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Comment by xigency | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, self driving cars would be a step backward as currently imagined.

We need high speed rail to connect our cities.

Future transport is unlikely to be single mode - it’s almost definitely multimodal and will include both cars (why not self driving?) and rail.

What about inside those cities? Like from my apartment on this side of town to the other side.

What about the inside? I live in NYC and its metro and bus system is amazing, and even then it's still worse than what I experienced in Asia, we're for example in Seoul, I did not have to walk more than five minutes to be able to get on a train or bus and when I got off, I similarly did not have to walk more than five minutes to get to my end destination.

What about someone who doesn’t want to travel with other people in public transport, and also doesn’t want to walk the 10 minutes of the journey?

Then I guess it's their loss. Unless they're unable to use public transport, I shouldn't have to have the externalities of them using cars, such as carbon emissions, parking space that would otherwise be used, noise and light pollution, etc.

I guess the people having to deal with the externalities could consider them their loss.

They could pay more to cover the externalities, and enjoy relatively empty roads.

Town centers will soon be inaccessible by car, so they'll still need public transport occasionally for that.

> and also doesn’t want to walk the 10 minutes of the journey?

If they have a pre-existing medical condition: sure, they can use an alternative method of transportation.

If they don't want to walk for 10 minutes, they're bound to have a medical condition soon-ish.

Walking seems like a waste of time to me. It's a slow form of transportation and a very inefficient form of exercise.

Yet most people don't exercise, obesity is skyrocketing and personal responsibility is failing.

But hey, you got yours so who cares about others, right?

If you want avoid other people like that you probably shouldn’t live in a city.

subways, trams and buses. good systems can easily be faster than cars dinner thru don't have traffic and you don't need to find parking. for short distances, bikes are also great.

I know I'm just one data point, but for my commute to work, taking public transit is about 30 minutes slower than driving at rush hour.

Just another data point: walking to work takes 15 minutes for me. Same time by metro. Driving is 45-60 minutes.

Sound as if bike-roads are missing, a bike would reduce it to 5 minutes.

> We need high speed rail to connect our cities.

Perhaps we need to slow down a bit, in general?

If the rail isn’t faster than the car then it won’t ever see wide scale adoption. It’s not even remotely difficult to clear this bar when the political will exists. Why slow down when there’s no actual need to?

A car can go faster from Amsterdam to Berlin than the train, yet I still see people on the train.

I've paid more to take longer by train, for greater convenience and comfort.

I agree with your point in general, I'm just quibbling that speed is the decider.

They wouldn't be a step backwards, they'd be a step sideways.

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