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Comment by yazr | Hacker News Reader

Lots of truths in the article.

BUT

Trains is always a system that picks winners & losers. The closer u r to the nearest station - the bigger winner u r.

I lived in London. Any location not within 1km of a station is basically a prison. Even if u have a car, you cant go anywhere (since no parking), and no one will come to you.

This is a particular problem when you adding trains (and impeding car) in an existing city.

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As someone living in London this is absolutely not the case for me. Mutli-mode transport is very easy in the era of Citymapper, I find myself on buses quite often; areas further from tube stations tend to have better bus services to compensate. Literally nobody I know has a car. Many own bikes and use them almost to the exclusion of public transport.

Is it less convenient to live further from a tube station? Sure! Is it a prison? Absolutely not.

Weird, so all the people taking the bus in London to and from stations must be hallucinating while they’re trapped in their prisons?

A train+bus is a much higher threshold for many people.

Will you go to a lawyer that requires a bus+train? A restaurant? A party u r not too sure about ?

Trains are relatively dependable. The last mile is a big problem.

(To be clear : i am pro public transport. I have a bike and ebike which i love, and car i hate.)

Yes, millions of people do every single day in London and other cities across the UK.

Not sure where you're going? Citymapper will route across both tube and bus, it'll even tell you exactly when you get off.

You pay using a contactless card, apple pay or similar, it works.

> Will you go to a lawyer that requires a bus+train? A restaurant? A party u r not too sure about ?

I live in Madrid, which has only a decent public transport system, not a great one like Tokyo, and I would absolutely do all those things you mention. Those thresholds only exist if your public transportation system is really bad.

I'm a zone 4-6 dweller of 40+ years and don't recognise this characterisation, I'm afraid. Three years ago Diamond Geezer published a map of all the places in London's boroughs which are more than 1 mile (yes, not km, but bear with it) from the nearest station, so you can see the "prisons" here: http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2015/07/over-one-mile.html

I agree, trains are not enough to replace cars, you need much more variety. Buses are typical, but still problematic if you're pushing for small streets and pedestrian areas. Bicycles are an obvious addendum, but still not enough to cover all needs. But the evolution of personal, small-scale, lower-pollution vehicles is happening at a good pace, and I'm confident we'll have good alternatives.

Your point stands, though; a city can't think of replacing cars with a train and calling it done. Cars pack a tremendous combination of flexibility, speed, weatherproofing, isolation, etc that no other method of transport can rival by itself.

Your argument is solid, and I can identify with it. But you'd find a better audience if you typed "you are" than "u r".

Isn't it possible to rent a bike at the station?

Yup, apps like CityMapper will even provide direction based on a Train and Bike hire route.

In Japan, suburb where train stations get more sparse is served by sprawling bus routes. Each suburban stations have at least 3-4 bus stops going to various destinations. And parking is plenty in suburb, but a lot of time it's less hassle and faster to use train.

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