4 ms·
Well, the streets aren't free, because you need to buy a car to use them. That's a little pedantic, but I think it's super relevant. The problem is that as a p
by ketzo 4y ago
Well, the streets aren't free, because you need to buy a car to use them. That's a little pedantic, but I think it's super relevant.
The problem is that as a passenger/consumer, with a car, it's very easy to decide how much to pay for my own personal level of ride quality.
I can spend $2k on an old Camry, or I can spend $200k on a Bentley, but either way, I have almost total control (potholes notwithstanding).
It's really not possible to have that kind of personal control when you're looking at public transit.
- llukas 4y agoYou can spend $200k on Bentley and still have nowhere to park it at your destination.
- eganist 4y ago> You can spend $200k on Bentley and still have nowhere to park it at your destination. If you can't bring yourself to solve your parking situation after spending 200k on a Bentley, you spent too much on the Bentley. To this day, I've never seen a Valet Full sign.
- kjkjadksj 4y agoIf you are spending $200k for a Bentley someone else is parking your car at the destination
- robotresearcher 4y agoFare classes exist on trains. Less granular than picking your own car, but still some choice. Some long distance trains you can pay for a private cabin with decent meal service, or just a single seat and access to a vending machine.
- ketzo 4y agoIn specifically public transit, though — buses, streetcars, metros — there’s no option to “pay for the better one.
- robotresearcher 4y agoA distinction between trains and public transit is new to me. Wikipedia confirms that distinction is sometimes made. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_transport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_transport
- HWR_14 4y agoI didn't find the distinction in the Wikipedia article, but in the US "public transit" is commonly used to refer to local transit options and "trains" usually refer to intercity travel.
- robotresearcher 4y agoRight, while in the uk with much higher density of towns and train stations, people also use them for local travel to get into town or one town over. The extreme case is something like a million people use trains to commute into London every day, with another million or so on each of bus and Tube (subway).
- fomine3 4y agoTIL interesting. I even thought that airplane is public transport. It seems that there are some opinions. https://www.quora.com/Are-planes-considered-a-form-of-public-transport https://www.quora.com/Are-planes-considered-a-form-of-public...
- throw0101a 4y ago> Well, the streets aren't free, because you need to buy a car to use them. I use them just fine on my bicycle.
- bobthepanda 4y agoMost Americans would probably not feel safe biking for their commute. Our bike infrastructure is patchy and insufficient to provide sufficient separation and protection from massive speeding tons of steel.
- scoofy 4y agoI mean, that could trivially be changed by waving a magic "this section of the road is for bikes" wand. We feel unsafe on bikes because there are too many streets designed for cars and too few for bikes. Switch out 10% of streets effectively for bikes only and you'll suddenly see people biking.
- bobthepanda 4y agoThat’s really far outside of today’s Overton windows though. No political jurisdiction in the US has a reasonable path to get to that end state.
- scoofy 4y agoIt's literally happening in SF, Minneapolis, Portland, and NYC. Caring about the Overton window is a concern for people who don't actually want to change anything ever.
- bobthepanda 4y agoThe amount of lane-miles dedicated to bikes in NYC is <1%. At the rate bike lanes are currently built in NYC it would take centuries to reach anywhere in the 10% neighborhood. Cyclists keep getting promised the world around the country. I’ll believe it when I see it.