551–560 of 653 posts
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Chiming in to say I also prefer public transit. Why focus on the ride at all when I can just read a book and teleport? And the real danger of motorcycles is to yourself. You could end up living with a feeding tube slipping in a shower let alone a minor scuff at 25mph.
You don't have to be the one driving...
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You're way overplaying the dangers of "crazies" and "the bacteria greenhouse" with respect to travel by motorcycle or scooter (or even automobile). I agree with your point that we should encourage these modes of transportation over cars, but I'd add it will be electric bikes that finally turn the tide on traffic congestion in cities (and all the other great benefits that come with doing that). Just don't tell the ele…
In NYC, I disagree. I get sick very frequently whenever I take the subway. It is absolutely disgusting. The amount of crazy people on there is a lot too. Every friend has some story of some person assaulting or nearly assaulting them on the subway. No one truly feels safe on it.
You know what's more dangerous than riding the subway? Driving in a car.
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No one likes decent and cheap public transport? I find that hard to believe. It's basically the common denominator for the best modern cities. Motorcycles are definitely not the solution. Motorcycle usage in NYC has skyrocketed since 2020 and as a result the streets are far noisier, more chaotic, and more dangerous, especially for pedestrians and cyclists.
I mean it in the sense that I've literally never met a person who prefers travelling by public transport to a personal motorized vehicle outside of long trips. The usage I've seen of it is from people who are too much of a mess financially to afford a car/license or people who are terrified of driving. Incentives just don't fix the issue of having no control and being in a pod with a hundred people you don't know and…
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Once the Uber drops you off, it's available to take someone else somewhere they need to go. Car services are an essential part of a total system that enables people not to have to drive. Personal cars are the opposite of that. It's one of those things about the way Americans think about transit that makes me insane, they try to assess the ROI of every single individual leg of a transit system rather than assess the s…
>For example they'll cancel late night bus service because very few people use it. Except that the people who do, are people who occasionally are forced to stay late at their job and rely on the bus running late. Once it's cancelled they have to drive to work every single day since they're not sure they won't be stranded. The 3-4 bus rides a month they used to take are exchanged for 22 private car trips because you c…
So what do you do? You drive to work every day and pay the parking costs, because it's preferable to ending up stuck downtown with everything closed for several hours while you're exhausted from working a double.
This problem with public transit is the single biggest reason people who work at restaurants have to always drive to work. It's exactly as the comment you're replying to put it.
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>I have a moral issue with it as well because the roads are financed by everyone's taxes Mind elaborating on how this is a "moral issue"? Public transit is funded by "everyone's taxes" as well, but you still have to pay a fare to use it. Do you get similarly aggrieved? >Around the time the charge was starting it was easy to find supporters for it on tv chat shows but I never met one in real life. It's trivial to find…
Your points are well taken. I wasn't aware of the Guardian poll and I stand corrected about my implication that the charge lacks public support. With regard to the moral issue, I have less of a problem with tickets that are paying for something like running a train, or for that matter a bridge toll paying off the bonds that enabled the bridge to be built. I have more of a problem with someone demanding money for noth…
What about on-street parking or municipal parking lots? Given how cheap they are to construct it's questionable to claim that the fees collected are needed to fund their construction.
>I have more of a problem with someone demanding money for nothing. [...] To my knowledge the main justification has always been that the charge funds the payer's behavior modification. Is it for the payer's own good? Is it for the greater good? You may well differ, but something about that doesn't sit right with me however noble, especially when it pertains to law abiding citizens acting within their rights.
How do you think most other taxes (eg. income tax, VAT, corporation tax) work? If you argument is that congestion charge is bad because "demanding money for nothing" and "something about that doesn't sit right with me however noble", then you should be rallying even harder against those sort of taxes. At least with congestion charge you can argue it's in exchange for the ability to drive, and unlike income tax, most can agree congestion is a bad thing, unlike people getting a salary (income) or businesses making/selling stuff (VAT). What is the government providing in exchange you paying income tax? Not getting a visit from the tax collectors? If it's something vague like "roads and schools", why can't the same justification be used for congestion charge?
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You're way overplaying the dangers of "crazies" and "the bacteria greenhouse" with respect to travel by motorcycle or scooter (or even automobile). I agree with your point that we should encourage these modes of transportation over cars, but I'd add it will be electric bikes that finally turn the tide on traffic congestion in cities (and all the other great benefits that come with doing that). Just don't tell the ele…
I mean, I'm definitely biased but I've been sick once since ~2015 and that was Covid I caught at a large anniversary celebration. Before that I was With crazies it's not that bad. I remember the bus getting pulled over once by a car with people with pipes/bats who beat a grandpa for getting in an argument with one of the guys prior. That was the only actually violent occurance over thousands of rides, however I still…
There's an old saying that if you can't spot the sucker at the poker table, you're the sucker.
If you've never felt threatened while driving a personal vehicle by all the road-raging, speeding, tailgating assholes--
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Why would groceries be more expensive? Do you think a $25 fee makes any difference to a delivery truck loaded with $10k of products?
Not only are delivery vehicles levied an additional toll of up to $32.40 under congestion pricing, but every employee, service provider and vendor who travels by car is also assessed the fee.
How many people do you think the scenario above applies to, in the real world?
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It’s not popular on HN but this is the truth. Cars are fast, and they operate on your own schedule, and they don’t have to make a bunch of stops. There’s just no way transit can compete on travel time. Unless of course, a city decides to purposely underbuild roads relative to population (like what is induced with increased density) or purposely destroys car infrastructure, as San Francisco is doing with absurd speed…
San Francisco currently has ~54% of its eligible population having cars registered to them. There are a lot of one-car families as well as e-bike families who don't want a car. If that increased to 100%, you wouldn't be able to park anywhere without paying a lot, and getting anywhere would be super slow. It might make sense on a per-individual or per-trip basis to say that you prefer using a car, but if everyone make…
A classic case of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma .
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How do we get around? To get downtown I have to take two busses and then bart (or two busses but it takes longer because there are a lot more stops). The kicker: I'm not even in a suburb, I live in SF! All we do in SF is make car driving worse, we almost never make public transit better. At least NYC has a plenty good enough train system. I end up WFH anyway, largely because it's annoying to get to an office downtown…
> All we do in SF is make car driving worse, we almost never make public transit better. In the last half decade we've seen the opening of the Salesforce transit center, the Chinatown subway station, the Van Ness BRT, the Caltrain Electrification Project, BART expansion to Berryessa, 800 new BART cars, and hundreds of smaller projects. You can see a full list of SFMTA projects at https://www.sfmta.com/sfmta-projects
But wait, I have to ask: why do you live in SF?
Practically anywhere else in the US is cheaper and better for people who want to drive.
Very few other US cities are better for people who want to get around by other means.