5 ms·

Or, how about this, connect them together and put them on rails to reduce friction. You could even run them separate from the street with raised platforms for

by dangus 11mo ago

Or, how about this, connect them together and put them on rails to reduce friction. You could even run them separate from the street with raised platforms for accessibility and sometimes even run them underground. We could call this something like “underway” or “steel beam connect-o-cars”

rayiner 11mo ago
No, individualized point to point travel is better. I just got back from Tokyo and Taipei, which have transit systems better than any European country. And it was still faster to Uber everywhere.
- dangus 11mo ago
  And how much did that cost? You can get around Tokyo on the subway system for $5 for an entire day, and it's a profitable system that largely does not rely on taxpayer subsidy. And how fast would it be if Tokyo and Taipei's trains weren't handling 80% and 40% of trips, respectively? If you reduce Tokyo's 80% trip usage rate down to 5% like many American cities, that means for every other car on the road in Tokyo you'd now see 5 cars instead. How's that Uber ride looking now?
- amanaplanacanal 11mo ago
  Only because most people were taking the train. If everybody was taking a car you would be at a stand still.
  - rayiner 11mo ago
    Only if you build the city like Tokyo instead of like Dallas. Average commute in Tokyo is 45 minutes to an hour one way: https://nbakki.hatenablog.com/entry/2014/08/05/231455 https://nbakki.hatenablog.com/entry/2014/08/05/231455. Average commute time in Dallas is 26 minutes one way: https://dallas.culturemap.com/news/city-life/dallas-suburb-stalled-by-3rd-worst-commute-in-the-u-s-report-says/ https://dallas.culturemap.com/news/city-life/dallas-suburb-s... I’m not aware of any transit-oriented city where average commute times are as low in absolute terms as in sprawling, car-dependent American cities. You just don’t like the aesthetics of that approach. I don’t either. But it’s an aesthetic critique at bottom.
    - lmm 11mo ago
      > Average commute in Tokyo is 45 minutes to an hour one way: https://nbakki.hatenablog.com/entry/2014/08/05/231455 https://nbakki.hatenablog.com/entry/2014/08/05/231455. Average commute time in Dallas is 26 minutes one way: https://dallas.culturemap.com/news/city-life/dallas-suburb-s https://dallas.culturemap.com/news/city-life/dallas-suburb-s... People in Tokyo will accept a longer commute for the sake of a better job or housing or both, because the commute is less miserable (and also because employers pay commute costs). > I’m not aware of any transit-oriented city where average commute times are as low in absolute terms as in sprawling, car-dependent American cities. Transit-oriented cities provide access to more jobs within a fixed range like 30 minutes even for car commuters. https://www.nature.com/articles/s42949-021-00020-2/figures/4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s42949-021-00020-2/figures/4 . People in Dallas having shorter commutes isn't a sign that Dallas is built better, it's a sign that people in Dallas are avoiding switching to otherwise better jobs because it would make their commutes worse.
      - rayiner 11mo ago
        From your article: “The automobile provides better access than transit in all cities we compared, except in Shanghai, China, where automobile reaches about 90% of the jobs reachable by transit at 30 min.”
        lmm 11mo ago
        Yes, that's what a tragedy of the commons looks like. An individual in a given city will have a shorter commute by car. But the more people who are using cars, the worse everyone's commute gets.
    - Mawr 11mo ago
      Tokyo has a population of some 14 million. Dallas is about 1.3 million. Did you pick cities with populations exactly 10x apart on purpose or something? Got any real stats?
      - rayiner 11mo ago
- uolmir 11mo ago
  Everywhere? This is a crazy thing to claim. I was also recently in Japan and I never took a car anywhere. I'm sure there are particular routes that are badly served but come on.
  - rayiner 11mo ago
    Everywhere. I was staying right next to Tokyo Station, too. I went from a meeting in Roppongi Hills to a bookstore in Jimbocho. Apple Maps says 31 minutes by train and 24 minutes by Uber. And I was traveling alone this time. Last year when I went with my wife and three kids the differential was even more extreme. I’m convinced public transit is a major reason for the birth rate collapse in east asia.
    - Mawr 11mo ago
      > I’m convinced public transit is a major reason for the birth rate collapse in east asia. Sure thing. Just so we're on the same page, mind backing that up with the obvious basic research? You know, just a simple breakdown of birth rates vs public transit usage across the world. Rudimentary stuff.
      - rayiner 11mo ago
        There are studies showing that dense housing is correlated with lower birth rates. https://ifstudies.org/blog/more-crowding-fewer-babies-the-effects-of-housing-density-on-fertility https://ifstudies.org/blog/more-crowding-fewer-babies-the-ef.... It’s possible that public transit has a similar effect.
        dangus 11mo ago
        A lot of obviously positive things correlated with lower birth rates, like not having half your kids die before they reach adulthood, being able to treat infections with antibiotics, not needing a crazy amount of labor to keep subsistence farming going. Birth rate collapse itself is a positive thing, this planet can’t ecologically sustain pre-industrialization birthrates combined with modern medicine and life expectancy. Back in the mid-century there was a lot of academic concern about overpopulation.
- lmm 11mo ago
  It's a tragedy of the commons. For an individual, private car is faster, but the resulting traffic ultimately makes things slower for everyone. Public transit in Tokyo is faster than private cars in car-oriented cities.
  - rayiner 11mo ago
    That’s not true. Public transit in Tokyo is slower than driving in Dallas or LA. Average one-way commute in LA is just over 30 minutes: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/B080ACS006037 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/B080ACS006037. For Tokyo it’s 45-60 minutes based on sources I’ve seen online.
    - lmm 11mo ago
      As I said on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46214609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46214609 , that statistic doesn't mean what you think it does. The article I linked doesn't have figures for Tokyo but it has Shanghai which is comparable; there are around 4x as many jobs within 30 minutes by transit in Shanghai as by car in LA, while the population is only 1.5x bigger.
- Mawr 11mo ago
  If speed is your only concern, why not hire a helicopter? Oh, because cost is also a concern so we can't just look at what's "faster"? Rats.
  - defrost 11mo ago
    Why hire a helicopter when one can just be bought outright? https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/mining-billionaire-chris-ellison-lands-permit-to-take-chopper-to-office-20240606-p5jjwa.html https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/mining... Permitting can be a bitch though: https://www.afr.com/property/residential/rinehart-s-loses-bid-for-helipad-at-pink-themed-hq-20251209-p5nm6r https://www.afr.com/property/residential/rinehart-s-loses-bi... so there's a reason not to.
  - rangestransform 11mo ago
    this is the west, we can afford to spend more marginally on transportation to: - have a financial and physical barrier between the riffraff and paying customers - spend less total money (for real, the cost of second ave subway alone is about 1/3 the market cap of waymo) - sit down in comfort with door-to-door air conditioning - go faster wheverever the density justifies, autonomy will make "dollar van"-style minibuses financially viable too, since unionized drivers have made full-sized buses a money pit
rcpt 11mo ago
That's so unbelievably difficult it might as well be impossible. It's easier to teach cars to drive themselves than it is to build transit. Ridiculous I know.
dzhiurgis 11mo ago
> put them on rails to reduce friction Good luck climbing hills. A lot of systems like these moved away from rails onto rubber tires. Rapid bus is probably best combination. Yes it will never match the throughput of rail, but it's vastly cheaper.
- maximilianthe1 11mo ago
  Have you seen hills in NYC or (most of) other major cities? Also, the solition is deeper stations under hills & escalators.
  - rangestransform 11mo ago
    deep stations have a significant impact on travel times, it takes well over 5 minutes to surface from the deepest stations in Barcelona
  - dzhiurgis 11mo ago
    So solution is to make from 3x more expensive to 5x more expensive? And don't get me wrong, some places in US (with extreme density) should do this. Personally it's not the places where I'd ever want to live ever again lol.
- dangus 11mo ago
  Trains can have rubber tires (Paris metro)

by dangus 11mo ago

rayiner 11mo ago

No, individualized point to point travel is better. I just got back from Tokyo and Taipei, which have transit systems better than any European country. And it was still faster to Uber everywhere.

dangus 11mo ago
And how much did that cost? You can get around Tokyo on the subway system for $5 for an entire day, and it's a profitable system that largely does not rely on taxpayer subsidy. And how fast would it be if Tokyo and Taipei's trains weren't handling 80% and 40% of trips, respectively? If you reduce Tokyo's 80% trip usage rate down to 5% like many American cities, that means for every other car on the road in Tokyo you'd now see 5 cars instead. How's that Uber ride looking now?
amanaplanacanal 11mo ago
Only because most people were taking the train. If everybody was taking a car you would be at a stand still.
- rayiner 11mo ago
  Only if you build the city like Tokyo instead of like Dallas. Average commute in Tokyo is 45 minutes to an hour one way: https://nbakki.hatenablog.com/entry/2014/08/05/231455 https://nbakki.hatenablog.com/entry/2014/08/05/231455. Average commute time in Dallas is 26 minutes one way: https://dallas.culturemap.com/news/city-life/dallas-suburb-stalled-by-3rd-worst-commute-in-the-u-s-report-says/ https://dallas.culturemap.com/news/city-life/dallas-suburb-s... I’m not aware of any transit-oriented city where average commute times are as low in absolute terms as in sprawling, car-dependent American cities. You just don’t like the aesthetics of that approach. I don’t either. But it’s an aesthetic critique at bottom.
  - lmm 11mo ago
    > Average commute in Tokyo is 45 minutes to an hour one way: https://nbakki.hatenablog.com/entry/2014/08/05/231455 https://nbakki.hatenablog.com/entry/2014/08/05/231455. Average commute time in Dallas is 26 minutes one way: https://dallas.culturemap.com/news/city-life/dallas-suburb-s https://dallas.culturemap.com/news/city-life/dallas-suburb-s... People in Tokyo will accept a longer commute for the sake of a better job or housing or both, because the commute is less miserable (and also because employers pay commute costs). > I’m not aware of any transit-oriented city where average commute times are as low in absolute terms as in sprawling, car-dependent American cities. Transit-oriented cities provide access to more jobs within a fixed range like 30 minutes even for car commuters. https://www.nature.com/articles/s42949-021-00020-2/figures/4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s42949-021-00020-2/figures/4 . People in Dallas having shorter commutes isn't a sign that Dallas is built better, it's a sign that people in Dallas are avoiding switching to otherwise better jobs because it would make their commutes worse.
    - rayiner 11mo ago
      From your article: “The automobile provides better access than transit in all cities we compared, except in Shanghai, China, where automobile reaches about 90% of the jobs reachable by transit at 30 min.”
      - lmm 11mo ago
        Yes, that's what a tragedy of the commons looks like. An individual in a given city will have a shorter commute by car. But the more people who are using cars, the worse everyone's commute gets.
  - Mawr 11mo ago
    Tokyo has a population of some 14 million. Dallas is about 1.3 million. Did you pick cities with populations exactly 10x apart on purpose or something? Got any real stats?
    - rayiner 11mo ago
uolmir 11mo ago
Everywhere? This is a crazy thing to claim. I was also recently in Japan and I never took a car anywhere. I'm sure there are particular routes that are badly served but come on.
- rayiner 11mo ago
  Everywhere. I was staying right next to Tokyo Station, too. I went from a meeting in Roppongi Hills to a bookstore in Jimbocho. Apple Maps says 31 minutes by train and 24 minutes by Uber. And I was traveling alone this time. Last year when I went with my wife and three kids the differential was even more extreme. I’m convinced public transit is a major reason for the birth rate collapse in east asia.
  - Mawr 11mo ago
    > I’m convinced public transit is a major reason for the birth rate collapse in east asia. Sure thing. Just so we're on the same page, mind backing that up with the obvious basic research? You know, just a simple breakdown of birth rates vs public transit usage across the world. Rudimentary stuff.
    - rayiner 11mo ago
      There are studies showing that dense housing is correlated with lower birth rates. https://ifstudies.org/blog/more-crowding-fewer-babies-the-effects-of-housing-density-on-fertility https://ifstudies.org/blog/more-crowding-fewer-babies-the-ef.... It’s possible that public transit has a similar effect.
      - dangus 11mo ago
        A lot of obviously positive things correlated with lower birth rates, like not having half your kids die before they reach adulthood, being able to treat infections with antibiotics, not needing a crazy amount of labor to keep subsistence farming going. Birth rate collapse itself is a positive thing, this planet can’t ecologically sustain pre-industrialization birthrates combined with modern medicine and life expectancy. Back in the mid-century there was a lot of academic concern about overpopulation.
lmm 11mo ago
It's a tragedy of the commons. For an individual, private car is faster, but the resulting traffic ultimately makes things slower for everyone. Public transit in Tokyo is faster than private cars in car-oriented cities.
- rayiner 11mo ago
  That’s not true. Public transit in Tokyo is slower than driving in Dallas or LA. Average one-way commute in LA is just over 30 minutes: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/B080ACS006037 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/B080ACS006037. For Tokyo it’s 45-60 minutes based on sources I’ve seen online.
  - lmm 11mo ago
    As I said on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46214609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46214609 , that statistic doesn't mean what you think it does. The article I linked doesn't have figures for Tokyo but it has Shanghai which is comparable; there are around 4x as many jobs within 30 minutes by transit in Shanghai as by car in LA, while the population is only 1.5x bigger.
Mawr 11mo ago
If speed is your only concern, why not hire a helicopter? Oh, because cost is also a concern so we can't just look at what's "faster"? Rats.
- defrost 11mo ago
  Why hire a helicopter when one can just be bought outright? https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/mining-billionaire-chris-ellison-lands-permit-to-take-chopper-to-office-20240606-p5jjwa.html https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/mining... Permitting can be a bitch though: https://www.afr.com/property/residential/rinehart-s-loses-bid-for-helipad-at-pink-themed-hq-20251209-p5nm6r https://www.afr.com/property/residential/rinehart-s-loses-bi... so there's a reason not to.
- rangestransform 11mo ago
  this is the west, we can afford to spend more marginally on transportation to: - have a financial and physical barrier between the riffraff and paying customers - spend less total money (for real, the cost of second ave subway alone is about 1/3 the market cap of waymo) - sit down in comfort with door-to-door air conditioning - go faster wheverever the density justifies, autonomy will make "dollar van"-style minibuses financially viable too, since unionized drivers have made full-sized buses a money pit

rcpt 11mo ago

That's so unbelievably difficult it might as well be impossible. It's easier to teach cars to drive themselves than it is to build transit. Ridiculous I know.

dzhiurgis 11mo ago

> put them on rails to reduce friction Good luck climbing hills. A lot of systems like these moved away from rails onto rubber tires. Rapid bus is probably best combination. Yes it will never match the throughput of rail, but it's vastly cheaper.

maximilianthe1 11mo ago
Have you seen hills in NYC or (most of) other major cities? Also, the solition is deeper stations under hills & escalators.
- rangestransform 11mo ago
  deep stations have a significant impact on travel times, it takes well over 5 minutes to surface from the deepest stations in Barcelona
- dzhiurgis 11mo ago
  So solution is to make from 3x more expensive to 5x more expensive? And don't get me wrong, some places in US (with extreme density) should do this. Personally it's not the places where I'd ever want to live ever again lol.
dangus 11mo ago
Trains can have rubber tires (Paris metro)