> It's more like the other way around: the idea is to make public transport cheap and efficient enough that it's a reasonable alternative to driving everywhere.

That would be nice, but that's not the general opinion of urbanists in the US. They (generalizing) really do believe as the parent describes, to "make driving too expensive and/or too inconvenient, to force people to use public transit", and they truly believe this will magically fix public transit across the nation.

It's the urbanist version of "the beatings will continue until morale improves".

They'll often lie about it, saying "we don't hate them, we just want them to pay their fair share", or "to remove subsidies". But mostly, they just really hate cars. Especially electric ones (since they largely solve most of the problems of cars, while still being cars). Just browse the top 20 posts of /r/urbanplanning on any given day to see this in action

So, by your definition I’m an urbanist.

I don’t hate electric cars more than gas cars, what I will say is that electric cars don’t solve a lot of the externalities that actually bother me on a day to day basis (that said of course I would prefer all vehicles switch off of gasoline),

My big issues are that cars take more space than other forms of transport, cars endanger me more frequently when I’m trying to do my thing & we expend insane resources on supporting car centric lifestyles that we needn’t expend.

Basically I’m tired of subsidizing other peoples car centric life styles at the expense of my own.

> since they largely solve most of the problems of cars, while still being cars

They solve air pollution and some of noise pollution. But they don't magically cause people to carpool.

And even if they did, net passenger density for buses is higher, rail substantially higher again. An NYC subway R160 carriage can, in the space of about 4-5 car lengths, carry about 250 people, meaning those trains move a thousand or more people in the distance from a T-intersection to the back of a cul-de-sac.

Cars are expensive. It's just that you don't pay for it at the car.

  They solve air pollution

They displace air pollution to wherever the generation plant is, except for rare areas served by 100% nuclear/hydroelectric/solar/geothermal.

Note however that it is easier to limit and monitor air pollution generated by relatively few generation plants, than by hundreds of thousands of individual cars.

While the only 100% hydroelectric regions I know of are the pacific northwest USA and eastern Canada, I live in an area with 60% hydroelectric and nuclear. 30% is natural gas. The last 10% is a split between coal and renewables. So a battery electric vehicle is 65% near zero emissions, and 95% is less polluting than oil. (Without considering the inherent efficiency of battery powered motors vs. internal combustion engines. Or the environmental footprint of manufacturing "green" machines, building concrete containment domes for nuclear plants, nuclear waste disposal, or methane leaks).

Even pure displacement of air pollution to smokestacks is a huge plus in places like midtown Manhattan where the most respiratory health harms due to particulates, NOx, ozone, etc. are taking place. Less kids getting asthma, people getting heart attacks/strokes, premature births, etc.

Displacement results in better health outcomes, which is the whole point.

This is a false dichotomy. Certainly it is true that reducing air pollution is better than not, and certainly effective public transit reduces total air pollution both by being more efficient, and because power sources are never 100% fossil fuel powered.

It's probably because you have the NHS and socialized medicine, which would probably house the mentally ill homeless in some sort of mental hospital? I'm guessing the OP post lives in SF or maybe LA, where the mental hospitals were dismantled because of scandals in the 70s or 80s.

There are 2 kinds of homeless, normal people down on their luck, and people who need psychiatric or addiction care. The normal people go use the bathroom in an alleyway or a bush somewhere, the ones off their rocker piss themselves while sleeping on the train. There are far more 'normal' homeless vs. mental homeless, and it's the mental homeless that cause the problems.

>> It's probably because you have the NHS and socialized medicine, which would probably house the mentally ill homeless in some sort of mental hospital?

Unfortunately not. Mental illness is rampant among the homeless population. And, to be honest, even the most "normal" people will develop mental illness once forced to live on the streets for long enough.

Generally regarding the NHS and mental health, the subject is very controversial. Resources are continuously slashed and the care available is not adequate, in many parts of the country.

>> If homeless people on buses are a problem where you live, that has nothing to do with public transport in general.

When you hear of people being aggressive, high, inconsiderate, or here in Portland two people had their throats slit on the light rail recently near my house, it makes the public not feel comfortable using the public transportation. Since it's called public transportation and these things effect the public and the transportation, it actually has a lot to do with the public transportation.

It has nothing to do with public transportation. Wrong level of abstraction. It has to do with the fact the US is turning into a inequality dystopia.

This is exactly right. It's the price people pay for living in a place that doesn't care about its people.

People can get their throats slit in public, anywhere which is public. There is nothing to suggest that the Portland light rail is any more dangerous than walking the streets, and to be honest, as someone who uses the MAX almost exclusively, the implication is somewhat offensive.

Public transport in Portland, is not "public transport in general". It's public transport in Portland.

  If homeless people on buses are a problem where you live, that has nothing to do with public transport in general

It has everything to do with public transportation policy.

Example: VTA (Santa Clara County). They started allowing "homeless" to just hang out on a given long route bus all day, recirculating directions, so they could claim higher ridership. Of course, the real-world effect is that those people who would have used buses for legitimate transportation were displaced, and a death spiral of constantly falling legitimate ridership continues.

VTA's explanations (paraphrased):

2005-2008: "oh, so many more people are employed, they can afford to drive" (or, more realistic, they need prompt, reliable transportation).

2009-2012: "oh, so many people are out if work, they don't need buses to get to work"

2013+: GO TO 2005

>> It has everything to do with public transportation policy.

Local transportation policy, maybe, but that is not "public transport in general", i.e. the concept of public transport in the abstract, as opposed to its implementation in specific situations.

To put it bluntly, Santa Clara County is not the world.

I agree 100%. Where I live they "restructured" the bus routes, which was a different word for "we're trying to save money". The result was that we went from 4 buses every hour, to 2 during the day and from 2 to 1 in the evening. I used to take the bus when I had to go to the city, but the waiting times have more than doubled and I'll just take the car instead. It's more expensive, but there is always parking and it's significantly faster now. I vastly prefer to take the bus, so I don't have to worry much if I grab a beer or 2, but I'm not waiting hours to catch the bus.

I think the USA has (a) much more homeless people and (b) much less buses than random places in the UK. (I remember reading a stat from ~5 or 10 years ago that San Francisco had more homeless people than England).

San Francisco probably does have more homeless than England, but that is a likely a case of lieing with statistics. Which is to say there are external factors that make homeless likely to migrate to San Francisco meaning you will find other places "near" San Francisco with much less homeless.

Yes, I'm sure the social welfare system in San Francisco is better than England.

It is better than the options elsewhere in the US. Note that temperatures above freezing all winter is already a significant improvement. There are very cold states that have a great social welfare system, but weather makes them undesirable.

> It's more like the other way around: the idea is to make public transport cheap and efficient enough that it's a reasonable alternative to driving everywhere.

In Austin, they took the perspective "if we won't build it, they won't come". After the unwanted growth happened, it sure feels like the sentiment is "if we don't build it, they won't drive." There are fundamental problems with the driving infrastructure and instead of addressing it, they patch over it with toll roads, some planned or are only a quarter mile long, to allow "those who care (can afford)" through. They ignore major issues, like if one of the major bridges needs work or goes out, the city will be devastated.

When the limited public transport options do come up, they've seemed to be forward looking projects which is fine except they don't do anything about all of the other problems.

> I live in a small town on the South coast of England, which just happens to have one of the largest populations of homeless people, nationally. It also has very good public transport, namely, buses, that are always full. I've never seen a homeless person using a bus as crashing space, or causing trouble of any sort.

My guess is that if this isn't due to better services for the homeless, then the main factor is probably the local climate.