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Comment by johngalt | Hacker News Reader

Solving population problems with density + transit isn't exactly non-retro. Building trains and subways has been a thing for longer than interstate highway connected suburbs.

It's historically rare for people to accept a reduction in convenience, or quality of life. Even then it's only a reduction as a trade off for other improvements.

If we are talking about future mass transit, I'd expect it to look more like a larger version of Uber pool. Where a destination is entered into a smartphone, and transit mode selection is handled in the background. Something along the lines of smart buses combined with micro mobility.

The future of transit appears to be headed towards the smartphones and e-bikes, not the train station.

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That future cannot work. In dense areas there are too many people trying to get around and it leads to congestion just like individual cars do. Only mass transit can solve the problem. In less dense areas the wait for the car is too long as so you may as well have your own.

How are buses not mass transit?

They can be, but they need not be. An empty bus, or nearly empty bus is not mass transit. Mass transit needs to run fixed routes, which is the opposite of what on-demand call apps give you. On demand buses have the annoying property of wasting your time by going to pick up someone else who isn't even on the way. Thus you won't ride one unless nobody else does (not mass transit) or you have no other choice (again not mass transit)

And even bus based mass transit hits carrying capacity limits.

Bogotá’s bus rapid transit system, which is among the best designed in the world (train-like boarding platforms, all door entry, express and local “tracks”) is nearly impossible to use in rush hour because too many people are trying to use at once.

At that point the only thing that works is a subway or elevated train line

True, but in context of the question this doesn't matter: app based transit scales WORSE than individuals owning a car. Apps as a supplement for people who mostly use real mass transit can be useful, but it alone is worse than everybody driving their own car.

They are, but for much lower passenger volumes than trains or subways.

A bus rapid-transit line with all the bells-and-whistles like grade-separation (don't share any roads with cars), elevated platforms at every station for faster boarding, etc. can't handle more than about 3k passengers per hour[1]. A standard bus-line without that extra infrastructure, much less.

A subway line can handle 30k passengers per hour. You could build ten times as many bus lines on parallel roads, but it's probably going to cost more than the subway line and you are going to run out of space when you consider locations that have a subway station every quarter to half mile. Fitting ten bus lines in that space would be one every 150 feet or so.

[1] https://www.liveabout.com/passenger-capacity-of-transit-2798...

The context here is app based transit. A fix route bus stuck in traffic can handle 30x as many passengers as the same bus running an app based route. Add in the other features you name and the bus can get 10x more than the bus in transit. Then you can go to a train (subway or elevated) and get another 10x over that!.

Conclusion: app based transit isn't useful if you need to move masses. (Apps can be useful if there are a few rare trips that the otherwise good local system cannot handle)

For mass transit, a myriad of smartphones, e-bikes and smart buses seems like hell. Don't forget the "mass" part...

Can you elaborate? Why would that be hell?

It seems to me many (semi)individual vehicles are not a solution to mass transport, like trains are. Plus of course the traffic congestion potential of many vehicles.

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