City Vs Country: What do you prefer?

[Thermodolia]

Eh. Get a car.

Why would I get a dangerous, polluting, expensive, burdensome to maintain, time-consuming, traffic-stuck transportation device when I can ride fast, clean, cheap, reliable, safe trains and metros and read a book during the transit ?

Eh. Get a car.

But that’s so much money!

And also a lot of effort given that I need to drive the ruddy thing.

It’s really not that expensive.

And Kilo public transportation in the US is rarely reliable or clean or safe or fast. And 90% of our trains are gas powered so they pollute just as much.

[Kilobugya]

And Kilo public transportation in the US is rarely reliable or clean or safe or fast. And 90% of our trains are gas powered so they pollute just as much.

Then the problem is with the US, not with public transportation or cities

[Thermodolia]

But most people don't travel much at those times.



Not here, at least not for urban-level transport. Unlimited transport for all of Paris region (so about 12 000 square kilometers) is 80€/month, your employer has to pay half if you use it to go to work and the gov pays half for students or children (and it's free for kids younger than 4, soon to be 10), so even a family of 4 would mean paying 160€/month for unlimited public transports. There is just no way you pay for the car itself + the insurance + the upkeep + the gas for that price.

It's slightly more true for long distance travel, especially if you compare with TGV, but TGV is 300 km/h, so it's really another world in term of speed and comfort (you've tables, electrical plugs, wifi, restaurant service, ...).



On that I agree, few times I use a taxi (something heavy to carry or going back home late at night) I use a "regular" one, not Uber.

I am in nyc, we never sleep, (during normal times anyway).

If I take the family to the beach, its 3 trains and two fares. A little less than 3 hours each way, not worth going too. To drive, except during rush hour, 50 minutes, we'll worth a Beach day.

Trains are not as well subsidized here, if I were to take amtrack to Boston for 4, would be close to 700 dollars round trip. To drive its a tank and a half of gas 40 dollars, about 20 dollars in tolls, and wear and tear on the car. Much cheaper to drive with the family.

Shit. It costs just about that to go from Atlanta to NYC one way

[Thermodolia]

And Kilo public transportation in the US is rarely reliable or clean or safe or fast. And 90% of our trains are gas powered so they pollute just as much.

Then the problem is with the US, not with public transportation or cities

I’m not going to deny that. In the US public transportation sucks. The last time I took the subway I had to wait close to an hour for it to come. And on top of that the thing smelled and garbage was everywhere.

It makes much more sense to use a car to get downtown than to use public transport as it takes me 30 minutes what will take an hour or more by transport.

The only time I use public transport is when I go to the airport because parking is cheaper at the train station than the airport. $8 a day Vs $20 a day

[Ethel mermania]

I am in nyc, we never sleep, (during normal times anyway).

If I take the family to the beach, its 3 trains and two fares. A little less than 3 hours each way, not worth going too. To drive, except during rush hour, 50 minutes, we'll worth a Beach day.

Trains are not as well subsidized here, if I were to take amtrack to Boston for 4, would be close to 700 dollars round trip. To drive its a tank and a half of gas 40 dollars, about 20 dollars in tolls, and wear and tear on the car. Much cheaper to drive with the family.

Shit. It costs just about that to go from Atlanta to NYC one way

Amtrak is weird, the only place they really make money is the Richmond to Boston corridor. Its mostly business travel So they charge for that. Tbf the only places I have taken amtrak is ny to Boston, or NY to baltimore or DC.

[Thermodolia]

Shit. It costs just about that to go from Atlanta to NYC one way

Amtrak is weird, the only place they really make money is the Richmond to Boston corridor. Its mostly business travel So they charge for that. Tbf the only places I have taken amtrak is ny to Boston, or NY to baltimore or DC.

I’m taking Amtrak this fall to a wedding. Should be nice as I booked it back when prices where inexpensive.

[Ethel mermania]

Amtrak is weird, the only place they really make money is the Richmond to Boston corridor. Its mostly business travel So they charge for that. Tbf the only places I have taken amtrak is ny to Boston, or NY to baltimore or DC.

I’m taking Amtrak this fall to a wedding. Should be nice as I booked it back when prices where inexpensive.

I am curious as to the quality, let us know

[San Lumen]

Shit. It costs just about that to go from Atlanta to NYC one way

Amtrak is weird, the only place they really make money is the Richmond to Boston corridor. Its mostly business travel So they charge for that. Tbf the only places I have taken amtrak is ny to Boston, or NY to baltimore or DC.

I have friends in DC and take it frequently when i visit.

[Claorica]

What if you could buy a non-polluting electric car?

Even an electric car is very polluting. Batteries are polluting and energy-intensives to produce, they tend to be heavier and therefore generate more secondary pollution such as microparticles from the tires, and depending how the electricity is made it can also be polluting to recharge. It's a bit better than internal combustion engine, but nowhere near the ecological efficiency of trains, metros or tramways.

Trains at best use the exact same electricity that you would use to recharge your electric car with, and outside of Europe, China, and Japan, almost entirely are either diesel or diesel-electric (Diesel-Electric is the standard in the US)

[Thermodolia]

Even an electric car is very polluting. Batteries are polluting and energy-intensives to produce, they tend to be heavier and therefore generate more secondary pollution such as microparticles from the tires, and depending how the electricity is made it can also be polluting to recharge. It's a bit better than internal combustion engine, but nowhere near the ecological efficiency of trains, metros or tramways.

Trains at best use the exact same electricity that you would use to recharge your electric car with, and outside of Europe, China, and Japan, almost entirely are either diesel or diesel-electric (Diesel-Electric is the standard in the US)

Well sorta.

The diesel electrics are highly efficient. So much so that one gallon of diesel fuel goes nearly 10x the average fuel efficient car does. Basically it’s a mini power plant on wheels. Instead of the engine directly control the wheels it powers a generator which makes the electricity which turns the wheels.

Basically this leads to a much more efficient use of the Diesel engine than diesel mechanical would. In addition these engines have strict emissions standards, much more than any car, so to that end they have regenerative breaking which charges onboard batteries which helps with idling and start up which means less fuel use

[Luziyca]

City, if only because you don't need a fucking car to go anywhere in a reasonable amount of time.

Eh. Get a car.

I am a nervous wreck behind the wheel. The only time I actually completed a drive in person for driver's ed (as opposed to having it be aborted), I was basically exhausted and in a bit of a fog.

While I'd love to live in Jasper, cities do provide a fuckton of services in a reasonable walkable or bus-able distance.

[Kilobugya]

Trains at best use the exact same electricity that you would use to recharge your electric car with

Not the '"exact same", much less of it. First because there is a significant loss in charging/decharging a battery compared to directly use it from the power line. Then because you need much less energy per passenger in public transports (the same reason that even gas-powered bus pollute much less than the equivalent in cars). And then because metal-to-metal of wheel-on-rails has much less friction and energy loss than tires-on-asphalt of cars.

And you don't need to actually produce the very polluting batteries.

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

Trains at best use the exact same electricity that you would use to recharge your electric car with

Not the '"exact same", much less of it. First because there is a significant loss in charging/decharging a battery compared to directly use it from the power line. Then because you need much less energy per passenger in public transports (the same reason that even gas-powered bus pollute much less than the equivalent in cars). And then because metal-to-metal of wheel-on-rails has much less friction and energy loss than tires-on-asphalt of cars.

And you don't need to actually produce the very polluting batteries.

I'm basically on the same page, but I have to add that the energy efficiency of public transport ranges from excellent to really awful, depending on how many passengers are onboard. You'd think that mini-busses and single-carriage trains (for frequent-enough services at quiet times) would solve the problem, but the moment you do that a bunch of pensioners will hold a funeral at 11 am (for example) and complain that only half of them will fit in the minibus ...

This is one of the things which will get much better when trains and busses (and taxis!) become fully autonomous. The pensioners could signal their intention to use public transport and the big bus will drive the route instead of the minibus. Or if they can't manage that, the first minibus could send a signal back to base that there are passengers still waiting, and right away another minibus would head out. Two minibusses won't cost any more than one big bus to operate, since an extra driver is not needed, and the delay of calling another driver on-shift just for one trip, would not apply.

Autonomous vehicles will be revolutionary, for many reasons, but particularly by providing transport from anywhere on the road network to anywhere else, without the need to park at either end, with the security, biosecurity and privacy (no-windows privacy if people want that) of traditional cars. Like taxis, but at public transport prices. I hope I live to see it!

[Washington Resistance Army]

Not the '"exact same", much less of it. First because there is a significant loss in charging/decharging a battery compared to directly use it from the power line. Then because you need much less energy per passenger in public transports (the same reason that even gas-powered bus pollute much less than the equivalent in cars). And then because metal-to-metal of wheel-on-rails has much less friction and energy loss than tires-on-asphalt of cars.

And you don't need to actually produce the very polluting batteries.

I'm basically on the same page, but I have to add that the energy efficiency of public transport ranges from excellent to really awful, depending on how many passengers are onboard. You'd think that mini-busses and single-carriage trains (for frequent-enough services at quiet times) would solve the problem, but the moment you do that a bunch of pensioners will hold a funeral at 11 am (for example) and complain that only half of them will fit in the minibus ...

This is one of the things which will get much better when trains and busses (and taxis!) become fully autonomous. The pensioners could signal their intention to use public transport and the big bus will drive the route instead of the minibus. Or if they can't manage that, the first minibus could send a signal back to base that there are passengers still waiting, and right away another minibus would head out. Two minibusses won't cost any more than one big bus to operate, since an extra driver is not needed, and the delay of calling another driver on-shift just for one trip, would not apply.

Autonomous vehicles will be revolutionary, for many reasons, but particularly by providing transport from anywhere on the road network to anywhere else, without the need to park at either end, with the security, biosecurity and privacy (no-windows privacy if people want that) of traditional cars. Like taxis, but at public transport prices. I hope I live to see it!

I'm not sure I'd say autonomous vehicles provides the safety of traditional cars tbh. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure either the NSA or the CIA had a file leak and included among it was stuff to hijack computerized vehicles remotely, and given the way cybersecurity as a whole works I don't have much faith in the concept.

[Northern Socialist Council Republics]

I'm not sure I'd say autonomous vehicles provides the safety of traditional cars tbh. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure either the NSA or the CIA had a file leak and included among it was stuff to hijack computerized vehicles remotely, and given the way cybersecurity as a whole works I don't have much faith in the concept.

That’s already possible with human-driven cars. Most cars produced in the past couple of decades have electronic systems in a lot of critical places.

[Washington Resistance Army]

I'm not sure I'd say autonomous vehicles provides the safety of traditional cars tbh. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure either the NSA or the CIA had a file leak and included among it was stuff to hijack computerized vehicles remotely, and given the way cybersecurity as a whole works I don't have much faith in the concept.

That’s already possible with human-driven cars. Most cars produced in the past couple of decades have electronic systems in a lot of critical places.

Exactly why we should return to the Model-T. Reject modernity and all that.

[Kilobugya]

I'm basically on the same page, but I have to add that the energy efficiency of public transport ranges from excellent to really awful, depending on how many passengers are onboard. You'd think that mini-busses and single-carriage trains (for frequent-enough services at quiet times) would solve the problem, but the moment you do that a bunch of pensioners will hold a funeral at 11 am (for example) and complain that only half of them will fit in the minibus ...

But those are quite rare occurrences. Overall, in dense urban areas, public transit is much more energy-efficient than cars. The overall energy efficiency of bus network in Paris and suburbs is from 2x to 3x the one of cars. And with trains/metros/subways it's even much better.

This is one of the things which will get much better when trains and busses (and taxis!) become fully autonomous. The pensioners could signal their intention to use public transport and the big bus will drive the route instead of the minibus.

That could even be done, to a point, even without autonomous vehicles. In theory I'm all for it, in practice I'm not sure it'll really change much except in a few edge cases.

And btw we have two autonomous metro lines (line 1 and 14) in Paris. Not "fully autonomous", there is no driver inside the metro, but there are humans (but not one per vehicle) overseeing them from a control center and able to do some emergency shutdown/override if needed.

Autonomous vehicles will be revolutionary, for many reasons, but particularly by providing transport from anywhere on the road network to anywhere else, without the need to park at either end, with the security, biosecurity and privacy (no-windows privacy if people want that) of traditional cars. Like taxis, but at public transport prices. I hope I live to see it!

Well, autonomous vehicles have a role to play, for people who can't walk to the train/metro station (elderly, disabled), for people who have heavy luggage to carry, for people traveling in the middle of the night when the public transports don't run as often. But they shouldn't become the bulk of transportation, for many of the same reasons cars are bad: they have a much lower energy efficiency, they take much more space in the roads, and they are much more polluting to produce (especially the batteries).

[Kilobugya]

I'm not sure I'd say autonomous vehicles provides the safety of traditional cars tbh.

My understanding of the current state of the art is that autonomous vehicles are actually safer (less risk of accidents) than human-driven ones if you have all of one or all of the others, but that mixing autonomous and human-driven (with a behavior hard to predict by the AI) in the same roads is still somewhat problematic.

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure either the NSA or the CIA had a file leak and included among it was stuff to hijack computerized vehicles remotely, and given the way cybersecurity as a whole works I don't have much faith in the concept.

That's a real concern, but that exists even on human-driven cars since they tend to have lots of onboard electronics anyway. But to be fair, the risk of hightech terrorists hijacking cars to kill their passengers feels pretty low compared to the thousands of yearly death that human-driven cars provoke already (40 000 deaths a year just in USA, so about one 9-11 every month).

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

I'm basically on the same page, but I have to add that the energy efficiency of public transport ranges from excellent to really awful, depending on how many passengers are onboard. You'd think that mini-busses and single-carriage trains (for frequent-enough services at quiet times) would solve the problem, but the moment you do that a bunch of pensioners will hold a funeral at 11 am (for example) and complain that only half of them will fit in the minibus ...

This is one of the things which will get much better when trains and busses (and taxis!) become fully autonomous. The pensioners could signal their intention to use public transport and the big bus will drive the route instead of the minibus. Or if they can't manage that, the first minibus could send a signal back to base that there are passengers still waiting, and right away another minibus would head out. Two minibusses won't cost any more than one big bus to operate, since an extra driver is not needed, and the delay of calling another driver on-shift just for one trip, would not apply.

Autonomous vehicles will be revolutionary, for many reasons, but particularly by providing transport from anywhere on the road network to anywhere else, without the need to park at either end, with the security, biosecurity and privacy (no-windows privacy if people want that) of traditional cars. Like taxis, but at public transport prices. I hope I live to see it!

I'm not sure I'd say autonomous vehicles provides the safety of traditional cars tbh. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure either the NSA or the CIA had a file leak and included among it was stuff to hijack computerized vehicles remotely, and given the way cybersecurity as a whole works I don't have much faith in the concept.

"Cyberterrorism" would have to be pretty damn bad to make autonomous vehicles less safe than traditional cars. Human error is a total bitch.

[Ethel mermania]

Even an electric car is very polluting. Batteries are polluting and energy-intensives to produce, they tend to be heavier and therefore generate more secondary pollution such as microparticles from the tires, and depending how the electricity is made it can also be polluting to recharge. It's a bit better than internal combustion engine, but nowhere near the ecological efficiency of trains, metros or tramways.

Trains at best use the exact same electricity that you would use to recharge your electric car with, and outside of Europe, China, and Japan, almost entirely are either diesel or diesel-electric (Diesel-Electric is the standard in the US)

No they don't, home charging systems run AC power at fairly low voltages. Trains require continuous power are DC, and run in the tens of thousands of amps.

[Ethel mermania]

Not the '"exact same", much less of it. First because there is a significant loss in charging/decharging a battery compared to directly use it from the power line. Then because you need much less energy per passenger in public transports (the same reason that even gas-powered bus pollute much less than the equivalent in cars). And then because metal-to-metal of wheel-on-rails has much less friction and energy loss than tires-on-asphalt of cars.

And you don't need to actually produce the very polluting batteries.

I'm basically on the same page, but I have to add that the energy efficiency of public transport ranges from excellent to really awful, depending on how many passengers are onboard. You'd think that mini-busses and single-carriage trains (for frequent-enough services at quiet times) would solve the problem, but the moment you do that a bunch of pensioners will hold a funeral at 11 am (for example) and complain that only half of them will fit in the minibus ...

This is one of the things which will get much better when trains and busses (and taxis!) become fully autonomous. The pensioners could signal their intention to use public transport and the big bus will drive the route instead of the minibus. Or if they can't manage that, the first minibus could send a signal back to base that there are passengers still waiting, and right away another minibus would head out. Two minibusses won't cost any more than one big bus to operate, since an extra driver is not needed, and the delay of calling another driver on-shift just for one trip, would not apply.

Autonomous vehicles will be revolutionary, for many reasons, but particularly by providing transport from anywhere on the road network to anywhere else, without the need to park at either end, with the security, biosecurity and privacy (no-windows privacy if people want that) of traditional cars. Like taxis, but at public transport prices. I hope I live to see it!

You would call a cab for what you describe, no public transport system can be "on demand ". We do run some autonomous trains now, but that is a lot easier to do on a defined track than a city street.

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

I'm basically on the same page, but I have to add that the energy efficiency of public transport ranges from excellent to really awful, depending on how many passengers are onboard. You'd think that mini-busses and single-carriage trains (for frequent-enough services at quiet times) would solve the problem, but the moment you do that a bunch of pensioners will hold a funeral at 11 am (for example) and complain that only half of them will fit in the minibus ...

This is one of the things which will get much better when trains and busses (and taxis!) become fully autonomous. The pensioners could signal their intention to use public transport and the big bus will drive the route instead of the minibus. Or if they can't manage that, the first minibus could send a signal back to base that there are passengers still waiting, and right away another minibus would head out. Two minibusses won't cost any more than one big bus to operate, since an extra driver is not needed, and the delay of calling another driver on-shift just for one trip, would not apply.

Autonomous vehicles will be revolutionary, for many reasons, but particularly by providing transport from anywhere on the road network to anywhere else, without the need to park at either end, with the security, biosecurity and privacy (no-windows privacy if people want that) of traditional cars. Like taxis, but at public transport prices. I hope I live to see it!

You would call a cab for what you describe, no public transport system can be "on demand ". We do run some autonomous trains now, but that is a lot easier to do on a defined track than a city street.

I presume a cab is expensive anywhere, with insurance and the driver's time considered. Take the cab driver out of the equation, and driverless cabs will become a fallback for everywhere a bus, train or ferry doesn't run. They should even be affordable for commuters, but we have to consider that with children, the elderly, the disabled AND a lot of unaccompanied freight, there won't be enough road and mass transit has to be kept in the mix.

[Ethel mermania]

You would call a cab for what you describe, no public transport system can be "on demand ". We do run some autonomous trains now, but that is a lot easier to do on a defined track than a city street.

I presume a cab is expensive anywhere, with insurance and the driver's time considered. Take the cab driver out of the equation, and driverless cabs will become a fallback for everywhere a bus, train or ferry doesn't run. They should even be affordable for commuters, but we have to consider that with children, the elderly, the disabled AND a lot of unaccompanied freight, there won't be enough road and mass transit has to be kept in the mix.

The disabled here get something call access a ride. Which i think is better than improving station access (which we are doing as well).

https://new.mta.info/accessibility/paratransit

Its not great but it works.


What you describe is uber's business model. It's just taking a lot longer for autonomous cars than they predicted.

[San Lumen]

Eh. Get a car.

I am a nervous wreck behind the wheel. The only time I actually completed a drive in person for driver's ed (as opposed to having it be aborted), I was basically exhausted and in a bit of a fog.

While I'd love to live in Jasper, cities do provide a fuckton of services in a reasonable walkable or bus-able distance.

I hate driving too. The thing I like most about cities as well is the mass transit and being able to walk to almost anything.

[Kernen]

Eh. Get a car.

In many cities you don’t need one.

Because the alternative is the bus? Please. If riding one of those mobile bathrooms doesn't motivate you to improve your station in life, nothing will.