Are cars really the best option? Could other public transit serve the same purpose?
(I was once legally blind, still not a fan of cars myself. Though I understand the appeal when externalities are out of the picture.)
(I was once legally blind, still not a fan of cars myself. Though I understand the appeal when externalities are out of the picture.)
Making a car-centric society meaningfully less car-centric requires the enthusiastic support of that society, along with competent political leadership, and probably a fair chunk of taxpayer cash too. Suburbs with huge lots make for long walks to the transit stop - but densifying those suburbs is not easy.
I don't own a car; I travel everywhere by bicycle and public transport - but the public transport I use was all built in the 1850s. Some time between then and now my society reorganised into a form that has a lot of difficulty delivering public transport projects.
Politicians (and grifters alike) like to point to a future technology to solve an existing problem only to delay existing solutions which they don’t want to implement, most often for political reasons.
The robotaxis that do exist only do so in very limited places using very expensive technology (including off-shored service center for intervention) that is not available for the public consumer markets.
My kid is too young for a booster city. It's pretty impractical to take a child seat or booster with you unless you plan to hire a car the other end. When I travel back to see my family in Europe I take the train from the airport. So we bus and Bart to the airport even though it would be much easier with luggage to take a taxi.
This makes it far more practical for people to live without a car - hard to imagine in most of the US I know. As most such trips are low speed around town (e.g. getting to and from a train station or airport) it seems a reasonable trade off.
You of course need a car seat in a private car.
How do you manage to discover Hacker News and not know Waymos are real? I'm truly fascinated by this new level of ignorance.
I do disagree with you vehemently about Seattle’s light rail being inferior to Portland’s. That may have been true 10 years ago, but it for sure is not true today, especially after the East link opened earlier this year.
That said, Your parent is wildly off the mark (and honestly quite reactionary) in describing harassment from fentanyl addicts. Such harassment is extremely rare, and in the few cases where it does happen it is a failure of public health policy, not transit and accessibility policy.
As long as you weren't hoping to take a train to Ballard in your lifespan.
The drug addicts are also much less of an issue than a lot of media makes them seem. I'm not sure what would happen if I tried to shove my way through the crowd at 12th and Jackson, but mostly those "zombies" aren't paying much attention to passersby.
Public transit is better, but building it outside of dense metro areas to the extent it becomes competitive is probably even more difficult than building a self-driving car.
Population density plays a big part. People think of Europe as a public transportation paradise, but a car makes your life easier outside Berlin, Paris, and other major cities. I live on the edge of Copenhagen and public transportation sucks the further you go from the downtown since the major city turn into a giant suburb really fast. Yes, people bike, but many do drive a car.
Much of the world requires a car. Maybe someday it won't, but today it absolutely does.
But these are all things that can (and should) be fixed.
If the streets are very busy, the pollution bad, the tunnels smell like piss etc, then that is the problem.
Small amounts of moderate exercise every day are a lot better than going to the gym (by car, usually) for a hard workout.
I’d rather read a book on the sofa, but you can’t walk while sitting on the sofa.