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Comment by zacinbusiness | Hacker News Reader

The automobile-industrial complex that destroyed public transportation in the US would never let it happen here. Maybe in other countries it's a possibility. Or maybe in the future when the major car manufacturers FINALLY go under. I support visionary tech like the HyperLoop even if only because it shows that there are some smart people who can actually see the problem and that they are thinking of ways of solving it.

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There are other problems that need to be solved before public transit can fully replace automobiles.

Consider groceries. I can't get two weeks of groceries for two people without a car. Wine bottles get heavy, and stacking bags on my arms risks crushing my eggs. I imagine it's even more complicated for those with larger families.

It's also generally cheaper to pick up furniture with Zipcar than it is to have furniture delivered by retailers.

I know there are some grocery delivery services cropping up, like Instacart, but they're concentrated in very urban areas. I remember using a grocery delivery service in the early 2000s, and it was a disaster: eggs were broken, liquids were spilled, boxes were crushed, etc. We need to see a lot of improvement in this space.

When you live in a walkable neighborhood, you quickly realize that you don't need to get groceries for two weeks in one trip. I go to the grocery store 4-5 times per week, spending maybe 10-15 minutes max each time.

Agreed. Having a store within walking distance makes it easy and fun to go several times a week. Fresh air and exercise is a nice bonus (I don't know why more people don't take advantage of it in my neighborhood).

Ever use a grocery cart? When the wife and I lived in New York we'd take the train to Costco and load up the baby's stroller (we have one of these: http://uppababy.com/vista/overview, lots of storage). It was way more convenient than where we live now, where we have to drive to the Costco and figure out how to shlep stuff from the parking garage to our apartment. Before, we literally strolled from the shelves at Costco straight up to our fridge.

It's hard to describe how inconvenient driving life is after living in a walkable city (and in New York, we lived in Westchester, in the burbs 20 miles from Manhattan!). Weekends are filled with strapping the baby into a car seat and driving to the mall to get basic essentials. Forget an ingredient you need for dinner? No running down to the grocery store a block over--30 minutes in the car for you!

I get my groceries on my bike that has baskets on the back rack. Two reusable bags hold lots of stuff, and I bring a backpack for when I go over. I drive when I need larger things, like toilet paper every two months.

Palo Alto taught me that cycling was a viable mode of transportation five years ago, and that knowledge has added lots of happiness to my life since.

Thats a solved problem in many places; it's far more efficient to have deliveries than everyone going in a car to a huge supermarket every week. Home delivery of groceries can be great, I've used it for years without problems, and you can buy your eggs and veg from a local walkable market if you have one (many large cities have weekly markets as well).

Or walk 6 blocks to the corner store each day to fetch your dinner. Shopping only every two weeks seems like what your car forces you to do, not enables you to do. I don't even like buying food that won't spoil in two weeks.

because all people live within 6 blocks of a corner store. I do now but this is the first time in my live that I've lived with in 3 miles (at least usually more) of a shop able store. A lot of cars in the city centers are people who live out of the city but have to drive in to get supplies.

Then that's a horribly designed city. That's the whole point of this article.

There are places in the US that bikes are impractical. The more rural areas may have distances of over 10 miles to the nearest market, and the roads will be of poor quality and there may be large hills and/or mountains. That said, a public transportation system could help this problem as well.

I'm not fit, but I used to regularly cycle 15 miles, with some reasonable hills.

I think one of the problems with cycling is that people don't have good bikes, and don't know how to maintain them, and are worried about longer (more than 10 miles) distances.

In this context when I say "good bike" I just mean "in good working order" and "sensibly adjusted to size of rider", and "has baskets or panniers". Something like that is cheap and really easy to keep going. And once someone has actually got that bike and they start using it regularly for shorter distances they build up the distances they're comfortable with.

Having said all that, it's pretty hair-raising cycling on roads where traffic travels fast if that traffic isn't used to cycles and if there's not much room for passing.

+1. Most people have an old mountain bike in their garage, with double suspension, low tires, and a chain that's nearly totally fused together. They hop on that thing once and have a miserable time barely going faster than they would walk. That's enough to turn them off for another 5 years.

I agree with you here - there are tons of real world problems with almost all public transportation systems. And I can't speak from a lot of experience, but I've spent a lot of time in London and I found that regardless of where I was there was always a walkable market and a walkable supermarket nearby. But, the further you get from the city center then the more difficult it gets. Here we need open-air markets ,farmer's markets, and these sorts of things. Even then, there are issues with transportation. However, I think a bicycle-focused transportation system is a good idea.

Solving the problems you list goes hand in hand with public transit replacing automobiles.

Autonomous taxis may help - it won't completely eliminate cars, but it can effectively eliminate the need to allocate parking in urban areas (cars will either be transporting people or parked outside of the city).

Throw in the safety wins and you have a recipe for massively improved urban spaces.

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