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Comment by pjkundert | Hacker News Reader

No, Elon does understand geometry — this author doesn’t understand the free market.

On the rare occasion that the “public transit” busses sharing our roadways are full, they are indeed very efficient.

Unfortunately - these situations are rare. The rest of the time, other solutions are vastly more desirable to the public. Simultaneously, these huge, lumbering 90%-empty beasts pile up traffic behind them, forcing massive exhaust plumes from the unnecessarily idling traffic.

Stop subsidizing sub-standard solutions, and let the transit-using public decide.

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You don't ride buses much do you? Of all the times I've ridden regular bus routes, there's only been one route where the bus being 90% empty would not be extremely atypical--and even then, that was only when I was picking up the bus during off-peak hours. More frequent have been the times where there being anything other than standing room available was the atypical situation.

If you're in an urban environment at least as densely packed as, say, San Jose, then the bus system is likely to have actually quite substantial ridership. By the time you get to the kinds of dense urban environments of the standard major US cities (NYC, Chicago, DC, Philly, Boston), I quite assure that the buses are routinely packed. The story might be different if we're talking about, say, Bismarck.

Furthermore, I should point out that if a bus is stopped "pil[ing] up traffic behind them", that's because it's letting passengers embark or disembark, which is a strong signal that the bus probably isn't 90% empty.

> Of all the times I've ridden regular bus routes, there's only been one route where the bus being 90% empty would not be extremely atypical

You're falling victim to the inspection paradox: https://towardsdatascience.com/the-inspection-paradox-is-eve...

Interesting. What evidence do you have to back up your claim that the user has fallen victim to this paradox?

Using your experience as a passenger to gauge how full buses usually are is about as straightforward of an example of that paradox as you could ask for. As an extreme example, imagine there are 10 bus routes, 9 of which are always empty and 1 of which is always full. If you surveyed every passenger, they'd tell you that 100% of the buses they've ever been on are full, but in reality, only 10% of the buses are.

You know you can just look this stuff up, right? The major urban transport systems publish data on this; it's how they decide which routes to cut and which to beef up.

I know. My point is that that's what you need to do, rather than trying to use (anec)data from passengers' perspectives, as the post I originally replied to did.

In Chicago, where I live, route cutbacks are major drama. If nobody is riding the busses, as the ancestor comment suggests, the routes get cut. You know that's happening because people are constantly pissed about it. It was that comment making the extraordinary claim, and ordinary evidence is sufficient to refute it.

On-demand AVs will probably kill mass transit in the US. The poor will get the equivalent of EBT cards to ride, so there will be a social aspect to it. But framing it as some kind of Randian triumph ignores that there are places in the world where mass transit is very efficient because the cities are different. Private cars will be for the rich and should be taxed appropriately. Meeting your fellow citizen while riding an AV mini-bus will open your eyes to social diversity.

There are tons of real-world situations in which individuals, by making choices that benefit themselves, create a situation that is worse for everyone overall. It's basic microeconomics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Alternatively, you could incentive people taking transit by making cars more expensive (by pricing in externalities).

>(by pricing in externalities).

In practice, this means someone pockets the change and nothing gets done about the so called externalities.

What do you mean? Can you give examples?

Suppose you want to force people to drive less — you increase gas prices with a tax.

Citing this extra tax, some lawmaker spends money on something completely irrelevant that was lobbied to them. Public transport is a fairly distant concern for most of them.

Oil companies increase crude prices to get on the gravy train, so does every other entity in the industry.

Car dealerships jack up prices because they want to maintain their profit levels.

Meanwhile middle class people who rely on cars get effed.

Nah, you do congestion pricing in cities where transit is feasible.

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