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Comment by nwah1 | Hacker News Reader

I can understand why Romanians would be upset, feeling that they are "behind." Their roadways may feel crowded and unsafe, but if the roadways were improved that would just encourage much more traffic and congestion. And all the other attendant problems, like pollution, public debt burdens, private debt burdens, accidents, sprawl, atomization, and an ugly (sub)urban monoculture.

On the other hand, with enough vision and willpower their lack of roadways could be an opportunity to create a development model that is not so dependent upon car infrastructure. They could devise tax policies, zoning, and regulations that promote walkable communities. They could build out light rail, or Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) for intra-urban travel. And high speed rail for longer distances.

Cars aren't all they are cracked up to be. Don't just copy everyone else. Learn from their mistakes.

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If you cant gather political will to build roads, then you can imagine the immense obstacle it would be to bring high speed trains on the table. Consider that there is no country in the world that has good train network without having good road network. Its intertwined.

Solving the collective action problem is a universal issue that is much bigger than the roads issue, and I agree that this is the main issue. But, were it to be solved, that wouldn't necessarily mean going down the same path of every other nation.

Some modern societies, like Denmark, have moved towards a less car-centric model, and it has worked. And just because prior societies that have developed high speed rail have done so after developing cars, that doesn't mean everyone else must do so in that order.

The concept of leapfrog development is that developing nations can save all the expense and trouble of intermediate solutions and skip right to the good solutions.

Cars are a failed god.

Denmark has good roads throughout the country.

To use your example: Denmark is not really a huge country, Romania has 5 times the surface area and ~4 times as many people, not to mention the huge economic difference between the two. It's much easier to focus less on cars and build high speed rail when you are a smaller and richer country.

> Cars are a failed god.

This is a hyperbole, people still want to own cars and have the comfort of leaving home whenever they wish and going directly wherever they want to go instead of exchanging buses and trains as well as waiting in between these in order to get from one place to the other.

Specifically for Romania, though I'm sure this is true in other places as well, public transportation inside cities needs to be nailed down before looking at things like high speed rail systems - companies have an interest in their employees getting to work on time, the state would spend less on healthcare if the cities were less polluted, and people would rather wake up a bit later in the morning.

I believe that in the future we'll still see roads being developed alongside rail and high speed rail or other solutions, regardless of how many people think roads are a failing concept.

Have you ever set foot in Romania?

No. My comments were a general statement regarding the undesirability of car culture, and the uninspirational nature of visions which seek to expand it.

There are many other possible ways to achieve a modern, prosperous society. One of my favorite ideas is Personal Rapid Transit, but there's plenty of other possible options.

Say what you will about Elon Musk's hyperloop idea, but at least it is trying to think outside of that box.

If they haven't bread, let them eat cake! Try looking at a map of Romania with its thousands of outlying small towns and villages and then tell us about these 'many other possible ways'. Incidentally you've evidently no idea of the subsistence level poverty that exists across this country. Meanwhile every Romanian I meet tells me there are a bunch of self-serving crooks (their words not mine) running the show in Bucharest.

Salut, sunt din Romania si nu sunt un fan al masinilor si a culturi de masini. Nu cred ca saracia este un effect al lipsei de infrastrucutra, mai degraba este un efect provocat de un sistem scolar pe care eu il consider invechit si creat predominant, pentru a crea drone.

These new ideas may be great in places where essential infrastructure is ok, but in Romania where missing this essential infrastructure. As an example I could tell you my case: I live in Italy, north of, and to go from here to my hometown in Bacau, for holidays, the trip (by car) from Arad (the city on the border) to Bacau takes almost as much as the trip from Italy to Arad. Plus the Romanian side of the trip (on the main routes, "E" roads) passes through a lot of cities and small town with high risks for the locals and the ones in the car. Having a decent motorway would allow to reduce traffic in these towns and reducing car air/sound pollution in these communities. Train routes alternatives don't even exist or are takes too long. Airplane options are very expensive (for a family of 4) considering that in the holiday season prices can become very high.

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