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Comment by PLenz | Hacker News Reader

Being a native of New York City I didn't own a car until I was 30 and my wife and I bought our first house north of the city. It gets about 3 miles a day between Metro North and home.

I'm still taking mass transit everyday and probably will be until I retire some decades from now. To me NOT taking public transit is abnormal.

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When I lived in the Chicago area as a poor student, I had a dilapidated car with over 200k miles on it that was always costing me money, breaking down, got broken into, got rammed by a drunk driver while parked, etc. When I moved to NYC, the most incredible feeling of relief was selling that car to the scrap man just before leaving town. It's so liberating and care-free not to own a car anymore. The occasional Uber and Zipcar suffice at a fraction of the annual cost. Plus I'm less likely to die violently.

For the rest of us across the US, the opposite is abnormal. I bike primarily and use the bus the rest of the time, so I'm definitely abnormal. It probably has a lot to do with the costs of owning a car as well as the insane traffice in NYC vs. the rest of the US

I don't agree. Other cities have good public transit, and especially other countries have shown it to be viable. I don't think NY's traffic has as much to do with it as their excellent public transit.

By "excellent" I'm assuming you mean timely and pervasive. I didn't find it very welcoming or clean vs., say, Singapore's public transport. Both are well used...so here, I claim that this is not due to quality as much as it is due to the cost/convenience of using it.

I live in Columbus, OH. It's pretty much one of the most poorly dense, large (800K) cities in the US. COTA, the public bus system, I use frequently because I pay for a bus pass in my tuition. Their buses are generally clean, drivers are friendly, and I feel safe for the most part (people in Columbus are pretty friendly). However, given the poor density the service times are terrible if you're traveling to somewhere other than along the main street. The city is so large for its population that most stops are far and in between. As a result, ridership isn't high at all.

I think convenience...and cost have a lot to do with it.

That's because you live in an area that's dense enough to make public transport viable.

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