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Your first point seems to be something that our local leaders still are not taking seriously enough. If I have to listen to or read warnings all around me to "keep my eyes up and my phone down", I am not going to get a strong vibe of "I am safe and this is a nice time I am having".

I would add to #2, "Get them within a 5 minute walk without it taking twice as long". I am ok if public transit takes me up to 50% longer. But many trips are 1.5 to 2x as long when including transfers, and it's not cheap! Sometimes I have to pay multiple transit agencies to get to where I want to go.

> Your first point seems to be something that our local leaders still are not taking seriously enough. If I have to listen to or read warnings all around me to "keep my eyes up and my phone down", I am not going to get a strong vibe of "I am safe and this is a nice time I am having".

This is a difference between perception and objective reality. Public officials began this campaign of "educating" people about the "dangers" of public transit years ago, coincidentally right when crime was at its all-time historical low. The perception that the subway is unsafe was not actually grounded in any objective facts, but rather a response to the feedback loop generated between the media and public officials.

> If I have to listen to or read warnings all around me to "keep my eyes up and my phone down", I am not going to get a strong vibe of "I am safe and this is a nice time I am having".

Exactly why I prefer public transport over cars. Driving is just lost time to me.

I see plenty of people on their phones while driving too, it doesn't seem to stop them. I also do it occasionally, though I try to do better and just use it to check traffic maps while stopped at a light.

The point of the article is that the per-mile cost of cars is actually much higher than you think if you include the externalities.

Autonomous cars that work as you describe are not anywhere close to being ready. And I don't think the math works if they're a replacement for mass transit.

Depending on how you do the accounting, some folks feel the cost of a _user mile_ is much higher in public transit, largely because of low utilization. Perennially people say it will get better as more use it, but It's a hard chicken/egg issue to only do the highest demand routes, but folks wont use it unless they can get their _entire_ needs covered.

I'm not sure about that, but even if true: public transit can scale up to support a whole city using current technology. Driving can't.

I suppose the current technology bit does restrict things massively. But I will say that there are a ton of options to optimized the current single occupant vehicle model.

Self Driving can do a lot of things that increase the efficiency of roadways.

Eg: If everyone's vehicle went to a fixed 10mph idle speed as soon as the light turned green we'd get far more vehicles through a light rather than cascading 1-2 second reaction times to the next vehicle's brake lights (and much more if the person is on their phone, which is increasingly common) .

Eg2: Self driving cars could drive much closer to eachother, and actually pre-communicate intent to brake giving the effect of negative reaction time. (relative to humans)

A good public transit system hits all of these marks. Hell, even a shitshow like the NYC subway ticks most or all of the boxes, and it's faster than taking a car too. Admittedly, it's not perfect on point 1, but it's still waaaay safer than driving. Americans grossly underestimate how dangerous driving is.

> it's still waaaay safer than driving. Americans grossly underestimate how dangerous driving is.

I think this is part of why the parent poster used the term "psychological safety". The thing about driving is that you are individually in control, you can choose how you drive and that greatly affects the safety of driving. While public transport may be statistically safer, for some people the lack of control increases the feeling of lack of safety. I am one of those people actually. I've been driving for more than 20 years, I've had several accidents, all of which occurred while my vehicle was fully stopped and I was rear-ended by someone not paying attention, some while my car was parked and I wasn't even in it. I've had zero injuries from driving, and I have an impeccably maintained fleet of vehicles and have extensive driving training (I hold a competition racing license, have driven many different types of vehicles, and have done executive protection/pursuit driving training). I feel significantly safer in a vehicle I own, maintain, and control (including my reactions to others) than I do being exposed trapped in a box with random other people, many of whom are dangerous, without any significant recourse. The only way I'd ever take public transport every day is if self-defense were strongly legally protected and I could be armed at all times, because there are too many crazy people out there that will kill you for looking at them accidentally, or for not dropping a dollar in their hat when they're busking, or whatever other reason they contrive in their delusional minds for why they should harm a random person they don't even know.

Statistically I might be safer taking public transport, but in a car I never have to expose myself to random crazies without an escape strategy, and I can choose how I react to other drivers to prevent accidents (I have avoided MANY MANY MANY accidents in my life due to my awareness and superior driving skills).

I think your perspective is pretty common among Americans but your argument undercuts itself when you point out that for as good a driver as you are, you've been involved in multiple accidents outside of your control. The insulating environment of a car gives you the illusion of total control, but all the race training in the world can't help you if a drunk driver swerves into your lane just a little too quickly to react to. Even the best drivers in the world can only mitigate risk on public roads, not eliminate it. I'll cynically point out that you can mitigate that risk on public transit too.

I feel for the psychological safety aspect, I really do. There are some cities in the US where the public transit system gets underutilized and hosts more bad behavior. From personal experience, MARTA seems rough after COVID, and psychological safety rightfully becomes a huge factor in avoiding the public transit system. But your second to last sentence is pure hysteria. If you feel that unsafe in Boston or NYC, I'd advise you to drive armed too, because you could experience trouble from a "random crazy" with road rage.

> I'd advise you to drive armed too, because you could experience trouble from a "random crazy" with road rage.

Agreed, and I do drive armed. I conceal carry every time I leave my house. So far I've only ever experienced one road rage incident in more than 20 years of driving, and it was able to be resolved without needing to use a weapon in self-defense. Unfortunately there's crazy people with self-control issues everywhere.

Generally speaking we have a problem in America that there are a lot of potentially violent mentally-unsound people roaming around, we have no cohesive plan to get these people treatment/help/medication, and in most major cities you will be penalized for defending yourself so you have little recourse if someone decides to attack you. Solving this problem will likely solve many other social problems, but there seems to be little political will to try to solve this problem.

+1

As a former Canadian I often tell people that Canada's gun safety starts with a well funded social safety net.

It's not just that people "cant" (legally) get guns as easily. It's that they dont want to do terrible things with them.

As a current Canadian the only people safe here are the one's making the decision to destroy safety for everyone else. And if you don't take part you must be an 'ist' of some sort.

> Generally speaking we have a problem in America that there are a lot of potentially violent mentally-unsound people roaming around, we have no cohesive plan to get these people treatment/help/medication, and in most major cities you will be penalized for defending yourself so you have little recourse if someone decides to attack you.

Woof, I think this right here is the thing that we'll never get beyond. I get that when we talk about psychological safety for this, it's hard to point at numbers because people don't make measured judgments about numbers... But when you make a claim like that, I think it deserves some numbers to be more than just fear mongering.

> world can't help you if a drunk driver

While yes, we will need to account for this while driving. I do wonder if this takes us way to far from the root. People drive drunk so we need busses to be safe? Sometimes attribution is key and in this case I think we need to allow drunk driving's cause of death be "alcohol industry" and not "driving".

This leads into my argument that if we need gun more control in this country it's only logical we also need more direly Food control and Alcohol control (both obesity and drunkenness harm far far more people than guns)

I went to NYC for work, and the transit system absolutely did not hit all the marks. I had to get to the Jacob Javits conference center, and ended up walking a couple of miles through just-shy-of-sketchy neighborhoods because the single bus was out of service.

Every place I needed to go to was over 5m walk away.

And point 1 - psychological safety? As far from it as possible.

And frankly, 1.3 deaths per 100M miles driven is not that dangerous. 40k per year in a country of 300M is not a lot of folks. Obesity likely kills significantly more.

> I went to NYC for work, and the transit system absolutely did not hit all the marks. I had to get to the Jacob Javits conference center, and ended up walking a couple of miles through just-shy-of-sketchy neighborhoods because the single bus was out of service.

When? The 7 has run directly to the Javits center for nearly ten years now.

> a couple of miles through just-shy-of-sketchy neighborhoods

This is a common issue for people who visit NYC. It's funadmentally an issue of perception, which makes it hard to address because it's inherently subjective, not rooted in objective facts. To get to the Javits center from the subway, you would have had to walk through the Theater District, Hell's Kitchen, and/or Chelsea. These are some of the wealthiest, most developed, and safest areas in the country. While you may personally perceive it as "just-shy-of-sketchy", that's fundamentally a perception issue: your expectations aren't calibrated in a way that aligns with the actual safety profile of the areas that you're visiting.

Ok well you could have taken a 7 train or one of the many trains that stop on 34th st or Times square and had a walk of less than a mile. The subway system is pretty good and I don't find a 5 minute walk to be that inconvenient. I am happy to not have to think about a car.

In a way, thank you for highlighting how opaque NY's public transportation is. 7 train is wut?

All I could easily find out about (including via Google Maps) was the subway and bus. And a 20m walk in the heat. At least all the skyscrapers provided decent shade.

But the 7 train is part of the subway system. I wouldn't really recommend taking a bus in most cases even if google thinks you'll shave a minute or two off your travel time.

i dont live in NYC so maybe im wrong but the hudson yards station is a 6 minute walk from javits center. Why were you taking a bus?

the vast majority of people that live in NYC seem to do perfectly well without a car

The time I was there, there was no subway connection within a mile of Javits. At least, not one that was open. I needed to connect from a subway to a bus to get there.

> the vast majority of people that live in NYC seem to do perfectly well without a car

Yes, you can work around a lot of public transport issues (and NY has many of those) by extending your walk. Which is unpleasant in many situations but absolutely possible. And yes, I wouldn't want to drive in NY either.

I also knew a few folks who live in the NY suburbs who have a car as well, for when they need to do something other than commute to work in NY.

Frankly I think the problem is more like this -

1. Get people to change their lifestyles to the downtown lifestyle in which you don't own a home, you don't do significant DIY / outdoor hobbies etc, you don't often leave a 10ish mile radius of your home except for holidays.

Everything in the "fuck cars" movement seems to stem from that.

I live in London and the public transport network works fantastically for the "metropolitan lifestyle". But that's not what I want to limit my life to.

If push came to shove and I had to decide whether I wanted a house with a garden, kids, hobbies that require transporting relatively large items, etc, I'd sooner move out of the city than give that up.

I love clubs, pubs, makerspaces and the high street as much as the next guy but it's pretty easy to just live out of town and get the train in for that.

I think it's even more than that. There is a movement where you should own nothing.

You should not have a house, you should live in a city, everything should be shared and paid for with taxes.

I was born in NYC and own my own apartment and I am considered a "Gentrifier" because I bought it and do not rent.

I like living in a metropolitan area, but I can see why other's don't.

Everything has to be done by someone else.

You can't work on your own place, you have to employ someone to do that. Where do they live with their work van? I guess they have to be a business(tm) and rent a warehouse. Oh and their van has to be less than 5 years old, otherwise it's too pollutey. They can just buy a new one, that's fine.

Etc etc.

It'd be funny if it wasn't actually happening. I have had a pretty charmed life and I still find it really hard to understand the weirdly bookish attitude.

> You can't work on your own place, you have to employ someone to do that

Part of this is the taxation and GDP-ification of everything.

(not saying go back) for example when we traded housewives for house cleaners + hello fresh + fiverr assistants we got a double whammy of GDP growth (+ for the wife going to work, plus for the employees now doing her previously unaccounted work at a profit). And same story with IRS receivables. (again, not saying send women back home, just pointing out the accounting)

> Everything in the "fuck cars" movement seems to stem from that.

Yes, my hobbyist motorcycle track riding, self maintenance etc are massively hampered by apartment living (where they have dozens of rules against the things I expressly want to do like change my own oil).

And if I have to take the motorcycle to a mechanic to pay $140 to do a $20 parts and labor job. Suddenly that car free life (garage free life) is costing me $120 more this month.

I feel for you man.

I'm a fairly intellectual guy, but all of this stuff seems to come from the really bookish people that just spend basically all of their time in academic pursuit.

Someone else fixes their plumbing, someone else built their house, someone else drives the bus (imagine them being a bus driver? ridiculous). Anything that involves physical work, not even getting your hands dirty but any kind of practical thing, is someone else's problem.

If you don't do any of that then of course you don't need a car, you don't even need to move from your desk.

I feel pretty lonely sometimes as someone who tries to straddle both.

for point #6, the fact that getting kids around town using public transportation is slow, expensive, and difficult makes me wonder if the anti-car people even have families in mind when they advocate for their alternative solutions.

The downtown areas that are likely to be workable with no parking in the mid-sized cities I've lived in are already essentially "child-free zones". I think that childless people tend to self-select into the trendy downtown lifestyle, and are more inclined to imagine the world as a playground for young adults.

It’s really weird to me that Americans automatically assume that “soccer mom” suburban lifestyle is just the default way to raise kids. Like it’s normal for kids (children! without jobs!) to need to travel 20 miles per day for their daily activities.

Go to any other civilized country and you’ll see children biking or walking to their daily activities, or riding public transport alone (ever heard of a school bus?) if they really need to.

The reason it's hard to talk about in isolation and without assuming stereotype personas is because it's truly complex.

Part of why Americans travel 20 miles per day is because highways make things "close" in terms of minutes, and because they take up so much space, large roadways can make proximal (distance) things further. Eg if you have to walk 1 mile down a highway to a pedestrian bridge to get to the part that is just across 8 lanes, a 1 minute walk becomes a 40 minute walk.

Additionally these roadways rarely are kid safe for things like bicycles.

Additionally social stratification and division has made it (seemingly?) less for those kids to travel alone.

Additionally 100 other points.

I really do think when people choose to drive they're expressing their best known solution to a wide variety of non transportation issues and because they choose it it feeds back on itself democratically and design wise (Design for cars because people choose cars, people choose cars because of the solutions to design for cars)

Of course they’re choosing their best option. Because there aren’t better options. That’s the point of pushing these discussions right? So that as cities evolve over the next generation, Americans get more options

The thing is Uber et al has changed the dynamics of all this. You now don't have to have a car and JUST use public transit. You can use public transit for some journeys where it makes sense and uber for the rest. This works well if many of your trips are walkable (coffee shop some groceries, restaurants etc).

This would have been very difficult before Uber-like services, as taxis were too slow & unreliable in my experience (London minicabs were pretty atrocious at giving you reasonable time estimates).

This absolutely doesn't work in very suburban/exurban areas; but it really opens it up past very dense city environments where you don't need a car imo.

I do agree here. I did not own a car for many years living in San Francisco. Rented a car when it mattered. But honestly it also prevented me from doing a lot just from marginal barrier. If my car had been sitting in the garage downstairs fueled up and ready to go I probably would have gone hiking a lot more. Visited the peninsula more often etc. Instead I did stuff in walking distance most of the time. It eventually lead me to leaving San Francisco because my view of it was the 1-2 mile radius around civic center which essentially is all homelessness, poop, and danger.

Just an anecdote, and ultimately felt it was much better to live on the peninsula during lockdowns than to be "car free" and without options in the city.

I think #6 especially is important, I get a feeling that the median redditor who frequents /r/fuckcars doesn't have children, or has a single child at most. I've carried groceries just for myself on public transit before, and it wasn't very fun. Carrying groceries for 4+ people on public transit would be a nightmare.

Also while I don't like crazed drug-addled hobos on the bus with me, I don't feel particularly afraid of them because I'm a male. If I also had to make sure they didn't accost my wife or children would be far less tolerable.

I think this is a problem best served by scheduled delivery. The CO2 footprint from shared delivery of groceries is quite low. Also, you save time by just picking them up at the curb or in the lobby. It is one of the few win-win for delivery.

For meal pick-up it is mostly a wash because it is 1:1 too much. But for scheduled delivery, that math is changed. We need to think of some of these systems more like mail delivery and less like instant delivery on demand.

But there's 100 micro losses to that choice.

It's a pain to order few items (and delivery cost amortizes across more items, or is not free).

At least my grocery, maybe most, charge more per item as a hidden fee

You dont get to pick the produce/items and store employees do not give a shit.

You have to remain home for a delivery window instead of start/stopping at exactly your choice of time

.

The hard thing is that every substitute has many tradeoffs and many people are already living their optimized choice of tradeoffs that they can determine for themselves without forcing others to make a suboptimal personal choice in sacrifice for distribute good

A lot of social good choices look like "You sacrifice $1 so that 200 people can have a penny more" It's a tough sell because usually the people paying receive far less than they receive back from social good. Yes its "on average" beneficial, but not to the one who's account is being raided.

I agree they are all choices and all have trade-offs. I was specifically speaking to the pain point of groceries on mass transit. You still have a "someone's else's schedule" problem on transit because when you want to go may not align with transit. I'd rather hang at home than on a platform with bags and bags of groceries.

I'm with you on picking your battles. You have to decide where your pain points are and where your conveniences are.

This is a tremendous pain in the arse compared to having a car. Really, it is.

Right now it's 10pm in the UK and I have some free time. I can jump on the bus and go and buy my groceries for tomorrow, or in the car and for the next week, or the next month.

I could schedule a delivery for... when? Guess when I'm in the house ahead of time and stay in the house? That's literally the opposite of the metropolitan lifestyle I signed up for by living here.

The same applies to basically all of the "solutions" to cars. Trains - oh, it's cheap, just book it in advance! Etc etc. It adds a ton of friction to every day life.

I reckon 1) could be solved by price discrimination. I would happily pay twice as much for BART if it meant riding in a train car that was only occupied by other people willing to pay twice as much. By tiering service, you still provide transit at all for everybody who needs it at the current price, while meeting more of the demand of people who people who avoid public transit for perceived safety/classism concerns.

To expand on this, since it sounds kind of flippant:

In the US at the moment, public transit suffers from the fact that in most areas, for most people it's largely optional: you can drive, or you can use public transit. Quite a few people choose to drive, leading to a disproportionate fraction of the people on public transit being people who have no other option, and furthermore the fraction of outright deranged individuals (leaving all their clothes on the platform save for a baseball cap and a syringe tucked behind their ear, for an example I witnessed a few days ago) being over-represented in the public transit riding populace.

Overcoming this stigma is important for getting people to use public transit as their primary means of transportation, and working towards making truly car-optional cities.

Okay, but now the shared autonomous car that comes to pick you up has someone else's trash and vomit in it and we're back at point 1.

So let users reject a ride that arrives with excessive mess. That car goes to a cleaning facility and you wait for another one.

If the car was in fact messy, the previous user takes a reputation hit and may eventually get charged more, if it happens enough to have high confidence they're really at fault. This gives an extra incentive for users to go ahead and report, if there's a problem.

On the other hand if the car was fine, then a separate reputation score starts to lower the weight on the rejecting user, eventually just keeping their rejects in service instead of sending them for cleaning.

It's up to the ridesharing service to decide what they consider "fine," probably something along the lines of "X% of users wouldn't report this."

A car can drive itself but can’t tell whether its insides need cleaning or not? This seems fixable.

Doesn't even need to be a privacy issue, just take still photos after the ride.

There is a 0% chance that on-demand autonomous vehicles will not record their passengers. That would only be offered on negotiated business/executive contracts.

To me the real question is what is the % chance they wont be selling that feed + plastering the interior with advertising opportunities. The public transit I've used is usually plastered with ads too.