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Comment by matsemann | Hacker News Reader

I think this problem is bigger in many US cities compared to Europe, because of the urban sprawl. There is almost no way to make it efficient to go from most people's houses to the city using public transport, since the area to cover is so great.

To me, the solution is to re-think why everyone needs to go somewhere by car to get anything done. Why not have a grocery store closer? Some restaurants? Everyone having to travel from their house to the city centre to do basically anything is so wasteful. Most of this is because of zoning laws.

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I live in Denmark, have pretty much ideal public transport for my work (one bus, very little walking on either end) and it still takes about twice as long.

Which would be fine, except when you bring this up lots of people start talking about how to make cars take more time, or making public transport free.

Neither of which solves the problem.

I probably would be more willing to take the bus if wasn't also less comfy than my car. Not only does my car have better seats than the bus, but I am guaranteed one.

But why does the bus take twice as long? Because it's stuck in traffic, take a different route, too many stops?

I do think the best way of course is to make public transport a viable option by itself. But it's hard to do without actually limiting the use of cars as well. It's a chicken-and-hen problem, as long as too many rely on cars, it's hard to have a very good public transport. For instance because of what I mentioned, people choosing places to live based on cars making it hard to cover with public transport.

Also, disincentivise car usage makes the city much better for those living there. I hate that people outside the city drive to work every day. Those cars are loud, takes so much space (which could've been cozy instead of asphalt), are a danger to kids, pedestrians, cyclists etc, pollutes the local air.

> Not only does my car have better seats than the bus, but I am guaranteed one

at the expenses of everybody else.

there is nothing more wasteful than turning up a very heavy, powerful and polluting machine to transport a single non disabled human for a few kms.

anyway, your seat would be guaranteed also on a bike, a moped, a horse, a donkey, a 20 tons truck, a bulldozer and an helicopter. Doesn't mean they are all equally good options. Doesn't mean city planning should consider the comfort of your bum a priority.

Well we are simply going to have to disagree on that on and then I will be quite happy to move elsewhere if the place I live isn’t willing to take my concerns as a sufficient priority.

> I will be quite happy to move elsewhere if the place I live isn’t willing to take my concerns as a sufficient priority.

that's your prerogative.

But until public transport is financed through taxes paid by the population (in Denmark that's particularly true, given the rate of taxation) the priority must be the public interest, not your personal one.

Like I said we are simply going to have disagree.

Yes but people seem to have this backwards. Denmark and Netherlands are actually one of the best countries in the world to drive a car, because so much of other traffic has been shifted away from roads. Even in large cities, people are surprised that you can drive somewhere within few minutes and there usually is parking - it's specifically because all the other infrastructure is so good that people are incentivised to cycle, take a bus or a train - so there's fewer people on the road.

So from that perspective - yeah, of course driving is going to be faster for you than public transport.

I also suspect a lot of people who argue to completely replace cars with public transit either haven't tried traveling with young children on public transit, or haven't had the luxury of using a car when traveling with young children. Because taking young children on public transit is pretty miserable.

What about a cargo bike? Looks a hundred times smoother those doing that here, compared to a car.

> lots of people start talking about how to make cars take more time

Why is this Harrison Bergeron-style "solution" to things so common these days? "A lot of people choose X over Y, but we want more people to choose Y over X instead. Make Y better? Unthinkable! Let's make X worse instead!"

Because it’s easier to make things worse than it is to make them better.

The first example they give is NYC, showing cars being almost twice as fast as the train. NYC is denser than most European capitals.

Train stations in NYC are much less dense than (for example my own city) Paris subway network.

New-York subway network is impressive for its sprawl, but not really for its efficiency.

The New York metro area is much larger than NYC and includes suburbs and smaller cities in Long Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

Wouldn't those also be taken into account for the drivers side of the comparison?

Yes, but someone from Long Island or Connecticut who works in Manhattan is unlikely to drive, while someone from those areas who works one town over will almost certainly drive. That will definitely skew these numbers if they don’t adjust for it

Zoning laws and more importantly NIMBYs. I used to live in a city that's currently being taken to court after they cancelled the construction permits for mixed use buildings because a few very vocal citizens didn't want to live next to 4+ floor buildings and managed to get elected to the city council.

For a while I lived in an area in th US where I had a grocery store, a library, and several grocery stores within a mile. But my commute was 10 minutes by car, and almost an hour by bus. And the buses took a pretty direct route and there was a bus stop pretty close to my home. Part of it was just all the stops the bus made, and a big part of it was just waiting. The bus times weren't very reliable, so I had to show up pretty early, because if I missed the bus I would have to wait an hour for the next bus. And the bus just stopped and waited 20 minutes for a light rail to get there. And depending on the day, I might have to switch buses there.

And half a mile is still a long ways to carry groceries, especially in the heat or cold. But taking the bus required timing how long you shop so you are done in time to catch the bus that only comes once an hour.

And that doesn't even get into the hours the bus didn't run, or the inconvenience of having to carry all your groceries.

So while I think having such amenities closer to where people live, would be good, and would help. I don't think it is sufficient to solve the problems with public transit being slower.

Your idea is actually how car-dependent cities are laid out. Look at a map of Phoenix for a textbook example: the city is laid out on a square mile grid with retail/offices on the grid corners. People may drive to go shopping, but that's a choice, they could walk there (if they want to brave the heat) since for most of the city the nearest shopping area is less than a mile (1.6 km) away.

Absolutely. It’s completely a consequence of the _choice_ to employ exclusionary zoning.

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