Going faster doesn’t make you happier; you just drive farther | Hacker News Reader

Going faster doesn’t make you happier; you just drive farther

cityobservatory.org

104 pointsoftenwrong79 comments

This would seem to contradict the finding that lower commute times are associated with overall happiness [0, not the best link but there are many].

Slowing down a metro area by, say, forcing a modal shift towards bicycles will not make conveniently located housing any cheaper. If anything, it'll be more desirable and therefore more expensive. Absent a change in housing spend, commute times will rise and free time will sink.

EDIT: I'll add that while I don't live far from work for a bigger yard, I do live far from work so I can have my own apartment, instead of roommates. Having lived both with roommates and without, I'm confident I really am happier this way.

[0] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kirsten-dirksen/happiness-rese...

> This would seem to contradict the finding that lower commute times are associated with overall happiness

Not at all! Happiness _is_ correlated to shorter door-to-door time, but higher speed does not equate to shorter times if the distance grows as well. From the article:

> We have a strong hunch as to why traveling faster might not generate more satisfaction with the transportation system. Faster travel is often correlated with lower density, and longer travel distances to common destinations, such as workplaces, schools and stores.

It seems like the whole study is missing the point. The question is whether people in New York would be happier if their system was faster, not if they'd be happier if they moved to St Louis.

Basically the study finds that trains go faster if there's a larger gap between stops. Not really that interesting a result. It then has a headline that implies a causal relationship where clearly none exists.

Sure, but in context this is an argument for, "see, we should slow cities down, because you'll be equally happy."

It's easy to move farther out in response to faster travel. Low housing prices in the outer suburbs with reasonable commutes attract people to a city. How are people going to move closer in if fast travel is eliminated? Should the people who can only afford the outer suburbs just leave?

> Not at all! Happiness _is_ correlated to shorter door-to-door time, but higher speed does not equate to shorter times if the distance grows as well.

Exactly! This is also related to the The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: building new roads just allows people drive more. (See Duranton and Turner.)

You can view this as an equilibrium. People will prefer uncongested roads until they become congested.

Surprising, yet simple when it's pointed out.

Different regions have dramatically different average commute times which don't directly correlate with population. Thus disproving your point.

Insufficient roads, poor zoning, etc all add up into a complex whole. But, roads reduce the value of some peoples property which is why you get such strong opposition.

PS: Importantly, congestion has a cost not just for the average commute but the number of hours in the day that are congested.

> Different regions have dramatically different average commute times which don't directly correlate with population. Thus disproving your point.

Average commute time is not the desired metric here, see Duranton and Turner[1].

[1]: http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Economics/Faculty/Matthew_T...

Road miles driven has utility, but there feedback effects which make it a poor long term measure. Duranton and Turner have a biased view of the situation as which does not map to economic, social, or even environmental utility.

> building new roads just allows people drive more.

Not only that: it allows more people to drive.

I'm not the first to say this: people will choose to drive into congested agglomeration as long as the alternative (public transport) yields a longer door-to-door time.

No metro area is slowed down by bicycles. The longest a commute can be practical by bicycle (by practical I mean for the average, street/work clothes wearing person riding nearly every day) is under ten miles. You're still in the heavily congested car travel radius of any metro at that distance anyway, and bicycle traffic does not impede motor traffic what so ever.

Bicycles don't slow drivers down. Removal of parking infrastructure, with the intention of getting people to switch from cars to bicycles, slows people down.

I have a 6 mile/10 minute freeway haul to the last suburban train station on the way to work, then 20 minutes on the train. They've announced a plan to demolish the parking lot at that station and build offices, with the intention that people like me switch to bicycles. There are good reasons to do this, but I think it's absurd to suggest that we'll be equally happy with ~40 minutes added to our daily roundtrip.

There are some good arguments. BART will make money from those offices, meaning it needs to ask for less from the taxpayer. There will be fewer traffic accidents near the station, and less polluted air (though the real air pollution problem there is urine). I merely argue that the happiness of the reluctant bicyclists isn't one of them.

All the giant surface parking lots around BART and Caltrain stations are a ridiculous waste of prime real estate. If they got rid of the surface parking lots, narrowed nearby streets and eliminated most of the street parking, filled the 3-block radius with 3–6 story apartment buildings (ideally including a decent proportion of small studio and 1-bedroom apartments) with shops on the ground floor, and then let someone build a parking structure nearby, everyone would end up better off, especially “the taxpayer”.

That would be by far the best way to make a dent in the Bay Area housing shortage.

Agreed, but BART is no exception to the public's impassioned hatred of new market-rate housing construction.

What's proposed for these sites is mostly commercial, with a little bit of lottery housing for homeless seniors, at-risk veterans, etc. Market rate housing, if proposed, stalls out (see MacArthur).

> meaning it needs to ask for less from the taxpayer

Or they could align their charges to their costs, and have the users pay for the service.

Do things play out that way though? Every time you raise prices, fewer people use it, resulting in requiring another price increase. Demand for public transit is actually pretty price-sensitive. Look at what's currently going on with the New York subway system, for instance.

Now, consider the case where the current prices could actually cover costs if utilization was high enough. (I don't know if that's true for BART, but it's certainly possible for a public transit system.) Wouldn't it make much more sense to increase ridership than prices?

This strategy is hardly unique to publicly-funded projects. Lots of businesses sell a new product at a loss, expecting to grow their sales of it until they can use economies of scale to make the product profitable.

A policy of naively basing prices solely on recent demand and current costs misses a lot of possibilities. It's very worth considering how increased demand changes economies and pricing with a long-term plan in mind.

> Wouldn't it make much more sense to increase ridership than prices?

In peak hours, BART seems pretty close to capacity. My favorite is that while fewer people travel south of the city, rather than east, because of all the "back-trackers" looking for seats (but adding 10 minutes to their commute), even the other direction is pretty crowded.

In order for it to work, they would have to eliminate subsidies to alternate forms of transportation, like private cars. Once all costs are properly aligned and not externalized, it should work fairly well.

Whether bikes slow down traffic is totally dependant on specifics. In a well-designed city they are no issue. But where they must share narrow lanes with cars, the cars must yield and that often means missed lights and slower speeds. Force a bike to ride up a bridge and everyone's commute then depends on that one biker's leg power.

(Happened to me yesturday when roadworks closed the bridge sidewalks. City didnt provide the shuttle vans they normally do in such circumstances and one biker decided to make a point. Or, more likely, the vans were there but he didnt want to wait.)

Did you time the delay?

Being in a car makes you feel like your drive gets 10x longer when stuff like this happens (whether it's a slow car or a slow bike), but the reality is that we're rarely stuck behind someone slow for more than a minute or two, and for that minute or two you're still only going maybe 30% slower at worst. In other words, it's mostly perception.

> No metro area is slowed down by bicycles.

Totally untrue. The DC area has plenty of two Lane roads whose speed limit is higher than the average bicyclist can maintain, with the predictable result that you'll have a line of cars being held up by a bicycle. It's especially bad on the Virginia side; many very pretty Virginia roads are virtually undrivable on nice days because of slow bikes.

Bicycles slow and impede pedestrian traffic, and more importantly, make it less safe.

Sometimes the transit quality matters. When there's traffic but we hit consecutive green lights, we don't go fast but it's smooth, there's not much break in flow, people don't rush and time feels good.

I've always been under the impression that commute satisfaction is related to various levels of consistency. Constant speed, constant commute times.

I drive 3x as far at my new home to my job as I did at my previous home but since my workplace is on the edge of the city and I moved to a rural home I drive 90% of the way on highway. Set cruise, set podcast, arrive at work in 20 minutes (+/- 5 minutes). Old home? 15 minutes but through a dozen intersections and several road merges and lane changes.

Much happier now.

EDIT: I should say that my first career job was about 2km from my home. I could choose to drive and battle 10 intersections and then the hell that was parking, or I walked. It took 15 minutes longer but it was consistent and smooth any day of the week, regardless of construction. Highly satisfied.

I feel like this is part of the story behind Lyft and Uber. They traded inconsistent timing and consistent pricing for consistent timing and inconsistent pricing. Certain people seem to like the better (I do).

I can always get a Lyft in a minute or two in a major city. I might pay slightly more for that at certain times of the day.

It's also about a third of the price of a cab when using UberX or Pool.

Speak for yourself. When I'm out on the road, top down, if I'm going over 70 I can drive for days. Ideally light traffic, roads with curves, and clear bright visibility. Figuring out how to pass the car in front of me is a puzzle that gives satisfaction when accomplished. Cut my speed down to under 35 in heavy traffic where I just have to trudge along with everyone else, where I have to shift between low gears a lot, or where I'm staring at headlights... man it just isn't fun.

(Side note, what's with all the super bright headlights in the last 2-3 years? I see about 20% of new cars with these ridiculously bright lights that just shred my eyes at night -- is it a change in the law or a change in the tech that's allowing these to become so prevalent? Feels like these people are driving cars with their high-beams on... and I can't help but think that the drivers are assholes for doing it.)

>. Cut my speed down to under 35 in heavy traffic where I just have to trudge along ...

I found this became easier to handle when I considered it a different kind of puzzle : how do I navigate that traffic without stopping or even using my brakes.

This usually involves increased following distance. Then I get to watch all the people who can't look past the gap in front of me rush in, realize this isn't helpful, punch their brakes , and switch back to a different lane. Endlessly entertaining!

Added benefit is that people behind you will start hanging back as you do (those not rushing around and failing to get ahead anyway)... Part of the puzzle is seeing how much of a smoothing effect you have on the traffic behind you.

I like where you're going trying to game it... but... I also like not relying on other people to make correct decisions when I drive. When I drive to pass them, I just have to work around them, that seems safe enough -- I'm not making them drive any different than they normally would. I can weave in and out of traffic, and they never have to hit their brakes or accelerate or change lanes to react to me. But... me trying to go as far as I can without using my brakes, that seems like it'd force others behind me to have to engage their brain and make more changes than they normally would... I don't really want to makes others have to think when driving. People are idiots. Duh, right? So me not wanting them to have to react to me is more for my safety than theirs.

An example... I drive a manual and there's a long slow hill with a stoplight near my house. I don't need to tap my brakes, I can just coast up it and come to a stop by the time I hit the light... but inevitably some idiot see me slowing down a half-mile before the yellow light and doesn't get why (see your comment about them not looking past the car in front of them). Anyway one day I was out driving and this idiot teenager in a massive SUV ran into me with like a 30 MPH difference. Totaled my car, and jacked up my back. Her claim, "I didn't see your brake lights, so I didn't know you were slowing down." (The things people say after an injury accident are pretty astounding -- why you should always get witnesses contact details as well as call a cop.) Of course the whole thing was ruled her fault, but 12 months of PT and years later my back still hurts from time to time. Also... wrecked a perfectly good Honda S2000. So now I just go as fast as I can right up to the light, like all the other lemmings, and mash my brakes when I get there. (=

Re: super-bright lights. I've been wondering the same thing. I think part of it comes from misconfigured Automatic High-Beams [0] (the sensitivity settings for which are user selectable; mine defaulted to nearly always-on when new despite what the manufacturer copy claims), while the rest are just flat out brighter. Now it's just a race to see who can install daylight-bright artificial suns as their headlights first.

I've never had the greatest night vision, so all the extra light is really bothersome. That, combined with my aging, computer-cooked eyes (that are slowly turning to ash), has led me to all but stop driving at night. The upside is I get to work a bit earlier. The downside: I now spend more time in traffic.

0: http://www.toyota-global.com/innovation/safety_technology/sa...

AHB... thanks. Now I have a name for the thing I hate. This plus LED lights... man what a bad combination for everyone else on the road. I just assumed "the damn kids" were driving rude, didn't realize it was crappy tech that wasn't set to turn the high-beams off correctly the way a human would when they saw an oncoming car.

I'm in the same boat as you man... I'm buying Visine by the gallon and just hoping that how dry my eyes get after seeing bright lights at night isn't some kind of warning sign I'll get eye cancer or need glasses soon... getting old is only slightly preferable to the alternative. (=

I really want to make a giant LED sign to put in my rear view window that says "adjust your headlights: they are blinding me :/" with a switch I can use to turn it on :(.

Just make it out of LEDs bright enough to get the point across.

Auto-dimming rear view mirrors are awesome. There're aftermarket options too. They're not cheap but may be worth it if you spend a lot of time driving in the dark in heavy traffic.

I can't stand my autodim mirror. It is always dimming too much and/or at the wrong time.

For a brief shining period I had an autodimming mirror which was right on, and I didn't even realize it at first. The car that replaced that car does not have this, and just the mirror itself is a ton of money so I'm bearing life without. Y'all are using your high beams on your lifted SUV's too much (I don't mean, YOU, you know what I mean).

Put a tape on it's rear sensor and it will dim less.

Do you drive a manual? To me there is nothing more satisfying than a spirited drive especially in a manual transmission car. And yes those new headlights are blinding. The fancier auto makers are making them self dimming to incoming traffic now thankfully.

See that blip for Rochester,NY with the top satisfaction and a high speed index? That's where I live and I can say it's the best driving city I've ever experienced.

An excellent balance of bandwidth and saturation and average distance, makes most drivers here really easy going and happy.

...unless your trying to get to East Ave Wegmans at 5:30 pm on a Friday :)

A game I used to play back in the day when I had to drive on the interstates was to maintain sufficient distance to the car in front of me so that anyone could trivially make lane changes, etc. The amazing side effect was that typically the cars behind me would start doing the same thing. It was mildly pleasurable.

I've entertained the idea on multiple occasions that there might be a way to introduce good actors which use traffic calming driving techniques onto the road with the purpose of helping to regulate the flow of traffic. This assumes that there is a way to influence traffic on a large scale by way of a few good drivers.

I've adopted this strategy as well. Anecdotal, but traffic seems "calmer" around me. Maybe that's just because I'm calmer. It also has a nice side effect of not "participating" in stop-and-go traffic and I don't have to clutch/shift as much in my manual transmission.

Full disclosure - generally I like to drive fast. I have a sporty car and do several track days per year. I just leave the fast driving to the track (and the mountains in certain cases).

Rochester is one of those northeastern cities that destroyed its own downtown neighborhoods for the sake of building a moat of highways around the city center. As a visitor, it was depressing how detached the city center was from anything, and how pedestrian-unfriendly and relatively dead the streets were, filled with large office buildings, surface parking lots, and not much else. It’s a “great driving city” because there’s more empty road space than anyone knows what to do with. Enormous waste of space, infrastructure money, and human potential.

The pictures from before the 1950s vs. after are stark. http://iqc.ou.edu/2015/01/21/60yrsnortheast/

That highway moat is currently in the processes of being filled back in: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/business/old-highway-pave...

This is a completely unsurprising result.

My happiness is strongly correlated with my commute time NOT the speed at which I'm driving.

We keep establishing the second part of human nature, for instance better insulation resulted in bigger homes, not energy savings[1]

[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/09/as-american-...

Speed alone is a useless factor if you don't take in consideration the conditions of the drive.

Taking hours in a comfortable train, with my laptop, a power socket and 4G is not the same as in the sub suck standing between to a fat sweating smelling dude and a crying baby.

It's not the same if I have an appointment or if I'm going to my holiday.

It's not the same if it's cold and raining or sunny with birds singing.

People don't just go fast for the sake of speed. It has a purpose.

So yeah, slowing down in life is a good advice. Chew and taste the food, exercice, take the time to read, stop to talk to your kids, etc.

But all lifes happen in a context.

The context is not the same when you have a shitty underpaid job with heavy commute in terrible conditions and 2 kids to drive to school, or, if you are like me, in the sunny south of france driving your cool-ass motorbike. Yeah I take my time, there. But I guaranty you, when I'm in the US traffic, I really don't want to take my time.

I'm definitely of the Mr. Money Mustache school of thought on commuting- there should be a fairly strong reason that you aren't dwelling in place from which you can bike to work.

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-c...

I love biking to work, but being able to do that consistently depends as much on the amenities at your office as it does on the distance from your work. Unless you live in Sacramento, or some other place with nearly perfect weather, you are either going to need a locker room and shower at work, or you will need to drive whenever it is snowing or raining.

That being said, my commute time has gone from 30 minutes a day to an hour a day as the areas in between where I work and where I live have become more popular. It's a large part of why I'm considering a new job. The commute to work isn't bad, about 20 minutes or so, but the commute home can be more than twice that. The added commute has definitely made me a less happy person in general, due to things like added stress, less free time, etc.

Edit: I live in Chicago, and looking at the data the only place that has a slower average speed is Miami. I think the higher than expected satisfaction is from the reasonably good public transit. I'd be much happier if my commute allowed me to easily take the L to work. I'd be interested in seeing individual results from within the city though. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a binomial distribution of some kind.

> or you will need to drive whenever it is snowing or raining.

I think you could bike every day, if you wanted to.

Fenders would keep dirty road water off you and a rain shell with rain pants would keep you dry. Or if it's warm you can wear shorts and change once you get to work.

If it's too snowy to safely bike, should you really be driving? And how much does it really snow anymore? This year Chicago had the first January without measurable snowfall in recorded history :(.

It's not about safety, it's about getting to work and being presentable. Riding a bike in snow takes an incredible amount of effort. Even if dressed in a manner which allowed me to stay dry and warm, I will arrive at work completely drenched with sweat.

Even if I have a change of clothes with me, I still need to wash myself, and find a place to stash my wet and smelly clothes I rode in on. Giving myself a sponge bath in the handicapped stall and hanging my sweaty clothes up to dry in the basement is not a winning idea.

Also, my car has winter tires, AWD, enough gas to run for 8 hours at idle, food, water, blankets, etc. I think that's a far safer thing to be in a snowstorm in. Not to mention the fact that cars are inherently stable, unlike bikes, so I can go as slow as I need to be safe without falling over. Plus, if someone else who is less patient hits me, I'm far more likely to be safe in a car.

Regardless, the biggest issue is the fact that physical exertion makes me sweat, doubly so when I am wearing weather-appropriate gear, and I don't have a shower at work.

You say

> It's not about safety

but then you present several arguments about how the car is safer.

I bike all year in a similar climate. Take a hot shower before you leave. It kills surface bacteria that produce odor. Change clothes when you get to work if you're really sweaty.

> the biggest issue is the fact that physical exertion makes me sweat

You specifically mentioned rain and snow before so that's what I addressed.

As you acclimate to the heat you'll sweat less. Also on a bike you naturally produce a breeze. With experience you can balance your effort and the cooling affect of the air to minimize how sweaty you get.

Most people drive to work and think that's fine and normal. I'm just saying what's stopping you from biking to work is not the weather but what you've decided to value.

This isn't an ideological argument. Cars are safer than bicycles in almost all circumstances. I sweat to the point where I need to shower after getting to work. If I don't shower after I sweat, my hair is a mess and I will have breakouts, despite being a grown man.

I ride my bike to and from work almost every day from April to October, 8 miles each way. I think I have enough experience to say the barriers to cycling more. Perhaps if my ride was 2 or 3 miles I'd probably be able to ride my bike at a leisurely pace, but at that point I could also walk.

I think the argument that you acclimate to the heat is baloney. I play pickup basketball in a gym without AC 5 days a week, and despite that and the bike riding I still sweat a lot. Some people sweat more than others. It is just a thing. There is one guy I play with who literally looks like he stood in the shower ten minutes after we start playing. Other people can play for an hour and look like they just stepped on the court.

Either way, it's still a bit ridiculous to claim that if I really cared I'd ride my bike to work come hell or high water. There have been days when I've been able to drive to work where winds have been high enough to shut down the train lines, and when I'd almost certainly be blown off my bike.

I disagree with the premise. Happiness with a transportation system does not correlate with the absolute speed you can go. Instead, I think it would correlate with "how many interesting/useful places can I reach with x effort". Most of the regions listed with fast transportation have things spread out much more.

If the grocery store is a mile away, and it takes 5 minutes to drive there it is equivalent to being a couple of blocks away and it taking 5 minutes to walk there. (This assumes walking and driving are equally as easy). Or likewise if I had to commute to work every day by car for 1 hour, it doesn't matter how fast the car moves. I lost 1 hour of my time and that hour is traded for transportation happiness.

I would argue that the faster regions have things spread out so far that it doesn't make up for the faster travel. I lived in both the Southern U.S. and now in San Francisco and I easily see this as being true. Travel by car in the south is MUCH faster than in SF, but it doesn't make up for way things are spread out.

That is the premise, and you agree with it?

"We have a strong hunch as to why traveling faster might not generate more satisfaction with the transportation system. Faster travel is often correlated with lower density, and longer travel distances to common destinations, such as workplaces, schools and stores."

I think the real issue is that it seems pretty obvious that people don't drive fast because it makes them happy to go fast. People drive fast because if they don't, it takes them longer to get where they're going.

Also, there's another reason I think people like to go fast. If you're stuck behind someone that's going slower than you've been going, you feel trapped and frustrated. It seems like this happens even if the person in front of you is only going a few MPH slower than you were.

Indeed, who ever thought that speed alone could matter? Time is the key. 2 km at 30 km/h is much better than 60 km at 120 km/h.

I don't know. I've been on slow systems (SJ VTA, for example) and they are irksome. Also bus lines in SF which take circuitous routes to get you somewhere --they are very frustrating and are reasons I've driven instead of ridden public transit many an occasion. The most frustrating part is you feel like you have no control over the situation. You know you are at the whim of the system and there is no wishing for skipping a stop or overtaking a slow motorist or cyclist.

I took the bus to work for several years. And I totally get what you are saying about not having control and getting frustrated. But to me the whole point of taking the public transport is to not have to worry about those things in the first place. Don't look at the traffic or how the driver is driving. Read a book, listen to an audio book, learn a new language, put on noise canceling head phones and do meditation - don't worry about how the traffic is or if the bus driver is slow. I did my entire Master's degree on the bus. Two hours of study time every day! After I got done with my Master's I studied tensor calculus on the bus because I wanted to understand general relativity. Nobody to disturb - no kids, no spouse. I don't take the bus anymore because I changed jobs and there is no public transportation available to the new destination. But I would happily take it again if there was one. Also walking to and from the bus/train stop is some physical exercise that otherwise I would not get.

I wish I could do all those things while standing. I do have to look at how the driver is driving to anticipate jerky movements if I want to keep my balance.

That's because the SJ VTA is a terribly-designed transit system trying to traverse a region built almost entirely built around automobile travel as opposed to walking :)

Ivan Illich told us this in the 70's, in "Energy and Equity"

http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/EnergyEquity/Energy...

Thanks for this link. Not done yet, but it's outstanding so far.

Transport speed increases the feasible size of a city. That size could be to fit more people in, or it could be bigger houses, or whatever; but it effectively creates room for some form of growth, just like a big tree needs a thick trunk.

This. My city is currently in sprawling mode (thanks to commie blocks occupying good spots). Most of the new development happens along the major highways. New quality roads increase development in said direction a lot.

Seems a bit interesting to just ignore the whole s=d/t relationship and go for the 2D graphs. Adding the extra variable and doing some nice 3D charts can only create more meaningful data and conclusions.

I disagree. I'm much happier on my R1. I get to 75mph much quicker too :D

Unfortunately, not everyone can ride a motorcycle or lives where the other motorists are friendly (or at least not-hostile) to motorcyclists. Many also consider it beyond their tolerance for risk.

I am really lucky to live where people are happy to accommodate motorcycles (cars make room for motorcycles to split lanes when we have slow moving traffic) and I use one to commute to work everyday. I do sincerely wish more people could share in the joy of riding a motorcycle :-)

However, I am aware that there are places where people are hostile to motorcycles. I just hope that some day things get better.

The noise of motorcycles is a problem when you live in cities. I'm afraid most city-dwellers would not be faborable of more motorcycle-friendly cities because of that.

Not all motorcycles are that loud, especially the smaller ones more suitable for getting around IN the city. In proper urban areas, scooters are more convenient anyway -- smaller, more maneuverable, automatic transmissions, and more storage.

What's bad is that there's no reason for motorcycles to be loud, with current technology. Car engines these days are whisper-quiet; the exact same could be done with motorcycles. But most motorcyclists (in the US) insist on being obnoxiously loud.

I'll bet Italian scooters aren't like this though.

And thats just 1st gear.

Sure there is risk, but that is inherent in anything that can hang with a bugatti. The reward is a perhaps shorter life you enjoy living.

You sir, deserve a medal

and 175mph... ;)

This is pretty obvious stuff. People have a limited tolerance for daily work commute of a max one hour each way, whether they're driving 70mph from one suburb to another, or walking from their village to the fields, or hunting and gathering in the woods.

Its not about average speed, its about absence of frusturation events, many just so happening to be backup of traffic, or delay in transport.

There's a metaphor for life in there somewhere

One trip in which it's the journey, not the destination.

it's depends how loud the engine is and if it's supposed to make that noise.

The daily HN dose of anti-car hysteria is here right on schedule. I can't help but think there's some deep-pocketed companies making sure that "autonomous cars are our only future!" and "there's no point in trying to get the government to spend money on roads!" are the standard refrains on this and other sites frequented by millenials.

What companies do you have in mind? I'm not aware of any organization that spends heavily on lobbyists and would stand to profit from more trains; train manufacturing is generally a small part of big conglomerates, like Siemens and GE. (This is the product of long, frustrated research on exactly that point.)

If it's self-driving cars you're thinking of instead of trains (and self-driving cars are a ludicrous solution, with all the drawbacks and none of the advantages of both cars and trains), they're a fad, and they sort of market themselves. When they fail to deliver in 5-10 years, we'll be free of that crap.

The majority of this sentiment is the millenial preference for living in cities like traditional civilized peoples, instead of out in plastic suburbs with no commerce except retail chains and no social activities except TV, Evangelical megachurches, and sportsball. Kunstler's Geography of Nowhere might be worth reading on this subject.

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