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> individual vehicles very inconvenient I suspect individual vehicles is inherently inconvenient. The parking lot for Disneyland is an example, the traffic jam

> individual vehicles very inconvenient I suspect individual vehicles is inherently inconvenient. The parking lot for Disneyland is an example, the traffic jams of any city with over 50k people in it are examples. Individual vehicles do not scale very well, and through extreme expense the US has built infrastructure to make individual vehicles as convenient as can be. > not because they prefer it. I would like to see data behind this. Driving for a commute is generally not enjoyable, it's time a person will not get back and meanwhile they have done very little productive other than perhaps listen to a podcast. OTOH when on a bus, someone else is worrying about the roads and plenty of people get significant work done, reading done, generally relax. I suspect most would prefer mass transit if it were more time efficient. Driving yourself is still a pretty killer option in most of the US as it's an extreme reduction in commute time due to lack of density and frequency in the mass transit network. *To clarify, the typical bus experience in the US can vary quite a bit. I commuted into Seattle for several years on the bus system. That is my experience, those trips were 99.9% fine experiences, it was quiet and essentially everyone was just messing around on their smart phones. The only really unpleasant part of the bus experience was there were not enough of them running such that the bus could be crowded and was a long wait between buses. That is a different experience for sure from the buses that run within downtown and riding those buses around 2pm when there are no commuters on them. My claim is that a well funded bus system is intrinsically more enjoyable for the same reason an AV is - because you can do something other than 'driving' while traveling.

zht 3y ago
in my short 4 month internship in Seattle I have had two bad experiences (among others) 1. Some woman starts yelling at me saying I am a foreigner (I am, but I am more Canadian than anything else). She gets louder and louder and tells me that I am probably a visa student and that I’ll be deported when my studies are done. She went around the entire bus making derogatory comments about them (I.e. what are you doing with that white bitch to an interracial couple) 2. A woman accuses me of being a North Korean spy on the bus (she says I have the nose of a North Korean). I exit the bus because she is increasingly hostile. I get off the bus. She follows me 4 blocks to my apartment, trying to get the red blooded Americans to catch the North Korean spy. Can you see how some folks would prefer to drive?
- gariti 3y ago
  As someone who falls in the anti car camp, I'm really sorry you had those experiences. Seattle definitely has problems with insane people, it can be encountered on the streets or on public transit.
  - zht 3y ago
    I thank you for your empathy. I can imagine that most people who take public transit daily (I hope) probably never experience the things that I have experienced. Maybe because I am visibly Asian (therefore easier to be perceived as non-American), some folks are more daring in picking on me? Unfortunately I cannot a/b test it because I can't look any less Asian than I do now.
- seadan83 3y ago
  > Can you see how some folks would prefer to drive? Very much so, yes. I agree with the reply comment that you should not have been subjected to that experience. As a 215lbs white male - I don't have those experiences. I was making fundamentally two points: (1) single occupancy vehicles are a non-scalable transportation solution and (2) I would suspect most people intrinsically would prefer to spend their time while traveling doing something other than driving. It's one of the major selling points for AI cars, that you can do something else while travelling.
mytailorisrich 3y ago
I have lived in areas of well-funded bus systems (in Europe and Asia) and I have even commuted by bus at some point. It is not enjoyable. A car feels much better and is more convenient as well. Public transport should be encouraged where possible for practical reasons but it is not realistic to claim that people would prefer it in general.
- seadan83 3y ago
  > A car feels much better and is more convenient as well. That is unsurprising. Though, when you are stuck in gridlock, do you think to yourself, "this is exactly where I want to be?" The car commutes I had in Seattle were 90% gridlock, very common to spend about 30 minutes to travel 7 miles. I went into office one night and it took 14 minutes total. One evening trying to get home during rush hour it took 45 minutes just to get down the on-ramp onto the actual highway! In total that was a two hour commute to travel 12 miles. The 2 hours was atypical, but spending 60-90 minutes to get home was typical.

zht 3y ago

in my short 4 month internship in Seattle I have had two bad experiences (among others) 1. Some woman starts yelling at me saying I am a foreigner (I am, but I am more Canadian than anything else). She gets louder and louder and tells me that I am probably a visa student and that I’ll be deported when my studies are done. She went around the entire bus making derogatory comments about them (I.e. what are you doing with that white bitch to an interracial couple) 2. A woman accuses me of being a North Korean spy on the bus (she says I have the nose of a North Korean). I exit the bus because she is increasingly hostile. I get off the bus. She follows me 4 blocks to my apartment, trying to get the red blooded Americans to catch the North Korean spy. Can you see how some folks would prefer to drive?

gariti 3y ago
As someone who falls in the anti car camp, I'm really sorry you had those experiences. Seattle definitely has problems with insane people, it can be encountered on the streets or on public transit.
- zht 3y ago
  I thank you for your empathy. I can imagine that most people who take public transit daily (I hope) probably never experience the things that I have experienced. Maybe because I am visibly Asian (therefore easier to be perceived as non-American), some folks are more daring in picking on me? Unfortunately I cannot a/b test it because I can't look any less Asian than I do now.
seadan83 3y ago
> Can you see how some folks would prefer to drive? Very much so, yes. I agree with the reply comment that you should not have been subjected to that experience. As a 215lbs white male - I don't have those experiences. I was making fundamentally two points: (1) single occupancy vehicles are a non-scalable transportation solution and (2) I would suspect most people intrinsically would prefer to spend their time while traveling doing something other than driving. It's one of the major selling points for AI cars, that you can do something else while travelling.

mytailorisrich 3y ago

I have lived in areas of well-funded bus systems (in Europe and Asia) and I have even commuted by bus at some point. It is not enjoyable. A car feels much better and is more convenient as well. Public transport should be encouraged where possible for practical reasons but it is not realistic to claim that people would prefer it in general.

seadan83 3y ago
> A car feels much better and is more convenient as well. That is unsurprising. Though, when you are stuck in gridlock, do you think to yourself, "this is exactly where I want to be?" The car commutes I had in Seattle were 90% gridlock, very common to spend about 30 minutes to travel 7 miles. I went into office one night and it took 14 minutes total. One evening trying to get home during rush hour it took 45 minutes just to get down the on-ramp onto the actual highway! In total that was a two hour commute to travel 12 miles. The 2 hours was atypical, but spending 60-90 minutes to get home was typical.