Comment by jcims

You have your causation backwards there. If you look at virtually every metro area in the US, the history goes: dense core -> policy decisions to favor cars above everything else, usually with a healthy dose of racism tossed in -> suburban sprawl.

You would expect that the surplus of space in many US metropolitan areas would make it considerably easier to install and operate metro transit lines, but this seems not to be the case. I suspect the systemic bias towards road users is much more of a problem than geographical scale.

No doubt about that.

I’m just arguing that the concept is fine, and the implementation is corrupted. Removing the corruption would be great but the issue is not the concept itself.

Yes, like dijit said, something modeled after the Screen Actors Guild. You rockstars get your million dollar salaries, no one gets overworked.

From the perspective of a person who travels a lot and exclusively uses public transportation; I think you don't value what you have.

American systems are not dependable, intercity and interstate travel is often not punctual to the point of futility.

There are very few examples that prove me wrong here (probably NYC<->NJ links being an exception)

Travelling around Los Angeles is just not possible, the buses are disgusting when they actually work and the time tables may as well be dinner menu's for value they bring.

Getting to LA from San Francisco required a coach, the coach was 8hrs late. There were no trains.

Going from NYC to Philadelphia by train cost me $300, when I returned it cost me $82 and was delayed by 4hrs.

Travelling around NYC using their underground was "ok" from a dependability standpoint; though I saw human excrement on many occasions, in one case it was smeared entirely on one of the benches where passengers usually sit.

I consider American public transport to be pretty poor. Where it is punctual it is disgustingly unhygienic. Where it is hygienic it is prohibitively expensive and non-punctual.

The rail networks prioritise freight and lines are fragmented heavily- it is common for one line of track to have several different owners as it progresses through a state. This causes delays as they do not seem to cooperate in using the tracks effectively, or delays from the use of a line causes cascading delays.

I've lived in Finland, England and Sweden- and I have travelled most of Europe (NL, DE, DK, FR, ESP) and have found public transport to be mostly punctual, in some cases it's actually "dependable" as in, I can rely on public transport getting me to my destination in a precise amount of time (+/- 10 mins).

This is definitely not the case in the USA outside of a few very major cities.

Western Netherlands, or more specifically, the "Randstad" area. People like to complain about train punctuality but really, shit's quite dependable. Trains run regularly and on a fixed schedule, trams in metropolitan areas, buses perpendicular on those trams and in the less-densely-populated areas. Higher education students get free usage of public transport during their studies. I have a driver's license, but I won't be using it often.

Switzerland. As an American, I wanted to move there after zipping around the country on their buses and trains.

That was such a good experience, even the tickrt app brought me joy.

Stockholm's subway. I have also had good experiences in cities like Madrid, Milan and Lisbon.

Tokyo Subway is the most impeccably run system you'll ever seen in the world, it's really quite perfect. The trains even have warm seats in winter.

London. Everyone likes to bemoan it usually, but you have connections via metro, train, tram, bus, boat or cycle to pretty much every major location in and around.

Alongside that you also have (putting aside the longstanding battle between them) a plethora of on-demand taxi services.

There are decent (although not high speed) train connections to most other major cities in the UK and even to continental Europe, there's an airport literally 10 minute car ride from the financial district, and two major European airports under 30 mins train ride away (obviously all dependent on your starting location within the metro area).

As an integrated system it's not perfect, but I'd certainly argue it's a viable aspiration for many cities to hit "good".

I've never had issues with public transportation in Brazil (living in small, medium and large cities). For the 5 years that I worked in person, I took the bus to work every day and I can only remember it failing me once.

Admittedly sometimes I'd fall asleep and miss my stop.

I was really impressed by Amsterdam’s transportation system as a whole - roads, bike lanes, light rail. As an American it felt like the city was designed to encourage walking or biking followed by public transport with cars as a last resort.

Even though it is ageing and could be cleaner, the subway in Paris is amazing to get you anywhere in the city. Add to it buses, trams, bikes + very well connected train stations, and you have a very good public transport.

Taipei's intracity transit, both buses and the metro system. Taiwan's intercity buses, rail, and HSR. Clean, very frequent, gets you everywhere.

Let it be known: I am about to indulge you knowing full-well that you're going to quibble over the definition of "good".

With that said, I have lived in the following places for more than a year, and found the public transportation to be good, if not excellent.

- Paris, France

- Lyon, France

- London, UK

- Amsterdam, NL

- Bayreuth, DE

Despite some well-known problems in some of these places (strikes in Paris comes readily to mind), the advantages remain enormous:

- Reduced motor vehicle circulation in the city

- A high degree of mobility at a moment's notice

- The ability to move around without breaking a sweat (sadly important when going to a meeting in a suit)

- The ability to get home while inebriated

- The ability for suburban (read: underprivileged) employees to participate in the heart of the regional economy

The list goes on...

Have you ever dealt with a cartel in real life? The idea that you can apply a "hacker" solution or "black hat" the cartel itself is naive. The whole point of any cartel (legal or otherwise) is to control and punish any attempts to operate outside of the rules and contracts that leadership negotiates. Anyone who considers doing something like this should be very aware of the career, financial, legal and physical risks of doing so.

Apparently 1, and you need to ignore all the ones that are executed well.

How many times must others get it right before you'll consider your own execution to be poor?

If the evidence is that American institutions fail where the vast majority of developed countries succeed, the onus would seem to fall on the “American” part and not the institutions. The same logic applies for healthcare, public transportation, and representative democracy.

This kind of thinking reminds me of biotruths, eugenics, social Darwinism, and other authoritarian concepts which seek to explain why it’s okay to have inequality between and within countries.

We should seek to raise rights and standards of living for all people. The focus on whether other people have cultures compatible with specific forms of government seems very suspect. Such talk keeps people down. Self-determination is a human right; therefore, it is a society’s right to determine government and culture. Your focus on culture is very strange; it suggests that the culture is a thing that justifies itself independent of the people. The culture is a thing people live and do. Your phrasing makes culture seem insidious, seeking to resist changes to status quo. Some monoculture advocates reject alternative cultures and seek to outcompete them. By implying there are singular cultures, you wipe away self-determination.

Sure, as I said, model it after the unions, in the US, that work. There are many examples to pick from and many lessons to be learned about what not to do from the others. The US has not and cannot legally mandate a union to be completely useless, at least this side of a dictatorship it can’t.