>The problem is that your car-driving case presumes the driver already wants to go to MV and is bringing his friends and they don’t mind coordinating to make that happen.

This doesn't really make sense. My original point is that for me personally going alone, it is cheaper to drive than to use public transit. If I bring friends it is _much_ cheaper.

At this moment I could take a CalTrain to SF for $33/person or a 4 person UberX to SF for $47.85.

So yup, if I'm traveling alone it's cheaper taking the train than having a driver. Easily stops being true if there's more than one person.

Once there are autonomous cars, paying the driver will go away too and I'd expect that to be cheaper than CalTrain.

I'm unconvinced by your arguments, while I can understand (and agree) with some of the points you're making, I don't think it's as cut and dry as you make it.

CalTrain is $7.70 from MV to SF[0], not $33/person (or $16.5/person in your original comment). Or, you can get a montly pass for $215.

You don't need to wait on trains if you get your schedule down. They're VERY timely in my experience (caltrain). It is true that a car grants you the ability to fuck around and not worry if you'll miss the train. Especially during heavy commute periods, there are trains every 5-10 minutes.

Now, lets consider other pieces.

Depending on the vehicle you drive, where you park (how much it costs/inconvenience), insurance, maintenance, fuel, and potentially a lease, I have a difficult time in seeing how that would come up to less than $215/mo.

Fuel: SF to MV is 40 miles. A honda civic advertises 40mpg, so you use about a gallon of fuel in one direction. You go two directions each day if you're commuting. We'll call fuel $3/gallon, since you can find it both cheaper and more expensive in the bay. So, $6 worth of fuel for a day. 4.5 (weeks per month) x 5 (working days in week) x $6 = $135 in fuel costs alone, with no traffic (fuel/time/inconvienence costs). Running through a quick Progressive Insurance thing, I find that the insurance for a 2015 Civic is $62/mo for the base option[1]. Maintenance is $18/mo[2]. And there you have it, a vehicle for commuting is more expensive than a monthly pass alone. Excluding parking, the upfront cost of the vehicle, etc.

Yes, the tragedy of transit is that it's more expensive when you travel in groups. Few transit systems have actually tried to address this from my limited experience.

[0] http://www.caltrain.com/Fares/farechart.html [1] https://imgur.com/a/uS5CV [2] https://www.yourmechanic.com/estimates/honda/civic

> Especially during heavy commute periods, there are trains every 5-10 minutes.

Looking at the schedule. there is no time when there is a train from MV to SF within 5 minutes. The best case is trains at 7:04, 7:11, 7:25 in the morning or 4:36, 4:46, 4:57, 5:05 in the evening. Caltrain is a lot fo good things, one thing its not, is frequent enough for people who work anytime other than 8-4/5.

There are at least 2 trains running southbound service to MV at 6 minute intervals, 10 isn't uncommon either.

206: 6:05am and 208: 6:15am. (10min)

314: 6:59am and 216: 7:05am. (6min)

216: 7:05am and 218: 7:15am (10 min)

and another set of these after 8am. Northbound service does the same thing in the afternoon.

MountainView also has 7:04/7:11 and 8:04/8:11 trains. Unfortunately it trades baby bullet stops with sunnyvale which makes it a bit more difficult.

You are right though, they don't run frequently on evenings and weekends--there is simply not enough evening volume to justify it.

Anyhow, as you can see, there are trains that run a frequency of 5-10 minutes (not <5 minutes) during heavy commute hours. They actually do run 5 minutes apart if you depart from Diridon.

If that doesn't work for you, that's another question.

> A honda civic advertises 40mpg

Buy a hybrid (ford c-max used is about 15K), drive conservatively and you can get that mpg in Bay Area traffic.

There's no way a civic gas gets that mpg on bay area roads, i would guess approx 20mpg tops with an experienced driver behind the wheel.

With self-driving cars, the "driver" won't be quite free. At this point I'm not sure we actually know what the cost of the "driver" of a self-driving car will be. By this I mean, the cost of development, licensing, insuring a self-driving car, and the costs of updating maps, keeping the car on-line, and managing a fleet of self-driving cars.

It may end up being less than a human, but do we actually know that? I'm not sure we do.

Caltrain is not cheap but even a one way fare to SF from the end of the line in Gilroy is only $15.

You're right, I didn't double the Uber cost for a round trip