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I worry that you think it would be better if parent wasted 3x as much of his life commuting on public transit instead. Distance between homes and offices is th

I worry that you think it would be better if parent wasted 3x as much of his life commuting on public transit instead. Distance between homes and offices is the problem; cars are the worst solution except for all the others.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
chiefofgxbxl 6y ago
Except that cars have influenced the way we build towns and cities: separate everything by non-walkable, non-busable distances because the basic assumption is that everyone has a car. Public transit "sucks" for a number of reasons, many of them car-related: (-) buses have to share roads with cars, so they have to put up with the congestion they are trying to solve, (-) money that would have been spent on public transit is being spent on road expansions to "solve traffic", and others. > cars are the worst solution except for all the others. This doesn't explain cities that have successful public transit systems... We wouldn't have built our offices and homes so far from each other if the expectation was to walk/bike/bus everywhere. Unfortunately this is a chicken-and-egg problem, where things may need to get worse temporarily for things to get better.
- iateanapple 6y ago
  > This doesn't explain cities that have successful public transit systems... Do these cities simply have terrible private transit options? I don’t know anyone who would prefer to take public transport except in cities with poor car infrastructure. I do know lots of people who would rather walk or bike to work.
  - devdas 6y ago
    You have to explicitly optimise the city for public transit. Quite a lot of European cities do that.
    - iateanapple 6y ago
      > You have to explicitly optimise the city for public transit. Quite a lot of European cities do that. Even in those cities very few enjoy taking public transport - and would drive if they had free parking, didn’t have to pay tolls, didn’t think it was terrible for the environment, etc
      - rini17 6y ago
        This is not true, driving in european cities is stressful (narrow streets with irregular layout, high density of pedestrians/cyclists, not enough parking places). The public transit, when done right, is way more convenient.
      - rtlfe 6y ago
        > would drive if they had free parking, didn’t have to pay tolls, didn’t think it was terrible for the environment, etc So basically your argument is that people would drive if it weren't terrible in every way? By that logic, people would eat plutonium... if only it were more available, tasted good, and didn't kill you.
      - devdas 6y ago
        That would still make things worse, because cars need roadspace. Getting rid of the road space for cars and making public transit good enough is a pretty good solution.
- closeparen 6y ago
  Which public transit system enables the median earner to own a 2,400sqft single family detached house on a quarter acre in a socioeconomically homogeneous school district?
  - kqr 6y ago
    No system of any kind allows that. With public transit, you pay for it in personal discomfort and rigidness of schedule. With personal automobiles, you simply externalise the negativities – but there's still a huge cost, only no longer paid by the individual.
  - rtlfe 6y ago
    > the median earner to own a 2,400sqft single family detached house on a quarter acre in a socioeconomically homogeneous school district Why would that be the goal?
techsupporter 6y ago
To go along with what chiefofgxbxl wrote, this circumstance need not be the case. It is possible to reallocate more of our limited road space to more efficient ways of moving people instead of concentrating on simply moving cars. This has the effect of bringing transport on par with, or ahead of, driving alone. Where I live, my commute to work by bus is only 7 minutes slower than doing the same commute driving myself alone. And for those 7 minutes, I do not have to pay any attention except once to remember to get off at the appropriate stop for a transfer. (I could avoid the transfer by walking but I'm not that motivated.) And I am not concerned with not being able to rush out for an emergency because my employer, or my county if my employer did not offer this benefit, will call me a taxi if I need to leave in a hurry and arrived to work without driving myself. Because the bulk of my transport needs are now handled, I can also see what the transport network can do for me in other areas. As of two years ago, my family moved to a place in our city where we need not own a car, so we sold our last one. If we desire one for a few hours or a day, there are services (far cheaper than the few hundred dollars per month required to maintain one for our exclusive use) that will provide one upon request. They even take care of fuel. We can make these choices to wean from cars; we choose not to. And at what cost to ourselves, our neighbors, and our planet?
Barrin92 6y ago
while living close to work is ideal I've always vastly preferred public transport to driving, because I could use time on the train for reading or anything else really, so it wasn't really a waste of time. Driving you need to pay attention and navigating traffic and worst of all stand in a smog filled traffic jam on a highway, which is absolutely awful.
lotsofpulp 6y ago
>Distance between homes and offices is the problem; cars are the worst solution except for all the others. Cars and their associated infrastructure (roads, parking) cause and/or enable the distance.
- rtlfe 6y ago
  I live in a town with good transit that borders a major city with excellent transit, and it's shocking how much people fight everything that would make our town better. Bike lanes, bus lanes, and increased density are routinely rejected because they would make life harder for car drivers.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    This image rebuts pretty much all pro car arguments: https://ggwash.org/view/36573/to-a-pedestrian-a-roads-a-tiny-space-with-danger-just-beside https://ggwash.org/view/36573/to-a-pedestrian-a-roads-a-tiny...
    - rtlfe 6y ago
      I feel like my neighbors would say "yeah that's how it's supposed to be, get a car if you want to be safe"
      - lotsofpulp 6y ago
        The underlying message is that they don’t want to be near people who can’t afford cars and the accompanying expenses. Which is a valid reason, as the data clearly shows the benefits of growing up in neighborhoods with high income earners, and the disadvantages of growing up in neighborhoods with low income earners: https://opportunityatlas.org/ https://opportunityatlas.org/
        rtlfe 6y ago
        > the data clearly shows the benefits of growing up in neighborhoods with high income earners, and the disadvantages of growing up in neighborhoods with low income earners Of course being in a wealthy area is better than being in a poor area. But does the existence of such areas benefit society? What would it look like if more neighborhoods were mixed income and public resources were shared equitably?
alyandon 6y ago
You really hit it on the head. Public transit where I live is a nightmare. It would involve me driving my car something like 15 minutes to the nearest train station and paying for parking (an amenity that is free at my employer's office). Then I'd have to take something like two different trains, followed by two bus rides which would drop me off at a location that is about 3/4th of a mile away from the office. The walk is then along a route that is not pedestrian friendly in any way because it partially along the major access ramps on/off a tollway. So yeah. :(
- rtlfe 6y ago
  As one of your sibling comments points out, it's only this way because of the prevalence of cars. If we didn't place so much emphasis on making it easy to drive everywhere, we'd see far more housing and offices adjacent to transit hubs.
  - Noos 6y ago
    except that a lot of business isn't in an office. You will never make a meat packing plant, distribution center, mushroom farm, or many other types of work fit in a walkable city. A lot of this is really knowledge worker privilege for people who can exist in dense zoning. A tremendous amount of businesses simply cannot be built close to housing.
    - rtlfe 6y ago
      The existence of things that don't work well in high density isn't a good argument against density.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

chiefofgxbxl 6y ago

Except that cars have influenced the way we build towns and cities: separate everything by non-walkable, non-busable distances because the basic assumption is that everyone has a car. Public transit "sucks" for a number of reasons, many of them car-related: (-) buses have to share roads with cars, so they have to put up with the congestion they are trying to solve, (-) money that would have been spent on public transit is being spent on road expansions to "solve traffic", and others. > cars are the worst solution except for all the others. This doesn't explain cities that have successful public transit systems... We wouldn't have built our offices and homes so far from each other if the expectation was to walk/bike/bus everywhere. Unfortunately this is a chicken-and-egg problem, where things may need to get worse temporarily for things to get better.

iateanapple 6y ago
> This doesn't explain cities that have successful public transit systems... Do these cities simply have terrible private transit options? I don’t know anyone who would prefer to take public transport except in cities with poor car infrastructure. I do know lots of people who would rather walk or bike to work.
- devdas 6y ago
  You have to explicitly optimise the city for public transit. Quite a lot of European cities do that.
  - iateanapple 6y ago
    > You have to explicitly optimise the city for public transit. Quite a lot of European cities do that. Even in those cities very few enjoy taking public transport - and would drive if they had free parking, didn’t have to pay tolls, didn’t think it was terrible for the environment, etc
    - rini17 6y ago
      This is not true, driving in european cities is stressful (narrow streets with irregular layout, high density of pedestrians/cyclists, not enough parking places). The public transit, when done right, is way more convenient.
    - rtlfe 6y ago
      > would drive if they had free parking, didn’t have to pay tolls, didn’t think it was terrible for the environment, etc So basically your argument is that people would drive if it weren't terrible in every way? By that logic, people would eat plutonium... if only it were more available, tasted good, and didn't kill you.
    - devdas 6y ago
      That would still make things worse, because cars need roadspace. Getting rid of the road space for cars and making public transit good enough is a pretty good solution.
closeparen 6y ago
Which public transit system enables the median earner to own a 2,400sqft single family detached house on a quarter acre in a socioeconomically homogeneous school district?
- kqr 6y ago
  No system of any kind allows that. With public transit, you pay for it in personal discomfort and rigidness of schedule. With personal automobiles, you simply externalise the negativities – but there's still a huge cost, only no longer paid by the individual.
- rtlfe 6y ago
  > the median earner to own a 2,400sqft single family detached house on a quarter acre in a socioeconomically homogeneous school district Why would that be the goal?

techsupporter 6y ago

To go along with what chiefofgxbxl wrote, this circumstance need not be the case. It is possible to reallocate more of our limited road space to more efficient ways of moving people instead of concentrating on simply moving cars. This has the effect of bringing transport on par with, or ahead of, driving alone. Where I live, my commute to work by bus is only 7 minutes slower than doing the same commute driving myself alone. And for those 7 minutes, I do not have to pay any attention except once to remember to get off at the appropriate stop for a transfer. (I could avoid the transfer by walking but I'm not that motivated.) And I am not concerned with not being able to rush out for an emergency because my employer, or my county if my employer did not offer this benefit, will call me a taxi if I need to leave in a hurry and arrived to work without driving myself. Because the bulk of my transport needs are now handled, I can also see what the transport network can do for me in other areas. As of two years ago, my family moved to a place in our city where we need not own a car, so we sold our last one. If we desire one for a few hours or a day, there are services (far cheaper than the few hundred dollars per month required to maintain one for our exclusive use) that will provide one upon request. They even take care of fuel. We can make these choices to wean from cars; we choose not to. And at what cost to ourselves, our neighbors, and our planet?

Barrin92 6y ago

while living close to work is ideal I've always vastly preferred public transport to driving, because I could use time on the train for reading or anything else really, so it wasn't really a waste of time. Driving you need to pay attention and navigating traffic and worst of all stand in a smog filled traffic jam on a highway, which is absolutely awful.

lotsofpulp 6y ago

>Distance between homes and offices is the problem; cars are the worst solution except for all the others. Cars and their associated infrastructure (roads, parking) cause and/or enable the distance.

rtlfe 6y ago
I live in a town with good transit that borders a major city with excellent transit, and it's shocking how much people fight everything that would make our town better. Bike lanes, bus lanes, and increased density are routinely rejected because they would make life harder for car drivers.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  This image rebuts pretty much all pro car arguments: https://ggwash.org/view/36573/to-a-pedestrian-a-roads-a-tiny-space-with-danger-just-beside https://ggwash.org/view/36573/to-a-pedestrian-a-roads-a-tiny...
  - rtlfe 6y ago
    I feel like my neighbors would say "yeah that's how it's supposed to be, get a car if you want to be safe"
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      The underlying message is that they don’t want to be near people who can’t afford cars and the accompanying expenses. Which is a valid reason, as the data clearly shows the benefits of growing up in neighborhoods with high income earners, and the disadvantages of growing up in neighborhoods with low income earners: https://opportunityatlas.org/ https://opportunityatlas.org/
      - rtlfe 6y ago
        > the data clearly shows the benefits of growing up in neighborhoods with high income earners, and the disadvantages of growing up in neighborhoods with low income earners Of course being in a wealthy area is better than being in a poor area. But does the existence of such areas benefit society? What would it look like if more neighborhoods were mixed income and public resources were shared equitably?

alyandon 6y ago

You really hit it on the head. Public transit where I live is a nightmare. It would involve me driving my car something like 15 minutes to the nearest train station and paying for parking (an amenity that is free at my employer's office). Then I'd have to take something like two different trains, followed by two bus rides which would drop me off at a location that is about 3/4th of a mile away from the office. The walk is then along a route that is not pedestrian friendly in any way because it partially along the major access ramps on/off a tollway. So yeah. :(

rtlfe 6y ago
As one of your sibling comments points out, it's only this way because of the prevalence of cars. If we didn't place so much emphasis on making it easy to drive everywhere, we'd see far more housing and offices adjacent to transit hubs.
- Noos 6y ago
  except that a lot of business isn't in an office. You will never make a meat packing plant, distribution center, mushroom farm, or many other types of work fit in a walkable city. A lot of this is really knowledge worker privilege for people who can exist in dense zoning. A tremendous amount of businesses simply cannot be built close to housing.
  - rtlfe 6y ago
    The existence of things that don't work well in high density isn't a good argument against density.