3 ms·

> It's hard to beat the zero waiting for a given trip, and even if you include the implied waiting time at the end of your prior trip (finding a parking place,

by exDM69 12y ago

> It's hard to beat the zero waiting for a given trip, and even if you include the implied waiting time at the end of your prior trip (finding a parking place, etc) In Helsinki, the urban architecture is essentially designed for horse driven carriages in the 1800s and the city is surrounded by sea from three sides. Parking is really difficult to find and expensive. Unless you're going to the city center with underground parking spots (which are rather expensive), taking the bus is going to be faster than driving to the city center, searching for a parking spot and finally walking to your destination. Renting a parking spot in Helsinki is more expensive than renting a flat outside the metropolitan area. It would cost me 200€ per month to rent an underground parking spot near my office. Any other parking options would need a 5 to 10 minute walk which would kill any time savings I get from driving a car and not a bus. This coupled with the ridiculously high taxation and cost of ownership for automobiles means that taking the bus is almost always cheaper, faster and easier than driving a car.

Gravityloss 12y ago
Very few people live in the center or South Helsinki. Everywhere else and outside the core peak of the rush hour the car is so much faster that it's like a superpower. Car is king, bicycle comes second and with public traffic you can get to places eventually. It is frustrating to experience slightly broken public transport infrastructure all the time. Whereas if I drive my car, I have spent enough money that it just works. I don't get angry or sad when looking at my car. It is a good car. I do get angry when I sit in a thrashing tram or know to ignore the metro ETA signs. Or have to wait 30 minutes for an urban train. So psychologically, public transport feels like you just being there and having to passively take what is given. And it is not always very good. If they can't be arsed to fix a display that shows minutes to the next metro, do the passengers feel respected and cared about? I blame bad procurement/manufacturers in case of the trams and metro. There have been atrocious design errors by international big companies. Luckily some have been avoided in later procurement. Maybe its the case like with government web sites. A lot of money is spent and results are often meager.

by exDM69 12y ago

Gravityloss 12y ago

Very few people live in the center or South Helsinki. Everywhere else and outside the core peak of the rush hour the car is so much faster that it's like a superpower. Car is king, bicycle comes second and with public traffic you can get to places eventually. It is frustrating to experience slightly broken public transport infrastructure all the time. Whereas if I drive my car, I have spent enough money that it just works. I don't get angry or sad when looking at my car. It is a good car. I do get angry when I sit in a thrashing tram or know to ignore the metro ETA signs. Or have to wait 30 minutes for an urban train. So psychologically, public transport feels like you just being there and having to passively take what is given. And it is not always very good. If they can't be arsed to fix a display that shows minutes to the next metro, do the passengers feel respected and cared about? I blame bad procurement/manufacturers in case of the trams and metro. There have been atrocious design errors by international big companies. Luckily some have been avoided in later procurement. Maybe its the case like with government web sites. A lot of money is spent and results are often meager.