Comment by ptftw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ptftw | Hacker News Reader

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I want trains and public transportation. Have lived 18 years in cities that had good public transportation. The kind where 95% of the population uses it often, many daily. Had friends who owned cars and they still mostly used public transportation. The cars were something for weekend trips but those friends were the exception.

Unfortunately to get to that level in California means adding 60-80 lines with 20 to 40 stops each, having a train every 5 minutes, having express trains that skip stations, having the trains go fast, having busses every 10 minutes, keeping all of it clean and safe.

We'll never get that and so people will keep asking for more freeways but the train can be so much nicer.

Also, a common excuse is population density but....

Switzerland has tons of trains, is a 3x the size of the bay area with the same population

Switzerland ~8 million people

Bay Area ~8 million people

Switzerland size: 41000 sqkm

Bay Area size: 18000 sqkm

Switzerland train tracks: 5200 km

Bay Area train tracks: ??? (I think It's under 500 km so 1/10)

Traveling on a train can be great! You get more space than a plane, you can work, relax, eat, etc... Vs a car where you mostly have to spend all your time concentrating on driving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muPcHs-E4qc

I don’t want to exclusively ride trains and buses. I can never enjoy it and don’t feel comfortable. I love driving around in the privacy of my car. On the other hand I don’t want to say fuck the climate like the GP above. I think there’s a way to make both things work. More trains and more roads. The roads will get cleaner the more electric vehicles we have.

Personal transportation is fundamentally unsustainable. You can’t have it both ways.

The more trains you add, the less cars there will be on the road, leaving space in the therefore smaller roads for all those that need them or want to enjoy them.

Yes, 100% this. And it’s the same for bike lanes (and the people who do not want to ride bikes). Build tons of protected bike lanes, and many more people will use them. This will make more room on the roads for people are unable (or who choose not) to bike.

Do you think you'd feel comfortable cycling, given proper infrastructure [1]?

[1]: https://youtu.be/bMJaMy-0ChA?t=248

Cycling is fine but it’s no car. Plus I live in a relatively rural area so I doubt I could get a lot done by cycling. I love the road+car paradigm and find nothing wrong with it to be honest. I don’t want to give it up for a lesser way of traveling, I want a top down fix for car pollution instead.

Makes sense, although your preferences wouldn't be sustainable if extended to the whole population. The only way to fix car pollution is for most trips to be made via more sustainable alternatives.

Theoretically if everyone is using electric vehicles and all the electricity is generated renewably (not that far fetched), why not?

Because cars are inefficient. So much so, that I'm pretty sure if you tasked an engineer to come up with the least efficient way of transporting people, they'd come up with something resembling a car.

Electric cars are a good step, but they only alleviate a few downsides of cars.

switzerland is a landlocked country with no port and no access, and barely 1 refinery. It depends on others for imports of oil, none which are direct neighbors. Switzerland has also very rugged terrain and weather , for which early car models were not exactly built for.

Contrast this with california, with the most important US port, almost 2 dozen refineries, and immediate access to oil producers. Pleasant mild weather in most parts of the territory, and flatland.

My point - Switzerland built its transport network to play to its strengths. So did CA.

hmm - it's not like trains were (or are) built for rugged terrain either. If anything that point would be in favor of Switzerland...

You could say that the Netherlands is more suited to trains because it is flat and easy to build tracks on. Or because it is dense.

Or maybe the Netherlands is poorly suited to trains because it is dense and difficult to get suitable land. And because it has ports and is close to north sea oil, so why not use cars?

Switzerland and the Netherlands have trains because they made a decision to develop that strength, not because of their (polar opposite) geographies.

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