No, Elon wants to cancel public transportation. Just like in the 1930's when car companies bought public transportation to shut them down.
He already delayed public transportation work with his Boring company.
The average people won't agree to spend money on public transportation when there are robotaxi available 24/7 on "already existing infrastructure".
90% of people hate public transportation. They want to be in a private cabin that takes you directly to where you’re going.
There’s nothing you can do about it other than to impoverish the population. I have lots of immigrant family that move to NYC because that’s where our ethnic enclave is. They uniformly strive to move somewhere suburban where everyone can have their own car. My cousin just moved her family with three kids to Arlington Texas from Queens and is thrilled.
Elon is trying to address the problem people actually have instead of the one some minority thinks we should be solving.
Until that is fixed, people are going to prefer private transportation.
NYC people are superficially rude, sure, as a stereotype. But when I've had a genuine issue or question, I've found most people there willing to help. SLC people are just as superficially "really nice", for that comparison.
Does DC count as having a large metro system? Because in DC, driving at the slowest, most congested time of day usually seems to be faster than the metro.
Which city? It’s not true in New York City or Chicago. For the most part it’s not true even in Tokyo unless you’re talking about going between two tourist locations that are both right next to subway stations.
And of course, living at 89th and Amsterdam is insanely expensive. In practice, the folks at my company that work in New York City live in Queens or Brooklyn. Their train commutes are an hour+, similar to how long it takes me to commute 36 miles from Annapolis to the west side of DC.
But that's not the case anywhere, and there are no proposals that would even come close, unless you count ones that artificially slow down cars instead of making subways faster.
And this is a Sunday afternoon, I’m sure the drive gets dramatically worse on a weekday.
When I checked that route just now, I saw 31 minutes driving with a toll, 35 minutes driving without a toll, and 42 minutes on the subway. And even with your numbers, that's very, very far from the 2 hours vs. 20 minutes that was originally claimed.
> And this is a Sunday afternoon, I’m sure the drive gets dramatically worse on a weekday.
When I set a departure time of tomorrow at 5pm, it says 41 minutes on the subway and a range of 30-60 minutes for driving. (Still not even close to 2 hours vs. 20 minutes.)
Google doesn't seem to count the time of waiting for the next subway train. It looks like they give you a departure time a few minutes in the future, such that if you leave then, you'll arrive just in time for the train. Since most people probably won't cut it that close, doesn't that mean it will probably take even longer than Google suggests? In particular, longer enough to counteract the time spent parking if you drive?
Pretty sure it does. My understanding is that it computes the time simply as (estimated_end_time - start_time), and it determines the estimated_end_time as whenever you would reach your destination, which accounts for train schedules and walking time.
> Since most people probably won't cut it that close...
At least in NYC, IME people did cut it that close because during regular hours (that actually extend pretty late into the evening) the frequency is high enough that if you miss a train you only need to wait a few minutes for the next one.
The other thing that has not been mentioned so far in this sub-thread (but maybe elsewhere) is that public transport is very relaxing. Even if it's crowded and you have to stand, you can use your smartphone because there is wireless reception on the subway.
And if you consider the madness that is driving in NYC traffic, there is no comparison. It's maddening even just sitting in a rideshare. I'm surprised you're seeing driving times being comparable. I'm actually doubting the Google Maps estimates, which are usually rock solid.
It does do that. But it moves start_time into the future, and that's what makes it not count the time of waiting for the train.
No it’s not. In NYC it’s crowded, loud, and full of weirdos. You often have to stand and can’t get a seat. You have to really get good at tuning everything out. Meanwhile, driving (especially with supervised self driving or even modern adaptive cruise control and lane keeping) is quieter, has better climate control, and you can listen to a podcast or music without headphones.
On the other hand, I still have nightmares of being stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic cursing the circumstances that forced me to take a car instead of public transit. I didn't even have a car the last 5 years I lived there, saved a decent amount in parking fees too.
Car gives up to 2hr, train gives 46min.
Abbey wood to LHR, up to 2h40 by car or 1h02 by train
The train gets me home in an hour, every time. I could bike and save even more time.
Cars just don't move fast in cities.
edit: the metra wasn't considered because it takes longer but what's worse, the station near Evanston trains run every 60 minutes! If you're timing is perfect its still far worse than a car, and if your timing is bad, sheesh.
You are absolutely not, without question, making that drive in under 75 minutes at rush hour.
Obviously the equation changes at different times of day, but the vast majority of trips between downtown Evanston and downtown Chicago are office workers.
I live in Berlin since 2018 and use public transport for almost every commute (almost, because a few times I just walked), and even used public transport when buying stuff from a building supply store. Don't get me wrong, it's slower than a car would be, but it's a really low-stress experience.
I have not even owned a car since 2016.
How many kids do you have to drop off at school on your way to work?
In Germany overall, 68% of people regularly drive, versus just 14% who use public transit: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germans-commute-car-ins.... And Germany is about as dense overall as the state of Maryland, and well over twice as dense as California.
If school is not further than 1 km, kid can just walk there. And in most German (and other European) cities schools are nearby.
And for locations that are remote, there are school buses, and public buses too...
Kid transportation is important, but it doesn't have to be cars. (I won't even go into kids who bycicle to their schools.) Of course, I understand that for kindergarten it's a different topic, but if we are taking about schools a person is already of age where they know where their home is and where they are going to.
I mean, that's the exact point being made. The problem isn't public transport, it's American public transport. The USA could just copy what works from the rest of the world, if only it didn't already suffer the misapprehension of being the best at absolutely everything and having nothing to learn.
Poverty, crime, sprawl, and untreated mental illness all really complicate the public transit situation for the US, and they feed upon themselves and create a terrible negative feedback loop for transit.
These are also places where the USA could do better if it didn't think it was already the best.
Like, for crime, the USA treats gun control as outside the Overton Window saying e.g. "we need guns for self defence", while the UK is apparently a crime-free haven in comparison because the British *Police* are not armed by default and overwhelmingly don't want to be.
Sprawl is harder to fix once the cities are built. But even dense cores I've seen in the USA don't have great public transit networks.
I have absolutely no idea why, or even if, America has more untreated mental health issues than Europe in general. But your governments at each level ought to.
Without a hint of the self-awareness that the most likely person to be shot by your gun is yourself, either in the obvious case of suicide or where the gun has been taken from you either by family or theft.
This is a very American question to ask. Why you should drop them off? Just give them public transportation pass, drill the route with them few times and off they go. Kids are not stupid.
Sadly none, but if I did the nearest school is two stops along the bus route that passes almost by my front door.
Also, I can say from experience, that a lot of kids do use normal public transport here.
Furthermore, school hours don't line up with work days. Back when I was a kid myself, living in the UK, I was driven to and from infant (K-3) school, walked to middle school (4-6), and was given a bus pass and just expected to be able to figure it out for myself for secondary school (7-11). But even the primary school trip was never driven by my working dad. Different school hours here in Germany than back in the UK, but neither lines up with office hours.
> In Germany overall, 68% of people regularly drive, versus just 14% who use public transit: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germans-commute-car-ins.... And Germany is about as dense overall as the state of Maryland, and well over twice as dense as California.
The correct metric for commuting isn't the overall density, as vanishingly few people are attempting to cross farms (or in CA's case, winding mountain roads surrounded by flammable trees) on any given day. Look at each municipal commuter area separately for that, e.g. Berlin's commuter zone population is somewhat less than either the Bay Area or Los Angeles commuter zones, and all three are loosely-coherent commuter regions.
This is the definition of moving goalposts. What about this work-from-home that everybody on HN is always hyping? People in cities can often just walk their kids to school. Plenty of students in Chicago take the bus.
I guarantee half the people posting here will change their tune as soon as they have any responsibility beyond themselves.
I rode the bus for 15 years...when I only had to take care of myself.
I see families on the train and bus all the time. It's actually very easy to take a stroller on the train.
Why do people insist on buying 100lbs of groceries at a time, either?
It wasn't so long ago that kids even did this in the US, though the US was even more dangerous then.
The fact that kids have such a tiny range and have their basic needs ministered to such an extent by adults is not good for the kids and isn't good for the adults.
> The idea of carting kids to soccer practice on the bus,
10 minute walk, not that I was interested in soccer as a kid (or as an adult).
> or shopping for a family of 4 and taking the bus with 100 pounds of groceries is absurd.
We have this fantastic new invention in Europe, called "deliveries". It's like Amazon, but it's your own supermarket.
Also, see previous point about building supplies. 25 kg may be ~55 lb not 100, but I have hauled both a 25 kg bag of cement and on a separate occasion a 25 kg bag of decorative rocks, in my rucksack, on a bus. I have *literally* seen someone take an actual kitchen sink with cabinet on the tram around here, something like this: https://www.amazon.de/Küchenschrank-Küchenspüle-Unterschrank...
Even on the one time I wanted more than I could carry (four 25kg bags of cement at once, and it seems these stores don't deliver specifically cement despite delivering everything else I've ever wanted), is was a case of "ask a friendly neighbour" not "buy your own car just for this"; but even if the neighbours had not been available, the building supplier does have rental vans specifically for people buying lots of stuff, so still no need to buy a car for this very occasional scenario that the thing you want is something they sell but don't deliver and it's too big or heavy to take on the bus.
Also, lunch breaks are generally long enough, and stores numerous enough and convenient enough, to do whatever top-up shopping is needed every day (except Sunday) rather than putting the whole thing into a single massive shop — and even if I forget shopping during lunch, my previous commute took me past at least 7 supermarkets and other decent-sized stores, plus two entire shopping malls at exactly where I changed lines — and additional options on two more shopping malls if I took a marginally longer route than my default.
Other things you may find ridiculous "what about a hospital visit!": it is between "very cheap" and "free" to call an ambulance here, and not "unaffordable even if you need it" like I keep hearing it is in the USA; and also the nearest hospital is a 16 minute public transport route, of which 14 is "bus" and there's a total of 100m walking (in total between both ends) going between the bus stops and the building doors.
Strollers/push chairs/wheelchairs: there's dedicated space on the bus, and more than enough space on the trains even on the ones without designated zones for them (and many do have dedicated zones for them and bikes).
(One thing I don't know and don't claim to know is how good in practice wheelchair access is in Berlin stations: I do know that the London network wasn't as good as it needed to be when I left the UK, but that's all).
>> 90% of AMERICANS hate public transportation.
Get out into the rest of the world and you'll see public transportation isn't some status simple that means your poor if you use it. Americans are just status conscious showoffs at the demise of their own surroundings.
I just want to get where I'm going cheaply, quickly and with the minimum of effort. In america, you need cars, outside of a few mega cities, because there is no public transport, and the stuff thats there is shite.
People want to move out of NYC because its fucking expensive, and the space you want to raise a family is very expensive. You would move to queens, because it had good train links to nyc. But as they've not extended the lines in any meaningful way for ~40 years, queens is now too expensive. (in practice nothing really since the 50s.)
I travel to Tokyo twice a year. When I came with my wife and three kids, we took an Uber everywhere because we could. I’ve also lived in Chicago, NYC, and DC.
In all of those places, even if you’re rich enough to live right next to a subway station, driving is usually faster, you don’t have to walk at either end during hot weather or rain, and you don’t have to share a cabin with the general public.
If that were really true, demand for an NYC apartment would go down, and then prices would go down until people didn't want to move of NYC "because it's fucking expensive". Some people do actually want to live there!
So dramatic. I know plenty of economically successful people who take public transportation. Visit Chicago, New York, London, Shanghai, Berlin, Paris, Tokyo, San Francisco and I bet you will see plenty of well-off people on public transit. Some of the richest places in the world, now that I think of it.
Surely you have a source for that 90% number, is what I'm saying.
Where do you get this number from? I used public transportation as a kid, and now as an adult and I always loved it. I like the feeling of people around me, that’s why I, for example, live in a big city. I also can’t imagine my life without walking, and this makes me hate cars oriented cities.
I also won’t be able to read on my phone while driving, and when taking uber I get sick (Waymo is better in this regard though).
But overall point it’s very clear pros/cons in my mind, partly because of the experience, partly because I understand it’s a lot of people around and we need to live together more efficiently. A lot of people advocating for public transportation on these threads are showing there are def more than 10% of people liking it.
Except that's not what happened. Streetcars were already on the decline when car companies bought them. Claiming "car companies bought public transportation to shut them down" makes as much sense as "hospice doctors gave cancer patients painkillers to kill them".
From wikipedia:
>Quinby and Snell held that the destruction of streetcar systems was integral to a larger strategy to push the United States into automobile dependency. Most transit scholars disagree, suggesting that transit system changes were brought about by other factors; economic, social, and political factors such as unrealistic capitalization, fixed fares during inflation, changes in paving and automotive technology, the Great Depression, antitrust action, the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, labor unrest, market forces including declining industries' difficulty in attracting capital, rapidly increasing traffic congestion, the Good Roads Movement, urban sprawl, tax policies favoring private vehicle ownership, taxation of fixed infrastructure, consumerism, franchise repair costs for co-located property, wide diffusion of driving skills, automatic transmission buses, and general enthusiasm for the automobile.[
And yet... LA has, still, 1,000 miles of light rail, and many other locations 500 miles plus.
And then you have Melbourne: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Melbourne
> ... consists of approximately 1,700 tram stops across 24 routes. It is the largest operational urban tram network in the world and one of the most used, with more than 500 trams and 250 kilometres (160 miles) of double tram track. It carried 154.8 million passengers over the year 2023-24. Trams are the second most utilised form of public transport in Melbourne after the city's metropolitan commuter railway network.
Why were there tax incentives to own cars? Because cars were manufactured locally and required a lot of labor so we can say that it was a relatively positive thing for the economy.
But how come that some countries have both a strong public transit and huge car industries like France or Germany?