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At least 80% of what you’re describing would be satisfied by trains and buses. It’s wild that Americans are so obsessed with self-driving cars while ignoring pu

At least 80% of what you’re describing would be satisfied by trains and buses. It’s wild that Americans are so obsessed with self-driving cars while ignoring public transit that solves most of the problems. It’s reliable, more efficient, better for the environment, and less stressful for you. I’m not saying cars shouldn’t ever exist. The ‘last mile problem’ is a thing, and proper self-driving cars could be good for part of that (especially after a train and bus if you have lots of stuff). But you want to sleep in a vehicle with lots of storage space while driving across the country? That’s called a train. Nothing new needed.

pryanbeng 5mo ago
Its the ultra independence mindset. I don't think trains work for the commenter you talked to. I want to move on my schedule and convenience, I don't want to have to warp my day to day around someone else's departure schedule.
- Lammy 5mo ago
  > Its the ultra independence mindset. And there's nothing wrong with it! I take detours on road trips all the time following “Historic <thing> →” signs or just because I see something interesting in the distance and want to go check it out. On a train journey I'd just have to watch them pass by.
aketchum 5mo ago
there are effectively no passenger trains in America and effectively no political will to expand them. Busses take multiple times as long for the same trip compared to a car. This doesnt even get into the anti-social behavior present on both. Given these facts, it is not wild at all to prefer cars (self driving or not) vs alternate transportation methods
- mmooss 5mo ago
  > Busses take multiple times as long for the same trip compared to a car. Buses can be slower, but I don't even know of a 2x difference. For longer trips they can travel 24/7. And overall they are more efficient because you can do other things instead of driving. > This doesnt even get into the anti-social behavior present on both I don't have a problem on buses and trains. I have more problem with other drivers when I drive. Your comment is, ironically, antisocial.
  - rootusrootus 5mo ago
    > For longer trips they can travel 24/7 That sounds like hell. Bus seats are just as tight as coach class airline seats, and unlike trains there isn't even an option to pay exorbitant pricing for a sleeper compartment.
    - saalweachter 5mo ago
      Napaway briefly offered ticketed intercity service on busses with 18 sleeper pods, but has (temporarily) discontinued it in favor of focusing on charter service.
    - mmooss 5mo ago
      I guess everything is hell, if you feel like writing that. > Bus seats are just as tight as coach class airline seats IME bus seats are first class in padding and support, a bit wider than coach, and with more leg room (though I'd need to measure to confirm). Much more comfortable than airplane coach - and without the air pressure, vibration / noise, and humidity problems. > exorbitant pricing for a sleeper compartment It just depends on the train, how far ahead you pay, etc.
- linkregister 5mo ago
  MARTA (Atlanta regional transit) heavy rail average daily ridership is 80,000 people [1]. 1. https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2025-Q4-Ridership-APTA.pdf https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2025-Q4-Ride...
sheikhnbake 5mo ago
Unfortunately, until something big happens in the US, autonomous vehicles will be more accessible to working class americans than good and reliable mass transit, especially outside of major population centers.
- nebula8804 5mo ago
  Its a trojan horse on the way to make car ownership impossible to a large swath of Americans.
sumeno 5mo ago
You're right, but in the US a government providing any sort of public service is an immediate target for the right (and an unfortunately significant portion of the "left"). We insist on paying more for less rather than ever allowing a poor person to benefit in a way they don't "deserve". So public transit hardly exists or is woefully inadequate in most places.
davnicwil 5mo ago
I appreciate what you're saying and am a big fan of long distance train and bus journeys myself and have done a lot of both, sleeping and not. But one huge factor that you have to contend with is the randomness of the tragedy of the commons problem on public transport / shared transport. A train journey can be blissful to sleep on right until a loud group gets on and sits across from you and there's no seats available to move. I think this is something that can't be overlooked, especially if you're talking about something like a short trip where if you don't sleep well en route, quite a large proportion of the trip time is going to be affected. Having a private vehicle where you can guarantee control of your environment is a really huge plus.
- svnt 5mo ago
  It is a chicken and egg problem. As long as the majority of people who would maintain the social environment are avoiding the social environment, the healthy consensus/operating regime can never emerge.
  - davnicwil 5mo ago
    In my experience the majority consensus is to maintain a quiet, generally polite environment on trains and buses. But that's precisely the problem, it only takes a very tiny minority to change this. If one group, one person sometimes, in a carriage of 50 people decides to go against this, then that's that. It's not even particularly common, but it happens, it's random, and so it's just something that must be contended with.
    - svnt 5mo ago
      I think that is the case if the majority has or exercises little to no effective social power to enforce the norm. The majority consensus is to desire a peaceful environment but do nothing when it is violated.
      - tristor 5mo ago
        Correct. But the golden question is, do what? The authorities don't care. Rules and laws are rarely enforced, and when they are enforced they're done so unevenly. If you decide to take matters into your own hands, it's much more likely that you will be punished by the law than the person you were correcting. So, what do you expect people to do?
chpatrick 5mo ago
In the US it's often not the last mile, but the last 10 or 100 miles. I'm saying this as someone enjoying fantastic public transport in Budapest.
jwagenet 5mo ago
I agree with you, however in the US the “last mile” is often the “last 50 miles” when goal is outdoor recreation.
JeremyNT 5mo ago
> At least 80% of what you’re describing would be satisfied by trains and buses. It’s wild that Americans are so obsessed with self-driving cars while ignoring public transit that solves most of the problems. It’s reliable, more efficient, better for the environment, and less stressful for you. As an American, it's far easier to imagine autonomous robot driven road trips than it is to imagine a government that is competent enough to build passenger rail networks.
- catlover76 5mo ago
  Why? Isn't Amtrak that, but just geographically-scoped? Isn't Caltrain workable? Subways also function fine in NYC, DC, Boston, and even LA (to be clear, I don't think the other poster is correct that having trains would satisfy the desire of the guy who wants a self-driving Rivian. I consider his want/need there to be fundamentally different)
  - Karrot_Kream 5mo ago
    Amtrak started out as a holding company for private passenger rail companies that went bankrupt. It's never had a static amount of funding (until the Biden admin, Amtrak had to renegotiate its budget regularly) and many of its stations are just pet projects for rural Congress reps who want to give their district a way to leave their area, so Amtrak runs many trains at a loss. Building new rail projects in the US is very hard because of capital costs and regulations like NEPA (and CEQA in California) which require environmental review for everything. Brightline in Florida was able to get around this by working in an existing highway ROW.
    - xnx 5mo ago
      > Brightline in Florida was able to get around this buy working in an existing highway ROW. And will probably go bankrupt this year: https://www.wlrn.org/business/2026-01-23/brightline-business-2026-default-warning https://www.wlrn.org/business/2026-01-23/brightline-business...
      - 5mo ago
ashishb 5mo ago
> At least 80% of what you’re describing would be satisfied by trains and buses. It’s wild that Americans are so obsessed with self-driving cars while ignoring public transit that solves most of the problems. It’s reliable, more efficient, better for the environment, and less stressful for you. So, let's say you take public transport from SF to Yosemite/Los Angeles. Now, how do I cover the last mile (or even multiple points)? Take more public transport? Hitchhike? The reason long-distance public transport works well in Europe is that there is good local public transport in both the source and the destination cities. When that does not exist, you are better off driving.
chucksmash 5mo ago
It would also be satisfied by magic flying carpets. Between flying carpets, functional public transport, and self-driving cars, only one of these three things is not utter fantasy in the near-ish future in the United States.
- floxy 5mo ago
  How do those carpets handle in the snow?
Karrot_Kream 5mo ago
Connecting two Waymo geos with a train would be an interesting company idea. You could lease freight track the way Amtrak already does it in the American West but try to negotiate a contact more favorable than Amtrak's. You could try to work with Waymo to work on bundles. Amtrak could do the same thing but because of how Amtrak is organized in not sure that it would be possible. Most of the current Waymo geos are not connected by Amtrak directly and require transfers.
some_random 5mo ago
It's a train or bus that is exclusively yours, goes exactly where you want it to go, when you want to go. Sounds objectively better than a train to me.
arijun 5mo ago
I am a huge proponent of increased public transit (I'm of the opinion that every city should have a massive congestion tax with large swaths only accessible on foot or by public transit), but trains and buses would be wildly inconvenient for what op is describing. Trying to take something like a windsurf board on a train, and then having to navigate multiple train changes along with whatever other baggage you have makes it a non-starter. The "last mile problem" you mention is unresolved when it comes to getting from the closest public transit stop to the actual destination (frequently in a park or even off road). And finally, the final cost to the rider would be significantly higher, as sleeper trains are not cheap. I think America could do quite well if it focused on public transit in and between densely populated areas. Fewer cars in cities could make for denser cities, which in turn could allow for even more public transit. But outside of population centers, America is much more spread out than Europe, meaning that trains are less economical, and often wouldn't get the ridership that would allow them to make sense.
BobbyJo 5mo ago
People just do not understand how big and spread out the US is compared to other countries. "Last mile" dramatically underestimates how much heavy lifting the personal transportation part would need to do. More like "last 50 miles".
cameldrv 5mo ago
The European mind does not comprehend how big and sparsely populated the American West is. You can't even pitch a tent in most places in the Alps, and why would you, when you just stop at a hut that has a staff and you can get fed and sleep in bunks with 20 other people? Meanwhile I can drive to numerous places where there isn't a structure or even another person in a 20km radius. No one is going to run a train to a place like that.
- TheCoelacanth 5mo ago
  You're describing places that have few people and hence few car trips. Most car trips, even in the US, take place in densely populated areas. The point of public transit isn't to handle 100% of all trips. It's to handle the most common trips in a more efficient and scalable way.
  - oklahomasports 5mo ago
    Saying most car trips take place in densely populated areas in the US is a lie
    - TheCoelacanth 5mo ago
      That depends how you define "densely populated", but certainly most car trips are near where people live and work, not in wilderness camping areas you are describing.
briffle 5mo ago
I looked at taking the train from my town to Glacier National Park along with my bike. The route goes from Portland and Seattle to Chicago, and has a stop at south glacier. Step 1, get to the local train station in my town. There are 6 trains daily between me and Portland. Also, amtrak on the cross country trains requires the bikes to be in a box, in storage cars. So I gotta get a large bike box, and get myself, my bike, the box, and some tools to break it down to our local amtrak station. Then partially dissasemble the bike, and box it. (of course, our train station has room in it for 5-10 people, and most sit outside, uncovered, which is fun in spring.) Then, get to the main Portland Train station, with my bike box, and backpack with my stuff and tools. Wait up to 9 hours for the hawaitha train. (its often many hours late, and only leaves once per day). Load Bike in cargo car, and then board train late at night. Wake up around 5am, (or later, if train is behind schedule) and disembark at Glacier, re-assemble my bike. Figure out how to get it, and the box (i'll need it for the return trip) to a hotel or AirBnB. For the return trip, its about the same, 1 daily westbound train, that is usually hours late, then hope you get to portland before the last train for the day leaves for my town, or else find a place to stay with a bike, backpack, and bike box in the sketchy area around the trainstation... Or, hop in a car with a bike rack, and drive 10 hours. Which is easier, and MUCH cheaper if I split the cost of gas with someone else. So 2 extra travel days back for vacation, and much less stress.
- NoGravitas 5mo ago
  Most of this is just that the US rail system is amazingly shitty by global standards.
  - llbbdd 5mo ago
    The US is a very big, very spread out place. I'm not sure which country has trains that take you directly to your front door.
    - ssl-3 5mo ago
      It is indeed a very big place. But this fellah seemed to have that part figured out: Bike to the train station, and take the bike on the train. That part seems straight-forward. The train stations were near-enough to where they wanted to start, and near-enough to where they wanted to be. The problems they lament seem to revolve chiefly around the specifics of taking the bike on a train, and the limited schedule of the train, and the lack of adhesion to that schedule. Those problems wouldn't be improved if the vastness of the US were reduced, would they?
tgsovlerkhgsel 5mo ago
In my experience, night trains with private cabins are fan service for rail fans, environmentalists and/or masochists, not real transport options. One of the famous sleeper trains in Europe (Nightjet Vienna-Amsterdam) is often booked out weeks (sometimes months) in advance, costs as much as a plane ticket + hotel room or more, and you have a decent chance of being told (as you show up in the evening) that unfortunately one car is missing tonight and you have the option of a full refund (screwing up your entire trip and having to book a last minute plane ticket), or you can take a 50% refund on your 255 EUR sleeping ticket and spend the night sitting in the shared seating part on a seat that would have regularly cost 35 EUR. This was something that on some routes was happening routinely for over a year [1]. The night train from Switzerland to Malmö was cancelled (after tickets had already been sold) because the Swiss government decided to not subsidize it. Trains like this offer zero flexibility (you have to book a specific train weeks in advance), go where they go which is a very limited route network, and even in Europe with all the environmentalists, rail networks, shorter distances, and massive government subsidies, they don't seem to be able to run them very frequently or on many routes. Calling them equivalent or a replacement for self-driving cars (which would take the passenger where they want, when they want) is disingenuous and isn't going to magically convince people. [1] https://www.srf.ch/sendungen/kassensturz-espresso/espresso/frust-in-nightjets-nachtzuege-von-sbb-und-oebb-pro-nacht-fehlen-bis-zu-20-betten https://www.srf.ch/sendungen/kassensturz-espresso/espresso/f...
angelgonzales 5mo ago
I’m 99-100% a car user now after living in Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles. Here’s why - I gave up my car for a bike when I lived in Portland, however when people openly smoked fentanyl on the trains the train operators had to stop the train during my morning/afternoon commute for ~15 minutes (this happened often). Also the last straw for me was getting my place broken into and having my bike stolen. Therefore I moved to cars because I didn’t have to inhale secondhand fentanyl smoke or deal with unscheduled delays. As a man in Los Angeles I had to deal with a drunk man on a bus touching my thigh and hitting on me and people trying to sell me drugs/solicit me for money/phone calls/etc. As a regular hiker I’m also not sure public transit would service trailheads in the Cascades or the Sierra Nevadas. As for the environmental impact, I agree that trains or busses may sometimes be better for environment but we’re also approaching a future of self driving electric cars powered by nuclear and fusion plants providing clean energy, so I think this problem will likely go away. I welcome Waymo in Portland, I’m just concerned for the well being of the vehicles!
- soiltype 5mo ago
  Look I don't fault you - Americans drive cars because every alternative is absolute dogshit, I don't disagree. But I can't e realistic about that and not this: > As for the environmental impact, I agree that trains or busses may sometimes be better for environment That's like saying gunshots may sometimes be more dangerous than throwing rocks. > but we’re also approaching a future of self driving electric cars powered by nuclear and fusion plants providing clean energy Even if this was true (I don't think either change is happening nearly fast enough) car-dependency is directly upstream of numerous other environmental problems, most of which don't disappear even if you take parking out of the mix, such as grounds heat and flooding caused by paved roads, such as obsession with energy- and water-inefficient low-density residential zoning (sprawl), such as particulate pollution from tires, such as ecosystem damage from the need to dump literal tons of salt on icy roads for tires to drive on, such as the emissions of road paving itself... you get the idea.
  - JuniperMesos 5mo ago
    These also don't disappear if you replace privately-owned cars with buses and trains. You need paved roads to put buses on and track to put trains on, and they emit particulate pollution as well unless they're also electrified which is a similar problem to electrifying cars. Low-density residential sprawl is mostly water-inefficient because it allows people to have the ability to have a garden that they water, you don't inherently use more household-internal water if you live in a suburban house compared to an apartment. Most of the energy efficiency issues are also directly related to low-density residential zoning allowing for more physical space for a dwelling than an equivalently-expensive dwelling would cost in an expensive, dense urban area. In short, the things about low-density residential neighborhoods that are less energy efficiently mostly don't have to do with cars and mostly do have to do with goods that people actively want and can only afford outside of dense urban areas.
throwaway-blaze 5mo ago
Public transit only works if you live in the densest of the dense part of a city. If you live out in Beaverton or Gresham these bus lines lose money hand over fist, not to mention farther-flung places.
jandrewrogers 5mo ago
You are misunderstanding the nature of the problem. I like trains but they can't and don't address the issue the OP is raising. Even if the US already had public trains it still isn't a "last mile" problem. Especially in the western US, it is a "last hundred miles" problem. No public transport system that remotely makes any kind of economic sense, either in terms of infrastructure or operational cost, can replace the established network topology that exists for cars in the US. The connectivity is much more like a mesh than a hub-and-spoke model. Even though the US has a strong regional jet system that connects arbitrary nodes in that graph it still doesn't entirely avoid the "last hundred miles" problem. A lot of American long-distance travel is not between two big cities. Even in Europe, similar kinds of routes have no train service and limited bus service.
dyauspitr 5mo ago
Enough with this public transport bullshit. We live in very spread out suburbs where you need to drive to everything and everyone has big backyards because we like it that way. Most people here don’t want to live in a tiny coop sharing walls with neighbors on all sides and live the vast majority of our lives in a 15 min public transport bubble. Further, having a train line is borderline not feasible the way the vast majority of the US lives. There is no way having a train station with even a 30 minute walking distance is feasible or even desirable. I also don’t want to get into public transport with a whole bunch of other people no matter how nice it is. It’s not going to be able to compete with a self driving EV of my own that I charge with my solar panels for free. That being said I’m in full support of metros for large cities and high speed rail between major cities but it’s hard to beat a domestic airline you can show up for an hour before it leaves at an airport and gets you there 10x faster for anything other than the shortest trips.
NoGravitas 5mo ago
I fucking love trains.
nradov 5mo ago
I can't take my dog on pretty much any public transit or most ride shares. More than 20% of Americans have dogs.
lelandbatey 5mo ago
The sad truth is the USA spends ~$150B/year building and maintaining it's road network (to say nothing of the inflation-adjusted costs that went into its initial roll-out). Source: The US Fed tracks it directly - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TLHWYCONS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TLHWYCONS That's a $41/month subscription every citizen's paying no matter what. When we're pulling cash on that volume from everyone's pockets to build lavish infrastructure literally up to people's doors (vastly more road square footage than housing+school square footage combined), of course folks are going to say "nothing compares" -- because nothing does compare. Which stinks (imagine if we'd focused a century of spending on rail at rates like that; damn), but it is what we have at the moment.
- xnx 5mo ago
  Seems like a bargain by comparison! Chicago is about to spend $1 billion/mile to extend an above-ground train line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Line_Extension https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Line_Extension
  - lelandbatey 5mo ago
    The USA is riding on 100 years of the benefits of scale and economic investment. If the USA was investing $150B a year into building passenger rail, we would not be paying $1B/mile for "new" and "trailblazing" rail projects. If we had to build much of the highway infra we built 75 years ago, but do it now, we'd be paying similar $1B/mile prices for the highways.
    - xnx 5mo ago
      The best thing about rail in the US is we'll have a lot of premium land for bike paths and AV lanes when the rail gets decommissioned.
    - joenot443 5mo ago
      Here in Canada we're investing $60-120b on a rail to connect Toronto to Montreal. I hope your analysis is correct and subsequent passenger rails will be much cheaper!
boc 5mo ago
I'd love for you to come along with me on a ski mountaineering trip to the eastern Sierra. It's a mountain range larger than Switzerland with basically one interstate highway to access and no roads that cross through in the winter. Very few year-round towns, and nearly zero services outside of those towns. This ain't the alps - there are no huts, no gondolas, no nothing. If you want to access it, you have to walk/ski your way there. That often means long drives (50-100+ miles), camping in your car, and bringing everything you need to survive with you. I love the confidence with which you give your answer though! Europeans famously underestimate the American West, which is why they often get into serious trouble (or die[1]) at alarming rates out here. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley_Germans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley_Germans
dmitrygr 5mo ago
Public transit in America presents a much higher chance of encountering dangerous people than a private car. Until those people are permanently, irrevocably, and definitively locked up, it would not matter off public transit were free, or even paid users to use it, it will not be a serious option. Nobody in my family is allowed to use public transit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Debrina_Kawam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Debrina_Kawam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Iryna_Zarutska https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Iryna_Zarutska https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nypd-men-pushed-subway-tracks-upper-east-side/ https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nypd-men-pushed-subway-...
- righthand 5mo ago
  This is all FUD and extremely unlikely if not improbable to run into someone violent. If you’re that afraid of public transit and people in general, no amount of “rounding people up against their will” would change your mind.
  - dmitrygr 5mo ago
    FUD? Are you claiming these did not happen?
    - righthand 5mo ago
      No I’m claiming that violent people have a tendency to support violence as the only rational option. While turning around and defunding healthcare and advocating more prisons be built. Rather than diagnosing the actual problems. Violence wont stop mental illness. The posters advocating for it and stating Daniel Penny should’ve encourage copy-cats are violent and sick people.
  - HDThoreaun 5mo ago
    It really is not. I use public transit heavily. The people on it fucking suck. No one helps when someone is being harassed for fear of violence. The US needs to enforce basic decorum on public transit if it wants mass buy in.
adrianmonk 5mo ago
The scenario is a cross-country trip in an electric car. What actual, specific advantage does a train or bus offer in this scenario? What problem does it solve better? It's an electric car, so carbon emissions are low. Most of the route will be in rural areas in the middle of the night, so the impact on traffic will be minimal. As for the cost to build and maintain the roads, they are already needed so rural areas are accessible. Wear and tear on roads and bridges isn't much of an issue since heavy vehicles like trucks cause massively disproportionate damage[1]. (A bus might actually be worse than the equivalent number of cars in this respect.) --- [1] See https://blog.ucs.org/dave-cooke/trucks-cause-the-lions-share-of-road-damage-and-their-industry-wants-you-to-keep-paying-for-it/ https://blog.ucs.org/dave-cooke/trucks-cause-the-lions-share... . Some studies show that damage varies with the fourth power of axle weight.
chronolitus 5mo ago
sometimes we do this thing where we pretend rail is super efficient, whereas in reality it's often more expensive than basically any other option, even in countries that do it well (e.g. Switzerland,Japan) I love rail but it is a convenience / luxury mode in many cases, and should be complimentary to car travel, not replace it.

pryanbeng 5mo ago

Its the ultra independence mindset. I don't think trains work for the commenter you talked to. I want to move on my schedule and convenience, I don't want to have to warp my day to day around someone else's departure schedule.

Lammy 5mo ago
> Its the ultra independence mindset. And there's nothing wrong with it! I take detours on road trips all the time following “Historic <thing> →” signs or just because I see something interesting in the distance and want to go check it out. On a train journey I'd just have to watch them pass by.

aketchum 5mo ago

there are effectively no passenger trains in America and effectively no political will to expand them. Busses take multiple times as long for the same trip compared to a car. This doesnt even get into the anti-social behavior present on both. Given these facts, it is not wild at all to prefer cars (self driving or not) vs alternate transportation methods

mmooss 5mo ago
> Busses take multiple times as long for the same trip compared to a car. Buses can be slower, but I don't even know of a 2x difference. For longer trips they can travel 24/7. And overall they are more efficient because you can do other things instead of driving. > This doesnt even get into the anti-social behavior present on both I don't have a problem on buses and trains. I have more problem with other drivers when I drive. Your comment is, ironically, antisocial.
- rootusrootus 5mo ago
  > For longer trips they can travel 24/7 That sounds like hell. Bus seats are just as tight as coach class airline seats, and unlike trains there isn't even an option to pay exorbitant pricing for a sleeper compartment.
  - saalweachter 5mo ago
    Napaway briefly offered ticketed intercity service on busses with 18 sleeper pods, but has (temporarily) discontinued it in favor of focusing on charter service.
  - mmooss 5mo ago
    I guess everything is hell, if you feel like writing that. > Bus seats are just as tight as coach class airline seats IME bus seats are first class in padding and support, a bit wider than coach, and with more leg room (though I'd need to measure to confirm). Much more comfortable than airplane coach - and without the air pressure, vibration / noise, and humidity problems. > exorbitant pricing for a sleeper compartment It just depends on the train, how far ahead you pay, etc.
linkregister 5mo ago
MARTA (Atlanta regional transit) heavy rail average daily ridership is 80,000 people [1]. 1. https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2025-Q4-Ridership-APTA.pdf https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2025-Q4-Ride...

sheikhnbake 5mo ago

Unfortunately, until something big happens in the US, autonomous vehicles will be more accessible to working class americans than good and reliable mass transit, especially outside of major population centers.

nebula8804 5mo ago
Its a trojan horse on the way to make car ownership impossible to a large swath of Americans.

sumeno 5mo ago

You're right, but in the US a government providing any sort of public service is an immediate target for the right (and an unfortunately significant portion of the "left"). We insist on paying more for less rather than ever allowing a poor person to benefit in a way they don't "deserve". So public transit hardly exists or is woefully inadequate in most places.

davnicwil 5mo ago

I appreciate what you're saying and am a big fan of long distance train and bus journeys myself and have done a lot of both, sleeping and not. But one huge factor that you have to contend with is the randomness of the tragedy of the commons problem on public transport / shared transport. A train journey can be blissful to sleep on right until a loud group gets on and sits across from you and there's no seats available to move. I think this is something that can't be overlooked, especially if you're talking about something like a short trip where if you don't sleep well en route, quite a large proportion of the trip time is going to be affected. Having a private vehicle where you can guarantee control of your environment is a really huge plus.

svnt 5mo ago
It is a chicken and egg problem. As long as the majority of people who would maintain the social environment are avoiding the social environment, the healthy consensus/operating regime can never emerge.
- davnicwil 5mo ago
  In my experience the majority consensus is to maintain a quiet, generally polite environment on trains and buses. But that's precisely the problem, it only takes a very tiny minority to change this. If one group, one person sometimes, in a carriage of 50 people decides to go against this, then that's that. It's not even particularly common, but it happens, it's random, and so it's just something that must be contended with.
  - svnt 5mo ago
    I think that is the case if the majority has or exercises little to no effective social power to enforce the norm. The majority consensus is to desire a peaceful environment but do nothing when it is violated.
    - tristor 5mo ago
      Correct. But the golden question is, do what? The authorities don't care. Rules and laws are rarely enforced, and when they are enforced they're done so unevenly. If you decide to take matters into your own hands, it's much more likely that you will be punished by the law than the person you were correcting. So, what do you expect people to do?

chpatrick 5mo ago

In the US it's often not the last mile, but the last 10 or 100 miles. I'm saying this as someone enjoying fantastic public transport in Budapest.

jwagenet 5mo ago

I agree with you, however in the US the “last mile” is often the “last 50 miles” when goal is outdoor recreation.

JeremyNT 5mo ago

catlover76 5mo ago
Why? Isn't Amtrak that, but just geographically-scoped? Isn't Caltrain workable? Subways also function fine in NYC, DC, Boston, and even LA (to be clear, I don't think the other poster is correct that having trains would satisfy the desire of the guy who wants a self-driving Rivian. I consider his want/need there to be fundamentally different)
- Karrot_Kream 5mo ago
  Amtrak started out as a holding company for private passenger rail companies that went bankrupt. It's never had a static amount of funding (until the Biden admin, Amtrak had to renegotiate its budget regularly) and many of its stations are just pet projects for rural Congress reps who want to give their district a way to leave their area, so Amtrak runs many trains at a loss. Building new rail projects in the US is very hard because of capital costs and regulations like NEPA (and CEQA in California) which require environmental review for everything. Brightline in Florida was able to get around this by working in an existing highway ROW.
  - xnx 5mo ago
    > Brightline in Florida was able to get around this buy working in an existing highway ROW. And will probably go bankrupt this year: https://www.wlrn.org/business/2026-01-23/brightline-business-2026-default-warning https://www.wlrn.org/business/2026-01-23/brightline-business...
    - 5mo ago

ashishb 5mo ago

> At least 80% of what you’re describing would be satisfied by trains and buses. It’s wild that Americans are so obsessed with self-driving cars while ignoring public transit that solves most of the problems. It’s reliable, more efficient, better for the environment, and less stressful for you. So, let's say you take public transport from SF to Yosemite/Los Angeles. Now, how do I cover the last mile (or even multiple points)? Take more public transport? Hitchhike? The reason long-distance public transport works well in Europe is that there is good local public transport in both the source and the destination cities. When that does not exist, you are better off driving.

chucksmash 5mo ago

It would also be satisfied by magic flying carpets. Between flying carpets, functional public transport, and self-driving cars, only one of these three things is not utter fantasy in the near-ish future in the United States.

floxy 5mo ago
How do those carpets handle in the snow?

Karrot_Kream 5mo ago

Connecting two Waymo geos with a train would be an interesting company idea. You could lease freight track the way Amtrak already does it in the American West but try to negotiate a contact more favorable than Amtrak's. You could try to work with Waymo to work on bundles. Amtrak could do the same thing but because of how Amtrak is organized in not sure that it would be possible. Most of the current Waymo geos are not connected by Amtrak directly and require transfers.

some_random 5mo ago

It's a train or bus that is exclusively yours, goes exactly where you want it to go, when you want to go. Sounds objectively better than a train to me.

arijun 5mo ago

I am a huge proponent of increased public transit (I'm of the opinion that every city should have a massive congestion tax with large swaths only accessible on foot or by public transit), but trains and buses would be wildly inconvenient for what op is describing. Trying to take something like a windsurf board on a train, and then having to navigate multiple train changes along with whatever other baggage you have makes it a non-starter. The "last mile problem" you mention is unresolved when it comes to getting from the closest public transit stop to the actual destination (frequently in a park or even off road). And finally, the final cost to the rider would be significantly higher, as sleeper trains are not cheap. I think America could do quite well if it focused on public transit in and between densely populated areas. Fewer cars in cities could make for denser cities, which in turn could allow for even more public transit. But outside of population centers, America is much more spread out than Europe, meaning that trains are less economical, and often wouldn't get the ridership that would allow them to make sense.

BobbyJo 5mo ago

People just do not understand how big and spread out the US is compared to other countries. "Last mile" dramatically underestimates how much heavy lifting the personal transportation part would need to do. More like "last 50 miles".

cameldrv 5mo ago

The European mind does not comprehend how big and sparsely populated the American West is. You can't even pitch a tent in most places in the Alps, and why would you, when you just stop at a hut that has a staff and you can get fed and sleep in bunks with 20 other people? Meanwhile I can drive to numerous places where there isn't a structure or even another person in a 20km radius. No one is going to run a train to a place like that.

TheCoelacanth 5mo ago
You're describing places that have few people and hence few car trips. Most car trips, even in the US, take place in densely populated areas. The point of public transit isn't to handle 100% of all trips. It's to handle the most common trips in a more efficient and scalable way.
- oklahomasports 5mo ago
  Saying most car trips take place in densely populated areas in the US is a lie
  - TheCoelacanth 5mo ago
    That depends how you define "densely populated", but certainly most car trips are near where people live and work, not in wilderness camping areas you are describing.

briffle 5mo ago

I looked at taking the train from my town to Glacier National Park along with my bike. The route goes from Portland and Seattle to Chicago, and has a stop at south glacier. Step 1, get to the local train station in my town. There are 6 trains daily between me and Portland. Also, amtrak on the cross country trains requires the bikes to be in a box, in storage cars. So I gotta get a large bike box, and get myself, my bike, the box, and some tools to break it down to our local amtrak station. Then partially dissasemble the bike, and box it. (of course, our train station has room in it for 5-10 people, and most sit outside, uncovered, which is fun in spring.) Then, get to the main Portland Train station, with my bike box, and backpack with my stuff and tools. Wait up to 9 hours for the hawaitha train. (its often many hours late, and only leaves once per day). Load Bike in cargo car, and then board train late at night. Wake up around 5am, (or later, if train is behind schedule) and disembark at Glacier, re-assemble my bike. Figure out how to get it, and the box (i'll need it for the return trip) to a hotel or AirBnB. For the return trip, its about the same, 1 daily westbound train, that is usually hours late, then hope you get to portland before the last train for the day leaves for my town, or else find a place to stay with a bike, backpack, and bike box in the sketchy area around the trainstation... Or, hop in a car with a bike rack, and drive 10 hours. Which is easier, and MUCH cheaper if I split the cost of gas with someone else. So 2 extra travel days back for vacation, and much less stress.

NoGravitas 5mo ago
Most of this is just that the US rail system is amazingly shitty by global standards.
- llbbdd 5mo ago
  The US is a very big, very spread out place. I'm not sure which country has trains that take you directly to your front door.
  - ssl-3 5mo ago
    It is indeed a very big place. But this fellah seemed to have that part figured out: Bike to the train station, and take the bike on the train. That part seems straight-forward. The train stations were near-enough to where they wanted to start, and near-enough to where they wanted to be. The problems they lament seem to revolve chiefly around the specifics of taking the bike on a train, and the limited schedule of the train, and the lack of adhesion to that schedule. Those problems wouldn't be improved if the vastness of the US were reduced, would they?

tgsovlerkhgsel 5mo ago

In my experience, night trains with private cabins are fan service for rail fans, environmentalists and/or masochists, not real transport options. One of the famous sleeper trains in Europe (Nightjet Vienna-Amsterdam) is often booked out weeks (sometimes months) in advance, costs as much as a plane ticket + hotel room or more, and you have a decent chance of being told (as you show up in the evening) that unfortunately one car is missing tonight and you have the option of a full refund (screwing up your entire trip and having to book a last minute plane ticket), or you can take a 50% refund on your 255 EUR sleeping ticket and spend the night sitting in the shared seating part on a seat that would have regularly cost 35 EUR. This was something that on some routes was happening routinely for over a year [1]. The night train from Switzerland to Malmö was cancelled (after tickets had already been sold) because the Swiss government decided to not subsidize it. Trains like this offer zero flexibility (you have to book a specific train weeks in advance), go where they go which is a very limited route network, and even in Europe with all the environmentalists, rail networks, shorter distances, and massive government subsidies, they don't seem to be able to run them very frequently or on many routes. Calling them equivalent or a replacement for self-driving cars (which would take the passenger where they want, when they want) is disingenuous and isn't going to magically convince people. [1] https://www.srf.ch/sendungen/kassensturz-espresso/espresso/frust-in-nightjets-nachtzuege-von-sbb-und-oebb-pro-nacht-fehlen-bis-zu-20-betten https://www.srf.ch/sendungen/kassensturz-espresso/espresso/f...

angelgonzales 5mo ago

I’m 99-100% a car user now after living in Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles. Here’s why - I gave up my car for a bike when I lived in Portland, however when people openly smoked fentanyl on the trains the train operators had to stop the train during my morning/afternoon commute for ~15 minutes (this happened often). Also the last straw for me was getting my place broken into and having my bike stolen. Therefore I moved to cars because I didn’t have to inhale secondhand fentanyl smoke or deal with unscheduled delays. As a man in Los Angeles I had to deal with a drunk man on a bus touching my thigh and hitting on me and people trying to sell me drugs/solicit me for money/phone calls/etc. As a regular hiker I’m also not sure public transit would service trailheads in the Cascades or the Sierra Nevadas. As for the environmental impact, I agree that trains or busses may sometimes be better for environment but we’re also approaching a future of self driving electric cars powered by nuclear and fusion plants providing clean energy, so I think this problem will likely go away. I welcome Waymo in Portland, I’m just concerned for the well being of the vehicles!

soiltype 5mo ago
Look I don't fault you - Americans drive cars because every alternative is absolute dogshit, I don't disagree. But I can't e realistic about that and not this: > As for the environmental impact, I agree that trains or busses may sometimes be better for environment That's like saying gunshots may sometimes be more dangerous than throwing rocks. > but we’re also approaching a future of self driving electric cars powered by nuclear and fusion plants providing clean energy Even if this was true (I don't think either change is happening nearly fast enough) car-dependency is directly upstream of numerous other environmental problems, most of which don't disappear even if you take parking out of the mix, such as grounds heat and flooding caused by paved roads, such as obsession with energy- and water-inefficient low-density residential zoning (sprawl), such as particulate pollution from tires, such as ecosystem damage from the need to dump literal tons of salt on icy roads for tires to drive on, such as the emissions of road paving itself... you get the idea.
- JuniperMesos 5mo ago
  These also don't disappear if you replace privately-owned cars with buses and trains. You need paved roads to put buses on and track to put trains on, and they emit particulate pollution as well unless they're also electrified which is a similar problem to electrifying cars. Low-density residential sprawl is mostly water-inefficient because it allows people to have the ability to have a garden that they water, you don't inherently use more household-internal water if you live in a suburban house compared to an apartment. Most of the energy efficiency issues are also directly related to low-density residential zoning allowing for more physical space for a dwelling than an equivalently-expensive dwelling would cost in an expensive, dense urban area. In short, the things about low-density residential neighborhoods that are less energy efficiently mostly don't have to do with cars and mostly do have to do with goods that people actively want and can only afford outside of dense urban areas.

throwaway-blaze 5mo ago

Public transit only works if you live in the densest of the dense part of a city. If you live out in Beaverton or Gresham these bus lines lose money hand over fist, not to mention farther-flung places.

jandrewrogers 5mo ago

You are misunderstanding the nature of the problem. I like trains but they can't and don't address the issue the OP is raising. Even if the US already had public trains it still isn't a "last mile" problem. Especially in the western US, it is a "last hundred miles" problem. No public transport system that remotely makes any kind of economic sense, either in terms of infrastructure or operational cost, can replace the established network topology that exists for cars in the US. The connectivity is much more like a mesh than a hub-and-spoke model. Even though the US has a strong regional jet system that connects arbitrary nodes in that graph it still doesn't entirely avoid the "last hundred miles" problem. A lot of American long-distance travel is not between two big cities. Even in Europe, similar kinds of routes have no train service and limited bus service.

dyauspitr 5mo ago

Enough with this public transport bullshit. We live in very spread out suburbs where you need to drive to everything and everyone has big backyards because we like it that way. Most people here don’t want to live in a tiny coop sharing walls with neighbors on all sides and live the vast majority of our lives in a 15 min public transport bubble. Further, having a train line is borderline not feasible the way the vast majority of the US lives. There is no way having a train station with even a 30 minute walking distance is feasible or even desirable. I also don’t want to get into public transport with a whole bunch of other people no matter how nice it is. It’s not going to be able to compete with a self driving EV of my own that I charge with my solar panels for free. That being said I’m in full support of metros for large cities and high speed rail between major cities but it’s hard to beat a domestic airline you can show up for an hour before it leaves at an airport and gets you there 10x faster for anything other than the shortest trips.

NoGravitas 5mo ago

I fucking love trains.

nradov 5mo ago

I can't take my dog on pretty much any public transit or most ride shares. More than 20% of Americans have dogs.

lelandbatey 5mo ago

The sad truth is the USA spends ~$150B/year building and maintaining it's road network (to say nothing of the inflation-adjusted costs that went into its initial roll-out). Source: The US Fed tracks it directly - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TLHWYCONS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TLHWYCONS That's a $41/month subscription every citizen's paying no matter what. When we're pulling cash on that volume from everyone's pockets to build lavish infrastructure literally up to people's doors (vastly more road square footage than housing+school square footage combined), of course folks are going to say "nothing compares" -- because nothing does compare. Which stinks (imagine if we'd focused a century of spending on rail at rates like that; damn), but it is what we have at the moment.

xnx 5mo ago
Seems like a bargain by comparison! Chicago is about to spend $1 billion/mile to extend an above-ground train line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Line_Extension https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Line_Extension
- lelandbatey 5mo ago
  The USA is riding on 100 years of the benefits of scale and economic investment. If the USA was investing $150B a year into building passenger rail, we would not be paying $1B/mile for "new" and "trailblazing" rail projects. If we had to build much of the highway infra we built 75 years ago, but do it now, we'd be paying similar $1B/mile prices for the highways.
  - xnx 5mo ago
    The best thing about rail in the US is we'll have a lot of premium land for bike paths and AV lanes when the rail gets decommissioned.
  - joenot443 5mo ago
    Here in Canada we're investing $60-120b on a rail to connect Toronto to Montreal. I hope your analysis is correct and subsequent passenger rails will be much cheaper!

boc 5mo ago

I'd love for you to come along with me on a ski mountaineering trip to the eastern Sierra. It's a mountain range larger than Switzerland with basically one interstate highway to access and no roads that cross through in the winter. Very few year-round towns, and nearly zero services outside of those towns. This ain't the alps - there are no huts, no gondolas, no nothing. If you want to access it, you have to walk/ski your way there. That often means long drives (50-100+ miles), camping in your car, and bringing everything you need to survive with you. I love the confidence with which you give your answer though! Europeans famously underestimate the American West, which is why they often get into serious trouble (or die[1]) at alarming rates out here. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley_Germans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley_Germans

dmitrygr 5mo ago

Public transit in America presents a much higher chance of encountering dangerous people than a private car. Until those people are permanently, irrevocably, and definitively locked up, it would not matter off public transit were free, or even paid users to use it, it will not be a serious option. Nobody in my family is allowed to use public transit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Debrina_Kawam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Debrina_Kawam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Iryna_Zarutska https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Iryna_Zarutska https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nypd-men-pushed-subway-tracks-upper-east-side/ https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nypd-men-pushed-subway-...

righthand 5mo ago
This is all FUD and extremely unlikely if not improbable to run into someone violent. If you’re that afraid of public transit and people in general, no amount of “rounding people up against their will” would change your mind.
- dmitrygr 5mo ago
  FUD? Are you claiming these did not happen?
  - righthand 5mo ago
    No I’m claiming that violent people have a tendency to support violence as the only rational option. While turning around and defunding healthcare and advocating more prisons be built. Rather than diagnosing the actual problems. Violence wont stop mental illness. The posters advocating for it and stating Daniel Penny should’ve encourage copy-cats are violent and sick people.
- HDThoreaun 5mo ago
  It really is not. I use public transit heavily. The people on it fucking suck. No one helps when someone is being harassed for fear of violence. The US needs to enforce basic decorum on public transit if it wants mass buy in.

adrianmonk 5mo ago

The scenario is a cross-country trip in an electric car. What actual, specific advantage does a train or bus offer in this scenario? What problem does it solve better? It's an electric car, so carbon emissions are low. Most of the route will be in rural areas in the middle of the night, so the impact on traffic will be minimal. As for the cost to build and maintain the roads, they are already needed so rural areas are accessible. Wear and tear on roads and bridges isn't much of an issue since heavy vehicles like trucks cause massively disproportionate damage[1]. (A bus might actually be worse than the equivalent number of cars in this respect.) --- [1] See https://blog.ucs.org/dave-cooke/trucks-cause-the-lions-share-of-road-damage-and-their-industry-wants-you-to-keep-paying-for-it/ https://blog.ucs.org/dave-cooke/trucks-cause-the-lions-share... . Some studies show that damage varies with the fourth power of axle weight.

chronolitus 5mo ago

sometimes we do this thing where we pretend rail is super efficient, whereas in reality it's often more expensive than basically any other option, even in countries that do it well (e.g. Switzerland,Japan) I love rail but it is a convenience / luxury mode in many cases, and should be complimentary to car travel, not replace it.