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Comment by rsynnott | Hacker News Reader

A good public transport system can be faster than driving, tho. Really take any city with a large metro system. And driving in such a city only works as well as it does because most people use the metro system. Move everyone to cars, and it grinds to a halt.

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> A good public transport system can be faster than driving, tho. Really take any city with a large metro system.

Does DC count as having a large metro system? Because in DC, driving at the slowest, most congested time of day usually seems to be faster than the metro.

It's not just speed. Public transportation entails being closed in a small space with a completely uncontrolled group of the general public. When normal people think public transportation they aren't considering how well driving scales, they think cell phones blasting music out loud, homeless people, conversations on speaker phone, and random acts of violence.

Until that is fixed, people are going to prefer private transportation.

It is. Try living in a civilized country, rather than one who's people aren't known internationally for being rude and having guns.

New York City doesn’t have guns but is dirty and full of rude people. Salt Lake City has lots of guns and is clean and full of really nice people.

SLC residents are perfectly capable of, and very happy to be rude to you and treat you with disdain for a multitude of reasons (and SLC is the most "tolerant" city in Utah. Anywhere out of downtown and you find that rapidly disappearing). My former employer was in SLC so I spent a lot of time there.

NYC people are superficially rude, sure, as a stereotype. But when I've had a genuine issue or question, I've found most people there willing to help. SLC people are just as superficially "really nice", for that comparison.

Do you actually regularly take public transport, or is this just what you imagine it to be like?

I think you know the answer to that question

> Really take any city with a large metro system.

Which city? It’s not true in New York City or Chicago. For the most part it’s not true even in Tokyo unless you’re talking about going between two tourist locations that are both right next to subway stations.

It's definitely true for New York City. (Statistically speaking, of course. Late night hours things change because traffic drops to negligible levels and train frequencies drop as well. But most people care about regular work hours on weekdays.)

It’s not true even in New York City. I used to live at 86th and amsterdam and commute to 45th and lex. Google shows Monday at 8:30 am that’s a 27 minute drive or subway ride. That’s pretty much best case scenario for transit. Same address to our current NYC office at 55th and Park is a 15 minute drive versus a 30 minute train ride.

And of course, living at 89th and Amsterdam is insanely expensive. In practice, the folks at my company that work in New York City live in Queens or Brooklyn. Their train commutes are an hour+, similar to how long it takes me to commute 36 miles from Annapolis to the west side of DC.

This actually happened in 2002 and 2013 in Prague where subway temporarily ceased operations after flooding. Getting anywhere in the city was such a hell on earth, that walking or cycling was only kind-of reliable way to get around.

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