Comment by cameronh90 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cameronh90 | Hacker News Reader

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Almost everything you're saying is a symptom of poor investment in public transport. I have no doubt that the car works better for your commute, as is the case for millions of other people. Unfortunately, stick millions of cars on the road and you have a huge bottleneck for growing the commuter belt, which means only houses in a relatively small area are useful, and they get extremely expensive.

Historically, and in some countries still, we solved this problem by identifying when it was happening and creating new public transport lines for faster commutes and people living further out. In the UK, we even developed whole "New Towns", upgraded their transport, amenities and infrastructure specifically to support shuttling a greater number of people into London. They weren't particularly inspiring towns, and we still make fun of them nearly a century later - but it worked. Even today, it's far quicker to take the train into London from those towns than it is to drive, as is the case for pretty much all suburb to central commuting here.

There are still lots of situations where a car will be better (I have one too, in London), but if we can get people out of their cars for their commutes, that frees cities up to expand and useful houses will become more affordable. Driving to the tip or mall is much less of a problem.

Regarding the violence and antisocial behaviour, that's really a problem of policing and allocation of funding. It needn't be that way and it doesn't happen to nearly the same extent in the UK and I put that down at least partially to the excellent British Transport Police. Apparently it used to be violent and dangerous in the 80s but we turned it around. Now the train stations are mostly far safer than the surrounding environs. If I was ever being harassed or attacked, I would run towards the station as there would most likely be someone to help me there. Living within a few minutes of a train station also significantly increases your property value here, provided you're not so close that it rattles your bed...

Antisocial behavior on public transit isn’t just a matter of policing and funding.

It’s also a matter of civil liberties.

In California, people have a constitutional right to defecate on the streets.

In was once in a San Francisco bus and watched a young woman of West Asian descent break down in tears because a homeless man was calling her a “sand n***”.

She screamed back at him the Trump was going to put him in a concentration camp. He made some comments about the Muslim faith, and she told she was going to pray he’d die a horrible death.

Some more words were exchanged about Trumps policies towards Muslims and the homeless.

She got off early and walked the rest of the way.

This is all 100% constitutionally protected, or at least, under the policies of subsequent DAs (including Kamala Harris) officially tolerated.

It also makes public transportation unusable.

I think that's just a think that happens where people are, and the more people you run into in your travels, the higher the likelihood that you'll run into them.

Public transit is one of the few public spaces we have left, ironically. Perhaps especially so post-Covid. I think that it's worth the investments necessary to make it usable. You can't blame public transit for the lack of effectiveness of homeless programs, and some folks are homeless by choice. It's a fraught situation, and that's why folks choose cars a lot of the time. It's more convenient for them and I guess I don't fault folks for that, but the built environment shows a lot of deference for cars in many metro areas, and that doesn't help with the traffic issues, or with zoning issues, or with housing affordability.

Yet, if you improve those other issues, then property values will probably just go up even higher than they already are, but at least that money will benefit more than just the buyer and the seller; it will benefit the entire community.

It isn’t just a funding issue. In most countries what I described would be illegal.

In America it’s protected.

We have a jurisprudence that allows Neo-Nazis to March through Jewish neighborhoods.

Our public sphere is extremely permissive. So permissive that avoiding the public sphere is necessary to avoid anti-social behavior.

Without that kind of protection usually some group gains power and becomes the only protected group. Neo-Nazis are an indication that even the most socially unacceptable groups still have a voice. They should be considered a canary and a good thing to see occasionally. I wouldn't want to live in a country where they were censored and if you feel so strongly about it I would suggest moving somewhere else (Germany censors Nazis pretty aggressively for example.)

For example: You're upset that Nazis marched through a Jewish neighborhood. Are you upset about the violent BLM protestors marching through White neighborhoods? I would guess not but there's little difference between the two.

I've moved to places to see if I thought the changes improved things, you learn a lot about yourself and the world by doing that.

I’m a civil libertarian. Hideous though it may be, Nazis should be allowed to march through Jewish neighborhoods.

But that’s different from Nazis going around on a subway screaming racial insults at passengers.

For many passengers that would make the subway unusable.

Remember this thread is ultimately about “why public transit is better than people having cars.”

Antisocial behavior is a disadvantage of public transit, and in some cases makes it unusable.

I think keeping this conversation focused around public transit is a good idea.

Are you sure you’re an ex-fascist?

> Regarding the violence and antisocial behaviour, that's really a problem of policing and allocation of funding.

Japan has one of the lowest crime rates in the world with heavy investment in public transportation & policing, and yet they still have issues with sexual harassment and sexual assault on their trains. It’s a hard problem to fix related to population density.

Are you aware that many Tokyo train lines have women-only cars during rush hour? I think they started in the 1990s and have greatly improved the situation for women in Tokyo.

That makes things even worse. If a women can't fit in that car and goes into a normal car, there are POS who can now justify sexually assaulting them. Cracking down on the crime and publicly humiliating the perpetrators would be far better for society.

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