Comment by nunez
18 days ago
As a fellow public transit fan, you're on the money. Even the shining stars of transit in the US --- NYC MTA subway and CTA --- have huge qualuty of life issues. I can't fault someone for not wanting to ride trains ever again when someone who hasn't showered in 41 years pulls up with a cart full of whatever the fuck and decides to squat the corner seat closest to the car door and be a living biological weapon during rush hour. Or "showtime."
That's before you consider how it takes 2-4x as long to get somewhere by public transit outside of peak hours and/or well-covered areas. A 20 minute trip from a bar in Queens to Brooklyn by car takes an hour by train after 2300, not including walking time. I made that trip many, many times, and hated it each time.
Waymo wouldn't dare propose it, but it would be fascinating to see about how much better train right-of-ways could be utilized by AVs.
Is that a public transit problem or a societal/homelessness problem?
It doesn't matter in this context. What matters is the hypothetical person in my post thinking "this is what will happen if my city proposes a train" and voting against any legislation trying to bring this forward where they live, even if they hate driving everywhere.