Even that is assuming the public transit has enough capacity and safety. I remember the Seattle E-line before the pandemic for example. Packed in like sardines so you have to stand and maybe be able to hold on to something. Almost always someone at least yelling incoherently or starting a fight with an unlucky passenger. It was certainly not a relaxing reading nook. Not to mention having to often wait for 2 or more buses to fit inside at all. In many EU countries public transit is excellent even in the suburbs/exurbs. But it’s an order of magnitude difference in funding that I don’t see the US really ever doing.

Totally agreed. I would much rather sit in stop-and-go traffic for an hour than stand in a crowded bus or subway for the same hour.

Especially with all the sensors and smart safety features that modern cars come with, I don't feel that driving is any more stressful than having to balance myself on a constantly shaking bus while holding onto a crappy rubber handle, for example.

A reserved seat in an actual train, though, would be a different story.

> 1.5 hours of sitting peacefully on public transit is dramatic

Sitting peacefully isn’t really possible on a lot of public transit, especially during rush hours.

To me, that sounds like your public transportation can’t handle peak demand properly. I think that’s actually solvable by building more transportation and scheduling more trains, busses, etc.

There will of course always be a trade off between peak capacity and spending, but this isn’t any less true for cars.

Which cities handle peak demand such that everybody gets a seat on the metro or bus?

Commuting from certain suburbs into downtown Vancouver is great - a real train with many sections having tables and power outlets. Pretty much everyone gets a seat.

But if you're in other areas, getting into Vancouver is like you described. There's options for more light rail around here but no political will to get it done.

Your nervous system is activated even more when walking: firing dozens of muscles for gait, even more for balance, reacting to sounds and movement around you, adjusting to different surfaces, wind, inclination, stairs, avoiding obstacles etc. Yet most people manage to take relaxing walks somehow.

Driving a car is a life or death situation where you’re engaged in a complex dance with many other people. The cognitive load isn’t even close.

So is walking down a street: not only can you become a victim of crime or mauled by an animal but a simple fall can kill you. People are different and as some are extremely stressed being outside, some are, too, stressed while driving. Most people manage both just fine though.

I don't think you're being genuine. Even if walking down the street was filled with personal peril (it's not, at least not the persistent peril of driving), you're still discounting the fact that making a mistake while driving can kill other people. How can I accidentally kill someone when walking down the street and spacing out? While driving on the highway, basically any multi-second lapse in judgement can cause fatalities, not just of yourself but of many others. Operating a multi-ton machine at high speed is definitely more cognitively demanding.

I genuinely believe that you consider driving more stressful than walking. I know for sure that many people don't. If you have time you can walk to the nearest busy intersection, stand and observe drivers. You will see that many are talking on the phone or with the passengers, check their phones, apply makeup and act in many other ways incongruent with the behavior of people in mortal danger. Moreso, people routinely fall asleep while driving and I am not aware of people falling asleep while walking. This implies that driving is more relaxing than walking.

How is checking your phone incongruous with being in a stressful situation? I was very stressed while my partner gave birth. I still checked my phone. And plenty of people walking check their phones. And those who walk and use their phone likely use their phone more competently than those who drive and use their phone. That implies walking has less mental overhead.

And how does falling asleep imply relaxation? If anything, falling asleep implies mental fatigue. So we can assume driving adds more mental strain. There are entire studies done on driver visual search patterns when driving [0]. What kind of visual search pattern do you use when walking? Are you constant scanning the horizon looking for potential hazards? In fact, walking is generally considered to be an automated activity [1].

[0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16127339/ [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4879139/

I don't know, did I really say that it's incongruous with stress? I believe I had been talking about mortal danger. Do you see tight rope walkers checking their phones? Base jumpers, rock climbers, deck hands on a fishing trawler, firemen in a burning building, cops during a traffic stop, any other people during genuinely dangerous situation?

And yes, walking is not stressful for most people, that's the point of my first reply in this thread. There are people that find being outside as stressful as you find driving if not more, it's a real condition called agoraphobia. It's silly to pretend everyone is affected by such a condition though and trying to rationalize this is not strengthening such an argument IMHO.

Rock climbers definitely check their phones, just fyi. Apparently the police check their phones in active shooter situations as well (see Uvalde shooting). If the crux of your argument is that because people check their phones while driving, it is equally or less stressful then walking, then it's not a convincing argument.

You mean people climbing walls in gyms or actual rock climbers in the mountains where they may die? I specifically mentioned police during traffic stop, police definitely check they phones when they feel safe, as other professions I mentioned. Not when their life is on the line.

> not only can you become a victim of crime or mauled by an animal but a simple fall can kill you.

Interesting that these are the dangers you bring attention to. Forefront of my mind are the large heavy objects hurtling around.

I'd expect people to immediately start the "cars are too damn big!" routine if I brought up traffic and the guidelines advise against posting inflammatory content. The point I'm making is even a relaxing walk in a park is "a complex dance of life and death".

I ride motorcycles and that intense focus for me is meditative. I feel more engaged and alert after a 30 minute motorcycle ride than I do riding an Uber. The motorcycle riding has a similar counterintuitive effect (for me) as Ritalin. (Ritalin is a stimulant used to treat ADHD.)

When I ride public transport or have a driver — I feel relatively more lethargic than when I ride the motorcycle (and to a lesser extend driving a car.)

> it is to massively double down on improving public transit

Why? Private transport represents freedom, public transit represents control. Furthermore, getting public transit to a level of perfect will cost tens of billions of dollars and for what benefit? To have cities and towns shut down each time there is a transit strike, a superstorm, or the government decides we should stay home?

Cars, motorcycles, bicycles, scooters — those work. Let’s make that better. I definitely don’t like spending my time sitting next to strangers of an indeterminate mental status in a temperature that isn’t of my own choosing going to a destination that isn’t necessarily the precise place I want to go. I want to interact with strangers as little as possible.

Raise the fares to $20 (and enforce it) and perhaps I’d consider riding public transit. But after my experiences with the BART and piss-soaked, rat infested NYC subway stations, no thank you. If I want thrills hanging out with a bunch of psychotics waiting for an excuse to push you onto the tracks, I’d rather BASE jump the Met Life building instead.

For a young single person carrying nothing more than their Manhattan Portage satchel to some hipster haunt in Brooklyn, public transport can be great. For people with stuff to carry, small kids, wheelchairs, or mobility issues, or tight schedules, not so much. Add the safety aspects to it and public transport becomes less attractive — unless of course they start allowing those with firearms permits to carry on public transport. But even then, not sure why people would want to give up point to point freedom for public options.

> Private transport represents freedom, public transit represents control.

I feel the opposite. If I need to get somewhere then private transport feels like control: I have to own and maintain a car, pay insurance, watch the road carefully, etc. Public transport, in contrast, feels like freedom. But I know this is not the common belief.

This is the only reason I do not like riding a bicycle (or other private transport), you have to take care of it, park it and return to it. Just being able to walk and hop on public transport is a great feeling.

I guess it's something cagers just learn to live with.

So 1984 was right: "slavery is freedom". I'm too lazy to find thr exact quote, but I remember the reasoning in the book was similar: slavery is the freedom from the need of making decisions, assess risk amd bear consequences of your actions, so slaves must be freer than the free men.

Whenever I meet with someone who drove to meet me, I'm struck by their need to return to their vehicle, think about parking, reflexive complaints about gas prices etc. In contrast I just choose a transportation mode is when I leave; often, I choose a slower walk, with a meandering path that actually engaged with my community for better or occasionally worse.

The characterization of this as "slavery" is beyond ridiculous.

I get what you're saying, however I disagree with the characterization. I don't want to be free of making all decisions, I just don't see much value in deciding mundane things like what turns to take or how fast to drive or where to park. I would rather spend my time deciding what work I will do, who I will love and befriend, what I will learn, and so on.

With a great public transit system, it feels like you are beholden to nothing. You feel like going to a restaurant and you just start walking. In NYC you can even get to hiking trails by transit. It’s wonderful. Not to mention no DDs

It's the other way round: freedom is slavery. This was meant to say that a supposedly positive and worthwile feature as freedom would only be slavery in the end (for every "good" citizen), according to the totalitarian system of Oceania's society in "1984". The other two philosophies are "war is piece" and "ignorance is strength", with same intentions.

O'Brien, the main evil character in 1984, says at the end that the three dogmas can be reversed to reveal their additional meaning.

Imagine you're a person who occasionally needs to use a bathroom, or has anxiety about roads/traffic/driving, or claustrophobia from the idea of being stuck in traffic. I know people with all of these issues. Well-designed public transit like trains addresses them far better than personal vehicles.

I'm also not sure what personal freedoms you think don't exist in Europe or Asia where such well-designed transit networks exist. You can still have a car, you just don't need to have one.

A functional public transport system also means that people who are too young or old to drive, or have vision problems, or need to take medication which makes it unsafe to operate a vehicle, have the freedom to leave their homes and go where they need to go.

Although tbh I’ve never seen accessible public transit in the US.

>Raise the fares to $20 (and enforce it) and perhaps I’d consider riding public transit. But after my experiences with the BART and piss-soaked, rat infested NYC subway stations, no thank you. If I want thrills hanging out with a bunch of psychotics waiting for an excuse to push you onto the tracks, I’d rather BASE jump the Met Life building instead.

It doesn't have to be like this. It didn't used to be like this. It might take a few years, but eventually the new generation/ Progressive experimentation with 're-imagining' criminal justice will come to an end. At the moment, those unhinged folks (where I saw an almost aggression just days ago at 845 am) aren't behind bars, a few years ago serial criminals would be either in jail in and out, or in prison being punished for a crime. Today they're.. just about everywhere but.

That's just a fact of the situation. Now we can discuss the morality of putting people behind bars, etc. And have a reasonable conversation. Meanwhile the cities are unsafe, and NYC has an unemployment rate of 8 percent because office workers would rather be remote, and that hurts the economy.

> Private transport represents freedom, public transit represents control.

I think you have this backwards. Public transport gives freedom to many many people who are unable to drive (can't afford a car, too young to drive, too old to drive, etc.). In the US if you can't afford to drive your freedom is vastly curtailed precisely because we do not have effective public transport in most cities.

The issue is that you are banking on everyone else to subsidise your motorways (construction and maintance is paid to 50% from income/state taxes), and let's not even talk about the externalities, or the cost of the land occupied by those roads.

Moreover what you call freedom is only freedom for those with enough money. Instead of heavily subsidising car/motor travel we should invest that money into making it possible for the next generations to continue living on this planet. That's not going to happen with more and more cars.

> Add the safety aspects to it and public transport becomes less attractive — unless of course they start allowing those with firearms permits to carry on public transport.

The idea that allowing private citizens to carry guns on public transit will make things safer is completely insane.

All these politicians that rant about second amendment rights still don't allow guns into their rallies, because people shooting guns in an area with even a relatively small number of people is NOT a recipe for safety.

I took a train for the first time in a while yesterday (normally I ride everywhere where feasible, though still end up driving more often than I'd like), and was struck by how peaceful and relaxing it was. I honestly didn't care how slow it might be - I had a book, and took pleasure in just watching the world scroll past. If all PT journeys could be like that one suspects they'd be a lot more popular. But service interruptions, poorly connected routes, infrequent services and random overcrowding are the main reality most PT users in many cities around the world have to deal with every day. I don't blame many for preferring to pay eye-watering petrol prices to sit in gridlock instead.

> I honestly didn't care how slow it might be

which means your experience was not similar to a commuter's, at all

No - but if we could aim to make commuting by PT a similarly relaxing and comfortable experience then slowness mightn't be seen as such a bad thing.

The point of a commuter train is to get to work. On time. Reliably. People freak the fuck out when they're going to be 5-10 minutes late due to any kind of service issue, because even if they know it wasn't their fault, their boss will assume it was (and most people who take public transit have bosses). You can outfit the trains with fine linens and couches instead of seats but being late to work in the morning will never be "relaxing" or "comfortable."

PT being regularly late is definitely a reason people avoid it, hence my suggesting we focus on service reliability and comfort. I'm not proposing we make PT slower than it already is - just that the focus needn't be on mean travel time. So the average PT consumer may need to leave their house a little earlier but would virtually always get where they're going on time (stress-free and in comfort), vs the current situation where you might fairly often be considerably late.

You're cutting into people's family time with this.

Perhaps but it's hard to see how a little more enforced meditative "alone" time would make anyone a worse parent.

(Further, where did I say I was suggesting PT should be slower than it is now?)

You must live in Japan because you would never relax on the public transport around here, except for the bus before it gets to town and after it leaves.

Even if you live in Japan you’re going to be spending an hour or so standing on the metro or bus.

The micro-decisions you're referring to are trivial and no more of a cognitive load than deciding where to put your feet while walking.

If you're an anxious or unskilled driver, sure, it's probably stressful. But most people reach a point where they are as comfortable driving a car as walking down the street.

30 minutes of driving in my private, climate-controlled car, with a comfortable and highly-adjustable seat, listening to music or podcasts of my choice? And the ability to carry whatever I want? I'd choose that over 30 minutes of sitting on bus or train - which is likely to have uncomfortable seating, too hot or too cold, loud, obnoxious, smelly, or mentally disturbed other people - with no ability to transport anything more than you are willing to carry. Even at par, I would rather have my car - let alone if public transport takes 3x longer.

Last time I took BART into SF a guy sat down in the seat in front of me, opened up a plastic bag, and pulled out a needle and started injecting himself with something. I don't believe it was insulin. Uh...rather stick with my car, thanks.