Hacker News Reader

Comment by rightbyte | Hacker News Reader

What you are describing is essentially railway system.

It’s almost as if we should invest in public transportation and try to reduce cars rather than make a train car for each individual!

But for people, in the same way as for parcels, power, cable, fiber-optic, there's the last mile problem. Europe has almost solved it with high speed trains and efficient city transit. Then, it solves nothing for all those folks living in rural areas and having to drive f-150s.

> Then, it solves nothing for all those folks living in rural areas and having to drive f-150s.

Fortunately thats not a lot of people.

When electricity was being rolled out, Westinghouse and Edison didn’t bellyache about not being able to provide electricity to rural areas. They electrified all the cities.

Rural areas will just never be able to pay for modern infrastructure. And… thats ok, its not a lot of people.

Perhaps the urban areas should grow their own food?

I think the point was that in rural areas they'll still use cars or something, because it's way more efficient for the low density there. In cities, you would switch away from cars as much as possible. I don't think the commenter meant we'd "abandon the hicks" or something rude like that; the rural folks who farm and do other important jobs are a crucial part of our society for sure.

I’m going to guess you don’t live in Europe? Plenty of cars here.

But it is solving the last-mile problem

Reply on news.ycombinator.com