4 ms·

I look forward to seeing public transportation that begins a few feet from my front door and arrives a few feet from my destination, without changing vehicles p

I look forward to seeing public transportation that begins a few feet from my front door and arrives a few feet from my destination, without changing vehicles partway through, for arbitrary destinations.

Vinnl 1y ago
Meanwhile I'll enjoy my bicycle that gets me that for 95% of my destinations, does so in reasonable time, is never stuck in traffic, doesn't risk killing or even significantly maiming others, doesn't pollute the environment, and is nice and quiet.
tonyedgecombe 1y ago
Yeah, the thought of having to take a few steps is too horrible to imagine.
- JoshTriplett 1y ago
  The thought of taking twice as long to get somewhere with less convenience is not tenable to convince people they should switch their transportation method. People trying to argue "you should not want that speed and convenience" or "cars should be made less quick or less convenient" are not providing winning arguments for public transit. The solution is that public transit should meet or exceed the bar of speed and convenience set by cars. Let's make things better, rather than convince people they should settle for worse.
piva00 1y ago
You can take your car if its existence doesn't infringe on everyone else having a nice city where people can walk. For that to happen your convenience of being able to park anywhere close to your final destination will mostly disappear, you will have to find parking in a parking garage, walk up and down stairs (or take an elevator) to get to the street, and walk to your destination. I don't advocate for the extinction of cars, you can have it, just don't expect whole cities to be catered for your individualistic choice of mode of transportation and we are fine.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  The problem is this: If you try to allow a new dense development near the suburbs and make it affordable by not having minimum parking requirements, people object to it. Not because they want to live there and need somewhere to park their car, but because they don't want local housing to be more affordable or to have a bunch of young people with lower incomes move in and want to send their kids your school district. Developers aren't stupid; the reason they're banned from building housing without parking isn't because they were going to build something nobody wanted to buy. So then that kind of development can't get built, and the bulk of the housing consists of low density suburbs where you need a car, and then everybody drives everywhere. But instead of solving the actual problem, people start trying to come up with ways to make driving worse because they don't like all the cars. Then it's actually the drivers who object, because you're trying to suppress the thing they're forced to do without letting them do the thing that allows them to avoid it.
  - bmicraft 1y ago
    So, not stupid, instead only selfish. Much better.
    - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
      It changes what you have to do in order to fix it. The problem isn't the parking spaces, the parking spaces are the symptom. The problem is that medium and high density housing construction and mixed use zoning are heavily restricted, and the cause is zoning boards captured by incumbent homeowners who want housing prices to go up instead of becoming more affordable. You can't win if you're fighting the wrong fight.
- JoshTriplett 1y ago
  To clarify something: I feel the same way about excessive amounts of parking. Taxis are much better on that front, and provide point-to-point transportation. I would love to see a fleet of electric taxis forming part of the public transportation strategy. (In an ideal future world, I'd love to see self-driving electric taxis.) And I absolutely think that paths for walkers and paths for cars should not intersect; either cars should be underground or walking paths should be raised (which, if built densely enough, is roughly equivalent).
ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
It'd be well worth aiming to include some active travel (e.g. walking) in your daily schedule as otherwise you may think that you're saving time by parking so close, but you're really shortening your lifespan with an increased chance of sedentary diseases.
- JoshTriplett 1y ago
  Regular exercise is absolutely important. Mixing it with transportation is a recipe for arriving covered in sweat (and, often, rain).
  - andrepd 1y ago
    That's why people only bike in sunny countries, like the Netherlands or Denmark.
    - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
      I had to check your comment history to figure out if you were being ironic - such is the motornormativity in our culture.
  - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
    It depends on the nature of the commute, but yes that can be an issue. A big advantage of active travel is that it can be a convenient way for people to find time to do exercise regularly without having to attend a gym etc.
  - piva00 1y ago
    And still millions of people outside of the USA in advanced economies do it everyday, in the rain, in the snow, it's not a big issue at all except for a society which has no other experience than personal, individual transportation. Might have something to do with that, no? Americans usually bring up these obstacles that don't materialise in the reality lived by the Dutch, Danes, Belgians, etc., while not even having the means to try it out in reality to verify if those obstacles are actually real. It's a fantasy of fear.
andrepd 1y ago
And I wish for flying cars that are affordable, don't make noise or pollute, are safe, supersonic, and magically disappear into a bag of holding so they don't need space to park. Meanwhile in the real world, you need to make compromises. Having everyone use a 3000kg vehicle to carry their 70kg selves, spends 95% of its time parked, and is the leading cause of preventable deaths in the developed world, is a terrible compromise, so instead: Bikes for moving in dense cities, trains for intercity travel, cars for rural areas, and bridges between these modes: transport bikes in trains or rent them at station, park+ride at the edges of cities, etc. Transportation is complicated.

Vinnl 1y ago

Meanwhile I'll enjoy my bicycle that gets me that for 95% of my destinations, does so in reasonable time, is never stuck in traffic, doesn't risk killing or even significantly maiming others, doesn't pollute the environment, and is nice and quiet.

tonyedgecombe 1y ago

Yeah, the thought of having to take a few steps is too horrible to imagine.

JoshTriplett 1y ago
The thought of taking twice as long to get somewhere with less convenience is not tenable to convince people they should switch their transportation method. People trying to argue "you should not want that speed and convenience" or "cars should be made less quick or less convenient" are not providing winning arguments for public transit. The solution is that public transit should meet or exceed the bar of speed and convenience set by cars. Let's make things better, rather than convince people they should settle for worse.

piva00 1y ago

You can take your car if its existence doesn't infringe on everyone else having a nice city where people can walk. For that to happen your convenience of being able to park anywhere close to your final destination will mostly disappear, you will have to find parking in a parking garage, walk up and down stairs (or take an elevator) to get to the street, and walk to your destination. I don't advocate for the extinction of cars, you can have it, just don't expect whole cities to be catered for your individualistic choice of mode of transportation and we are fine.

AnthonyMouse 1y ago
The problem is this: If you try to allow a new dense development near the suburbs and make it affordable by not having minimum parking requirements, people object to it. Not because they want to live there and need somewhere to park their car, but because they don't want local housing to be more affordable or to have a bunch of young people with lower incomes move in and want to send their kids your school district. Developers aren't stupid; the reason they're banned from building housing without parking isn't because they were going to build something nobody wanted to buy. So then that kind of development can't get built, and the bulk of the housing consists of low density suburbs where you need a car, and then everybody drives everywhere. But instead of solving the actual problem, people start trying to come up with ways to make driving worse because they don't like all the cars. Then it's actually the drivers who object, because you're trying to suppress the thing they're forced to do without letting them do the thing that allows them to avoid it.
- bmicraft 1y ago
  So, not stupid, instead only selfish. Much better.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    It changes what you have to do in order to fix it. The problem isn't the parking spaces, the parking spaces are the symptom. The problem is that medium and high density housing construction and mixed use zoning are heavily restricted, and the cause is zoning boards captured by incumbent homeowners who want housing prices to go up instead of becoming more affordable. You can't win if you're fighting the wrong fight.
JoshTriplett 1y ago
To clarify something: I feel the same way about excessive amounts of parking. Taxis are much better on that front, and provide point-to-point transportation. I would love to see a fleet of electric taxis forming part of the public transportation strategy. (In an ideal future world, I'd love to see self-driving electric taxis.) And I absolutely think that paths for walkers and paths for cars should not intersect; either cars should be underground or walking paths should be raised (which, if built densely enough, is roughly equivalent).

ndsipa_pomu 1y ago

It'd be well worth aiming to include some active travel (e.g. walking) in your daily schedule as otherwise you may think that you're saving time by parking so close, but you're really shortening your lifespan with an increased chance of sedentary diseases.

JoshTriplett 1y ago
Regular exercise is absolutely important. Mixing it with transportation is a recipe for arriving covered in sweat (and, often, rain).
- andrepd 1y ago
  That's why people only bike in sunny countries, like the Netherlands or Denmark.
  - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
    I had to check your comment history to figure out if you were being ironic - such is the motornormativity in our culture.
- ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
  It depends on the nature of the commute, but yes that can be an issue. A big advantage of active travel is that it can be a convenient way for people to find time to do exercise regularly without having to attend a gym etc.
- piva00 1y ago
  And still millions of people outside of the USA in advanced economies do it everyday, in the rain, in the snow, it's not a big issue at all except for a society which has no other experience than personal, individual transportation. Might have something to do with that, no? Americans usually bring up these obstacles that don't materialise in the reality lived by the Dutch, Danes, Belgians, etc., while not even having the means to try it out in reality to verify if those obstacles are actually real. It's a fantasy of fear.

andrepd 1y ago

And I wish for flying cars that are affordable, don't make noise or pollute, are safe, supersonic, and magically disappear into a bag of holding so they don't need space to park. Meanwhile in the real world, you need to make compromises. Having everyone use a 3000kg vehicle to carry their 70kg selves, spends 95% of its time parked, and is the leading cause of preventable deaths in the developed world, is a terrible compromise, so instead: Bikes for moving in dense cities, trains for intercity travel, cars for rural areas, and bridges between these modes: transport bikes in trains or rent them at station, park+ride at the edges of cities, etc. Transportation is complicated.