3 ms·

A carrot works better than a stick every time. If publuc transit is faster from source to destination, some people will flock to it. If faster and cheaper, many

A carrot works better than a stick every time. If publuc transit is faster from source to destination, some people will flock to it. If faster and cheaper, many will flock to it. Incentivizing people with time, money and/or experience is far more effective than punitive measures.

Steltek 4y ago
The problem is that drivers perceive removing the existing carrots as applying a stick. If private car owners paid the full cost, transit would be a no brainer. How much public land is devoted to cars? How many DOT employees have jobs only to maintain traffic signals and pave roads?
gfaster 4y ago
The problem is that, at least in the U.S., we have been giving carrot after carrot to car owners in every conceivable way. We've frozen gas taxes, built highways into downtowns, mandated parking on all new construction, zoned to create the ideal environment for cars, and created a trillion-dollar nationalized highway network. Now, when people advocate for public transit carrots, those carrots have to compete with a century of driving carrots and the momentum that this status quo has.
leetcrew 4y ago
maybe this is just my american myopia, but this seems like an unrealistic goal, at least outside of the densest urban centers. I lived in northern virginia for a while, literally 100 feet away from a stop on one of the best public transit systems in the US. inside DC sure, the metro was about as fast as an uber, or even faster for some routes / times of day. but starting from across the river, it often took twice as long by metro. I honestly don't see how they could make transit better than uber without running trains so often as to negate the efficiency advantage of bulk transport. as an engineer, it kinda seems like people are expecting the latency of a synchronous request/reply service, but combined with the throughput of a batch job. surprise! you can't (usually) have both. imo both point-to-point and mass transit have their place. but people are always going to prefer point-to-point when it's economic for them. congestion pricing seems like a reasonable way to preserve the low latency characteristics of point-to-point, while nudging people to use the batch job when it's sufficient for their needs.
- glitchc 4y ago
  Indeed, it's not possible to achieve this goal with transit once the city is planned around urban sprawl. It's too difficult. In Virginia, Tyson's Corner is a great example of this. What should be a high density urban environment with great public transit is anything but. It has to be taken into consideration when the city is originally planned.

Steltek 4y ago

The problem is that drivers perceive removing the existing carrots as applying a stick. If private car owners paid the full cost, transit would be a no brainer. How much public land is devoted to cars? How many DOT employees have jobs only to maintain traffic signals and pave roads?

gfaster 4y ago

The problem is that, at least in the U.S., we have been giving carrot after carrot to car owners in every conceivable way. We've frozen gas taxes, built highways into downtowns, mandated parking on all new construction, zoned to create the ideal environment for cars, and created a trillion-dollar nationalized highway network. Now, when people advocate for public transit carrots, those carrots have to compete with a century of driving carrots and the momentum that this status quo has.

leetcrew 4y ago

maybe this is just my american myopia, but this seems like an unrealistic goal, at least outside of the densest urban centers. I lived in northern virginia for a while, literally 100 feet away from a stop on one of the best public transit systems in the US. inside DC sure, the metro was about as fast as an uber, or even faster for some routes / times of day. but starting from across the river, it often took twice as long by metro. I honestly don't see how they could make transit better than uber without running trains so often as to negate the efficiency advantage of bulk transport. as an engineer, it kinda seems like people are expecting the latency of a synchronous request/reply service, but combined with the throughput of a batch job. surprise! you can't (usually) have both. imo both point-to-point and mass transit have their place. but people are always going to prefer point-to-point when it's economic for them. congestion pricing seems like a reasonable way to preserve the low latency characteristics of point-to-point, while nudging people to use the batch job when it's sufficient for their needs.

glitchc 4y ago
Indeed, it's not possible to achieve this goal with transit once the city is planned around urban sprawl. It's too difficult. In Virginia, Tyson's Corner is a great example of this. What should be a high density urban environment with great public transit is anything but. It has to be taken into consideration when the city is originally planned.