Comment by oblio

> Americans love good public transportation […] Most US cities have lots of buses

So… Apparently not…

The USA is probably the worst place in the world for 1) high speed trains 2) buses. And the only place I know where the train _waits_ for cars to go through.

If only they could see by themselves how bad it is during their next trip to Switzerland, the Netherlands, Japan, London, Paris (even France in general) and many many other countries and cities that have a functional network of high speed trains, metro, tramway and regional lines…

I hope you’re not ready to die on that hill.

From everything I am learning about the US on Youtube by transport people, they universally despise bus service in North America cities.

Some have light rail but at a far smaller rate then cities in Europe.

There are tiny cities in Europe that have more light rail then cities 10x the size in North America.

My tiny town of less then 100k people literally has more extensive bus and train connection then most cities in the US that have million+ people.

> But in a big country with a spread-out population, public transportation is tough.

Compare for example Switzerland (lots of maintains, rivers, hills and so on), with a equally sized metro area like Torronto, Dalles and so on.

The reality is many of your metro areas are the literal exact opposite of spread out, they are just badly designed.

Zürich for example is a city that has only like 600k people, with maybe 1.5M in the larger metro area and Zürich has more trains and trams going then whole Texas city triangle.

So please stop with the excuse about how everything is so spread out in the US. Its not spread out, its just badly designed.

> But in a big country with a spread-out population, public transportation is tough.

This is oft-repeated, but it doesn't really survive a moment's scrutiny. You might as well say it's pointless to build a path from your back door to your shed, because the county is just too big.

The built up areas of the US have almost the same population density as the EU ones.

Nobody cares about the Rockies or farm fields or Death Valley.

This is probably a good model for the future of public transit. We use large buses because of the high cost of drivers. For less popular routes and times it currently doesn’t make sense but self-driving mini-buses would.

At least in SF there has been little discussion due to the influence of the unlicensed transit unions. The idea of eliminating drivers can’t even be discussed.

While this is somewhat true, in the overall problem of transit, this is a tiny problem dwarfed by far larger problems. For this argument to make sense, there are about 5000 ways to improve current US cities in terms of transport that don't require this amazing technology.

Its not technology that is limiting good transit, but will.

If San Francisco repealed Prop 13 the city could afford to hire drivers for a fleet of small buses.

Then again if you want a reason to hate Feinstein she's the one that got rid of the gypsy cabs in San Francisco.

I also like the benefits of invidualistic cultures, but there's a cost to it too.

The US got this way because it was super-charged between pre-WWII and the dotcom boom. Both economically and culturally. The post-WWII high wages allowed the rise of suburbia, the Cold War induced WW3 scare led to the highway system, and so on.

The low-efficiency of it is taking its toll. (Sitting in traffic for hours each day, pollution, etc.)

You can have both. You can have fewer cars and excellent public transportation.

Then stay out of the cities, and live in the country. If this is how you want to live, then your opinion doesn't matter for how cities are run.

Is this a parody?

Where? And is it filled with people coming from the local P&R?