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Comment by jlebrech | Hacker News Reader

this is where public transport needs more funding.

public transport is never going to let you go where and when you need to go unless you live in very dense cities. So no, thats not a solution.

The story is about the UK and there are plenty of rural areas in the UK with good public transport: I live in one such and don't own a car.

You just did the software debugging equivalent of saying "it works for me" :)

That's a legitimate response when someone says "this doesn't work and could never possibly work".

I live in Devon in the middle of nowhere and the public transportation is excellent. I also don't drive, and I have no trouble getting where I need to be.

Ehh, no, "it works where I am and it could work where you are" isn't "works for me" - it's pointing out that areas with shitty public transport don't have to have shitty public transport, that's just the obvious result of bus deregulation and a lack of relevant subsidies on the part of local Government.

Lucky you. We lost one of our major bus providers in Cornwall a few years back and public transport has been shite ever since.

I literally cannot take public transport to and from work, it's that bad.

and even when there is public transport it does not work at night so it becomes a mess quickly if you enjoy going out.

I lived in the UK until I was 28 and never had a car. I lived mostly in small towns and the country, never had a car, wasn't a problem.

The UK has a reasonably good public transport network though it's horribly over-priced since privatisation, especially trains.

try doing the school run with 2+ differently aged kids

try getting stuff back from ikea with kids

what about plumbers and tradespeople

sure you can rent a car but then you are talking £££

just because it worked for you does not mean everyone else could follow suit

I'm not trying to talk for anyone else, just giving my experience. I now live in Barcelona and have a 4 year old son. Most of the furniture in our flat is from Ikea. So while a car would certainly make things easier at times, it's not essential in many cases. Depends where you live of course. In the country with kids would be a lot less manageable I agree.

As wrote above, it depends on the culture.

I can tell you for certain that kids and ikea can be handled, and are handled, without the need for a car, where the culture supports it.

Plumbers and tradespeople (and who else) are a small part of the population. That is not representative, especially considering that nobody's talking about banning cars completely.

I don't doubt that in a city without good public transport and bike support the activies above are practically impossible.

Ultimately, it depends on the direction a given culture wants to point to.

sure you can rent a car but then you are talking £££

Owning a car costs, and not little. So very general statement like this don't make much sense.

indeed a car costs money so you can be sure that when most people have one it means they really need it and that its not for show.

I live in a town in Germany, with two kids and no car. Zero problems. If I order furniture online (or even in my town), a truck delivers it to the doorstep.

It does seem like many germans live wiThout cars. I lIved in Germany before and everyone I knew aroUnd me, in a small town, had a car and really needed one.

In smaller towns and villages, certainly. I live in the city, and most friends who live in the same city don't have a car. I don't even have a driver's license. If I need a car (to buy furniture or to bring something to the recycling depot), I ask a friend to rent a car for two hours at my expense.

20 years from now self owned cars will be a rarity. I live in Singapore where the government has always been very anti car ownership and all its policies including great public transport didn't have as much effect as allowing grab and Uber did to bring down the car population in the last 2 years.

Yeah pal try that in the US.

Public transit is straight up impossible in many, many areas because few places offer transit that’s actually good enough for never using cars... Good luck reliably getting an Uber in Hicksville, SC or anywhere that’s rural.

Singapore was already full of super cheap Taxis well before Uber.

The price was cheap but normal taxi service was not convenient or good enough. Grab and Uber have changed that it is not just about the price but the convenience which was my main point.

Before the 1960s and the Beeching Cuts, it was fairly easy to get everywhere in the UK — tiny villages included — by rail. I live in tiny village in Devon with a population of 250 people. It had a train station until the 60s. Today, my village has excellent bus service: two or three buses an hour into the nearest large cities and towns. That's likely because it's a big draw for tourists and hikers, and the roads around here aren't designed for lots of cars (many of them are too narrow for more than one vehicle at a time), but it's certainly possible.

If the government had the will to invest in infrastructure, public transport is a reasonable option in the UK.

This statement is incorrect, if posed in the general form, as a distinction needs to be made between cultures where public transport is core (eg. some parts of Europe), or individual transport is (eg. some parts of USA).

I don't doubt that in the latter it's hard to live without a car, but in the former, you can definitely live without it, and use other means for the exceptional cases.

It's very much "yes, and" here: much of the UK needs better public transport anyway, especially local buses. Something like half the population lives or works in dense cities or towns - most UK city and town cores are on dense medieval street plans.

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