4 ms·

I like high speed trains myself. They can run off the power grid, which means they can run off wind/solar/nuclear/hydro, and they are actually in some ways more

by api 15y ago

I like high speed trains myself. They can run off the power grid, which means they can run off wind/solar/nuclear/hydro, and they are actually in some ways more convenient than cars. When I lived in a big city, I enjoyed train commuting. I could just get on the train and not think about it. I used to hate daily commuting by car. Now that I live in a smaller town, I picked a walkable one where I can walk to work. (Yeah, not everyone can do that.) I do like cars for vacationing. I consider a car a recreational vehicle, but can't stand them for routine commuting.

fennecfoxen 15y ago
I like trains and commuting by train too. I can't stand traffic either. But cars remain awesomely effective, because they can go from point to point, and they're so competitive that trains are only really competitive if: * you're going to be traveling for very long distances (but not long enough for airports to be faster), or * traffic is going to be utterly miserable, or * the train is RIGHT THERE and very convenient or, ideally, some combination of the three. (Driving to the commuter rail and having your office be Right There is an acceptable incarnation of point three). Notice where trains are most effective: the northeast corridor (really dense population, traffic problems, city centers with workplaces served by train/metro), big cities on the west coast (e.g. SF, Seattle). There are significant diseconomies involved in making a big dense city. "A future without cars" looks like some of those cities and those city's problems - in particular, really expensive housing, especially if you want to raise a family and have multiple bedrooms (or, God forbid, a yard). Remember that median household income in the US is only $44k. If you're reading Hacker News I'll guesstimate you're probably making double that, maybe triple. Anyway. Gas prices and the relative prices of train commuting/car commuting/real estate may change the dynamic of transportation in the future, but I don't think the densification that it entails is an unabashed good for the common man or that my preference for trains is a substitute for comprehensive realistic transportation policies. And if we must go down that road (so to speak) we're going to need to do a better job of making effective, useful, cost-efficient transportation projects than we have over the past few years.
- DanI-S 15y ago
  Knowing that the median household income in the US is $44k, I am continually shocked at the amount of money spent on cars. "Slightly less than one-third of households said they had one personal vehicle1 available for use in 2001. A little more than one-third of households (40 million out of 107 million households) had 2 vehicles and slightly less than one-quarter had 3 or more vehicles available."[0] This is an unimaginable number of cars. Given that a car costs, on average, $28,400[1] - and lasts around 8 years[2] - holy shit. That doesn't even take into account the cost of running and fueling a car. At an average of ~15k miles per year, the total cost PER CAR is around $8,776 per year.[3] To our 'median household', which is more likely than not to have one or two cars, that's either 20% or 40% of their income. Since average spending on housing is 30%, that doesn't leave a whole lot left. No wonder we're all in so much debt. The worst part is, US urban planning means that people are likely unable to work without access to a car. Imagine a 20% increase in income tax, with the money being used to subsidize an outdated and damaging industry. That's what this is. It is holding back the US economy. [0]http://www.bts.gov/publications/transportation_statistics_annual_report/2003/html/chapter_02/vehicle_ownership_and_availability.html http://www.bts.gov/publications/transportation_statistics_an... [1]http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/autos/aut11.shtm http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/autos/aut11.shtm [2]http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12040753/ns/business-consumer_news/t/whats-life-expectancy-my-car/ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12040753/ns/business-consumer_ne... [3]http://www.boston.com/cars/newsandreviews/overdrive/2011/04/average_car_ownership_nearly_9000_per_year.html http://www.boston.com/cars/newsandreviews/overdrive/2011/04/...
  - exue 15y ago
    So you just choose one industry that's 20% of the economy to demolish and expect no side effects? Get rid of the car industry, and the flying jetpack, massive underground subway, or whatever industry will come in to fill the gap. Economics isn't that simple.
  - hammock 15y ago
    "Buy a car to get to work, go to work to pay for car" is something that I'd bet a lot of people are familiar with. Suburban sprawl and the middle class.
Retric 15y ago
The real problem with cars is they directly kill 100's of thousand people and people waste 100's thousand lifetimes worth of mindlessly driving them around EVERY single year world wide. They also cost of resources and environmental costs to build, fuel, maintain, and create roads, but so do all their replacements. We can have different trade-offs when it comes to those costs but massive transportation networks are always going to be expensive. I have always thought the future would have personalized self driving subway cars. But, it's all about what you value.

by api 15y ago

fennecfoxen 15y ago

I like trains and commuting by train too. I can't stand traffic either. But cars remain awesomely effective, because they can go from point to point, and they're so competitive that trains are only really competitive if: * you're going to be traveling for very long distances (but not long enough for airports to be faster), or * traffic is going to be utterly miserable, or * the train is RIGHT THERE and very convenient or, ideally, some combination of the three. (Driving to the commuter rail and having your office be Right There is an acceptable incarnation of point three). Notice where trains are most effective: the northeast corridor (really dense population, traffic problems, city centers with workplaces served by train/metro), big cities on the west coast (e.g. SF, Seattle). There are significant diseconomies involved in making a big dense city. "A future without cars" looks like some of those cities and those city's problems - in particular, really expensive housing, especially if you want to raise a family and have multiple bedrooms (or, God forbid, a yard). Remember that median household income in the US is only $44k. If you're reading Hacker News I'll guesstimate you're probably making double that, maybe triple. Anyway. Gas prices and the relative prices of train commuting/car commuting/real estate may change the dynamic of transportation in the future, but I don't think the densification that it entails is an unabashed good for the common man or that my preference for trains is a substitute for comprehensive realistic transportation policies. And if we must go down that road (so to speak) we're going to need to do a better job of making effective, useful, cost-efficient transportation projects than we have over the past few years.

DanI-S 15y ago
Knowing that the median household income in the US is $44k, I am continually shocked at the amount of money spent on cars. "Slightly less than one-third of households said they had one personal vehicle1 available for use in 2001. A little more than one-third of households (40 million out of 107 million households) had 2 vehicles and slightly less than one-quarter had 3 or more vehicles available."[0] This is an unimaginable number of cars. Given that a car costs, on average, $28,400[1] - and lasts around 8 years[2] - holy shit. That doesn't even take into account the cost of running and fueling a car. At an average of ~15k miles per year, the total cost PER CAR is around $8,776 per year.[3] To our 'median household', which is more likely than not to have one or two cars, that's either 20% or 40% of their income. Since average spending on housing is 30%, that doesn't leave a whole lot left. No wonder we're all in so much debt. The worst part is, US urban planning means that people are likely unable to work without access to a car. Imagine a 20% increase in income tax, with the money being used to subsidize an outdated and damaging industry. That's what this is. It is holding back the US economy. [0]http://www.bts.gov/publications/transportation_statistics_annual_report/2003/html/chapter_02/vehicle_ownership_and_availability.html http://www.bts.gov/publications/transportation_statistics_an... [1]http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/autos/aut11.shtm http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/autos/aut11.shtm [2]http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12040753/ns/business-consumer_news/t/whats-life-expectancy-my-car/ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12040753/ns/business-consumer_ne... [3]http://www.boston.com/cars/newsandreviews/overdrive/2011/04/average_car_ownership_nearly_9000_per_year.html http://www.boston.com/cars/newsandreviews/overdrive/2011/04/...
- exue 15y ago
  So you just choose one industry that's 20% of the economy to demolish and expect no side effects? Get rid of the car industry, and the flying jetpack, massive underground subway, or whatever industry will come in to fill the gap. Economics isn't that simple.
- hammock 15y ago
  "Buy a car to get to work, go to work to pay for car" is something that I'd bet a lot of people are familiar with. Suburban sprawl and the middle class.

Retric 15y ago

The real problem with cars is they directly kill 100's of thousand people and people waste 100's thousand lifetimes worth of mindlessly driving them around EVERY single year world wide. They also cost of resources and environmental costs to build, fuel, maintain, and create roads, but so do all their replacements. We can have different trade-offs when it comes to those costs but massive transportation networks are always going to be expensive. I have always thought the future would have personalized self driving subway cars. But, it's all about what you value.