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Comment by caust1c | Hacker News Reader

Notwithstanding the obvious subjectivity of such a perspective, presumably you haven't been to NYC, Tokyo, Taipei, London, or basically any modern metro outside America?

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Oh I have, I've visited, and I've even lived in those places and gone without a car.

No more. Public transport is horrible, and I'll never again agree to live in a place without private transport. It doesn't have to be a car - but it needs to be exclusively under my control, and it needs to be close to my front door.

And I don't care that I'm getting non-stop downvotes for my posts in this thread, someone needs to speak to reality rather than utopian dreams. I don't care about the votes, but it's prettyu uncool that downvoted posts are greyed out and hard to read - aren't downvotes meant for offtopic messages? Or is the goal to have a uniform hivemind?

Why do you think public transport is horrible in comparison to cars? Do you feel that e.g. the environmental or cost benefits of public transport are outweighed by whatever cars have going for them?

Public transit takes longer, is less reliable, doesn't let you leave when you want, is often dirty, is harder or impossible to bring a lot of stuff on, and is more likely that you'll end up a victim of a crime on it than while driving.

None of this is true for somewhere like Tokyo, except for the 'harder or impossible to bring a lot of stuff on'. You could say many of the above for cars depending on the place (try driving through Jakarta for speed and reliability or many parts of India for safety).

Public transport is not horrible, but sure you can have other alternative forms of transportation like bicycles, scooters, long boards, segways, horses, etc... The cities that permit non-car modes of transport are nicer to visit and live in.

I think in theory I agree with you. I would _prefer_ private transportation, but if I was stuck between private car and public transit, I would pick public transit because the alternative of sitting in a car commuting every day is dreadful compared to the few thousand steps I could get from walking to/from public transit.

> "The cities that permit non-car modes of transport are nicer to visit and live in."

Doesn't literally every city permit non-car modes of transport?

Paris, Madrid and Manhattan aren’t utopias, you just don’t need a car to get around the majority of the city. Metro, bus and walking/biking can get you almost everywhere.

The problem is the attitude and not the message. That's mostly the reason why you're getting downvoted. I myself don't agree with you but didn't downvote. Just a heads up.

What's your opinion about bicycles in cities? They're under your control and very close to your front door.

> It doesn't have to be a car - but it needs to be exclusively under my control, and it needs to be close to my front door.

Sounds like you should give bicycles a try.

Or unironically, any last-mile foldable vehicle that you can bring with you on public transportation. Will solve most of your issues.

I have an e-bike and I use it. But the cargo capacity (i.e. a backpack) and range do not replace a car. So I also have a car.

Maybe something like an enclosed golf-cart with a 30 miles range and space for 2 with cargo, (or 4 without)? But it would not be street legal today.

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