5 ms·

It's very easy to just distribute waste using these systems. I'm still not convinced by the single-vehicle on-demand for single-rider model. There's got to be

It's very easy to just distribute waste using these systems. I'm still not convinced by the single-vehicle on-demand for single-rider model. There's got to be a way to make public transportation stop being the least attractive option in low to medium density urban settings.

b9a2cab5 5y ago
First make public transportation as clean and safe as ride sharing, then you'll get demand. Nobody wants to sit next to people that smell like piss/weed/cigs/BO. If you were a Uber/Lyft driver that kind of thing would get you 1 star very quickly.
- gfodor 5y ago
  Post-COVID who wants to sit next to anyone
  - dx034 5y ago
    I do, because hopefully we'll wear masks for a bit longer which also prevents the spread of many other diseases.
- andbberger 5y ago
  That's just classism in a thin veneer of pretention. Frequency and reliability are what actually drive ridership
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    Have enough of your friends get robbed/raped/groped in public transit and spend enough time on transit with urine in the stations and blood stains on the seats, and you will come to understand that safety, security, and cleanliness also drive ridership.
    - andbberger 5y ago
      my friends are NUMTOTs who grew up in the bay and are unfazed by the poor people on bart. in fact we're amongst them. I will never come to understand why the cloistered folks of Palo Alto hate poor people so much and will always resent them for it
      - rsj_hn 5y ago
        And my friends were sexually assaulted and mugged at gunpoint, yet we do not assume that this is acceptable behavior or should be tolerated because of someone's income level. Honestly, I don't understand people who try to normalize violence and argue on public forums that it's acceptable that public transit be an open sewer just because it gives them a faux edginess in liking "gritty" public spaces or sense of twisted moral superiority to those who do care about these things.
      - wayne-li2 5y ago
        I really don’t think this is a rich or poor issue. It is possible to have public transportation that can transport rich or poor equally, while maintaining safety and cleanliness. For example, public transportation that has locked “cabins” for people who want to feel additional security. For cleanliness, constant sanitization of seats and floors. Trash bins available on the train, with workers replacing them as needed during station time. No one is kicking a poor person off MUNI but if a homeless person pees on the seat, it gets cleaned up immediately. People that feel unsafe can go into the cabin. Unarmed security guards can be placed at every station, not to hassle riders, but to give assistance to people that ask. This is not some foreign concept — some Asian countries do this quite well.
      - gfodor 5y ago
        The reason public transport safety is concerning to the people you are slandering is because they have children.
      - b9a2cab5 5y ago
        It's not the poor people you notice, it's the tweakers and homeless people shitting themselves you notice. And the criminals [1]. The poor people look just like any other person on a train so you can't tell they're poor in the first place. Maybe they have crappier shoes and a crappier phone but that's irrelevant because they behave like normal people. Seriously, have you ever taken a BART train late at night where there was a guy tweaked out of his mind? Or sat in chairs that look like they were shit on 5 times and never properly cleaned? Why do you expect people to deal with that as if it's perfectly okay? Why do you expect people not to take alternative modes of transportation when that's what they have to deal with? This kind of anti-societal behavior is only accepted in the US, and nowhere else in the world. [1]: https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-robbery-50-to-60-teens-swarm-11094745.php https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-robbery-5...
  - jshmrsn 5y ago
    What… I’ve had so many incredibly bad and sometimes downright scary situations due to being locked in close proximity to people out of their minds on drugs. Those experiences have absolutely decreased my willingness to take public transit. If you want to call that classism, then fine, but that doesn’t make the impact on ridership any less true.
Laremere 5y ago
The economics of self driving cars will ensure a rise in public transit usage. A few years ago, I was helping my friend consider options for saving money. On the table was if they needed to keep their car. Most of their commute was via public transit. However we looked at the number of transits for which public transit was not viable per month (visiting friends on the other side of the metro area, running to stores), multiplied by the cost of using a ride share service. Comparing this number to the car payment, auto insurance, gas, and maintenance, it was no contest: even a few trips amortized the cost of the car and made it worth it. Every trip has a cost in dollars, time, and externalities (causing congestion, environmental impact, etc). People will tend towards being efficient with those costs, judged by their relative importance to them personally. The thing is, owning a car is mostly a fixed dollar cost per month. Once you pass the point where owning one is worth it for a few trips, the cost of additional trips is far less, while the time savings remain high. The only time I consider public transportation is when parking is a problem, as all other things considered driving is preferable. Once self driving cars reach a point where they are closer to the amortized cost of a trip when owning a car, the tradeoffs start to change. Those who use their cars for few, but necessary, trips will be the first to ditch owning. I suspect many multi-car families will downsize to a single car. Once you get rid of your car, and are using self-driving cars for the trips where they are necessary, the question for every trip becomes "public transit, or self driving?" Different trips will have different ways they play out. However lot of people who are currently eating the cost of owning a car and might as well drive anyways will suddenly be able to save a few bucks by using public transit instead. The final magic of all this is that if you're going anywhere more than a few minutes away, there are many other people going from approximately where you are, to approximately where you're going. The big killer in public transit speed is time. Time going to a common pickup point, time waiting for it to arrive, time spent not going on a direct route, time spent stopping for others to get on or off. With a sufficiently well used self driving car network, it could easily join a few rides together at a point nearby, and have self driving cars ready and waiting at the point near your destination. Two quick transfers, and that's it. If the self driving car app says "45 minutes, $20, or 50 minutes for $10", lots of people would save that $10. For destinations such as downtown, airport, sport stadiums, there's even only one transfer. Given car pool lanes and such, transferring to an express bus might actually be faster than driving directly.

b9a2cab5 5y ago

First make public transportation as clean and safe as ride sharing, then you'll get demand. Nobody wants to sit next to people that smell like piss/weed/cigs/BO. If you were a Uber/Lyft driver that kind of thing would get you 1 star very quickly.

gfodor 5y ago
Post-COVID who wants to sit next to anyone
- dx034 5y ago
  I do, because hopefully we'll wear masks for a bit longer which also prevents the spread of many other diseases.
andbberger 5y ago
That's just classism in a thin veneer of pretention. Frequency and reliability are what actually drive ridership
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  Have enough of your friends get robbed/raped/groped in public transit and spend enough time on transit with urine in the stations and blood stains on the seats, and you will come to understand that safety, security, and cleanliness also drive ridership.
  - andbberger 5y ago
    my friends are NUMTOTs who grew up in the bay and are unfazed by the poor people on bart. in fact we're amongst them. I will never come to understand why the cloistered folks of Palo Alto hate poor people so much and will always resent them for it
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      And my friends were sexually assaulted and mugged at gunpoint, yet we do not assume that this is acceptable behavior or should be tolerated because of someone's income level. Honestly, I don't understand people who try to normalize violence and argue on public forums that it's acceptable that public transit be an open sewer just because it gives them a faux edginess in liking "gritty" public spaces or sense of twisted moral superiority to those who do care about these things.
    - wayne-li2 5y ago
      I really don’t think this is a rich or poor issue. It is possible to have public transportation that can transport rich or poor equally, while maintaining safety and cleanliness. For example, public transportation that has locked “cabins” for people who want to feel additional security. For cleanliness, constant sanitization of seats and floors. Trash bins available on the train, with workers replacing them as needed during station time. No one is kicking a poor person off MUNI but if a homeless person pees on the seat, it gets cleaned up immediately. People that feel unsafe can go into the cabin. Unarmed security guards can be placed at every station, not to hassle riders, but to give assistance to people that ask. This is not some foreign concept — some Asian countries do this quite well.
    - gfodor 5y ago
      The reason public transport safety is concerning to the people you are slandering is because they have children.
    - b9a2cab5 5y ago
      It's not the poor people you notice, it's the tweakers and homeless people shitting themselves you notice. And the criminals [1]. The poor people look just like any other person on a train so you can't tell they're poor in the first place. Maybe they have crappier shoes and a crappier phone but that's irrelevant because they behave like normal people. Seriously, have you ever taken a BART train late at night where there was a guy tweaked out of his mind? Or sat in chairs that look like they were shit on 5 times and never properly cleaned? Why do you expect people to deal with that as if it's perfectly okay? Why do you expect people not to take alternative modes of transportation when that's what they have to deal with? This kind of anti-societal behavior is only accepted in the US, and nowhere else in the world. [1]: https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-robbery-50-to-60-teens-swarm-11094745.php https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-robbery-5...
- jshmrsn 5y ago
  What… I’ve had so many incredibly bad and sometimes downright scary situations due to being locked in close proximity to people out of their minds on drugs. Those experiences have absolutely decreased my willingness to take public transit. If you want to call that classism, then fine, but that doesn’t make the impact on ridership any less true.

Laremere 5y ago

The economics of self driving cars will ensure a rise in public transit usage. A few years ago, I was helping my friend consider options for saving money. On the table was if they needed to keep their car. Most of their commute was via public transit. However we looked at the number of transits for which public transit was not viable per month (visiting friends on the other side of the metro area, running to stores), multiplied by the cost of using a ride share service. Comparing this number to the car payment, auto insurance, gas, and maintenance, it was no contest: even a few trips amortized the cost of the car and made it worth it. Every trip has a cost in dollars, time, and externalities (causing congestion, environmental impact, etc). People will tend towards being efficient with those costs, judged by their relative importance to them personally. The thing is, owning a car is mostly a fixed dollar cost per month. Once you pass the point where owning one is worth it for a few trips, the cost of additional trips is far less, while the time savings remain high. The only time I consider public transportation is when parking is a problem, as all other things considered driving is preferable. Once self driving cars reach a point where they are closer to the amortized cost of a trip when owning a car, the tradeoffs start to change. Those who use their cars for few, but necessary, trips will be the first to ditch owning. I suspect many multi-car families will downsize to a single car. Once you get rid of your car, and are using self-driving cars for the trips where they are necessary, the question for every trip becomes "public transit, or self driving?" Different trips will have different ways they play out. However lot of people who are currently eating the cost of owning a car and might as well drive anyways will suddenly be able to save a few bucks by using public transit instead. The final magic of all this is that if you're going anywhere more than a few minutes away, there are many other people going from approximately where you are, to approximately where you're going. The big killer in public transit speed is time. Time going to a common pickup point, time waiting for it to arrive, time spent not going on a direct route, time spent stopping for others to get on or off. With a sufficiently well used self driving car network, it could easily join a few rides together at a point nearby, and have self driving cars ready and waiting at the point near your destination. Two quick transfers, and that's it. If the self driving car app says "45 minutes, $20, or 50 minutes for $10", lots of people would save that $10. For destinations such as downtown, airport, sport stadiums, there's even only one transfer. Given car pool lanes and such, transferring to an express bus might actually be faster than driving directly.