4 ms·

Once an hour is fine. What do you need to do that's so urgent that you can't plan ahead more than 45 minutes?

by jquery 15y ago

potatolicious 15y ago
What happens if I told you your garage door will open for 30 seconds on the hour, every hour?
- jquery 15y ago
  If you gave me an extra $500-1000 a month and significant extra life expectancy I'd take that deal in a heartbeat. The freedom of being able to go wherever you want in a heartbeat in a car is highly overrated. Call a taxi for those times when it's actually urgent.
  - potatolicious 15y ago
    You miss my point - I don't have a car, nor do I want one, and I'm a complete proponent of urbanism and mass transit. But once-an-hour does not a transit system make. There's a false dichotomy here - the choices aren't car vs. shitty transit. We can very well have good transit (i.e., arterial mass transit with frequency of every 10 minutes or better). The problem with infrequent transit, particularly arterial routes, is that it completely wipes out the possibility of transfers. When your frequency is once an hour (with a high variance for on-time performance), people cannot rely on the transit method for making connections. Moreso, decreasing frequency increases total trip time for most people by a factor larger than the actual frequency drop (which is to say, a decrease in frequency of an arterial route results in a very large increase for most whole-trip times). A highly frequent (i.e. every 10 minutes or better) trunk line is the bed rock of any mass transit solution, and is absolutely non-optional.
    - pstack 15y ago
      When I was just starting out, I lived on one side of town and my work was on the other side of town. My home town has extremely well-regarded public transit. Still, it took about 2.5hrs to get to work. Another 2.5 to get back. That turned a 9 hour day into a 14 hour day. And if a bus or train was just a little early, it could screw things up even further. We have this idea that Americans don't use public transit, because they're infatuated with their cars. To a degree, we are. However, we also hate the work commute. The reason more don't use public transit is that it is not feasible for the average person to spend so much time sitting on a bus or train and making two or three transfers every day twice a day . . . on top of work. Especially if they have a family. The idea of tighter communities where people work near their home is fantastic. Too bad we've already built our cities and roads and housing tracts, though. It's a thought for another bustling economy that is just starting to build out their infrastructure in the 21st century instead of the 19th and 20th century to do, though. We've already built our mess.
      - farout 15y ago
        Aah. Brings back bad memories of commuting as a student with no car in the US for my co-op jobs. One of the large companies I worked had a liberal vacation policy 4 weeks after 5 years plus 4 weeks of training, which many considered vacation. However my group was always treated differently than rest of the company, we actually got less benefits so training would be 1 week every 2 years. It was a sad tale. It helped me better understand why people had to unionize. Most of my coworkers were US citizens but foreign born, who are less willing to complain when denied or treated badly. Note to self, don't work in a group of "perceived" foreigners you will be treated worse. Based on other life experiences not just this job. The company also gave fun money every quarter to help people de-stress and know their coworkers better. Our managers bought us T-shirts with that money: every quarter a $35 T-shirt while ours went out to drink and have fun. 7 years of bloody shitty T-shirts. I should have quit but I had family responsibilities so...that's that. My goal now is no necessary looking for companies with good vacation policies but good daily policies. Example: I was telling my husband that there is a restaurant that makes the best steak and cheese in Boston. If I could find a company one mile from that restaurant, I would learn whatever language (build a portfolio to show that I am reasonably good at it), work there and allowed to take a hour for lunch. And everyday walk to/from (my health benefit) to the restaurant for my fix of awesome food. Now if they were also good with bacon...
mahyarm 15y ago
To give you a comparison, the sky-train system in Vancouver comes every 2 to 10 minutes during most waking hours (late evening it comes every twenty on the canada line)
- jquery 15y ago
  I hope you weren't taking my statement to be that our situation couldn't be better. It certainly could. All I'm saying is once an hour is perfectly adequate to ditch a car-centric lifestyle.
felipe 15y ago
If you depend on other systems to commute (VTA, BART, etc...), then 45 minutes makes a huge difference. A one-way trip from South Bay to East Bay can easily take 3 hours if you take VTA+Caltrain+BART+Muni, while by car it takes just 30-45 minutes.
foxit 15y ago
It's the time wasted waiting for rarely appearing public transportation that is the problem.

Once an hour is fine. What do you need to do that's so urgent that you can't plan ahead more than 45 minutes?

by jquery 15y ago

Once an hour is fine. What do you need to do that's so urgent that you can't plan ahead more than 45 minutes?

potatolicious 15y ago

What happens if I told you your garage door will open for 30 seconds on the hour, every hour?

jquery 15y ago
If you gave me an extra $500-1000 a month and significant extra life expectancy I'd take that deal in a heartbeat. The freedom of being able to go wherever you want in a heartbeat in a car is highly overrated. Call a taxi for those times when it's actually urgent.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  You miss my point - I don't have a car, nor do I want one, and I'm a complete proponent of urbanism and mass transit. But once-an-hour does not a transit system make. There's a false dichotomy here - the choices aren't car vs. shitty transit. We can very well have good transit (i.e., arterial mass transit with frequency of every 10 minutes or better). The problem with infrequent transit, particularly arterial routes, is that it completely wipes out the possibility of transfers. When your frequency is once an hour (with a high variance for on-time performance), people cannot rely on the transit method for making connections. Moreso, decreasing frequency increases total trip time for most people by a factor larger than the actual frequency drop (which is to say, a decrease in frequency of an arterial route results in a very large increase for most whole-trip times). A highly frequent (i.e. every 10 minutes or better) trunk line is the bed rock of any mass transit solution, and is absolutely non-optional.
  - pstack 15y ago
    When I was just starting out, I lived on one side of town and my work was on the other side of town. My home town has extremely well-regarded public transit. Still, it took about 2.5hrs to get to work. Another 2.5 to get back. That turned a 9 hour day into a 14 hour day. And if a bus or train was just a little early, it could screw things up even further. We have this idea that Americans don't use public transit, because they're infatuated with their cars. To a degree, we are. However, we also hate the work commute. The reason more don't use public transit is that it is not feasible for the average person to spend so much time sitting on a bus or train and making two or three transfers every day twice a day . . . on top of work. Especially if they have a family. The idea of tighter communities where people work near their home is fantastic. Too bad we've already built our cities and roads and housing tracts, though. It's a thought for another bustling economy that is just starting to build out their infrastructure in the 21st century instead of the 19th and 20th century to do, though. We've already built our mess.
    - farout 15y ago
      Aah. Brings back bad memories of commuting as a student with no car in the US for my co-op jobs. One of the large companies I worked had a liberal vacation policy 4 weeks after 5 years plus 4 weeks of training, which many considered vacation. However my group was always treated differently than rest of the company, we actually got less benefits so training would be 1 week every 2 years. It was a sad tale. It helped me better understand why people had to unionize. Most of my coworkers were US citizens but foreign born, who are less willing to complain when denied or treated badly. Note to self, don't work in a group of "perceived" foreigners you will be treated worse. Based on other life experiences not just this job. The company also gave fun money every quarter to help people de-stress and know their coworkers better. Our managers bought us T-shirts with that money: every quarter a $35 T-shirt while ours went out to drink and have fun. 7 years of bloody shitty T-shirts. I should have quit but I had family responsibilities so...that's that. My goal now is no necessary looking for companies with good vacation policies but good daily policies. Example: I was telling my husband that there is a restaurant that makes the best steak and cheese in Boston. If I could find a company one mile from that restaurant, I would learn whatever language (build a portfolio to show that I am reasonably good at it), work there and allowed to take a hour for lunch. And everyday walk to/from (my health benefit) to the restaurant for my fix of awesome food. Now if they were also good with bacon...

mahyarm 15y ago

To give you a comparison, the sky-train system in Vancouver comes every 2 to 10 minutes during most waking hours (late evening it comes every twenty on the canada line)

jquery 15y ago
I hope you weren't taking my statement to be that our situation couldn't be better. It certainly could. All I'm saying is once an hour is perfectly adequate to ditch a car-centric lifestyle.

felipe 15y ago

If you depend on other systems to commute (VTA, BART, etc...), then 45 minutes makes a huge difference. A one-way trip from South Bay to East Bay can easily take 3 hours if you take VTA+Caltrain+BART+Muni, while by car it takes just 30-45 minutes.

foxit 15y ago

It's the time wasted waiting for rarely appearing public transportation that is the problem.