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Comment by bergenty | Hacker News Reader

Yes, as a hyper individualistic American fuck public transport. I don’t want to travel with other people, I don’t want to live in dense cities and I don’t want to go to like the 10 places with public transport. I love national parks, camping, hiking, road-tripping etc.

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I also like the benefits of invidualistic cultures, but there's a cost to it too.

The US got this way because it was super-charged between pre-WWII and the dotcom boom. Both economically and culturally. The post-WWII high wages allowed the rise of suburbia, the Cold War induced WW3 scare led to the highway system, and so on.

The low-efficiency of it is taking its toll. (Sitting in traffic for hours each day, pollution, etc.)

Traffic is usually only a problem in major cities and that’s about the only good usecase for public transport. I don’t want to lose the amazing infrastructure we have for cars everywhere that isn’t a major urban center.

Traffic is one thing. Low-density sprawl itself is more costly. (More roads to maintain, more poles along roadsides, more distance to drive, more pipes, more wiring, every SFH is a big box with a lot more surface where heat exchange happens (and then folks want to keep it warm/cool), every backyard is one more sad lifeless walled garden to water and mow. It adds up.)

And I'm not saying there are no benefits, nor am I saying that the alternatives are so perfect people just somehow don't see it. (I'm saying let's quantify the costs and let people choose. For example I'd spend a lot more on soundproofing and a lot less on backyards and frown lawns, but mostly there's no such option. [Hence the big push for more permissive zoning/permitting/etc.])

You can have both. You can have fewer cars and excellent public transportation.

I rather have a full fledged car infrastructure and excellent public transport.

You can't have both like that. Cars will need to lose priority to make public transit usable.

Car infrastructure spreads everything out, puts parking lots everywhere, makes walking or cycling impossible or really unpleasant. You can't have working public transit if visiting two businesses requires walking 10 minutes along a loud boulevard.

America has tried cars-first infrastructure. It has failed. The spread is unsustainable, and it's bankrupting suburban areas.

Here is an idea. You can have a 'full fledged car infrastructure' with about 1/5 of the car infrastructure you ALREADY HAVE. In fact, there is already way to much car infrastructure, far more then anybody can maintain. Most town in the US and the highway system have maintenance backlogs that will literally never be cleared.

Here is an idea, build public transports so that less people use the car infrastructure, and just like that you get higher utility out of your existing car infrastructure.

Seriously, the amount of 8 way stroads in the US is a fucking joke. There is essentially never a need for an 8 way road anywhere at any time. And for sure not absurd 20 way highways.

Then stay out of the cities, and live in the country. If this is how you want to live, then your opinion doesn't matter for how cities are run.

Is this a parody?

No, I gave reasons for my preference.

You do understand that sprawl and suburbia (and car infrastructure) takes away from nature, not adds to it, right? We have paved over a huge portion of the country and that beautiful nature you so claim to enjoy.

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