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"Mass transit is the solution."

I spent most of my 45 years of age in public transport, I only had a car for a year and a half (and a total lemon, I don't miss that). Yet I say: beware of people who speak of THE solution.

For mass transit to work, population density matters. At least in the EU, there is a trend of people being priced out of capital cities to the surrounding countryside, where the population density drops to levels where providing extensive bus service becomes uneconomical. An important limitation is availability of bus drivers. People are loath to take lives of 40 strangers in their hands + rise out of their beds at 4am, and you can only pay them so much before exhausting the budget. And it is not just question of "more money". Prague, the capital of Czechia, spends about 33 per cent of its municipal budget on public transport and it still has a shortage of drivers.

Reliable self-driving, which was the original topic of this discussion, would be a huge boon to public transport. It would reduce hourly costs and address the driver shortage (which becomes especially acute in flu season etc., where too many people call in sick at the same time).

For mass transit to work better, we need to increase population density, and that means killing of the NIMBY phenomenon. Plenty of people, at least where I live, don't mind living in condos, as long as these are safe and clean. They are just priced out of cities by lack of development and the consequent soaring of prices.

Edit: interesting that this post attracted two downvotes, but no rebuttals. Is public transport such a sacred object for some?

From my personal point of view, it is a service like any other, and obviously cannot work efficiently everywhere.

> Reliable self-driving would be a huge boon to public transport.

Public transport would also be a huge boost to reliable self driving .. some years of only having to follow already established routes is a perfect middle step to self driving everywhere.

Vehicles can be tuned to the specific trouble spots of specific routes, there is a reduced need to deal with unfamiliar routes, in a number of cities public buses have established right of way | dedicated bus lanes, there's a pool drivers who can be migrated from driving a single bus to remote over watch of several buses, etc.

This is what I've always imagined.

Self-driving vans, with all the fancy LIDAR, where people hop on and hop off, that only drives on specific paths that have been excruciatingly mapped and well-worn.

Basically a little bus without a driver that can adjust its route on the fly.

As a user, you'd be able to get picked up a little closer to your location rather than having to walk to "The Bus Stop", you wouldn't be at the mercy of a set schedule, and it would be much cheaper than a taxi/rideshare because IIRC 70% of their cost is the human labor, and the cost is not split among multiple individuals.

Crucially, they would also use our existing road infrastructure, so you don't have to lay down train tracks, streetcar lines, build dedicated bus lanes, etc.

Definitely agree with everything you wrote. I just moved out of a major German city into a small town because I lost my apartment due to Eigenbedarf, then was unable to find a new place in the city at an affordable price in the time I had. Had to get a car again for the first time in 10 years.

> Plenty of people, at least where I live, don't mind living in condos, as long as these are safe and clean.

And quiet. The biggest problem is noise pollution causing problems. I want to watch my TV or listen to music at an enjoyable level while also not disturbing my neighbors. The problem with the US is the incentives are not aligned to make sound proofing a requirement, making for bad living conditions and bad neighbors.

This is a massive issue with newer builds. They often look sleek and impressive, which is what moves units, but they completely cheap out on soundproofing and insulation.

I think there's going to be greater awareness about noise pollution in the coming decade or so (it's hugely detrimental to human health), and it's worth paying attention to if you're looking to buy a place.

You got downvotes because most people are incapable of nuanced thinking, especially on this subject.

Yes public transport is one of the key talismans in the church of the utopian left.

Public transport in the US is in a terrible state and needs to be massively expanded and funded, yet it cannot solve all of the transportation requirements of our massive economy and geography.

I’ve taken the train from New York to Boston. While it does go pretty fast for a couple miles, think the average speed is about 82 mph.

My 4 mile commute from Hoboken to midtown took anywhere from 45 minutes to 90, if there was a problem. Try getting to the East Side of Manhattan.

See people fighting congestion pricing for driving? If mass transit was good, few would drive into the island

Few people do drive to the island. Over 60% of workers in Manhattan take mass transit to work versus 21% driving. https://www.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/planning-le...

And mass transit adoption keeps growing for the workforce. Because sitting in a car in traffic sucks that much. So we make self driving cars and all those people pile into personal vehicles? That only exacerbates the problem.

I’m actually shocked the ratio is only 3:1. That’s not “few” people that’s hundreds of thousands fighting for a handful of bridges and tunnels each and every morning and every evening in between.

Try sitting in one of those tunnels, full of busses, crawling into Manhattan every weekday.

The reality of it all is extremely painful

I commute into Manhattan daily via public transit.

However when I go into Manhattan for non work related activities, my wife and I (and nearly all my friends) always drive.

The NYC transit situation is decent and tolerable, but still very unpleasant. If I want to enjoy a night in the city, the last thing I want to do is deal with the transit system.

Dealing with mild to moderate traffic within the confines of my (admittedly pretty nice) car is not very painful at all.

We look at the traffic situation before going in. If it's terrible, we just cancel our plans in Manhattan and do something else.

That list doesn't include cities where the local train (subway or street rail) system connects to the airport, which seems odd. In my experience it's way easier getting to the into the city using local rail compared to dealing with parking, rental cars, traffic etc.

The only downside is almost none of these systems are in operation 24/7, with the exceptions being NYC and Chicago. If you have a very early or late arrival / departure, you just can't use them at all without waiting several hours at the airport. I wish more cities could add reduced frequency night service, something like maybe 1 train every hour or hour and a half.

As a somewhat cherry-picked example, if someone in the southern part of my city wants to take a train into the city center, the last good route with only one transfer leaves at 10 pm. At 10:40pm Google maps suggests a route with 3 transfers that takes almost twice as long (and includes the commuter rail which is a separate, more expensive ticket). The last possible option is at 11:40 and takes 3 times as long as the normal route. If we want people to use trains and subways, the service hours have to be greatly improved.

In Seattle, you can beat a driver to the airport using the train…unless you live in Ballard, or any other place not on the I5 corridor.

I never bothered with taking the train to the Beijing airport either, even though it existed for much of time there. Taxi was still more convenient. If we are talking Tokyo or Paris, ok, no problem, but it doesn’t make sense in a lot of cities for a lot of connections to be made.

Hah, looking forward to our 2039 light rail presence in Ballard.

2032 West Seattle checking in.

West Seattle and Ballard are flip sides of the same coin (that coin being Highway 99).

I’ll happily take a rapid line or light rail over driving the 99.

Whenever I visit Seattle I always take the light rail into the city. The few times I've had a chance to bring this up in conversation with a local they've always been surprised that someone actually uses the light rail to get to or from the airport.

Most people don't live in downtown, or the U district, or Northgate, where taking the train would make sense.

this is exclusively how i pick people up from the airport now, tell them to take the link to northgate then i'll drive to get them from there, so much easier. I love the link but the home to link station bus rides are the slowest part of the journey, i've waited for the rapid ride buses for an hour before.

>US also has almost 350 miles of high speed rail, not 0

Given the size of the US, 350 reads as very close to 0.

>Lastly NYC is one of the most serviced by transit areas in the world? Are you living in an alternate universe?

Perhaps the one where e.g. underground transit is an ill-maintained, dirty, and often dangerous experience.

>Given the size of the US, 350 reads as very close to 0.

A funny way to interpret this would be "a mile of high speed rail per every million people"!

Or roughly 2 millimeters of rail per person :)

> In Seattle for instance you can beat a driver to the airport every time during traffic

Sea-Tac is 22 minutes from my house by car, during the worst traffic it is usually around 35 mins (I don't have to drive through downtown), and 1 hour 18 minutes by bus and lightrail. I live about 4 miles as the crow flies from the SODO light rail station.

> Mass transit is the solution.

This is only a solution for a large, dense urban environment, and really only a partial solution at that.

>US also has almost 350 miles of high speed rail, not 0. The Northeast is where it’s all concentrated with Acela being the fastest.

Acela is not "high speed rail". Maybe to Americans it is, but it really isn't. Let me know when the US can make a real high-speed rail where the train company actually owns and operates the track and can actually maintain a high speed, instead of just going fast on one short little stretch and then calling it "high speed".

That Wikipedia list is missing chicago. If you happen to live near the blue line you can ride it all the way into ohare.

San Francisco is already connected via Bart and caltrain can take you to the Bart station before the airport, so you have to transfer. Just like at Oakland where you have to transfer to a tram that links the airport to Bart.

San Jose being connected by train is an egregious bending of the truth. The truth is there is no train to San Jose Airport. There is just a bus.