8 ms·

I’ve slowly lost my innocence when it comes to public transportation in the US. At this point I can see that 95% of the country is absolutely locked into low-de

I’ve slowly lost my innocence when it comes to public transportation in the US. At this point I can see that 95% of the country is absolutely locked into low-density single occupancy transportation at least till we invent sky cars. We have trillions in sunk cost that covers nearly every road, every home and every business in America. We will never, ever be Europe.

pstuart 3y ago
True. But it still might be worthwhile to find policies that at least help to steer things in the right direction without being failures themselves. Easier said than done, obviously.
dangus 3y ago
The Netherlands had a very similar problem and made very simple and inexpensive changes to roadway planning. For one thing, I think a lot of American suburbs could be way more bike friendly if people just had a safe path to ride in. We are talking a half a lane worth of pavement. Another thing is that this isn’t all or nothing. Still owning and perhaps needing a car but reducing the number of trips per week is a win. Look at pictures of European countries that used to use their central squares as parking lots. It can be done. Change certainly won’t happen via defeatism.
- iampims 3y ago
  Roads safe for cycling is half the battle. The other half is around zoning and mixing residential with businesses.
  - johannes1234321 3y ago
    That's not half the battle. Undoing the zoning is 90% of the battle. Cycle paths can be added at a step by step basis and keeping some gaps isn't an issue and if some paths aren't used much initially there isn't a big problem. Also sometime a single line painted on the road is enough for a start. If businesses settle in dezoned area they need to attract an audience quickly, but the will be less attractive than the hyperstore or mall for car drivers and depend on a bunch of other businesses in walkable distance. Financing the period till it works can be tough and will cycle through a few businesses till a working mixture is established. And even then: In the car centric land usage, distances are too far quickly for quickly walking over to the bakery for fetching bread for breakfast, 15 minutes as a guidance for reaching everyday shops, doctor offices, a bar, ... density has to be increased. But people won't give up their yards.
    - hutzlibu 3y ago
      "Also sometime a single line painted on the road is enough for a start." I have seldom seen this solution get respected by cars. It is better than nothing, but it is a weak start, when the goal is save cycling.
  - Der_Einzige 3y ago
    Legalize biking on the sidewalk nationwide. I don’t want to bike on the road for any reason. Bikers have far far lower chances of hurting pedestrians than cars do of bikers.
    - fipar 3y ago
      That’s a cultural and not a technical problem. My experience is limited, but it is that, when motorists are idiots, bikers are idiots too. Yes, sure, less chance of getting killed by a bicycle (though serious risk of injury if you’re and old-enough pedestrian). My point is: if you live in a place where a lot of drivers behave like selfish idiots to other drivers, bikers, and pedestrians, then a lot of bikers will behave like selfish idiots too. I don’t have a solution, but I just wanted to add the data point because I hate most bikers with about the same intensity I hate most drivers. As a pedestrian, both groups ignore me and put me at risk every single f-word day.
    - filmgirlcw 3y ago
      Absolutely not. In Seattle, cyclists already abuse the sidewalks when there are dedicated bike lanes everywhere. And the cyclists on the sidewalks are the worst of the worst who will plow over pedestrians without even pausing. No fucking thanks. Enforce actual bike lanes and ensure people biking following the laws and rules of the road and we'd be a lot better off. But letting people too dumb to wear helmets* or to understand why they need to be in a bike lane and not on a sidewalk onto the sidewalk with zero consequence? Absolutely not. * I do not even remotely care about the anti-helmet arguments. I’m sure you’re a cyclist who has done all the research and proof as to why if you’re good and paying attention a helmet is unnecessary or even bad. Fine. Most people on bikes and most people in cars aren’t you. Wear a helmet!
    - NewsyHacker 3y ago
      That might work in highly urban areas, but suburban USA is notorious for sidewalks that end suddenly, forcing a cyclist to return to the road. And sometimes that involves dropping off a curb and then later having to get the bike back up a curb.
    - quantified 3y ago
- cdelsolar 3y ago
  I haven’t owned a car since 2017. I didn’t need one living in NYC and then I bike around my suburb. My wife does have a car which we use for shopping and taking the kids places but I’m trying to hold off on buying a second one. I really wish bike culture was more of a thing; I do see other bikers on the road, but anytime I go anywhere with my bike I’m often the only one that biked there.
- wombatpm 3y ago
  My little midwestern town only needed three children to die riding to the park before the village finally put in 1/4 mile of sidewalks to link 3 neighborhoods with the parks and schools a 1/2 mile away
- inferiorhuman 3y ago
  A lot of American suburbs would be safer if they had sidewalks for people to walk on.
prometheus76 3y ago
Do you understand how much bigger and more climate-diverse and elevation-diverse America is?
- wussboy 3y ago
  This is a common rebuttal, but it doesn’t hold water
- tomComb 3y ago
  Ever tried to get from Italy to Northern Europe? They are now building a truly incredible tunnel to make it easier.
- lmm 3y ago
  All that space and variety makes it even more baffling that apparently it's simply impossible to build even one decent city anywhere in the US that didn't have one in 1900, much less a proper conurbation like those in the Blue Banana.
- verbify 3y ago
  A better comparison might be China which has an extensive rail network.
acdha 3y ago
Yes, and we have generations of people trained to think that walking further than a hundred feet is an extreme workout to be avoided and that transit systems are full of criminals. It seems like that culture is headed for a cliff, however, as the cost of cars continues to increase (the average sale last year was a year’s median pay!), budgets for road infrastructure become tighter, and climate change becomes harder to deny. It feels like we’re headed for a messy upset when all of the conflicts come to a head.
- Der_Einzige 3y ago
  The people of Singapore pay a minimum of 100K for the privilege of owning a bottom tier car and the demand for cars there is overwhelming and insatiable, despite the world class and extremely clean mass transit systems. The reality is that cars are freedom and still superior from a continence and comfort standpoint. Americans are insanely privileged to have cheap, powerful cars.
  - seanp2k2 3y ago
    >The reality is that cars are freedom and still superior from a continence and comfort standpoint. Ask any Amazon driver; they much prefer peeing in bottles in the comfort of their own delivery trucks vs on trains.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - thejazzman 3y ago
      Amazon delivery drivers use vans in my location
  - acdha 3y ago
    > The reality is that cars are freedom and still superior from a continence and comfort standpoint. If you have them when other people don't, yes. The problem is that by the time this is no longer true, you likely have a large sunk cost fallacy and political leaders firmly committed to the model and will struggle to realize that all of the time in traffic, countless deaths, and lowered quality of life for everyone around are in fact not actually inevitable.
naikrovek 3y ago
We can’t possibly have transportation infrastructure like Europe until we have similar zoning laws (which would do away with the separation of homes and businesses into distinct areas) and similar population density. Until we put shops very close to homes, end the huge big-box retailer’s death grip on everyone’s spending habits, and learn to live leaner, European style public transport will never work. We put shopping centers far away from homes, and we put homes all over the effing place, making public transport effectively impossible to get right for even a small percentage of the population.
- kilotaras 3y ago
  > similar population density I agree with rest of the comment, but I feel that connection between walkability and population density is misunderstood. It's not "we need XXX people/sq. mile in US to have walkability", it's "allowing walkability and building corresponding infrastructure leads to increase in local density in places where people want to live".
seanp2k2 3y ago
Sky cars won't happen in this lifetime due to a few factors, not least of which is inefficiency in overcoming gravity at a speed sufficient to maintain flight in air as dense as ours in here on Earth. The other factors are obviously we'd need a whole lot more airports or some kind of safe VTOL aircraft, and when it comes to safe, just look at how people currently operate motor vehicles in the US...not gonna happen. Tons of regulatory hurdles too, not to mention things like parking. The solution to this problem as has been shown by most other civilized countries on this planet is trains, yet in the land of rugged individualism and capitalism, it's somehow not viable.
ljm 3y ago
I was in Miami some time ago, around Wynwood. Never really saw anyone walking around, and if we wanted to go anywhere then it basically required ordering an Uber. The difficult part was getting a sense of direction because there aren't really any obvious landmarks to look out for when wandering through wide-scale suburban sprawl. It's like the availability of GPS has just allowed this kind of sprawl to become even more labyrinthine because nobody needs to bother with street names or directions any more.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  When I was in Tokyo in the 1980s, there were no street signs. The taxi drivers just knew where to go. A tip I received was to always carry a brochure of your hotel. Hop in cab, show the driver the brochure, "Hai" and off we went!
  - shiroiuma 3y ago
    There's no street signs here in Tokyo because almost none of the roads have names; only the really huge boulevards do, and most people probably don't even know those names. I'm not sure how it was in the 80s, but these days people just use Google Maps to navigate to wherever they're going.
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      During the occupation after the war, the US put up street signs. After the occupation, the Japanese took them down.
  - kalleboo 3y ago
    Japanese addresses use a hierarchical block system instead of a street system
adolph 3y ago
Sky cars will allow for even lower density occupancy, no?
Neikius 3y ago
You think Europe does not have roads covering everyone? This is the sunk cost fallacy at it's finest. Maybe the most offensive thing about public transport to an American is that it cannot really be profitable by itself. Infrastructure rarely is but it is still worth investing in for the downstream effect.
- JambalayaJim 3y ago
  Transit is also worth investing in for the downstream effect.

pstuart 3y ago

True. But it still might be worthwhile to find policies that at least help to steer things in the right direction without being failures themselves. Easier said than done, obviously.

dangus 3y ago

The Netherlands had a very similar problem and made very simple and inexpensive changes to roadway planning. For one thing, I think a lot of American suburbs could be way more bike friendly if people just had a safe path to ride in. We are talking a half a lane worth of pavement. Another thing is that this isn’t all or nothing. Still owning and perhaps needing a car but reducing the number of trips per week is a win. Look at pictures of European countries that used to use their central squares as parking lots. It can be done. Change certainly won’t happen via defeatism.

iampims 3y ago
Roads safe for cycling is half the battle. The other half is around zoning and mixing residential with businesses.
- johannes1234321 3y ago
  That's not half the battle. Undoing the zoning is 90% of the battle. Cycle paths can be added at a step by step basis and keeping some gaps isn't an issue and if some paths aren't used much initially there isn't a big problem. Also sometime a single line painted on the road is enough for a start. If businesses settle in dezoned area they need to attract an audience quickly, but the will be less attractive than the hyperstore or mall for car drivers and depend on a bunch of other businesses in walkable distance. Financing the period till it works can be tough and will cycle through a few businesses till a working mixture is established. And even then: In the car centric land usage, distances are too far quickly for quickly walking over to the bakery for fetching bread for breakfast, 15 minutes as a guidance for reaching everyday shops, doctor offices, a bar, ... density has to be increased. But people won't give up their yards.
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    "Also sometime a single line painted on the road is enough for a start." I have seldom seen this solution get respected by cars. It is better than nothing, but it is a weak start, when the goal is save cycling.
- Der_Einzige 3y ago
  Legalize biking on the sidewalk nationwide. I don’t want to bike on the road for any reason. Bikers have far far lower chances of hurting pedestrians than cars do of bikers.
  - fipar 3y ago
    That’s a cultural and not a technical problem. My experience is limited, but it is that, when motorists are idiots, bikers are idiots too. Yes, sure, less chance of getting killed by a bicycle (though serious risk of injury if you’re and old-enough pedestrian). My point is: if you live in a place where a lot of drivers behave like selfish idiots to other drivers, bikers, and pedestrians, then a lot of bikers will behave like selfish idiots too. I don’t have a solution, but I just wanted to add the data point because I hate most bikers with about the same intensity I hate most drivers. As a pedestrian, both groups ignore me and put me at risk every single f-word day.
  - filmgirlcw 3y ago
    Absolutely not. In Seattle, cyclists already abuse the sidewalks when there are dedicated bike lanes everywhere. And the cyclists on the sidewalks are the worst of the worst who will plow over pedestrians without even pausing. No fucking thanks. Enforce actual bike lanes and ensure people biking following the laws and rules of the road and we'd be a lot better off. But letting people too dumb to wear helmets* or to understand why they need to be in a bike lane and not on a sidewalk onto the sidewalk with zero consequence? Absolutely not. * I do not even remotely care about the anti-helmet arguments. I’m sure you’re a cyclist who has done all the research and proof as to why if you’re good and paying attention a helmet is unnecessary or even bad. Fine. Most people on bikes and most people in cars aren’t you. Wear a helmet!
  - NewsyHacker 3y ago
    That might work in highly urban areas, but suburban USA is notorious for sidewalks that end suddenly, forcing a cyclist to return to the road. And sometimes that involves dropping off a curb and then later having to get the bike back up a curb.
  - quantified 3y ago
cdelsolar 3y ago
I haven’t owned a car since 2017. I didn’t need one living in NYC and then I bike around my suburb. My wife does have a car which we use for shopping and taking the kids places but I’m trying to hold off on buying a second one. I really wish bike culture was more of a thing; I do see other bikers on the road, but anytime I go anywhere with my bike I’m often the only one that biked there.
wombatpm 3y ago
My little midwestern town only needed three children to die riding to the park before the village finally put in 1/4 mile of sidewalks to link 3 neighborhoods with the parks and schools a 1/2 mile away
inferiorhuman 3y ago
A lot of American suburbs would be safer if they had sidewalks for people to walk on.

prometheus76 3y ago

Do you understand how much bigger and more climate-diverse and elevation-diverse America is?

wussboy 3y ago
This is a common rebuttal, but it doesn’t hold water
tomComb 3y ago
Ever tried to get from Italy to Northern Europe? They are now building a truly incredible tunnel to make it easier.
lmm 3y ago
All that space and variety makes it even more baffling that apparently it's simply impossible to build even one decent city anywhere in the US that didn't have one in 1900, much less a proper conurbation like those in the Blue Banana.
verbify 3y ago
A better comparison might be China which has an extensive rail network.

acdha 3y ago

Yes, and we have generations of people trained to think that walking further than a hundred feet is an extreme workout to be avoided and that transit systems are full of criminals. It seems like that culture is headed for a cliff, however, as the cost of cars continues to increase (the average sale last year was a year’s median pay!), budgets for road infrastructure become tighter, and climate change becomes harder to deny. It feels like we’re headed for a messy upset when all of the conflicts come to a head.

Der_Einzige 3y ago
The people of Singapore pay a minimum of 100K for the privilege of owning a bottom tier car and the demand for cars there is overwhelming and insatiable, despite the world class and extremely clean mass transit systems. The reality is that cars are freedom and still superior from a continence and comfort standpoint. Americans are insanely privileged to have cheap, powerful cars.
- seanp2k2 3y ago
  >The reality is that cars are freedom and still superior from a continence and comfort standpoint. Ask any Amazon driver; they much prefer peeing in bottles in the comfort of their own delivery trucks vs on trains.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - thejazzman 3y ago
    Amazon delivery drivers use vans in my location
- acdha 3y ago
  > The reality is that cars are freedom and still superior from a continence and comfort standpoint. If you have them when other people don't, yes. The problem is that by the time this is no longer true, you likely have a large sunk cost fallacy and political leaders firmly committed to the model and will struggle to realize that all of the time in traffic, countless deaths, and lowered quality of life for everyone around are in fact not actually inevitable.

naikrovek 3y ago

We can’t possibly have transportation infrastructure like Europe until we have similar zoning laws (which would do away with the separation of homes and businesses into distinct areas) and similar population density. Until we put shops very close to homes, end the huge big-box retailer’s death grip on everyone’s spending habits, and learn to live leaner, European style public transport will never work. We put shopping centers far away from homes, and we put homes all over the effing place, making public transport effectively impossible to get right for even a small percentage of the population.

kilotaras 3y ago
> similar population density I agree with rest of the comment, but I feel that connection between walkability and population density is misunderstood. It's not "we need XXX people/sq. mile in US to have walkability", it's "allowing walkability and building corresponding infrastructure leads to increase in local density in places where people want to live".

seanp2k2 3y ago

Sky cars won't happen in this lifetime due to a few factors, not least of which is inefficiency in overcoming gravity at a speed sufficient to maintain flight in air as dense as ours in here on Earth. The other factors are obviously we'd need a whole lot more airports or some kind of safe VTOL aircraft, and when it comes to safe, just look at how people currently operate motor vehicles in the US...not gonna happen. Tons of regulatory hurdles too, not to mention things like parking. The solution to this problem as has been shown by most other civilized countries on this planet is trains, yet in the land of rugged individualism and capitalism, it's somehow not viable.

ljm 3y ago

I was in Miami some time ago, around Wynwood. Never really saw anyone walking around, and if we wanted to go anywhere then it basically required ordering an Uber. The difficult part was getting a sense of direction because there aren't really any obvious landmarks to look out for when wandering through wide-scale suburban sprawl. It's like the availability of GPS has just allowed this kind of sprawl to become even more labyrinthine because nobody needs to bother with street names or directions any more.

WalterBright 3y ago
When I was in Tokyo in the 1980s, there were no street signs. The taxi drivers just knew where to go. A tip I received was to always carry a brochure of your hotel. Hop in cab, show the driver the brochure, "Hai" and off we went!
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  There's no street signs here in Tokyo because almost none of the roads have names; only the really huge boulevards do, and most people probably don't even know those names. I'm not sure how it was in the 80s, but these days people just use Google Maps to navigate to wherever they're going.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    During the occupation after the war, the US put up street signs. After the occupation, the Japanese took them down.
- kalleboo 3y ago
  Japanese addresses use a hierarchical block system instead of a street system

adolph 3y ago

Sky cars will allow for even lower density occupancy, no?

Neikius 3y ago

You think Europe does not have roads covering everyone? This is the sunk cost fallacy at it's finest. Maybe the most offensive thing about public transport to an American is that it cannot really be profitable by itself. Infrastructure rarely is but it is still worth investing in for the downstream effect.

JambalayaJim 3y ago
Transit is also worth investing in for the downstream effect.