noitstoolate t1_iwbxp9a wrote on November 14, 2022 at 2:42 PM

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Waymo’s driverless taxis keep making incremental progress, while others flounder by AdmiralKurita

Challenge flag! It's way cheaper for me to take the train between major east coast cities than it is to drive. And it's ridiculously cheap to take a bus, even between non major cities. Density is the name of the game though. Like you said, you can't have all this infrastructure and only 50% ridership.

QuantumQualia t1_iwc9e98 wrote on November 14, 2022 at 4:05 PM

If you have an animal with you it’s not allowed though, unfortunately, and if you have a lot of items to carry it’s very difficult. We have a lot of thinking to do about how we want to handle public transportation before that is a viable sole option. I say this as someone that loves public transport and would love to see it flourish.

Test19s t1_iwco5of wrote on November 14, 2022 at 5:43 PM

Which is why only radicals want to ban car use on a metropolitan or national scale. Moderate levels of car use in a walkable metropolis is the way to go!

oiseauvert989 t1_iwgc4aq wrote on November 15, 2022 at 1:00 PM

Usually what is happening is that moderate changes are proposed and then described as "bans" by opponents rather than proponents.

Bans on vehicles are not effective at that scale. Removing parking and putting in filtered permeability is much more effective. Road diets, cycle networks, bus lanes, urban trees etc. are the way to go.

"Bans" can only really work in inner cities and usually include some built in exceptions. This type of policy effectively already exists in many cases and the only real change is that some cities like Berlin are proposing expanding the boundary of what they consider the inner city. These kind of pragmatic changes are very interesting and exciting for the future.

noitstoolate t1_iwcazk5 wrote on November 14, 2022 at 4:15 PM

Sure, and you spend the same amount of money for 1 person as you do for the max capacity of your vehicle when driving but it would be 5x the price on the train. I totally agree we have a lot to work on but we don't have to account for every single scenario. The train between DC and NYC, and all the cities in between, is cheap, reliable, and fast and the reason is because ridership is high enough to pay for the service. Make a more reliable and comfortable local public transit and it will work the same way. Nothing will eliminate private vehicles but if you greatly reduce their need it's a lot easier to solve some of these other problems like traffic, parking, emissions, etc...