Hacker News Reader

Comment by soco | Hacker News Reader

Also when no working alternative is being offered. Just shutting down car access and offering a bike is difficult to swallow. Add to that a workable public transport network and we may talk. Some people love to drive but having the option to sip your coffee and read the news in a not-overcrowded bus going from across your street to the office building with say only one change in the same time driving requires, is an option quite difficult to beat.

View on HN

> Some people love to drive but having the option to sip your coffee and read the news in a not-overcrowded bus going from across your street to the office building with say only one change in the same time driving requires,

I don't believe anywhere with mass transit offers this kind of experience during commute hours.

I think this is a fairy tale story about transit that just plain does not and cannot exist for a meaningful amount of time, especially as cities become more and more densely populated.

London UK and a bunch of other European cities have this. Not sure where you got this idea.

No, not really. Public transit is almost always slower than driving[0]. It's just nicer if you can sit and read instead of having to drive.

[0]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-61077-0

This was basically my experience on the Google bus. Probably it’s only feasible when you have well-behaved riders (even the toilet was clean) and you don’t cheap out on capacity.

I've experienced nice commute trips on busses in multiple US cities.

Maybe places you've lived haven't had nice transit or you didn't live in a good place to take advantage of it, but I promise it's out there. It's just hugely underfunded and struggling because of all the concessions we've made to private vehicle ownership.

I ride a public bus from oakland across to SF a couple mornings a week (used to be every morning before covid) and that trip is basically like this. 3/4 full bus, no one standing, good cell coverage most of the way.

The trip home was always way more full though.

Well welcome to the world outside the us. I take the bus in front of my house, take a seat to the train station and read the news while munching a banana, take the commuter train where I can work on my laptop for half an hour, walk 10 minutes (or take another bus) to the office and all in less time than I'd need to drive. It doesn't matter whether you believe it or not, it's just reality.

"Just shutting down car access and offering a bike is difficult to swallow."

Is anyone suggesting that?

... but these studies aren't on "shutting down car access" and converting to _only_ bike and pedestrian access. Adding a bike lane still allows cars, just not on that narrow strip of pavement. Frankly, it's not even eroding "car supremacy" in that in urban streets with bike lanes, cars will still take up the majority of the street.

I think we need to start talking about how dedicated bike lanes can benefit _drivers_:

- more people getting around by bike (b/c it feels safe) means fewer cars in front of you

- absence of dedicated / protected bike lanes pushes bikes (and ebikes, scooters) etc into the main part of traffic, which can slow down traffic overall, and makes driving more stressful (b/c drivers have to watch for these). Creating bike infrastructure gives them a safe place to go that isn't directly in front of your car.

- more people arriving to a destination by bike/scooter/whatever means less competition in that area for the street parking that does exist

Reply on news.ycombinator.com