Public transport only works inside of cities, and there's a lot of infrastructure already built to support sprawling metropolitan areas where everyone has 1/4 acre of land surrounding their detached home. There's not a lot of push to tear all that up and forcibly relocate the residents to inner-city apartments.
You know the benefit of electric, self-driving cars, though? An intelligent car isn't going to run you over on your bike. Be happy about that.
Three of the best public transit systems in the world are Berlin, Tokyo, and New York, which are both amongst the densest large cities in the world (Berlin is almost exclusively 5 story apartment buildings). The Berlin subway is largely self-supporting without public subsidy, Tokyo's system is composed of two competing but interoperable systems, the larger of which is privately run, and New York's system was privately run until 1940. The lifestyle, weather, and zoning of the cities where it works kickstarted the construction, and there exists enough demand that they would have great public transit systems even without government initiative.
What matters is if the 82% of Americans who live in cities are forced to crawl through sprawling car-choked landscapes, or are able to live in a walkable environment. High reliance on cars prevents the latter.
By the way you were wrong about that Japan vs US comparison as well. USA has a higher proportion of urban residents than does Japan. And they have plenty of trains in Japan.
Yes, I'm guessing that many of those urban areas are within half an hour of a freeway--though this may be less true in the West. But the vast majority of those 82% don't live in places that are remotely walkable.
According to my Google search, Japan's urban population is 90%+. The US is around 80%. That's why I mentioned the two places.
/s obviously.
God I hate the responses on threads like this that insist on the impracticality of public transport worldwide because it doesn't work in the US. It's like mass Stockholm Syndrome or something!
Notice how I even said "it works in places like Japan"? Notice that? See it? Good. Now quit acting like like you're being oppressed every time someone mentions the US. Yes, the world is a big place, but guess what? The US exists and a lot of people live there. Deal with it.
Jesus christ it's like I insulted your mother or something.
And income inequality means that people can literally afford to pay for other people to not be near them as they travel.
Busses and trains and other mass transport will return when income inequality is reduced to the point where the amount it costs people to pay for their own space is no longer affordable for them, but if you're earning 500 times the person next to you, you'll happily pay what it takes for them to disappear.
Heck, to a certain extent we're already in that scenario, with some sharing services are cheaper than cars(@ridewithvia, @ridechariot, and maybe uber pool and lyft line) - and yet people prefer cars.
[1] https://www.postauto.ch/en/news/start-public-testing-autonom...
While self driving cars will do great things for people such as yourself (and overall I fully support their development/adoption), I also share the fear that it will prevent American urban centers from a desperately needed shift away from cars dependence in favor of better public transit and urban density. I really don't see the idea of every person in the country having their own personal transportation device (or even shared self-drivings car with something like uber) as a sustainable path for the US to continue down.
The technology for good transportation in/among major cities already exists: walking, biking, mass-transit, and high-speed rail. I wish Americans would be more open to these concepts rather than dismissing them in favor of the form of transit that has yielded nothing but horribly designed and polluted cities.
http://www.boredpanda.com/space-required-to-transport-60-peo...
But this is much more likely to actually happen. A grid of self driving cars powered by renewable energy. I will take it over the current state.
Trains are intrinsically unequal, they serve hub towns at best and cities only at worst, they are dirty, cramped, noisy, unprivate and they don't go when or where you want to go. Even with Google maps seaming together journeys out of trains and busses, you end up waiting and walking a lot. And trains are an intrinsic monopoly with a staggering up front investment, you can't make them better with market forces. I foresee self driving cars cannibalizing the train's market of people who just want to pay for journeys rather than the vehicle.
[1] public transit is great for when you have a lot of time and aren't carrying a lot of things. Doing, say, your weekly groceries by bus or walking is annoying af. Source: living in a European city without owning a car.
PS: I live in the US now and not having a car is much more convenient than it was in Europe. Uber and zipcar and getaround are magic. We didn't have that in my city
plus in many if not most countries rail simply doesn't go where people need to be. in countries with a choice cars are winning out and with autonomous and eventual ev powered cars it won't be a bad thing
Space? Roads take up way more space than tracks.
Efficiency of cost? Roads are very expensive. Often more expensive per passenger mile than railroads.
Efficiency of energy use? Moving a 2000kg electric car around for 1 person is never going to be efficient.
Efficiency of through-put? Roads even with autonomous cars will never have the throughput of a train-line.
Also I think you significantly underestimate the cost of road building and maintenance.
Roads are indispensable and essential for last mile connectivity. No matter if trains and subways become 10 times more popular they will always exist in addition to the road infrastructure. Thus autonomous electric cars are a huge boon, its just common sense.
That depends on how you are defining efficiency (doesn't it always), an electric motor with a good battery backed by a good powergrid (nuclear/renewables) is about the most efficient solution to "one person going from Point A to Point B" in many ways, I'm in favor of public transport but even in a European country it can let you down.
Also in the future with electric self-driving cars I'd happily not own a car (I don't now) and just rent one as and when it's needed from a pool of cars, that would take cars off the road compared to now.
>Space? Roads take up way more space than tracks.
Highways can now be minimised to two tracks, the standard width of a vehicle, vibration reports can tell the councils where pothole repair is most needed.
>Moving a 2000kg electric car around for 1 person is never going to be efficient.
Car's are 2000kg in part to protect the driver, as crashes trend to 0 there's no reason they need to be so big.
>Roads even with autonomous cars will never have the throughput of a train-line.
Trains are rarely full. Cars can get smaller, we can mitigate traffic jams.
Eletrics cars are 2000kg because a the battery weighs a lot.
Trains get smaller too when it's not rush hour. France regularly runs one carriage trains the size of a bus.
Mitigate and smooth flowing aren't the same thing. On way to work I see cars backed up for miles. Doesn't matter if they're self driving or not when cars move bumper to bumper already.
Even now, several years into the current news/development arc of self-driving cars, I still can't believe this is going to be the future.
We're really never going to european (or japanese) style train networks ? We're really going to keep binging on roads ? We, as a nation of fat slobs[1] are really not ever going to return to a culture of walking ?
I always thought of car culture (and we absolutely live in a car culture) as some kind of 20th century aberration ... eventually, LA would get their streetcars and subways[2] back ... eventually Minneapolis and Denver would have 20, not 2 light rail lines ... eventually we'd graduate from shitty bus networks operated badly, for poor people.
Tesla cars are awesome. Successful self driving car software would be an incredible achievement. I worry that there is an arc of societal and urban development that has gone very badly awry and that this will further keep us from fixing it.
[1] That is not hyperbole.
[2] Yes, I know there is currently a tiny, minor subway in LA.