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Comment by hellcow | Hacker News Reader

In London or several other major cities, public transit is amazing. It's clean, reliable, fast, efficient, cheap, safe, and everywhere.

If you have to go somewhere near work, walk, bring a bike, or Uber. But chances are, there's a tube stop less than a 10 minute walk away.

The problem isn't public transit. The problem is its implementation.

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Aren't London commute hour trains just as crowded as those in the US? Whether the train shows up and departs on time, or goes where you want it to, is rarely the problem for existing systems in major US cities. It's about the experience of being inside the train for an extended period of time.

I'm about to double my rent and halve my square footage to get away from BART. It has noting to do with reliability and everything to do with standing on a crowded moving vehicle for 90 minutes a day.

Modern cars are palatial. Even the best (fast, frequent, good coverage, reliable) train systems are squalid and cramped when they are needed most.

Traffic is worse and gas is more expensive in London, so public transit is comparatively better

You could make the case that modern, palatial cars are the problem though. As far as I know, rent for places along the BART/CalTrain lines are much higher than away since it opens up living in outlying areas to people who work downtown.

Obviously some people prefer trains, but if the problem you want to address is winning over the people who don't, you'll need to engage with what makes trains unpleasant to them.

"Your commute is too comfortable, let's make it miserable" doesn't win elections.

> I'm about to double my rent and halve my square footage to get away from BART.

The BART is renowned example of how not to design and implement a mass transit system.

Furthermore, the reason why BART sucks is not because it's a mass transit system. It's because the service has no capacity to meet demand and fails to cover the urban area.

Do those cities heavily subsidize or give free tickets to the homeless and unemployed? Unfortunately LA Metro seems to do their best to give out free tickets to anyone who is willing to urinate or start a fight on board a train.

In the center yes, but as soon as you get to even Zone 3 you can easily find areas with 15-20+ min of walk to a tube station.

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