5 ms·

At the expense of sounding like a complete a-hole, I suggest you travel and see how other families/people live with public transport as their only transportatio

by antr 12y ago

At the expense of sounding like a complete a-hole, I suggest you travel and see how other families/people live with public transport as their only transportation option. Don't get me wrong, I think Uber/Hailo/others are a great idea. Mix that with AVs and it will be a true disruptive technology. Enrique Peñalosa, former Mayor of Bogota said that "An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport", and imho he is completely spot on with the issue of transportation. The transportation problem in the US is a city/urban planning problem, and not one solved by building more roads and putting more cars on them. I suggest you watch his TED presentation http://www.ted.com/talks/enrique_penalosa_why_buses_represent_democracy_in_action http://www.ted.com/talks/enrique_penalosa_why_buses_represen... Another worth watching is that by Bill Ford, of the Ford Motor Company: https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_ford_a_future_beyond_traffic_gridlock https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_ford_a_future_beyond_traffic_...

ars 12y ago
> I suggest you travel and see how other families/people live with public transport as their only transportation option. I have actually. And it works perfectly in huge cities, and it doesn't work in the smaller ones. > The transportation problem in the US is city/urban planning, and not one solved by building more roads and putting more cars on them. No, the transportation problem in the US is that it is very large, and the majority of the cities are medium/small and public transport simply doesn't work in those sized cities (just not enough demand for continuous service).
- antr 12y ago
  In Europe 'cities are medium/small' and public transport works. Ignoring how cities evolve, grow, develop, from a planning perspective is the US biggest problem, and the solution its biggest challenge. Bad city planning affects transportation, energy, health, efficiency, etc.
  - iuguy 12y ago
    Europe is very different to SF. In Europe the term city planning is somewhat different. Most cities were built for horses and carts at best. Berlin has a fantastic public transport system, but 70% of is less than 70 years old. Istanbul's public transport system is truly terrible, but it's a nearly 3,000 year old city that gets nearly a +/- 50 degree C temperature range over a year. Paris has an ok metro, but in general public transport isn't that great compared to say, Berlin, London or Barcelona. London has a ridiculously overdeveloped public transport system that will get you from a to b but it's massively oversubscribed and the roads are rammed most of the time. To be fair, London is generally oversubscribed and rammed most of the time.
    - antr 12y ago
      Exactly, the US transport issue is primarily urban sprawl, a planning problem: http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/you-cant-set-shop-side-expressway.html http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/you-cant-set-shop-sid...
      - ars 12y ago
        > urban sprawl, a planning problem No, it's not a planning problem, it's a "people don't want to live there" problem. In the US people are simply not interested in living in a high density low population city. They want either high density, high population, or low density, low population. They would love low density, high population, but those don't exist much, so urban sprawl is the next best thing.
        antr 12y ago
        Not all Americans want to live here http://www.fritzmuellerphoto.com/data/photos/545_1Muellerf_20070713_005400__2__2_13.jpg http://www.fritzmuellerphoto.com/data/photos/545_1Muellerf_2... But let's agree to disagree.
        ars 12y ago
- dagw 12y ago
  It's not the size of the city per se. that's the problem in the US, but that very few people live and work actually in the centers of those cities. They're all dispersed out in the suburbs. Take an avg 50-80k population city in the US and draw a circle, centered in the middle of town, that encompasses say 60% of the cities population, now do the same with a European city of the same size. The circle for the European city will almost always be much smaller, meaning it's much easier to cover a significant proportion of the population with a reasonable public transportation network.
- ptfoobar 12y ago
  Actually the problem is that PT (there is even the word public in it) should be owned by the state and not by a company trying to make profit out of transportation.
- what_ever 12y ago
  > No, the transportation problem in the US is that it is very large, and the majority of the cities are medium/small and public transport simply doesn't work in those sized cities (just not enough demand for continuous service). Well, it does not work in bigger cities as well except NYC, Chicago and to some extent Boston. Also, OP talks about SF, which for it's size and population can have a good public transport system.

by antr 12y ago

ars 12y ago

> I suggest you travel and see how other families/people live with public transport as their only transportation option. I have actually. And it works perfectly in huge cities, and it doesn't work in the smaller ones. > The transportation problem in the US is city/urban planning, and not one solved by building more roads and putting more cars on them. No, the transportation problem in the US is that it is very large, and the majority of the cities are medium/small and public transport simply doesn't work in those sized cities (just not enough demand for continuous service).

antr 12y ago
In Europe 'cities are medium/small' and public transport works. Ignoring how cities evolve, grow, develop, from a planning perspective is the US biggest problem, and the solution its biggest challenge. Bad city planning affects transportation, energy, health, efficiency, etc.
- iuguy 12y ago
  Europe is very different to SF. In Europe the term city planning is somewhat different. Most cities were built for horses and carts at best. Berlin has a fantastic public transport system, but 70% of is less than 70 years old. Istanbul's public transport system is truly terrible, but it's a nearly 3,000 year old city that gets nearly a +/- 50 degree C temperature range over a year. Paris has an ok metro, but in general public transport isn't that great compared to say, Berlin, London or Barcelona. London has a ridiculously overdeveloped public transport system that will get you from a to b but it's massively oversubscribed and the roads are rammed most of the time. To be fair, London is generally oversubscribed and rammed most of the time.
  - antr 12y ago
    Exactly, the US transport issue is primarily urban sprawl, a planning problem: http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/you-cant-set-shop-side-expressway.html http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/you-cant-set-shop-sid...
    - ars 12y ago
      > urban sprawl, a planning problem No, it's not a planning problem, it's a "people don't want to live there" problem. In the US people are simply not interested in living in a high density low population city. They want either high density, high population, or low density, low population. They would love low density, high population, but those don't exist much, so urban sprawl is the next best thing.
      - antr 12y ago
        Not all Americans want to live here http://www.fritzmuellerphoto.com/data/photos/545_1Muellerf_20070713_005400__2__2_13.jpg http://www.fritzmuellerphoto.com/data/photos/545_1Muellerf_2... But let's agree to disagree.
        ars 12y ago
dagw 12y ago
It's not the size of the city per se. that's the problem in the US, but that very few people live and work actually in the centers of those cities. They're all dispersed out in the suburbs. Take an avg 50-80k population city in the US and draw a circle, centered in the middle of town, that encompasses say 60% of the cities population, now do the same with a European city of the same size. The circle for the European city will almost always be much smaller, meaning it's much easier to cover a significant proportion of the population with a reasonable public transportation network.
ptfoobar 12y ago
Actually the problem is that PT (there is even the word public in it) should be owned by the state and not by a company trying to make profit out of transportation.
what_ever 12y ago
> No, the transportation problem in the US is that it is very large, and the majority of the cities are medium/small and public transport simply doesn't work in those sized cities (just not enough demand for continuous service). Well, it does not work in bigger cities as well except NYC, Chicago and to some extent Boston. Also, OP talks about SF, which for it's size and population can have a good public transport system.