Hacker News Reader

Comment by distances | Hacker News Reader

I disagree. Europe has many countries with at least the same wish for personal space as the US, and public transport works just fine. I'd suspect a big reason is the car-centric culture, which also gives rise to the image of public transport being only for those who can't afford a car. It's a cultural problem that'll be hard to straighten.

View on HN

> Europe has many countries with at least the same wish for personal space as the US

Maybe this is me being ethnocentric, but it seems the American way of embracing diversity (through political correctness, affirmative action, etc) has come at the cost of craving for isolation and independence from each other.

The loudest voices I hear against big city life and cultural diversity come from those who have little experience with either. They don't need to try Green Eggs and Ham to know they don't like it.

That's hilarious. Affirmative action created a car culture, not the fact that cars came around when America infrastructure was bring created or that people live far away from where they work. I get it though, you personally crave not being around minorities.

You think people in Iowa are driving because of the huge amounts of minorities?

I don't think those policies have anything to do with how close people want to stand to each other in a subway. Americans simply like space and tend to have a lot of it.

Try any "excellent" public transportation system during commute hours. The lack of personal space isn't misperception. Systems are explicitly planned to have standees, and lots of them, in close quarters. We've gotten acclimated to something much more comfortable, and we get to vote.

It's not clear how public transit advocates will convince us to vote to downgrade our lives. Maybe the bicyclists and pedestrians in cities will be able to block suburban drivers from entering.

OK, but that's like saying "nobody goes to Times Square anymore. It's too crowded".

If there was more public transportation, the problems you bring up about personal space would go away.

The problem stated here isn't "public transit has insufficient ridership," it's "some people don't want to use public transit."

When the problem you're trying to solve is "some people aren't in Times Square right now," you might need to engage with the fact that it's crowded.

More public transportation, sure, and I'll vote for it every time.

Less car infrastructure, and there is no pressure for public transportation to be comfortable or effective because the only way to opt out of it is to move away.

I will gladly vote for trains because it takes people off the roads and reduces traffic which makes it easier for me to drive to and from work.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com