Comment by tim333 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tim333 | Hacker News Reader

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Self driving cars could work with trains to do the desired location to the station bit that has always been a bit awkward.

Trains are all very well but they've been around nearly 200 years and have yet to bring on a traffic free utopia.

Can you imagine how much traffic there would be if NYC didn't have the MTA? The principle of induced demand tells us that as long as there are roads they will have roughly constant traffic because people are willing to spend some roughly constant amount of time getting to and from destinations by road each day. More roads speeds up everyone's commute which brings in more drivers, which brings traffic right back to the baseline terribleness.

The question is how shitty it would be if they also had everyone on them who's currently on public transit.

So basically, it is a traffic-free panacea for everyone who chooses to use it. It's not a goal of trains to eliminate traffic for everyone who insists on driving.

https://www.tomtom.com/newsroom/explainers-and-insights/indu...

Yep, this is a good point. There are appropriate technologies for each situation. It's not a winner-takes-all contest.

For another example, can you imagine trains replacing school buses in a large, rural school district? Sometimes (not always), buses are better than trains.

Any one part would have the about same amount of traffic it does now. It would just sprawl out bigger across adjacent counties and the highest density parts would be lower density.

See also: LA

The induced demand argument works for trains too. If NYC didn't have MTA (no subway, no LIRR, no MNR) then the population of NYC would probably be 1% of what it currently is. Building more train tracks and having better train services also encourages more people to move to NYC so that these new train services become more utilized.

Neither roads or train tracks solve the traffic problem.

Train density is high enough that you might actually be able to build enough tracks to keep up with demand. Tokyo has just about kept up with growth by building trains, and (unlike cars in NYC) the trains don't have to dominate the city to do that.

The tubes were shut down due to a transit workers strike recently in London. Here's what the streets looked like:

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F2...

Now imagine if all those commuters were in cars.

This is what bikes and busses are for, or just walking because the metro system is comprehensive enough you are at most four blocks away from a station.

> have yet to bring on a traffic free utopia

This is a silly expectation to have. As long as there are roads for cars people will put cars on them.

Trains solve traffic for the people who get on them, not for drivers. The more people taking the train, the fewer people impacted by the traffic.

You could maybe have something like Zermatt Switzerland which is car free but you can get around in human driven golf cart like taxis. It's pretty pleasant but expensive. If the carts were self driving it could be cheaper.

(Zermatt pics https://www.traveladventuregurus.com/zermatt)

Zermatt is fundamentally a pedestrian town. There are a limited number of permits for electric vehicles available for companies that have an objective need for a vehicle. That limited availability makes the electric taxis expensive.

The total number of permits seems to be around 500 in a town of 5k permanent residents. And the population grows to 30k or 40k during the peak tourist season.

Yeah that approach can't be scaled to cities. Folks go there to chill or do alpinism, not live their lives and work. Otherwise those narrow steep streets would have very quickly rush hours and traffic jams, its really not a place designed for any traffic apart from walking.

One day, cheap automated electric self driving taxis will cover cities, thats unavoidable I think, but we are not there yet.

Cities are experimenting with traffic free areas like Barcelona's superblocks. You could imagine something like that but with cheap automated electric self driving taxis added. I agree we are not there - Waymo basically just substitute normal taxis.

They help to remove some congestion in the Netherlands. That’s my everyday experience. Traffic would be way worse otherwise

> Trains are all very well but they've been around nearly 200 years and have yet to bring on a traffic free utopia.

Cars will always have a purpose. But if you go to somewhere like The Netherlands, they are much less relied upon - it's more about delivery vans than getting individuals to places.

Visit Tokyo and tell me they haven't brought about a traffic free Utopia

Human beings naturally take advantage of new conveniences.

If public transportation just encourages people to move to the suburbs and commute in every day you've actually just displaced the problem.

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