Hacker News Reader

Comment by wildmusings | Hacker News Reader

A car gives you privacy and freedom that trains and buses cannot. It's your space that you control; you're not forced to share it with strangers. You control the music, the temperature, and the route you take. You talk on the phone about whatever you want without worrying about being overheard. You can fill your trunk with a cart-full of groceries and drive it home. When you want to get somewhere, you can immediately get on your way. No train schedules, and no late buses. You drive home every day to your reasonably priced house, an appreciating asset that you own and that comfortably fits you, your spouse, and children.

There's a reason why even in dense cities with great public transit and walkable neighborhoods, the rich choose to be driven everywhere.

View on HN

I have the feeling you live in a place where cars are privileged and where the whole environment might have been built with the car in mind.

In places that kept a historic center, or built themselves around walkable commercial areas, cars are just liabilities that you'll spend time and money to park, get frustrated to no limit by the congestions, slow paced traffic, overall polluted air, and cramped one way streets that you have no idea how to navigate without a car navi.

IMO it's really a matter of context and how the city works. You'll want to adapt depending on that.

My point isn't that having a car is always preferable in every place, just that there are good reasons for people to prefer to live in car-friendly places.

I recently lived in Seattle, on Capitol Hill, for two years. I didn't have a car for more or less the reasons you list, but I did end up using Uber a lot, even though I had free public transportation courtesy of my employer. If cost was no barrier, I would have exclusively taken Uber over public transportation.

I'm the other way around. I enjoy public transport and feel that cars are isolating and anti-social. I like seeing all kinds of people and having little connections with them. Cars encourage egoism. They battle for space on the freeway. In buses people share the space; they make space for each other or stand up to give a seat to elderly. Cars are often used for status. Public transport is humble.

I don't own a car and never use Uber, but I live in a bike and public transport-friendly city in The Netherlands.

Cars are a denial of public space and a tangible symbol of American selfishness. You're spot on. Peoples' snobbishness and entitlement in this thread is palpable. Americans dislike public transit for purely cultural reasons, no matter what they say. Boston's transit system is far from perfect but I'll put up with its warts to avoid the culture of car ownership.

I do all my best thinking on the bus...

You're right that it's a very much an American perspective, but I disagree with the characterization. How is it snobbish and selfish to want to live my life the way I choose to? Do you think that you are doing public works in giving strangers the gift of your physical presence on a shared rail cart?

>Do you think that you are doing public works in giving strangers the gift of your physical presence on a shared rail cart?

Not at all, but in my experience if you probe into why people avoid public transit, it's usually some variation on "I don't want to be near those people". I've literally heard those words verbatim from more than one person.

I spoke with a former coworker who has a practically door-to-door bus trip to work with a 20m headway (that I used to take, it was very fast and convenient, never had problems with other passengers). They chose to drive to the edge of the city where they could park w/ their permit, and then walk a pretty significant distance to work, just to avoid the bus.

It's a lower-class stigma, the bus is "for poor people" so people won't take the bus even when it's objectively the best option. If the "way you want to live" is going to great lengths to avoid people you think are beneath you (not saying this is you, but I've absolutely met people like this), that's pretty much the definition of a snob.

I'm going to venture a guess that it's not about poor people and more about crime and drugs and rudeness, which may sometimes correlate with but are not determined by economic class. A group of obnoxious rich teenagers can be as bad as anyone else.

I don't want to take a bus where people are stumbling drunk, arguing with the bus driver, talking about their heroin adventures, playing their music loudly on speakerphone, etc. These are all things that I experienced on the bus in Seattle, particularly but not exclusively during off-peak hours (e.g. 10:30am on a workday). My friend had an even worse experience: the person behind him was almost stabbed by a raving lunatic, saved only by two quick-thinking bystanders.

And I'm just a single young man. Would you want to expose your children to that?

Whether you want to accept it or not, the world is full of bad people, and even more people who don't share your code of public behavior. Why should you have a social duty to deal with that?

>I'm going to venture a guess that it's not so much about poor people and more about crime and drugs and rudeness

Maybe Seattle is just a shithole but these kinds of things are rare in the cities I've lived in, the worst I experience regularly is people being loud and even that is uncommon, especially during commuting hours.

>Would you want to expose your children to that?

I see school-aged children taking the bus whenever I ride around 2 or 3. I've been on the bus when entire classes of children get on with their teacher to go on a field trip. I took the city bus home from school when I was in school, the city provided free passes for kids who lived a certain distance from their school. Heaps of people bring strollers on the bus, there's a special space for them at the front and everything.

There are other people replying to you in other threads with similar experiences in different cities. Good for you that in the city you live in, on the routes you take, you don't experience this stuff. But maybe you shouldn't be so quick to call people selfish snobs.

I've used public transit extensively in a bunch of cities, as have friends of mine. These experiences are the exception, not the norm. Statistically, crime is low on transit systems, including in the cities mentioned itt. It's not perfect, but the problem is more about perception of safety than actual crime.

Only a one of the things that I and others described would even register in the crime statistics. Playing loud music, acting intimidating toward other passengers, having gang tattoos, stumbling drunk, arguing with the bus driver, are either not crimes or are seldom reported.

So true. I lived in Brooklyn NY for eight years and my quality of life went WAY up after getting a good car. It was expensive but damn was it useful.

My train usage went way down after that. I moved away recently and went back to the city for a week. I most definitely do not miss the subway. Exterior light rails are better.

What exactly are "exterior light rails"?

I assume he means above ground which doesn't really make sense because they mix with traffic.

> There's a reason why even in dense cities with great public transit and walkable neighborhoods, the rich choose to be driven everywhere.

I don't think that is true of every dense city with great public transit[1].

[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=tube+london+picture+celebrit...

Agreed. Lots of rich people ride the subway in NYC too:

http://gothamist.com/2015/12/31/best_subway_celebrity_sighti... https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/new-york/celebrity-p...

Also, if you have multiple kids and all the stuff associated with them (stroller, bags, etc), you're going to want a car.

What would you rather do - spend 45 minutes on public transit with two screaming kids and all your groceries, or drive your own car 15 minutes to the store?

You're taking the kid to the store either way, which seems like the hardest part. And I've noticed that my urban friends really trim down their kid-gear compared to my suburban friends -- city dwellers use a small stroller (or no stroller and a child carrier wrap) and a small bag with essentials, suburban dwellers use a stroller the size of a Mini Cooper (which they hauled around with a full sized SUV) with several bags of "essentials".

When I lived in the city, both of the grocery stores near me offered home delivery -- you drop off your bags at the front desk and schedule a delivery later this afternoon, so no need to carry them home or take them on transit.

But it was a dense enough city that you didn't take transit there, you'd just walk.

They had some kind of dial-in grocery shopping service as well that you could use to call in an order for delivery... but nowadays, online shopping seems to have solved the problem of shopping with children.

But if you live near a place that has grown up with high-density public transport use and pedestrian priority, the real question is why would you drive your own car 15 minutes to the store when 3 of them are within 15 minutes walk of your front door.

(in my case roughly 4 min, 11 min and 13 min respectively by foot according to google for my nearest 3 big grocery stores).

Trying to turn car based suburbia into a car free zone is admittedly an almost lost cause, but that's a bit of a misnomer.

The real argument is to establish the city-design as one that is not car centric, not to convert a car-centric design into a car-free zone.

In dense urban environments, taking a car means more traffic and a huge pain for parking. When I am going between SF and Oakland the train is usually faster and more convenient. Especially during peak commute times.

And if you really want to be able to park your car, you should support people taking the train. Otherwise there won't be much parking left for you if you really need it and it'll make your car transit experience suck more. :)

Only one kid, but in a rural area, and public transport is fine, better even. You don't need to fold up the pushchair to get it on the bus/train. The kid gets a good view out the windows, which he loves. Factor in the time to find a parking space, and door-to-door journey time is similar, even quicker. The one downside is frequency: our trains and buses only run once an hour, and when baby wants to go home, he wants to go home NOW.

Most modes of transportation have distinct advantages. For example: trains and busses give you freedoms that cars simply cannot. Ditto for cycling.

Besides, car culture tends to create an environment where the advantage is theirs alone. Cities that have good public transit or encourage active transportation tend to adapt to people's needs while still accommodating private vehicles.

> an appreciating asset

cities are quite resilient. i feel that apartments are more likely to get more expensive since the desirability of dense cities like nyc, london, tokyo, hongkong never seem to wane. but the suburbs and the rural areas, didn't these areas get hit the hardest in 2008? the 2008 GFC doesn't even show up on a HK property price chart.

> It's your space that you control

it is entirely possible my hangups about the suburbs are just as misplaced as this guy's concerns are about not having privacy in the city. i, for one, have never lived in a suburb.

The ubiquitous availability of smart phones gives public transit riders more freedom and control than was ever previously available. The ability to easily read news, listen to podcasts, watch movies, etc. makes bus and rail ride much more tolerable and arguably better than driving.

Unlike books?

I live (and own a little apartment) in inner city Melbourne, Australia.

Some kind chap tried to put together a combined metro/light rail map here: http://www.mappery.com/maps/Melbourne-Train-and-Tram-Map.png

I can't find a map that overlays the rapid or regular bus services on the same map, presumably because it would be a godforsaken near un-interpretable dense mess.

We own a car parking space under our building that I rent out to someone else for roughly $250 a month. Good for them, good for me.

I wouldn't ever fill a car trunk with groceries because a supermarket and several specialty stores are just around the corner if i need them, and meals and ingredients are delivered to my door each week.

I don't have to bother about the price of petrol, petrol stations, finding a park, walking from a park, servicing, registration or maintenance. I gain in health and fitness due to my walking, plus I meet my neighbours. When I do need to travel around, i catch one of the several trams all within 5 minutes walk. And when I do I get to read.

My community gets to fill in many of those areas that would be taken up by car parks with actual facilities and amenities. I have 5 libraries within half an hour walk of my front door. A university, acres of parkland and gardens, a public swimming pool, doctors, schools, several theaters, galleries, tennis courts, ovals, cricket nets, a couple of playgrounds, and several hundred cafes. We're also members of a car share, so in those odd times where we need/desire a car (which by my bank records, is about 4 times in the last year, and some of those were probably in moving/helping others move) we pick ones from the neighbourhood.

Property prices here are pretty good measures of desirability. And those prices are immensely higher the closer you get to the core of the historical city, or indeed the arteries and density of the public transport network.

Now don't get me wrong, I actually love rural living/driving as well. We have some older stuck-up neighbourhoods where wealthy people live with cars relatively close in, and the outer ring of the metropolis is pretty much car territory.

But the poorer you are here, the more likely you are to live further out, away from public transport, and the wealthy want to cram into the inner, older, historical suburbs built before the age of the automobile and serviced by the network.

And lets not also pretend that you haven't given up things...many things, as well as gained things, by preferencing to use an automobile, and choosing to live around others who also preference such.

Lets not also kid ourselves: one of the reasons some of the wealthy choose to be driven everywhere is because they have (real, justified or imagined) fear of mingling with the poor...

Rural needn't mean car-dependent. We're fortunate enough to (/chose deliberately to) live in a rural town, population 3000, with an excellent rail service (Charlbury, UK). The Scottish government recently reopened the rural Borders line and it's been a massive success. Heavy rail may not be practical or affordable everywhere, but buses should be - it just requires political will.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com