New York City has the best public transit in the US… and the longest commute times. Average commute time in Tokyo (58 minutes) is twice as long as Seattle (27.5 minutes). It’s not the same problem as induced demand, but the net effect is similar.

Ultra dense, transit rich cities are more expensive and have longer commute times. There’s no free lunch.

The problem in NYC [1] is that 21.4% of people have > 60 min commutes, which probably is the same problem with Tokyo and many US cities: COL is really high so commuters come in from long distances to commute. Fukuoka has a 30 min average commute time, closer to Seattle. Moreover the real important thing when it comes to commute time is that driving requires active participation. Sure you can listen to whatever music you like and sip your favorite drink in the car, but every minute spent driving a car is time spent using your attention. People are willing to put up with longer transit commutes because those commutes are passive.

> There’s no free lunch.

I mean, are we seriously comparing the capital, operational, and environmental costs of a train with tens of thousands of BEV cars and the charging infrastructure required to make this work? There's also the permanent kneecapping of throughput in an auto-oriented corridor. The long tail of BEV adoption will be quite long. The only reason this is even a discussion point is because building transit is politically unpopular and US governments can't really build anything anymore on time or under budget.

[1]: https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/planes-trains-and-...

When I spent 10 years in Nyc everything is at least 45 minutes away no matter where you are. The walks between stations can be long, wait times are long, travel times slow. If you live far out on a local line it can be longer for sure. But even going downtown from UES is a 45 minute affair. I rarely left my neighborhood other than for work because I had to plan 2 hours of round trip travel. That sucks up most of a day.

I'm not sure what to say, your lifestyle in NYC sounds nothing like the lifestyles of any of my friends who live in the area, even those who live in Hoboken or Jersey City.

> I mean, are we seriously comparing the capital, operational, and environmental costs of a train with tens of thousands of BEV cars and the charging infrastructure required to make this work?

Not really. Because transit dorks never fucking talk about how much anything costs. It’s quite frustrating.

I’ll take a 30 minute driving commute over a 45 minute transit commute every day of the week. YMMV.