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Comment by pc86 | Hacker News Reader

If Google is right they live in Jacksonville, which aside from being a terrible place to live in general, can't physically or geographically support subways or light rail. So you're basically limited to busses if you want to implement public transportation.

I've only been to Jacksonville a handful of times but I'd rather walk along the side of road in August than ride a bus there. And they don't actually help congestion that much.

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> can't physically or geographically support subways or light rail

Why? Genuinely curious, I don't know much about US geography

It's the 2nd least dense large city in America. It has a population of San Francisco but across like 15x more land.

There are a couple reasons (not the least of which is political will but that's a separate discussion). Jacksonville sits on a coastal plain and is almost entirely fine sand. You simply can't build a subway in that without astronomical cost. As for rail I'm pretty sure Jacksonville already has elevated rail in some places but ground rail would be difficult for the same reasons.

Jacksonville (and most of Florida) is extremely low lying with a high water table, so sub-surface construction (basements) and subways are basically impossible.

Structurally, it's a low density, car-based city so light rail (as opposed to busses) requires a lot of up front investment without the land use to justify it. At this point, like many US cities, adding effective transit is a chicken and egg problem with land use.

I'll bet you a dollar that it is Austin.

I guess there are made up reasons not to use public transport there too.

Austin is the 12th most populous city so it's possible they're just wrong but probably not.

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