4 ms·

> So what should the disabled people do until that amazing public transport infrastructure materializes, if it ever even does for them at all? Sit at home and w

> So what should the disabled people do until that amazing public transport infrastructure materializes, if it ever even does for them at all? Sit at home and wait? No, the point was that instead of cities waiting until self-driving cars become an option to help get rid of terrible drivers, the cities could invest in public transportation today, and get better road safety that way.

sanex 1mo ago
[flagged]
- llbeansandrice 1mo ago
  My pithy response is the same as people who have told me what to do when I try and advocate for transit. “Move somewhere else.” I don’t find these problems unsolvable. We spend over $200 billion on roads a year. That’s almost $75bn more than the CA high speed rail. That’s project has its own problems but local buses and street cars and road diets would cost minuscule fractions of that number and improve conditions and options for nearly everyone. Cars are clearly not a perfect solution. They are expensive and unsafe. But for some reason transit and buses have to be the perfect solution for everyone upon immediate delivery just to get the tiniest fraction of funding.
  - ETH_start 1mo ago
    Good public transit is more than just the infrastructure. It's also the law and order, which is not an easy political problem to fix.
    - llbeansandrice 1mo ago
      It’s actually quite easy. RTD in the front range in Colorado has drastically reduced issues on buses and the light rail the past couple of years. It wasn’t that hard. I take various forms of transit regularly and I’ve never had an issue more noteworthy than any interaction I’ve had in a car.
      - ETH_start 1mo ago
        It's pretty easy to solve once the political problem is solved. Colorado has solved the political problem, but many jurisdictions haven't. Mustering the political capital to defy the coalition of groups that oppose strict enforcement of city ordinances on public transport is something many major cities have not managed to do.
PorciiVorbesc 1mo ago
> the cities could invest in public transportation today Again, with what money? My city is insolvent and every extra money it gets goes to cover the massive financial hole of social programs like elderly care and handicapped people, which is growing in need. Would you sacrifice the elderly and disabled, so people give up on needing cars to get to work? Again, just saying "invest in public transportation" is like telling homeless people to invest in real estate.
- tsimionescu 1mo ago
  Car infrastructure is typically a huge part of the costs of any city. Roads and parking spots and so on don't maintain themselves. If most people used public transport, you'd need far less road infra to maintain every year. Anyway, my point was about how we allocate existing money, not about increasing spending.
  - PorciiVorbesc 1mo ago
    >Car infrastructure is typically a huge part of the costs of any city. Car drivers, at least in EU where I live, are net cash cows to the local economy with all the taxes they pay on everything car related and second order business they support: fuel tax, car tax, insurance, parking , service stations, gas stations, shops, dealerships, finance leasing and banking, towing services, emissions tax, etc All of these businesses profit from car drivers. If you remove cars you'll have a massive hole in the economy. That's why no government has banned cars, but just made driving expensive to increase the money they get from drivers and add it to the city/government budget that then gets spent on public transport infrastructure.. > Roads and parking spots and so on don't maintain themselves. Roads and parking spots are not free for car drivers(where I live), they pay for them directly in taxes, and it's a net profit for the local economy. That's where the maintenance money comes from. >If most people used public transport, you'd need far less road infra to maintain every year. Buses drive on the same car infrastructure as cars and cause more road damage due to their massive weight so you still need roads and maintenance costs. If you replace cars with more busses then the roads will see even more wear needing more money except now you have less money. >Anyway, my point was about how we allocate existing money, That's an economically illiterate and purely ideology driven take that makes no sense. You can't allocate existing funding away from roads towards more public transport because exiting public transport also depends on roads existing and being maintained, with money from car drivers chipping in to share those roads. If you want to improve or add new public transport(like build rail or buy more busses) then you need to get more money from somewhere. There's no free lunch where if you get drivers off the road then suddenly you have more money. No, now you have less money. And I'm on your side in spirit, I want a car-free society. But for that I want to see Swiss levels of public transport first. Life is too short to waste it commuting on bad infrequent and slow public transit that doesn't take me where I need to get. Hence driving cars FTW.
xnx 1mo ago
> instead of cities waiting Waiting? NYC, DC, and Chicago are blocking/delaying self-driving cars.

sanex 1mo ago

[flagged]

llbeansandrice 1mo ago
My pithy response is the same as people who have told me what to do when I try and advocate for transit. “Move somewhere else.” I don’t find these problems unsolvable. We spend over $200 billion on roads a year. That’s almost $75bn more than the CA high speed rail. That’s project has its own problems but local buses and street cars and road diets would cost minuscule fractions of that number and improve conditions and options for nearly everyone. Cars are clearly not a perfect solution. They are expensive and unsafe. But for some reason transit and buses have to be the perfect solution for everyone upon immediate delivery just to get the tiniest fraction of funding.
- ETH_start 1mo ago
  Good public transit is more than just the infrastructure. It's also the law and order, which is not an easy political problem to fix.
  - llbeansandrice 1mo ago
    It’s actually quite easy. RTD in the front range in Colorado has drastically reduced issues on buses and the light rail the past couple of years. It wasn’t that hard. I take various forms of transit regularly and I’ve never had an issue more noteworthy than any interaction I’ve had in a car.
    - ETH_start 1mo ago
      It's pretty easy to solve once the political problem is solved. Colorado has solved the political problem, but many jurisdictions haven't. Mustering the political capital to defy the coalition of groups that oppose strict enforcement of city ordinances on public transport is something many major cities have not managed to do.

PorciiVorbesc 1mo ago

> the cities could invest in public transportation today Again, with what money? My city is insolvent and every extra money it gets goes to cover the massive financial hole of social programs like elderly care and handicapped people, which is growing in need. Would you sacrifice the elderly and disabled, so people give up on needing cars to get to work? Again, just saying "invest in public transportation" is like telling homeless people to invest in real estate.

tsimionescu 1mo ago
Car infrastructure is typically a huge part of the costs of any city. Roads and parking spots and so on don't maintain themselves. If most people used public transport, you'd need far less road infra to maintain every year. Anyway, my point was about how we allocate existing money, not about increasing spending.
- PorciiVorbesc 1mo ago
  >Car infrastructure is typically a huge part of the costs of any city. Car drivers, at least in EU where I live, are net cash cows to the local economy with all the taxes they pay on everything car related and second order business they support: fuel tax, car tax, insurance, parking , service stations, gas stations, shops, dealerships, finance leasing and banking, towing services, emissions tax, etc All of these businesses profit from car drivers. If you remove cars you'll have a massive hole in the economy. That's why no government has banned cars, but just made driving expensive to increase the money they get from drivers and add it to the city/government budget that then gets spent on public transport infrastructure.. > Roads and parking spots and so on don't maintain themselves. Roads and parking spots are not free for car drivers(where I live), they pay for them directly in taxes, and it's a net profit for the local economy. That's where the maintenance money comes from. >If most people used public transport, you'd need far less road infra to maintain every year. Buses drive on the same car infrastructure as cars and cause more road damage due to their massive weight so you still need roads and maintenance costs. If you replace cars with more busses then the roads will see even more wear needing more money except now you have less money. >Anyway, my point was about how we allocate existing money, That's an economically illiterate and purely ideology driven take that makes no sense. You can't allocate existing funding away from roads towards more public transport because exiting public transport also depends on roads existing and being maintained, with money from car drivers chipping in to share those roads. If you want to improve or add new public transport(like build rail or buy more busses) then you need to get more money from somewhere. There's no free lunch where if you get drivers off the road then suddenly you have more money. No, now you have less money. And I'm on your side in spirit, I want a car-free society. But for that I want to see Swiss levels of public transport first. Life is too short to waste it commuting on bad infrequent and slow public transit that doesn't take me where I need to get. Hence driving cars FTW.

xnx 1mo ago

> instead of cities waiting Waiting? NYC, DC, and Chicago are blocking/delaying self-driving cars.