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Build trains...on every single road in existence? Neither my house or workplace is adequately serviced by public transport, and even if they both were, I would

Build trains...on every single road in existence? Neither my house or workplace is adequately serviced by public transport, and even if they both were, I wouldn't use it unless legally or financially forced to. I enjoy proceeding directly from point A to B in the comfort of a private space, and so do very many other people. The waste of personally-owned automobiles is admittedly abhorrent. Electrification and self-driving systems (and the resulting fleets of cheap automated taxis) will go a long way towards reducing the waste inherent to automobiles.

wizofaus 4y ago
Can you give an example of a large metropolis anywhere in the world where it's realistic for a significant percentage of the population to all be able to enjoy "proceeding directly from point A to B in the comfort of a private space" without any significant externalities? Or are you suggesting we need to massively decentralise?
- tuatoru 4y ago
  If Point A is your desk at home, and Point B is the fridge, there are a few. Only one or two nationalities would insist on using a vehicle for that trip, though.
opportune 4y ago
You could probably put a streetcar on every other street in many dense locales. In fact historically that’s how they were set up The problem is after the 50’s, in much of the country, development consists of large residential-only suburban developments feeding into highways. So streetcars won’t work for that
- jefftk 4y ago
  Street cars are not much easier to automate than driverless cars, though. It's only fully separated trains that we automate currently.
  - yurishimo 4y ago
    Yea but you can move 100 people with 1 person driving the tram. Basically automated. They are glorified babysitters. Forward and stop. End of the line, they walk to the opposite end of the tram and do it again. You don’t need full automation with the efficiency that trains provide when moving lots of people.
wffurr 4y ago
>> Build trains...on every single road in existence? Yes. That's effectively what cities had at the turn of the last century. And then they ripped up all the tracks or paved them over. They recently did a full depth reconstruction on a street in my neighborhood in Somerville, Massachusetts which entailed digging up the old streetcar rails, ties, and brick substrate from under the pavement.
dangus 4y ago
This video might be relevant to your described scenario: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDXB0CY2tSQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDXB0CY2tSQ Notice how in The Netherlands, despite making bikes, transit, and pedestrians welcome in this suburban business park near the airport, you can still drive there if you want. Yes, if you lived in The Netherlands, you could drive to this business park shown in the video in your personal vehicle. There's a parking garage right there, and even though the infrastructure is pedestrian and bicycle focused and prioritized, the cars don't have to wait long at the traffic signal or endure crazy traffic. Why is that? Because there are fewer cars. Why are there fewer cars? Because there are viable alternatives. Essentially, having better public transit, pedestrian, and cycling infrastructure actually makes life better for drivers, too! The thing is, in North America, in most places you don't actually have any sort of choice on whether you want to drive or not. If you don't drive, your entire environment is hostile to your very existence, and public transit is just for the poor and desperate. You must buy a car whether you want to or not. That's not really choice or freedom. You're saying that you would choose a personal vehicle, but does that choice have the potential to change if the surrounding circumstances change? So, it's perfectly fine that you'd prefer to own an automobile. You're free to pay the close to $10,000 a year it costs for the average person to own a new car according to AAA. I personally wouldn't make that choice if I had a better one available, but if I live in suburban America the choice has been made for me. > Electrification and self-driving systems (and the resulting fleets of cheap automated taxis) will go a long way towards reducing the waste inherent to automobiles. This is what's so frustrating about talking about the future of the transportation with people who can't imagine a world that lessens the emphasis on car-scale infrastructure. The waste problem with automobiles has already been solved. It has been solved by not using them as much. This isn't a hypothetical. We have living, working examples of how to use cars less often in small towns, medium sized suburbs, and big cities. Making cars self-driving is putting lipstick on a pig. It's like taking high blood pressure drugs instead of losing weight.
- mrshadowgoose 4y ago
  I'm very familiar with the stark difference between North American and European transit systems. I've actually visited the Netherlands multiple times, and many other European cities. Totally agree that we generally do public transit miserably in NA, and have a lot of room for improvement. All I was getting at with my original comment is that "trains for everyone" is as ridiculous of a concept as "cars for everyone". > You're saying that you would choose a personal vehicle, but does that choice have the potential to change if the surrounding circumstances change? Sure, as mentioned, if severe artificial barriers are put up to car usage, I would begrudgingly change. Absent that, no, I like my personal space. I like not getting rained on, not getting snowed on and not walking through -30C temperatures. Currently, I can get into a personal vehicle inside a garage, and proceed directly to my workplace's garage. Buses and trains will never match that, at least, not in the city I live in. > Making cars self-driving is putting lipstick on a pig. It's like taking high blood pressure drugs instead of losing weight. It's tremendously frustrating to constantly butt up against the foregone conclusion of "car is intrinsically bad no matter what". Safety and environmental impact are commonly accepted as the two largest issues with cars. We are poised to address both of these over the next two decades. Yet cars are still somehow intrinsically bad nonetheless? Is usage of a vehicle bad if one is not sharing the interior of it with a certain number of other people at any given time? At the end of the day, I am a strong believer in enabling people to live their lives the way they want to, when reasonably practical. To cover most of the population, this means building pedestrian and cyclist friendly infrastructure, public transit, and supporting the safe and efficient use of personal vehicles too. And there's nothing stopping this from all coexisting, as you've already stated.
2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
>Electrification and self-driving systems (and the resulting fleets of cheap automated taxis) will go a long way towards reducing the waste inherent to automobiles. Why would electric vehicles reduce waste? Cleaner, sure. But we’d be just as capitalist. City people didn’t ditch their cars and buy their pristine 4WD Ford Trucks that they use to transport their kids because this was the cheaper and saner option. Electric vehicles will just mean these people will ditch their current vehicles and buy a new Cyber Truck every few years. Lock downs during the pandemic showed us what needs to be done: Get rid of as many vehicles as possible. Remember all the wildlife that came back and the cleaner air?
ratg13 4y ago
We are not discussing every single road in existence. We are discussing high-density cities where the problem in the article is occurring. There is more entitlement in your argument than I care to address, but it serves as a strong reminder of why American cities are so travel-hostile compared to European cities.

wizofaus 4y ago

Can you give an example of a large metropolis anywhere in the world where it's realistic for a significant percentage of the population to all be able to enjoy "proceeding directly from point A to B in the comfort of a private space" without any significant externalities? Or are you suggesting we need to massively decentralise?

tuatoru 4y ago
If Point A is your desk at home, and Point B is the fridge, there are a few. Only one or two nationalities would insist on using a vehicle for that trip, though.

opportune 4y ago

You could probably put a streetcar on every other street in many dense locales. In fact historically that’s how they were set up The problem is after the 50’s, in much of the country, development consists of large residential-only suburban developments feeding into highways. So streetcars won’t work for that

jefftk 4y ago
Street cars are not much easier to automate than driverless cars, though. It's only fully separated trains that we automate currently.
- yurishimo 4y ago
  Yea but you can move 100 people with 1 person driving the tram. Basically automated. They are glorified babysitters. Forward and stop. End of the line, they walk to the opposite end of the tram and do it again. You don’t need full automation with the efficiency that trains provide when moving lots of people.

wffurr 4y ago

>> Build trains...on every single road in existence? Yes. That's effectively what cities had at the turn of the last century. And then they ripped up all the tracks or paved them over. They recently did a full depth reconstruction on a street in my neighborhood in Somerville, Massachusetts which entailed digging up the old streetcar rails, ties, and brick substrate from under the pavement.

dangus 4y ago

This video might be relevant to your described scenario: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDXB0CY2tSQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDXB0CY2tSQ Notice how in The Netherlands, despite making bikes, transit, and pedestrians welcome in this suburban business park near the airport, you can still drive there if you want. Yes, if you lived in The Netherlands, you could drive to this business park shown in the video in your personal vehicle. There's a parking garage right there, and even though the infrastructure is pedestrian and bicycle focused and prioritized, the cars don't have to wait long at the traffic signal or endure crazy traffic. Why is that? Because there are fewer cars. Why are there fewer cars? Because there are viable alternatives. Essentially, having better public transit, pedestrian, and cycling infrastructure actually makes life better for drivers, too! The thing is, in North America, in most places you don't actually have any sort of choice on whether you want to drive or not. If you don't drive, your entire environment is hostile to your very existence, and public transit is just for the poor and desperate. You must buy a car whether you want to or not. That's not really choice or freedom. You're saying that you would choose a personal vehicle, but does that choice have the potential to change if the surrounding circumstances change? So, it's perfectly fine that you'd prefer to own an automobile. You're free to pay the close to $10,000 a year it costs for the average person to own a new car according to AAA. I personally wouldn't make that choice if I had a better one available, but if I live in suburban America the choice has been made for me. > Electrification and self-driving systems (and the resulting fleets of cheap automated taxis) will go a long way towards reducing the waste inherent to automobiles. This is what's so frustrating about talking about the future of the transportation with people who can't imagine a world that lessens the emphasis on car-scale infrastructure. The waste problem with automobiles has already been solved. It has been solved by not using them as much. This isn't a hypothetical. We have living, working examples of how to use cars less often in small towns, medium sized suburbs, and big cities. Making cars self-driving is putting lipstick on a pig. It's like taking high blood pressure drugs instead of losing weight.

mrshadowgoose 4y ago
I'm very familiar with the stark difference between North American and European transit systems. I've actually visited the Netherlands multiple times, and many other European cities. Totally agree that we generally do public transit miserably in NA, and have a lot of room for improvement. All I was getting at with my original comment is that "trains for everyone" is as ridiculous of a concept as "cars for everyone". > You're saying that you would choose a personal vehicle, but does that choice have the potential to change if the surrounding circumstances change? Sure, as mentioned, if severe artificial barriers are put up to car usage, I would begrudgingly change. Absent that, no, I like my personal space. I like not getting rained on, not getting snowed on and not walking through -30C temperatures. Currently, I can get into a personal vehicle inside a garage, and proceed directly to my workplace's garage. Buses and trains will never match that, at least, not in the city I live in. > Making cars self-driving is putting lipstick on a pig. It's like taking high blood pressure drugs instead of losing weight. It's tremendously frustrating to constantly butt up against the foregone conclusion of "car is intrinsically bad no matter what". Safety and environmental impact are commonly accepted as the two largest issues with cars. We are poised to address both of these over the next two decades. Yet cars are still somehow intrinsically bad nonetheless? Is usage of a vehicle bad if one is not sharing the interior of it with a certain number of other people at any given time? At the end of the day, I am a strong believer in enabling people to live their lives the way they want to, when reasonably practical. To cover most of the population, this means building pedestrian and cyclist friendly infrastructure, public transit, and supporting the safe and efficient use of personal vehicles too. And there's nothing stopping this from all coexisting, as you've already stated.

2muchcoffeeman 4y ago

>Electrification and self-driving systems (and the resulting fleets of cheap automated taxis) will go a long way towards reducing the waste inherent to automobiles. Why would electric vehicles reduce waste? Cleaner, sure. But we’d be just as capitalist. City people didn’t ditch their cars and buy their pristine 4WD Ford Trucks that they use to transport their kids because this was the cheaper and saner option. Electric vehicles will just mean these people will ditch their current vehicles and buy a new Cyber Truck every few years. Lock downs during the pandemic showed us what needs to be done: Get rid of as many vehicles as possible. Remember all the wildlife that came back and the cleaner air?

ratg13 4y ago

We are not discussing every single road in existence. We are discussing high-density cities where the problem in the article is occurring. There is more entitlement in your argument than I care to address, but it serves as a strong reminder of why American cities are so travel-hostile compared to European cities.