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> The trouble with public transport advocacy is that it so often relies on the stick rather than the carrot as the main incentive. That's mostly because the ca

by tpm 5y ago

> The trouble with public transport advocacy is that it so often relies on the stick rather than the carrot as the main incentive. That's mostly because the carrot does not work. You can't really do much better than a private car. Once you are ok with driving, and very many people are, it is the most comfortable and individualized means of transport. So realistically, on one hand of course public transport must be good, but on the other hand it does not matter as much. People will still use cars whenever possible. You have to make it difficult, expensive and uncomfortable. On the point of small private mobility I fully agree with you. This seems to be the future, if only our politicians would understand that.

ebiester 5y ago
If and only if you build the system around those cars. If there is no free parking and a parking lot is taxed like it is productive land, then parking is expensive. Cars are convenient because we have made the tax system cater to them. It makes for terrible cities for everyone not in a car at the moment.
logifail 5y ago
> Once you are ok with driving, and very many people are, it is the most comfortable and individualized means of transport. So realistically, on one hand of course public transport must be good, but on the other hand it does not matter as much. People will still use cars whenever possible. You have to make it difficult, expensive and uncomfortable. I think you're missing one really key factor, and that is time. If the traffic is sufficiently bad, even an easy cheap comfortable car journey stops looking attractive, because it is slow. UK example: I've had the "pleasure" of driving right across central London; my start point was within sight of London City Airport, my destination was Heathrow Airport. The shortest route is more or less a staight-line journey of about 25 miles. You would be crazy to attempt to use that route that during working hours. It is often faster to head straight out of London, and drive a long looping route, a total of ~60 miles in length. It will save you at least 20 minutes driving time. European example: a couple of months ago I was in the Austrian border town of Kufstein and needed to get to Innsbruck. I hopped on a Railjet train, which made the journey in 35 minutes with very few stops (only one, IIRC). By car it would have taken at best 60 minutes, assuming no major traffic issues. Motorway speeds are limited to 100km/h in that part of Austria in an attempt to reduce air pollution.[0] [0] https://www.tirol.gv.at/en/environment/vehicle-prohibitions-in-accordance-with-the-ig-l/ https://www.tirol.gv.at/en/environment/vehicle-prohibitions-...
- 7steps2much 5y ago
  One stop at Wörgl if i am not mistaken. Trains in Austria are pretty nice indeed, but of course only if you have a train available. If you first need to drive to the train station then more often than not the commuter trains aren't worth it time wise. If you catch one of the fast trains though then of course it is a different story.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
People will gladly share a metal tube if it's substantially faster or substantially cheaper than not.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Assuming the metal tube runs on a moderately convenient schedule between convenient locations and that they'll not transporting things that they can't conveniently take on the metal tube. I was just reminded of this last week. I was going into the city about an hour away for a class but after thinking about it, I'd still have needed to drive to the train station and park, the train schedule was suboptimal, and I'd have had to carry some things associated with the class around with me all day. I do sometimes take the train in but although it's sometimes convenient, it's not a panacea (and doesn't work at all for going in for an evening event). It's also not cheap.
bananapub 5y ago
> You can't really do much better than a private car. what does this mean? owning a private care in central-ish London is awful - traffic is slow, there's limited parking both at home and at your destination, they're mostly emitting loads of pollution. in most cases, public transport is cheaper and faster (or at least not much slower). where in London do you live that you think personal low occupancy cars are the "best" option?
- tpm 5y ago
  I don't live in London anymore, but I think you agree with me - people in central London don't own/use cars because it is inconvenient.
brimble 5y ago
> You can't really do much better than a private car. I once read an analysis linked on HN, claiming that cars are only a personal net benefit if you're rich enough to pay for someone to drive you around, or live in a city that's not yet developed in a car-accommodating way and has low car ownership rates, and that the last personal transportation development that was actually a strong net benefit was the bicycle. This is because car-centric city design pushes everything much farther apart (big front lawns so your house isn't too close to the nasty street; huge setbacks next to highways [look how damn wide those are next time you're on one!], the highways themselves, enormous interchanges, "green spaces" that aren't intended for people to be in but just to provide a buffer between people and roads, gigantic parking lots, et c), plus cars are expensive, so by the time you factor in the extra travel distance due to cars being widespread and the amount of time you spend working just to pay for your car (and gas, and maintenance, and a place to keep it) most people are losing time, when the whole point was to travel faster. I thought that had to be overstating it. So I ran the numbers for myself. With conservative estimates for how much closer my house would be to the city if you took out all the car-created distance, with my own spending on cars being rather low, with my commute to the city center not being that long (20-25 minutes each way), and with my income being nearly double the household median income in my city (so I need fewer hours working to pay for my car)—well, I'll be damned, I would save a little time in a hypothetical city that wasn't designed around cars, but instead around bicycles and walking. Which means cars are a slam-dunk loss for most people, if my numbers came out that way—they only seem like they're saving you time if your city has already been messed up by car-centric design.
Silhouette 5y ago
You can't really do much better than a private car. There are all kinds of things that might be better than a private car. The point I'm trying to make here is that most of them require radically more commitment (= money + political capital, usually) than those in power and those who vote for them are willing to give at present. Bashing car drivers is the "something must be done and this is something so we're doing it" approach. It gets you popular points with your base. Unfortunately as we've seen for many years now it doesn't actually work without providing decent alternatives as well. People will still use cars whenever possible. You have to make it difficult, expensive and uncomfortable. Obviously I don't accept that premise. There are also inherently inconvenient things about a lot of car journeys and about owning and maintaining the car itself so to an extent it provides the deterrent effect you've been talking about automatically without any artificial "stick". Public transport doesn't have many of those downsides. Some alternative methods of private transport don't either. But you need local transport to be frequent, reliable, cheap and comfortable, and you need long distance transport to be all of those things plus easily reachable by local transport.

by tpm 5y ago

ebiester 5y ago

If and only if you build the system around those cars. If there is no free parking and a parking lot is taxed like it is productive land, then parking is expensive. Cars are convenient because we have made the tax system cater to them. It makes for terrible cities for everyone not in a car at the moment.

logifail 5y ago

> Once you are ok with driving, and very many people are, it is the most comfortable and individualized means of transport. So realistically, on one hand of course public transport must be good, but on the other hand it does not matter as much. People will still use cars whenever possible. You have to make it difficult, expensive and uncomfortable. I think you're missing one really key factor, and that is time. If the traffic is sufficiently bad, even an easy cheap comfortable car journey stops looking attractive, because it is slow. UK example: I've had the "pleasure" of driving right across central London; my start point was within sight of London City Airport, my destination was Heathrow Airport. The shortest route is more or less a staight-line journey of about 25 miles. You would be crazy to attempt to use that route that during working hours. It is often faster to head straight out of London, and drive a long looping route, a total of ~60 miles in length. It will save you at least 20 minutes driving time. European example: a couple of months ago I was in the Austrian border town of Kufstein and needed to get to Innsbruck. I hopped on a Railjet train, which made the journey in 35 minutes with very few stops (only one, IIRC). By car it would have taken at best 60 minutes, assuming no major traffic issues. Motorway speeds are limited to 100km/h in that part of Austria in an attempt to reduce air pollution.[0] [0] https://www.tirol.gv.at/en/environment/vehicle-prohibitions-in-accordance-with-the-ig-l/ https://www.tirol.gv.at/en/environment/vehicle-prohibitions-...

7steps2much 5y ago
One stop at Wörgl if i am not mistaken. Trains in Austria are pretty nice indeed, but of course only if you have a train available. If you first need to drive to the train station then more often than not the commuter trains aren't worth it time wise. If you catch one of the fast trains though then of course it is a different story.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

People will gladly share a metal tube if it's substantially faster or substantially cheaper than not.

ghaff 5y ago
Assuming the metal tube runs on a moderately convenient schedule between convenient locations and that they'll not transporting things that they can't conveniently take on the metal tube. I was just reminded of this last week. I was going into the city about an hour away for a class but after thinking about it, I'd still have needed to drive to the train station and park, the train schedule was suboptimal, and I'd have had to carry some things associated with the class around with me all day. I do sometimes take the train in but although it's sometimes convenient, it's not a panacea (and doesn't work at all for going in for an evening event). It's also not cheap.

bananapub 5y ago

> You can't really do much better than a private car. what does this mean? owning a private care in central-ish London is awful - traffic is slow, there's limited parking both at home and at your destination, they're mostly emitting loads of pollution. in most cases, public transport is cheaper and faster (or at least not much slower). where in London do you live that you think personal low occupancy cars are the "best" option?

tpm 5y ago
I don't live in London anymore, but I think you agree with me - people in central London don't own/use cars because it is inconvenient.

brimble 5y ago

> You can't really do much better than a private car. I once read an analysis linked on HN, claiming that cars are only a personal net benefit if you're rich enough to pay for someone to drive you around, or live in a city that's not yet developed in a car-accommodating way and has low car ownership rates, and that the last personal transportation development that was actually a strong net benefit was the bicycle. This is because car-centric city design pushes everything much farther apart (big front lawns so your house isn't too close to the nasty street; huge setbacks next to highways [look how damn wide those are next time you're on one!], the highways themselves, enormous interchanges, "green spaces" that aren't intended for people to be in but just to provide a buffer between people and roads, gigantic parking lots, et c), plus cars are expensive, so by the time you factor in the extra travel distance due to cars being widespread and the amount of time you spend working just to pay for your car (and gas, and maintenance, and a place to keep it) most people are losing time, when the whole point was to travel faster. I thought that had to be overstating it. So I ran the numbers for myself. With conservative estimates for how much closer my house would be to the city if you took out all the car-created distance, with my own spending on cars being rather low, with my commute to the city center not being that long (20-25 minutes each way), and with my income being nearly double the household median income in my city (so I need fewer hours working to pay for my car)—well, I'll be damned, I would save a little time in a hypothetical city that wasn't designed around cars, but instead around bicycles and walking. Which means cars are a slam-dunk loss for most people, if my numbers came out that way—they only seem like they're saving you time if your city has already been messed up by car-centric design.

Silhouette 5y ago

You can't really do much better than a private car. There are all kinds of things that might be better than a private car. The point I'm trying to make here is that most of them require radically more commitment (= money + political capital, usually) than those in power and those who vote for them are willing to give at present. Bashing car drivers is the "something must be done and this is something so we're doing it" approach. It gets you popular points with your base. Unfortunately as we've seen for many years now it doesn't actually work without providing decent alternatives as well. People will still use cars whenever possible. You have to make it difficult, expensive and uncomfortable. Obviously I don't accept that premise. There are also inherently inconvenient things about a lot of car journeys and about owning and maintaining the car itself so to an extent it provides the deterrent effect you've been talking about automatically without any artificial "stick". Public transport doesn't have many of those downsides. Some alternative methods of private transport don't either. But you need local transport to be frequent, reliable, cheap and comfortable, and you need long distance transport to be all of those things plus easily reachable by local transport.