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whatever1

Buses also are useless. Thry routinely waste you hours due to their slowness and inconsistency.

The choices really are two: subway (or any dedicated rail thing) or car.

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Buses can be very dependable and cheaper than rail if they run in dedicated bus lanes.

You’re right that they aren’t much use if they get stuck in the same traffic as everyone else.

Not many places have room for an extra lane that is only used a tiny percentage of the time

That "tiny percentage of the time" is roughly once every 15 minutes when done well, and transports (in my city) roughly 150 people during rush hour.

Every bus lane you build is ~800 cars you don't have to deal with in traffic, assuming an approximately two hour rush hour

Buses are only slow and inconsistent because of cars.

Exactly, a bus that doesn't have its own lane is a failure, as they get stuck in traffic it'll always strictly slower than cars. So people—if they can help it—drive cars, making more traffic, making buses slower, causing people to prefer more cars...

While if they run in dedicated lanes there is a counterbalance: the more people drive the worse traffic is, making the bus a comparatively better option, making people drive less... :)

Not true. In my city in sweden they underpay drivers, and don't want to pay for them to do the bus driving course. So they have no drivers… so busses don't show up. So when they show up they might already be full.

beyond lack of dedicated lanes, the schedules in L.A. are just terrible. Most run hourly and don't really run late.

Buses are great as long as providing a good level of service is a priority for transportation planners.

Buses utilize the same roads/infrastructure the personal cars do which is a huge advantage for scaling. Subway/rail requires dedicated rights of way, are very expensive to scale, require much more money for the smaller/less used end product.

Or get this, a bike (in case you live under ~10 km away). Just rolls the gym hours into the commute for double efficiency, and you can be always on time since traffic can't really affect you.

Not really sure how this is possible unless there are dedicated bike paths that use different roads than what the cars use. Otherwise, bikes get stuck at intersections just like cars do except for the asshats that think traffic rules do not apply bicycles causing more problems. Dedicated paths are only slightly less logistically than rail to install after roads have already been in use.

There are dedicated bike paths, separate from cars. Where they cross each other, there are traffic controls. And, as I understand it, in Amsterdam at least, any collision between a car and a cyclist is automatically the car driver’s fault: so drivers are very careful.

These countries have been doing this for a long time.

I bike every day to work because I finally live in a place where there's bike paths/roads almost everywhere there's car roads.

I would never dare to do so where I lived before: I'd almost certainly be a blob of blood and guts splattered on the road by now.

It's infuriating how little thought is given to anything that is not a road for The Car. Billions of taxpayer money spent on massive road construction and repair but god forbid we build bike paths for 1/20th of the cost and 1/100th of the upkeep.

The majority of people can't rely on biking. They're too old, too fat, the weather is bad, or too hot, or too cold, they're going too far, or they have to take two kids somewhere and pick up groceries, etc.

If biking works for you, where you are, great. But it's at best a pretty small part of the solution.

You're looking at it wrong. The mere fact that you have to chauffer your kids around everywhere until they're old enough to drive is a consequence of the fact that everything revolves around the car, as is the fact that you have to shop on a big box 10 miles away instead of walking 5mins to the store.

In the Netherlands kids bike everywhere with their friends, because it's safe and comfortable to do so. If they want to play sports they grab their bikes and go, they don't have to sit in traffic for 45mins in the back of their parents SUV. The Netherlands also has some of the happiest children on earth according to studies. Go figure :)

glad the Netherlands are nice like that. I'm in Los Angeles and it's dangerous living downtown with kids. Even if things are walkable I would never let my theoretical kids walk around on the streets. There's a lot more than urban planning that needs to be fixed before a walkable city becomes a reality here.

Agreed on that point, but very few places in the US—safe or unsafe—are walkable. Even the safest upper middle class suburb is totally untraversable without a car. So the problem clearly isn't just crime.

And bring a change of clothes and find a shower at the office for when you show up all sweaty.

People seriously overestimate how sweaty you get if you use a tiny bit of antiperspirant and don't drive like a maniac.

You are seriously underestimating the amount of sweating a normal, healthy man does if he trained consistently for some time and his body learned to quickly adapt to minimal physical stress (heck, I sweat profusely even if I merely slowly walk). Let alone if there are any kinds of hills.

TIL, I've looked it up and apparently you're right. The more fit someone is, the more they sweat. That's so counterintuitive tbh, I would've thought that it would be the opposite since you don't need to strain as much, but I guess there must be some baseline energy use and more muscle mass equals more heating, plus a faster learned cooling response.

Ironically that makes cycling a much better choice for people who aren't fit. Finally something where being lazy gives you an advantage.

The better performance of a fit person is partly explained by more muscles (incl. heart), but a significant part of performance boost is the fact that body autoregulates (e.g. by sweating and keeping the temperature perfect for activity, instead of letting body overheat, which results in a performance drop) itself so much better.

Raising the heart rate much faster is also part of a better self-regulation of a fit person.

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