to the outer wheel, unless the place is on the spoke itself, then additional last mile transportation is required.

hateful 7y ago

The only thing that's going to change things is the freedom of being able to travel directly from point A to point B without having to go to other points in between. Right your at your house "A" and you need to go your job "B", but to take public transportation you have to go to bus stop "C" and take it to bus stop "D", and then on to "B" (and that's best case scenario). Where I'm from (Long Island, NY) most of the public transport goes either east to west or north to south, with more going east to west (including trains). So if you want to go North East, forget about it. The only way to solve this is through more automation - not just self driving automation, but even just the automation of a matching system. Sometimes I wonder if someone like Uber came out with an "Uber-Commute" service, if it would take off. You could pay a monthly fee, so you pay even when you don't use it. We could have self-driving now, if we started with the infrastructure for it, but unfortunately that's not easy. At the very least we could have "self driving" lanes everywhere for single person "pod" vehicles - that would be neat.

Merrill 7y ago

More metro areas should have mass transit along the ring highways connecting the edge cities and close in suburbs. Airports and commuter rail stations are also often along the ring highways or on short stubs off them. There is no reason to focus business in the urban core, rather than in office parks and industrial areas around the periphery. People who want to live in the urban core can reverse commute to jobs on the ring.

smileysteve 7y ago
> There is no reason to focus business in the urban core, Given your example, effective land use via parking is one. In a spoke and hub transit model; if people go to the hub, they can use central transit to get there; If they go to the outer wheel, unless the place is on the spoke itself, then additional last mile transportation is required.