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Comment by mlindner | Hacker News Reader

A lot of people need to work in a city but DONT want to live there. Many only live in cities because its convinient but would otherwise live outside the city.

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The thing is we already have a solution to that, high speed commuter rails from the suburbs into the city, there's just not enough funding to build out the infrastructure.

The amount of people who come into Tokyo is mind boggling.

The problem is that high speed rail is only cost effective when it is going between two dense cities. If it goes to low density suburbs not enough people will ride it for it to be financially viable.

We certainly don’t hold roads to a standard like “financially viable,” and systems like Metro, LIRR, and BART may have their problems but they exist.

That's an awfully loose definition of "high speed". Metro North averages about 37 mph and LIRR about 31 mph[1]. The only high speed rail in the US is Acela and even that is pretty slow for high speed rail.

[1] https://pedestrianobservations.com/2015/07/26/why-labor-effi...

Yeah ok, high speed rail (competing with air travel) and commuter rail (competing with driving) are pretty much mutually exclusive. I think parent meant the later. Tokyo’s commuter network isn’t proper HSR either.

Exactly. Self-driving minibuses are a much better solution for suburban-urban transit.

And many others would rather live in the city or closer to the city, but can't afford it.

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