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> Recognizing that involves telling a lot of people that they need to switch from driving cars to using transit, biking, etc. The issue here is latency, availa

> Recognizing that involves telling a lot of people that they need to switch from driving cars to using transit, biking, etc. The issue here is latency, availability, and comfort. Cars are great for these three. Can transit compete? > and there are a lot of people who don't want to hear that, especially if most of their personal net worth is equity in a building which is too far away at anything less than freeway speeds If you offer them a better investment, they will. But then, you will have to convince people who put most of their personal net worth into tiny cramped downtown condos that it’s ok for them to lose it due to the massive amount of housing you plan to build.

acdha 5y ago
> > Recognizing that involves telling a lot of people that they need to switch from driving cars to using transit, biking, etc. > The issue here is latency, availability, and comfort. Cars are great for these three. Can transit compete? It's not that simple: cars are great for those when nobody else has them. When you live in a place with enough people to get traffic, they're terrible on the first two and the third is a question of how bad the outside is and how much you enjoy sitting for long periods of time without moving. Similarly, you need to factor in things like parking: car availability and latency both take a huge hit when you can't park in front of your destination, and comfort takes a hit if that means walking in uncomfortable weather, too. That makes the underlying decisions more obvious: if you reserve lanes for transit or build separate right-of-way, taking the bus is a lot better than driving because the 50 people on the bus don't have to wait behind the 3 blocks of 50 people driving cars but if you focus on cars, the bus will be stuck in traffic as well. > But then, you will have to convince people who put most of their personal net worth into tiny cramped downtown condos that it’s ok for them to lose it due to the massive amount of housing you plan to build There's a lot of hyperbole in that sentence, and it's missing the key point that car travel is so inefficient that this pressure is always there even without overt public policy. Urban living is expensive because people like to live in places with fun things to do (i.e. which improves as a function of density) and they don't spend long periods of time stuck in traffic. Removing the public subsidies for suburban commuters will only make it more pronounced.

acdha 5y ago

> > Recognizing that involves telling a lot of people that they need to switch from driving cars to using transit, biking, etc. > The issue here is latency, availability, and comfort. Cars are great for these three. Can transit compete? It's not that simple: cars are great for those when nobody else has them. When you live in a place with enough people to get traffic, they're terrible on the first two and the third is a question of how bad the outside is and how much you enjoy sitting for long periods of time without moving. Similarly, you need to factor in things like parking: car availability and latency both take a huge hit when you can't park in front of your destination, and comfort takes a hit if that means walking in uncomfortable weather, too. That makes the underlying decisions more obvious: if you reserve lanes for transit or build separate right-of-way, taking the bus is a lot better than driving because the 50 people on the bus don't have to wait behind the 3 blocks of 50 people driving cars but if you focus on cars, the bus will be stuck in traffic as well. > But then, you will have to convince people who put most of their personal net worth into tiny cramped downtown condos that it’s ok for them to lose it due to the massive amount of housing you plan to build There's a lot of hyperbole in that sentence, and it's missing the key point that car travel is so inefficient that this pressure is always there even without overt public policy. Urban living is expensive because people like to live in places with fun things to do (i.e. which improves as a function of density) and they don't spend long periods of time stuck in traffic. Removing the public subsidies for suburban commuters will only make it more pronounced.