411–420 of 607 posts
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>modern trains. Even some American cities have them. Which American cities have notable modern train systems? Not Portland, or NYC, or Washington DC.
What do you mean by notable?
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Right, the reason it might be underutilized is if you're bad at designing cities for it. Which the US is, so it is. We design cities for cars, which results in the cities spreading out further and further, which makes transit less desirable and more expensive. Other countries don't have this problem to this degree, because they don't design their cities exclusively for cars. Also, I don't think most roads would need…
> is if you're bad at designing cities for it Consider that the transportation system might not be the best fit if it requires designing the rest of the world differently and against preferences (large, detached, single-family homes with a yard).
We also have the issue that dense inner cities are subsidizing the infrastructure for the spread out suburbs. If people had to pay the full cost they again might choose differently.
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> in your comment you're excluding road cost Partially not, as gas taxes cover part of it. I think gas and diesel taxes should cover the full cost of roads, which would help. Still doesn't mean transit should be run so inefficiently.
FWIW, some States require roads be funded exclusively with gas and use (e.g. vehicle registration) taxes. This does seem to significantly incentivize efficiency and long-term planning because their budget has to anticipate variable revenue.
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How many tax dollars go into subsidizing a public transit ride? Varies from place to place but it's not insignificant.
https://trimet.org/budget/pdf/2026-adopted-budget.pdf Tax revenue was $555mm https://trimet.org/about/pdf/trimetridership.pdf ~122,300,000 rides (originating + boarding) So about $4.53 per ride. The Portland metro is ~2.5mm people, so about $222/resident/yr. Portland metro area residents pay on average about sixty cents per day to subsidize TriMet. Roughly 1/43rd the average cost of ownership for a new car in Oregon.…
When a company / government gets the cost per mile to run a fleet of autonomous EV's down to ~60cents/mile or so, which is a plausible enough number, then a lot of those transit rides are going to look real silly from a cost effectiveness POV.
Stiff competition for humans, especially drivers outside the top quartile or so. Waymo appears to its passengers to drive much more competently than certainly any sub-average rideshare driver. Although I like jobs for humans, I hope these aren’t all just set on fire because there is promise in reducing fatalities. Want to find a way for offline vehicles that can go 65MPH to remain legal though. Without Flock every bl…
Ironically, Uber used the same tactics to replace taxis with rideshare: (Taxis/rideshares) are dangerous, drivers harass you, etc. Ours are so amazing, people love them. The reality is that I have zero problems with rideshares (or taxis, when I'm someplace that still has them). Being a social animal like other Homo sapiens , interacting is a positive but drivers have no problem giving me peace. I'd much rather have t…
Def interesting seeing complaints about drivers not showing since early days Uber pax (in SF) loved getting rides to outer neighborhoods without needing to lie about their destination.
Offline/human-operated/assisted vehicles could remain in the competitive mix to ensure we don’t get screwed again.
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how many tax dollars go to roads and bridges just for cars?
Everyone uses the roads. You have to reach for very obscure examples to find commerce that doesn't utilize roads. Every bit of concrete and steel to build transit was at some point transported over roads.
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If Portland is really forward-thinking, they would be smart to use this opportunity to jump to the next stage of public transport by focusing on flexible bus routes and Waymo/rideshare subsidies for the poor and disabled.
All they can do is to install more needle disposal bins and putting more narcan kit in the restrooms. I hate the direction Portland and more generally Oregon is going so much. It's always tax tax tax while everything is getting worse. Kotek needs to go.
Similar to alcohol prohibition and methanol poisoning.
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Yup, it is genuinely convenient that Waymo doesn't rely on an unpopular payroll tax for funding while the bus system does, and also doesn't have human drivers who need to be paid subject to the laws of the city of Portland. But it doesn't actually matter all that much what is going on municipally in Portland at the moment - Waymo (or ideally, a wide variety of competing robotaxi services) should exist everywhere in t…
Yup, it is genuinely convenient that Waymo doesn't rely on an unpopular payroll tax for funding while the bus system does To be fair, it gets far more subsidies from the government in general by simple virtue of being a car, they're just A) longterm and thus assumed and B) less visible in general. So I'd say the connection between transit and controversial taxes is arbitrary, really--I'll grant you "convenient", but…
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And in August, the bus line that serves my neighborhood completely goes away, and the next closest bus line with stops 2 miles away will end weekday service after 6:30 p.m. and weekend service altogether. I don't give a fuck if it's free, if it's inaccessible. I'm not crossing SE Foster on a rainy evening to catch a bus that won't take me home afterward.
The bus system would almost certainly be better if it did cost a somewhat-significant amount of money, because one of the biggest problems with public transit in the US is marginalized people getting on public transit and acting in ways that are unpleasant and disruptive to everyone else using it (think about a homeless drug addict passing out on the bus while splayed across several seats; or a schizophrenic screamin…
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At least 80% of what you’re describing would be satisfied by trains and buses. It’s wild that Americans are so obsessed with self-driving cars while ignoring public transit that solves most of the problems. It’s reliable, more efficient, better for the environment, and less stressful for you. I’m not saying cars shouldn’t ever exist. The ‘last mile problem’ is a thing, and proper self-driving cars could be good for p…
It would also be satisfied by magic flying carpets. Between flying carpets, functional public transport, and self-driving cars, only one of these three things is not utter fantasy in the near-ish future in the United States.