Unfortunately as it stands in some places the infrastructure is awful. Take England for example; catching a train to London takes about 20 minutes for me, however there are often 10-15 minute delays that you now have to start accounting for, you also have to sit in a cabin with someone blaring their music that isn’t to your taste. Hopefully you’re not in a cabin with a toilet, because it’s going to stink of shit.

Now the return journey, fingers crossed it’s not cancelled otherwise you have another 40 minute wait for the next train! Last train home is a real anxiety inducing experience, will you be getting that train home or has it been cancelled? This is unfortunately all too common here. Sadly because public transport is for profit rather than a necessary service we have someone trying to do the bare minimum to make that money, and then pay the bare minimum to their staff who don’t give a shit. It all begins to unravel and people just have a better experience sat in that morning traffic which is a more consistent and pleasant experience to the public transport.

This can also be achieved by high frequency transit.

Really depends where you live. In my town I also decide when I leave, and I don’t risk being late because I missed the train by one minute. I’ll just take the next one. More risk of being late because of car traffic.

The problem when people compare cars to public transport is that they compare the current state of public transport in their area. We need to compare what would happen if we were spending as much billions as we do on cars.

If I’m doing a short trip locally in the city, I get that convenience out of my bike. There are times I would have taken a taxi somewhere, but when the app told me how long it would take for my driver to arrive, I just end up cycling there (often rolling past some long lanes of traffic in the process). That process can be even better if a city is built with safe biking paths.

I used to watch roger rabbit as a kid for other reasons

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Denver has decent rail, but I have to walk/bike across this insane hellscape of cars trying to kill me for 1 1/2 miles to get to the station

Including destroying neighborhood-after-neighborhood with highway overpasses.

Literally destroying buildings to build surface level parking.

It in that case the people with power wanted the change. They could profit from it, so it came easily.

Once those same people can make money by densifying urban areas into rental hellscapes and monopolizing public transit, you’ll have that. And it will suck.

The image in the post is of a yogi of some sort stating that electric cars are here to save the car industry first, and my impression of it is that it’s suggesting that exploring the idea of electric cars is unwise.

And hell yeah, efficient transit and walkable cities are the goal. But while we’re working on that goal, we should also focus on electrifying cars! Tackle the crisis in multiple ways. Because there’s no way we’re gonna stop using cars overnight, and if we can make cars more environmentally friendly while we taper off of them, that’s a win.

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Some cities, yes. LA is an example, right? And how they wrecked the street cars.

But not my city. Calgary was built as a stop on the Trans Canadian Railway, and that still exists, and there’s an (okayish) light rail train system here that’s slowly been built over the years and not torn down. Fully wind powered, too! Edit: our public transit kinda sucks though, I’m not saying we’re great. My commute to the office would be over an hour by transit and twenty minutes by car, I’m lucky I work remote.

A majority of North American cities that have grown within the last hundred years (coinciding with cars) were built from the ground up with cars in mind as the primary form of commute.

Thank you for your service.

But they are usually low frequency lines or in remote ish areas.

That’s regional public transport, not local. I dare you to show me a city with diesel subway trains.

But that’s a certain level of naivete. I’ve lived in Europe and in the Western US, and for people who have lived in urban or suburban situations their whole lives, they simply can’t comprehend the vast tracts of land that exist in most of the US. Public transport isn’t viable when your nearest neighbor is at least five acres away.

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You can’t put railways everywhere.

I have metro+train and it already wears me out so much that alI arrive at the office tired. I can’t imagine how I would survive through 3 different transit options twice a day

Sure buddy, spend a few hours hopping public transport each day is so much fun.

Cars are superior in every single way, it’s paupers that cry out of jealousy we’re seeing here.

They know cars aren’t the problem, there are industries out there that spew out the equivalent of millions of cars but they don’t bitch about that.

which is practically everywhere

You don’t need a road.

Are you seriously trying to tell OP that he’s lying about not living near a train? Or are you trying to say that the part about them running on a fixed track isn’t true? Either way, this is a really dumb take.

Also, you clearly haven’t been to rural areas, where dirt and gravel roads are common. Cars handle those just fine.

But those roads are far more numerous and further reaching than train tracks. Trains go from a to b. Cars can go which ever route you want. And you don’t build train tracks around a house.

Nope.

It is, don’t be such a little bitch about it.

There is also much less friction on rails compared to rubber on roadways. If demand increases the length of the train can be increased or more trains added. This helps prevent the cycle of needing more lanes (rail lines in this case).

You are aware that electric trains also use electric motors, just like electric cars do, right? And you are aware that electric cars rely on an electric battery while electric trains rely primarily on overhead electric power lines, are you?

That means cars require one extra component and an extra conversation of energy which trains don’t need. Every conversation of energy reduces efficiency of the final outcome. The more conversations, the less efficiency.

Trains use: power lines -> electric motor
Cars use: power lines -> electric battery -> electric motor

Furthermore, bigger machines can be built to be more efficient than smaller ones. So bigger motors can use (electric) fuel more efficiently than smaller motors.

They are, but only in specified routes. The issue is the areas they don’t hit because there isn’t a ton of demand. That said, someone else mentioned a taxi type public transit service, and that would solve this perfectly.

Doesn’t mean it’s not a nightmare, and that doing it with a car wouldn’t be easier. Try doing this with two toddlers one day, lol, I promise you it’s not as easy as watching someone else do it.

I can fully understand your position. People in big and densely packed cities profit a lot from proper public transport and vice versa. Plus the city itself is layed out to function with public commute in mind, I’ve experienced it personally in New York. I’m from a rural area. Our public transport system can’t fully replace cars. The main transit traffic is concentrated around rush hour in the morning and evening. To provide most people with public commute would require an immense increase in busses and train lines, only for 80% to be idle during low traffic hours.

There’s often a visual comparison between how many people a full car and bus can carry. Obviously the bus wins. But you rarely see the comparision between the space needed for a single empty car or bus to be parked. Cars can park on the side of the road or have a parking lot on location (even underground). Busses need ports and infrastructure. Trains are an even bigger problem to store. Their ports can easily take up a good chunk of the entire city. That’s why there’s always a financial incentive to have too little busses or trains than too many. People can tolerate waiting, but can’t tolerate higher prices to sustain a surplus on transport.

Also, public transport is often confined to local bubbles. Go outside your bubble and things start to get messy. When I was in High School, we had about ¼ of our class commute every day from one city over. They were either way to early or always late, because one cities train and bus plan wasn’t tuned to the others, resulting in people either having to get up about 2 hours before school starts at 7 am to catch a train or run the risk of missing their bus connection to the school. It’s even worse if you are crossing train districts and have to buy multiple tickets. When I was in college, some people came from another major city about 40km away. Their district covered half the state therefore their price was ~300€ per month and additionaly they had to pay 90€ per month for our smaller district. And both of those were the reduced prices for students. I could leave my car running idle for 20 days straight for that price.

EWs are important because cars are never going to be replaced by even the best public transport systems. But at least with could reduce the amount of cancer we get from sitting in traffic and breathing commute air. If I could choose, I’d rather have a power plant spit out steam and gas through state of the art filters somewhere in the outskirts, than to be surrounded by combusted gasoline resedue all day.

I doubt the US even has a say in these dissussions. Their intercity train system is mostly commercial to transport goods from coast to coast or border to border. Sparse availability of public trains means spending roughly the same on 48 hours train ride or a 1 hour plane flight. Building a single highway trough dessert heat of the Midwest is already a toll, but building a countrywide train system would, even if subsidized with the full military budget still be a nearly impossible task. Furthermore you have 50% of the population screaming to stop this socialist nonsense. There are enough examples of unfinished train sections that show what happens if money runs out.

And one might ask them self, how did the US get from cowboys and farms to the beacon of technical advancement? The answer is oil and slaves. They played dirty for 200 years and got ahead. So how does the entirity of Europe have a extensive network of rails spanning millions of kilometers? Was it because they where built before unions and labor rights were a thing? Turns out multi continental projects were mostly achieved through human suffering and disregard for safety. None of which goes nowadays to the same extend as back then. If a project isn’t finished within one legislative period, why even start? Policaly you won’t reap the fruits of your labor.

I know I’m exagarting, but the principle is simple. The early bird gets the worm. Europe has their trains and the US has their cars. Better to let each one figure out their own thing and then share the knowledge.

I’m in Europe, not in the US. You are very fortunate to be living in a way that doesn’t require a car. That’s not the case for most people. Here, we have a lot of smaller towns and ignoring backeries, they have zero places that sell food. I see a lot of elderly people commute by bus for daily grocery shopping. But in this heat, they are in serious danger spending that much time in barely climate controlled busses and trains. Mostly, somebody from their families swings by once a week to fill up their fridge. The most common scenario is a family, both adults working 9-5, 1-2 children school aged. With children and jobs most people don’t have the time to do daily grocery trips. That’s why shops are usually overfilled on Friday evenings and Satruday mornings (I worked those shifts in retail). From my experience growing up, a full week of groceries for a mid sized family is impossible to carry by hand. Also from my experience, public transport is a godsend if you live alone and are tight on money. It takes the burden of maintanig a vehicle of your back. But in a family or a close circle of friends, a car is usually a communal workhorse, used by everyone for everything to avoid the hassle of public transport.

I personally consider the price of the car as the privilege of ownership. Its not like you can change the color of the train if you don’t like it or throw you trash in the corner. If the train is to slow, you can’t put a turbo in it. Plus, you can always sell you car, but you can’t sell your used train tickets.

I’ve owned my car current car for roughly 4 years now. I got it used and it lost about -1,000€ in value. Maintance is incredibly low, roughly -300€ in total. Insurance was the big money drainer with about -2000€ in total, but I got in a couple of minor fender benders that weren’t my fault and only resulted in scratched plastic so I got a payout of about +1300€. So in total, if I were to sell it right now, my car my car cost me 500€ annually over the course of 4 years (fuel exluded). Thats a fair price for the freedom a car gives you.

But there are certain situation that essentialy prohibit using a car. Getting to the airport is far easier by bus (my city has a direct line) and you don’t have to pay for weeks of parking. Late night bus lines make going out to parties and clubs actually enjoyable, because you don’t have to leave your car in a shady part of town over night. Parking is another problem. The US feels like 80% parking space but Europe doesn’t have that. The biggest parking area in my city is basically right at the central bus hub. So it wouldn’t make any difference time wise to go by car. But thanks to 20 traffic lights, riding a bicycle doesn’t either.

Bicyles are like the best extension to public transit. And its highly undervalued. I’d rather have them reduce prices for train tickets that include a bike, than build more train lines. Currently they are nearly twice as expensive as normal tickets (because a bike takes up more space I guess).

Groceries are solved by having smaller but more frequent supermarkets, I can walk to 3 different ones from my house including one that’s literally 2/3min walk away (and I live in the countryside), we go daily so we can just carry it back because it’s smaller groceries. If bigger, personal carts exist and are gaining popularity around here.