123

I'm going to try hunter-gather for awhile. I don't have a car so I'm closer than most. I actually think I could do it but not sure it's a good idea.

Indeed car manufacturers and all industrial consumer goods manufacturers are insatiable. I think the laughable part is that people think this is "just" the private consumer choosing this. However, government actually encourages this growth and perpetuation of car use. Industry and government are intertwined through various transportation and commerce departments/agencies. Who do you think funds all those roads and bridges?? And public transportation is called "public" if it is somehow "communal" like trains and busses, but the public is deeply involved in car infrastructure as well. It's state-subsidized preferences for cars. There is no incentive NOT to use them. I've barely seen large-scale schemes like giving free tickets to those who don't own a car, etc.

However, it is difficult to transport people from point A to point B efficiently for SOME combinations of A and B using mass transit. For example, from a location in the suburbs to another location in the suburbs. This could be 2 different suburbs, but could also be in the same suburb.

Even if stops for mass transit were never more than five minutes away, it is impossible and impractical to try to efficiently connect every combination of point A and point B. — Agree-to-Disagree

Yes, most of this is a pipedream, but imagine if people built interconnected cable cars rather than roads? It was a choice. It's not like roads aren't (mostly) publicly funded!

imagine if people built interconnected cable cars — schopenhauer1

Do you mean "cable cars" literally? Or do you mean trolley, bus, tram, street car, or light rail? I mean, cable-pulled trolleys are a charming but very anachronistic means of transport.

I mean updated versions of course :D.

Yes, most of this is a pipedream, but imagine if people built interconnected cable cars rather than roads? It was a choice. It's not like roads aren't (mostly) publicly funded! — schopenhauer1

There is another problem with mass transit. It must cope with very large volumes of people at only a few times of the day. Usually 2 times as people go to work and come home.

At other times mass transit must be available for the small volume of people who want to use it, and it must still be frequent enough to meet people's needs. This means that mass transit is underutilized but must still run to meet people's transport needs. So you get buses, trains, etc carrying only a few people. This is very inefficient. Cars don't have this problem.

There is another problem with mass transit. It must cope with very large volumes of people at only a few times of the day. Usually 2 times as people go to work and come home.

At other times mass transit must be available for the small volume of people who want to use it, and it must still be frequent enough to meet people's needs. This means that mass transit is underutilized but must still run to meet people's transport needs. So you get buses, trains, etc carrying only a few people. This is very inefficient. Cars don't have this problem. — Agree-to-Disagree

Yep, public transit has its logistical problems, but cars do too, as mentioned in the OP. Cars are extremely inefficient when it comes to cost, pollution, physical, and psychological damage/outcomes if everything is considered in relation to it.

imagine if people built interconnected cable cars — schopenhauer1

VERY unfortunately, an interconnecting system of transit lines is, in most American metropolitan areas became an impossibility since WWII.

A core city like Boston, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, even Minneapolis can operate such systems, provided they run their buses and rail systems frequently enough, and sometimes they even do. But, as you know well, the bulk of the population is now distributed in concentric rings around core cities.

I don't think we can afford the costs of building out the light rail / bus rapid transit lines that it would take to serve the large share of the nation's population that live in these dispersed concentrically arranged areas, whose design was predicated on individual car ownership and concrete everywhere. Minneapolis and St. Paul together are roughly 20 miles long and 10 miles wide. The 2.5 million people in the Minneapolis St Paul Metropolitan metropolitan area are spread across 70 or 80 miles, reaching across 4 to 6 counties. Crazy, but that's what happened.

It gets worse: one half of Minnesota's population lives in dispersed metropolitan areas while the other half, another 2.5 million, live within the roughly 60,000 square miles of rural territory (small towns, mostly). Many states have similar distributions. Northern Illinois is densely populated; the rest of the state, not so much. Mississippi, Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, similarly.

Were we to make the truly Olympian decision to abandon individual transportation (whether gas driven or electric) it would require a Titanic change in the way 330,000,000 million people live--changes that are over the horizon and can only be guessed at.

All this is to say we are totally screwed. The unmarked pivotal events in our total screwing happened at least a century ago, and have been amplified again and again. The New Deal housing program that was a great blessing for millions of people was one of those amplifications. It created hundreds of suburban metropolitan zones, out of nothing, around the country and fed a tremendous amount of economic growth. Now we're stuck with it.

As much as I wish for great mass transit (especially as a transit dependent person), I don't see it as an economic or cultural possibility.

Were we to make the truly Olympian decision to abandon individual transportation (whether gas driven or electric) it would require a Titanic change in the way 330,000,000 million people live--changes that are over the horizon and can only be guessed at. — BC

As much as I wish for great mass transit (especially as a transit dependent person), I don't see it as an economic or cultural possibility. — BC

I agree. I am not saying this mass transit transformation will happen any time soon, simply explaining the situation as it is now, and to present some alternatives that will not take place. Cars were the "engines" (pun intended) of much economic growth. And I stand by the idea that it didn't lead to the best outcomes. Poor planning, mixed with corporate interests bring us to where we are now.

Cars are extremely inefficient when it comes to cost, pollution, physical, and psychological damage/outcomes if everything is considered in relation to it. — schopenhauer1

Absolutely. The tragedy is that practically our whole economy is built around this cost, pollution, physical and psychological damage, and negative outcomes.

As Jesus said, "It is much more difficult for an advanced economy to devolve dependence on the automobile than it is for a whale to live in a fish bowl." He said that. Really!

Absolutely. The tragedy is that practically our whole economy is built around this cost, pollution, physical and psychological damage, and negative outcomes. — BC

Being a philosophy forum, I did want to bring the moral and cultural aspects of this up. Humans are so extremely centered on this transportation technology- whole swaths of political and personal aspects wrapped up in it.. But it has forced us in a case of "too big to fail".

As Jesus said, "It is much more difficult for an advanced economy to devolve dependence on the automobile than it is for whale to live in a fish bowl." He said that. A camel getting through the eye of a needle business was a mistranslation. — BC

:lol: No doubt, Jesus would have driven a Geo...

As Jesus said, "It is much more difficult for an advanced economy to devolve dependence on the automobile than it is for a whale to live in a fish bowl." He said that. Really — BC

I thought that Jesus said "Blessed are the cheesemakers".

Yes, Jesus blessed the cheesemakers. Had he lived two millennia longer, he would have had to pass final judgement on Velveeta. Would he bless it or blast it? My guess is he would say something along the lines of, "Woe unto you, deceitful fabricators of plasticized, extruded, and perpetually shelf-stable crap."

At other times mass transit must be available for the small volume of people who want to use it, and it must still be frequent enough to meet people's needs. This means that mass transit is underutilized but must still run to meet people's transport needs. So you get buses, trains, etc carrying only a few people. This is very inefficient. Cars don't have this problem. — Agree-to-Disagree

This is only true on paper. In actuality, one wonders why at any given day of the week and at any given time, there are so many people "not at the workplace", but going to shops, restaurants, the beach, and somewhere else. I witness this myself everyday.

As far as the public transit, there's park-and-ride, which is also nonsense as you still need to drive yourself to the location of the ride, park your car, ride, and come back to get your car and drive home. That's bullshit. Then there's the lame trolley as it is only available for short strip of the city, so it's like a joy-ride only, not a real serious shit that's gonna take you to work, home, school, and stores. Like it's a token ride so the politicians could point to "there's the trolley, if you don't own a car". Like, WTF!

This entire train of thought entirely ignores numerous illogical suppositions. Firstly, after the internal combustion engine was invented, how buses and trains could be perfected without passing through smaller and simpler cars first. Secondly, proposing mass transit over personal vehicles displays an urban bias. Rural folks are completely left out of the conversation.

Of course, a robust debate can be had on shifting a higher percentage of urban dwellers to mass transit and away from cars. But that is very different from declaring personal vehicles evil, as if they have no (inherently obvious to essentially everyone) huge positive impact to humans.

In the winter you'll probably get cold feet waiting for the bus or light rail.

In the summer don't ride light transit after the ball game because it will reek of beer from the sports fans gassing off.

Spring or fall might be better, but you should ask some locals first. For example, O'Hare airport to downtown Chicago..take a taxi, not the L. Just my perspective. I found out the hard way. And you can't manage more than a small pack or hand bag.

I'm probably not deterred, but some will be. Many, many good rides but a few bad ones mixed in. Like Capitol Heights to the National Mall (DC) by rail..if anyone knows that one.

I actually use park and ride in big cities to keep my car from being vandalized.

I actually use park and ride in big cities to keep my car from being vandalized. — Mark Nyquist

That's a benefit, not the primary purpose -- one hopes. Park & Ride seems to be aimed at lessening congestion on inbound/outbound roads, and having to use expensive parking downtown. P & R is also a way of creating ridership.

At other times mass transit must be available for the small volume of people who want to use it, and it must still be frequent enough to meet people's needs — Agree-to-Disagree

why at any given day of the week and at any given time, there are so many people "not at the workplace", but going to shops, restaurants, the beach, and somewhere else. — L'éléphant

The fact of the matter is that a large share of "mass transit" is largely transit for the poor and the disabled who have little choice but to use "shabby transit". Because the constituency using transit tends to be poor people, students, or people who can't/don't drive, frequency, comfort, quality, convenience, etc. just isn't a priority.

IF the kind of anti-social, dysfunctional, disorderly, and disruptive behavior that swept over transit during the pandemic occurred in a wealthy suburb's shopping area, there would have been an immediate crackdown on riff raff. On many transit systems, this crap continued for 3 years before transit authorities got serious about bad behavior on their systems.

But that is very different from declaring personal vehicles evil, as if they have no (inherently obvious to essentially everyone) huge positive impact to humans. — LuckyR

Yes, individual cars and such allows for flexibility into rural areas. If I was to take a fully fictional scenario, I could propose that even farms can have trams and trains going to those areas with minimal need for cars and trucks..

More practically, sure, rural areas would still use automobiles, but by no means do cities, suburbs, exurbs, and even small towns need automobiles if there were interconnected series of rails, trams, light rails, and the rest.

Imagine instead of doing Ford (GM, Mercedes, Toyotas, Dodge, Chevy..etc.) bidding, we invested in public transportation right after WWII rather than expansion of highways, cars, and the like.. Perhaps growing the system such that one need only step onto a smaller tram right in front of their house that goes to larger avenues to their destinations.. Yes, it is completely sci-fi fantasy, I get that. And perhaps we couldn't have the technology or coordination during that time, but the ideas can come first, and the practicalities are worked out by engineers, planners, and the like. It's not impossible, but certainly it would take a huge political and cultural will which no one has and it would take a large national effort, let alone probably a global one to really make it work.

IF the kind of anti-social, dysfunctional, disorderly, and disruptive behavior that swept over transit during the pandemic occurred in a wealthy suburb's shopping area, there would have been an immediate crackdown on riff raff. On many transit systems, this crap continued for 3 years before transit authorities got serious about bad behavior on their systems. — BC

They're still not serious.. Just saying. Yes, mass transit has languished as a cesspool where drug users, predatory behavior, mentally disturbed are able to terrorize others trying to use it for commuting or getting around. This creates the chicken-and-egg. It is seen as unsafe and insecure, so people avoid it. People also don't want to wait 50 minutes or more for what could be done in 10 minutes (or less). This cuts costs. That cuts frequency which further erodes trust in public transit.

I'm someone who likes the park and ride. For someone a little outside of a metro area it seems to make sense. If you can travel light and don't have a tight time schedule it saves money, parking fees, possible risks like accidents, tickets, towing, damage, traffic.......

Not for everyone, but for me it's an option sometimes. I don't have a car now so I haven't done it for awhile.

If I visit a new city I like to check out their transit.
El Paso Texas had a good bus system when I was there. It got me close enough to walk into Mexico. Maybe a bad idea but it was just 50 cents to cross the bridge and I liked the food stands and walked back out before dark.

Boston has good transit and connects with Logan airport. I got out to the MIT, Harvard areas. Vacation sight seeing I guess but some of us like that.

Actually there is a lot of variation city to city. I try to check ahead but always a lot to learn.

I'm just rambling on about anything I know about transit. I haven't had a car for 2 years so have to find mixes of things that work for my situation.

There are smaller scale transit companies in small markets that seem very well run. Government subsidized but they are not the same as what you might expect in the big cities. Like county wide services in the outskirts.

There are smaller scale transit companies in small markets that seem very well run. Government subsidized but they are not the same as what you might expect in the big cities. Like county wide services in the outskirts. — Mark Nyquist

Care to elaborate? Would it be with any frequency for anyone to give up their cars for?

No, just generalizing. More in the area of dial a ride and limited service.

It would be interesting. Has there ever been a time when whole swaths of industry has migrated to another? For example, if mass transit was developed, would all the engineering, construction, and operations go into that from car related industry?

I'm thinking there are personal solutions, government solutions, technology solutions.

For me it's just a personal solution. So for me it's a mix of things. Sometimes I just handle things by phone, networking, friends.
Online shopping has surpassed stores for me.

But I mean, would the X amount of work going into car industry go to mass transit?

I don't know. Okay...cost/benefit for cars (as is) vs cost/benefit for some other solution (might be). That's a little beyond me.

I would support smarter solutions and think reducing transportation needs would be a quick payback. Live closer to where you work. Have basic needs close by. Reverse urban sprawl. Do the easier things first. Even the simple things have push back and inertia.

After that it gets messy. It's not just basic needs but all the extra things people want to do.

@Schopenhauer1 During the pandemic (now running into its 4th year) offices were closed and employees in offices were given the means to work from / at home, The numbers of people not needing transit or a car trip downtown was big enough to produce a crisis in the office real estate market. Many billions of dollars worth of office space across the country are empty. This reveals two things:

First, technology makes it possible for many people to work at home. Good? Bad? It depends. It depends. In a cartoon from 2020, two cats ask, "When are they going to leave?" and "Why don't they just go outside and die." Initially many people didn't like it; now, as their employers are dithering over office rent, most don't want to go back to the daily commute.

Secondly, changing one thing (hundreds of thousands of office workers at home) can have adverse effects elsewhere in the economy. Work from home (wfh) was a boon to communication businesses. Think Zoom. At the same time wfh was a disaster for transit -- millions of fares foregone,

Central business district support businesses were devastated. Cafes, caterers, small stores, etc. tanked all over the place. The usual unlovely elements moved in to fill the vacuum created by absent office workers.

City planners aren't sure whether their downtowns will find ways to become even moderately interesting please to be. Convert the office to towers to apartments? This is only sometimes economically feasible. Buildings with narrow floor plates can convert offices to living spaces, though it is expensive to add plumbing for baths and kitchens and HVAC for individual units. Large square or wide rectangular office buildings (the most common kind) have too large a floor plate. Apartments arranged along the outside edge, where the windows are, leaves a large cavity in the center of each floor that just isn't usable for much. Air shaft? Atrium? Again, generally not economically feasible.

How many people living downtown add up to an interesting city? I don't know, but a lot more than who are presently living there. I'd say... let's say... could be... 25,000 residents downtown could make for an interesting city that didn't depend on office workers.

Minneapolis has about 50,000 people living in a very generously defined downtown. These 50,000 are not a dense enough concentration for the amount of area they live in. 400,000 people live in Minneapolis, and they don't make downtown an interesting place, because most of them never drive -- never drove -- downtown,

Why did they not drive downtown? Because there are scary unpleasant things downtown, like one way streets, parking meters, the dreaded cultural diversity, no enclosed shopping centers, parking lots charging money to enter, busses all over, too many stop lights... It's a nightmare!

Secondly, proposing mass transit over personal vehicles displays an urban bias. Rural folks are completely left out of the conversation.

Of course, a robust debate can be had on shifting a higher percentage of urban dwellers to mass transit and away from cars. But that is very different from declaring personal vehicles evil, as if they have no (inherently obvious to essentially everyone) huge positive impact to humans. — LuckyR

I think in the rural area mass transit is not practical. I think the OP meant the cities full of cars -- that's why the evil reference. But you are correct, there should be a two-tier proposals on the restrictions of vehicle use. I don't know. How are the Amish doing, btw? Do they use vehicles on the road now?

light rail. — Mark Nyquist

In Asia, it's monorail. I've ridden a monorail before -- built by the Japanese. It's high up from the streets, unlike subways. The streets below have the regular vehicular traffic.

The fact of the matter is that a large share of "mass transit" is largely transit for the poor and the disabled who have little choice but to use "shabby transit". — BC

The modern rail is open to everyone. Some have seats like an airplane cabin. Maybe the "bus" still bears the image of the uncouth crowd, but we should really change that now and make the bus ride as comfortable as the private car.