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What are your ideas for improving public transit? Because the way I see it, public transit suffers from issues that are hard to overcome and are exacerbated by

What are your ideas for improving public transit? Because the way I see it, public transit suffers from issues that are hard to overcome and are exacerbated by globalized societies. Public transit simply can't take you everywhere. Even when I e lived in areas with dense bus routes, how one would get to a stop was often a question. Buses are relatively slow and impede traffic, especially in larger cities. More trains would be nice, but they share many issues with buses, including the fact that they become de facto homeless and mental health shelters on wheels. The only place where I have lived where this wasn't a problem was New Zealand, and that was 18 years ago, so I don't know if that's still the case. I always give up on public transit after seeing enough acts of human degradation and fights breaking out. Let's not forget the smell. Cars and self driving tech will always have an edge over public transit. We might as well not waste too much time on public transit, but make sure it is adequate while making car-driving more sustainable. In fact, I would rather prioritize making cities bikeable and walkable more expanding bus service. For some cities it's pretty much too late, but for ones that are kind of spread out there is no reason why there can't be dedicated bikeways.

ncmncm 4y ago
Buses do not impede traffic. Cars impede bus traffic.
Panzer04 4y ago
"de facto homeless shelters"? wtf? Is that genuinely a concern in some places? Cars have an edge on transit because orders of magnitude more money is spent on the road system and on the vehicles than is spent on PT. Despite that, PT tends to be faster in cities, where it's simply not possible to jam more cars in (it turns out only carrying one person per car is a truly massive capacity constraint. Cars will probably always be better in low density areas, as it's not reasonable to serve all areas with reasonable quality of service, but in any kind of reasonable high density environment properly separated PT (ie. not lumped in with car traffic) will have huge capacity and speed advantages.
- decafninja 4y ago
  Yes - it's a genuine concern in the US. In fact, looking at many of these public transit vs. car threads on HN, on the topic of safety, I feel transit advocates are not understanding the issue properly. Most people that dislike using public transit in the US are not afraid that the train or bus will derail or get into an accident. The odds of that happening are definitely tiny. What they're afraid of is some psycho on the train/bus committing anything from nuisance harassment to outright murder. It doesn't help that many of the people that most advocate public transit are the ones most resistant to making transit free from being terrorized by such potentially dangerous individuals. Even outside of that psycho scenario, you also encounter a lot of benign, but otherwise annoying or otherwise less-than-desirable-to-be-around people whether it's someone with horrific body odor or someone blasting loud music or someone coughing their lungs up. I never felt afraid, anxious, or even annoyed in any way getting on the subway in Seoul, Tokyo, or Hong Kong. I always feel at least some degree anxiety and annoyance, and sometimes outright fear, getting on the subway in NYC.
  - foxes 4y ago
    Every other country in the world can embrace efficient clean public transport, and then America can be a theocratic car filled wasteland filled with dangerously unstable individuals, and completely decayed social structure.
  - beepbeepcabbage 4y ago
    This is a US problem, not a train problem.
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      US problems have an unfortunate tendency to become world problems...
woodruffw 4y ago
> The only place where I have lived where this wasn't a problem was New Zealand, and that was 18 years ago, so I don't know if that's still the case. I always give up on public transit after seeing enough acts of human degradation and fights breaking out. Let's not forget the smell. You were supposed to describe public transit, not a rest stop on an Interstate Highway in the United States :-) But seriously: the things you're describing are civic issues, not issues with public transportation. The only reason you see them less in your car is because the activation energy for them affecting you is much higher (specifically, instances of road rage, DWI, etc. culminating in someone colliding with you). But that doesn't actually make them less frequent; it just converts the drunk guy shouting on the subway bench into the drunk guy who's about to T-bone you.
- decafninja 4y ago
  The drunk guy about to T-bone you is more difficult to encounter in the first place than the drunk guy about to stab you on the subway. I agree these are civic issues, not issues with public transportation. However I always get the impression that many ardent public transit advocates are the ones who are also resistant to cleaning up public transit so that it is more attractive. Yes, let's definitely work towards providing mental health solutions, but let's also not let the psycho claim an entire subway car because "he has every right to be there" or "it's inhumane to forcibly remove him" and still expect the general public to delight in giving up their cars and take the subway instead.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    > The drunk guy about to T-bone you is more difficult to encounter in the first place than the drunk guy about to stab you on the subway. Statistically, he isn't. If drunks stabbed people on subways at the rate that drunks killed people with their cars, around 46 people would be stabbed on the US's subways each day. And that's killed with cars, not "permanently disabled or disfigured"; that rate is even higher. The problem with the "psycho" example is that it just isn't that common. It's chiefly a perception, a statistically misaligned one, that's been ruthlessly propagated to support economic structures that benefit from as many Americans driving as much as possible. That isn't to say that it doesn't happen, but to use the drunk driving example again: we tolerate orders of magnitude more antisocial behavior on our roads than we do in our public transit systems.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ncmncm 4y ago

Buses do not impede traffic. Cars impede bus traffic.

Panzer04 4y ago

"de facto homeless shelters"? wtf? Is that genuinely a concern in some places? Cars have an edge on transit because orders of magnitude more money is spent on the road system and on the vehicles than is spent on PT. Despite that, PT tends to be faster in cities, where it's simply not possible to jam more cars in (it turns out only carrying one person per car is a truly massive capacity constraint. Cars will probably always be better in low density areas, as it's not reasonable to serve all areas with reasonable quality of service, but in any kind of reasonable high density environment properly separated PT (ie. not lumped in with car traffic) will have huge capacity and speed advantages.

decafninja 4y ago
Yes - it's a genuine concern in the US. In fact, looking at many of these public transit vs. car threads on HN, on the topic of safety, I feel transit advocates are not understanding the issue properly. Most people that dislike using public transit in the US are not afraid that the train or bus will derail or get into an accident. The odds of that happening are definitely tiny. What they're afraid of is some psycho on the train/bus committing anything from nuisance harassment to outright murder. It doesn't help that many of the people that most advocate public transit are the ones most resistant to making transit free from being terrorized by such potentially dangerous individuals. Even outside of that psycho scenario, you also encounter a lot of benign, but otherwise annoying or otherwise less-than-desirable-to-be-around people whether it's someone with horrific body odor or someone blasting loud music or someone coughing their lungs up. I never felt afraid, anxious, or even annoyed in any way getting on the subway in Seoul, Tokyo, or Hong Kong. I always feel at least some degree anxiety and annoyance, and sometimes outright fear, getting on the subway in NYC.
- foxes 4y ago
  Every other country in the world can embrace efficient clean public transport, and then America can be a theocratic car filled wasteland filled with dangerously unstable individuals, and completely decayed social structure.
- beepbeepcabbage 4y ago
  This is a US problem, not a train problem.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    US problems have an unfortunate tendency to become world problems...

woodruffw 4y ago

> The only place where I have lived where this wasn't a problem was New Zealand, and that was 18 years ago, so I don't know if that's still the case. I always give up on public transit after seeing enough acts of human degradation and fights breaking out. Let's not forget the smell. You were supposed to describe public transit, not a rest stop on an Interstate Highway in the United States :-) But seriously: the things you're describing are civic issues, not issues with public transportation. The only reason you see them less in your car is because the activation energy for them affecting you is much higher (specifically, instances of road rage, DWI, etc. culminating in someone colliding with you). But that doesn't actually make them less frequent; it just converts the drunk guy shouting on the subway bench into the drunk guy who's about to T-bone you.

decafninja 4y ago
The drunk guy about to T-bone you is more difficult to encounter in the first place than the drunk guy about to stab you on the subway. I agree these are civic issues, not issues with public transportation. However I always get the impression that many ardent public transit advocates are the ones who are also resistant to cleaning up public transit so that it is more attractive. Yes, let's definitely work towards providing mental health solutions, but let's also not let the psycho claim an entire subway car because "he has every right to be there" or "it's inhumane to forcibly remove him" and still expect the general public to delight in giving up their cars and take the subway instead.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  > The drunk guy about to T-bone you is more difficult to encounter in the first place than the drunk guy about to stab you on the subway. Statistically, he isn't. If drunks stabbed people on subways at the rate that drunks killed people with their cars, around 46 people would be stabbed on the US's subways each day. And that's killed with cars, not "permanently disabled or disfigured"; that rate is even higher. The problem with the "psycho" example is that it just isn't that common. It's chiefly a perception, a statistically misaligned one, that's been ruthlessly propagated to support economic structures that benefit from as many Americans driving as much as possible. That isn't to say that it doesn't happen, but to use the drunk driving example again: we tolerate orders of magnitude more antisocial behavior on our roads than we do in our public transit systems.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]