But hard problems to convince people to want who are used to air conditioned private pods instead of hot cattlecars with groping and harrasment, if we're just picking the least attractive elements of each method. "An hour, but on your feet crammed like sardines with everyone else" will get even less appealing to someone used to the car-based life if self-driving cars ever take off.
If people only make cases for transit by straw-manning the worst part of cars and ignoring the worst part of mass transit it's gonna take a long time to convince enough people to spend the billions needed to make it happen, since most people aren't stupid and they know that there are cons of public transit too, not just unalloyed pros.
There's no issue with mass transit. It's possible. It's even inevitable.
I guess it depends what you mean by mass transit but communal, shared transportation solutions that replace private vehicle ownership. Yeah, that's simple.
I spent most of my 45 years of age in public transport, I only had a car for a year and a half (and a total lemon, I don't miss that). Yet I say: beware of people who speak of THE solution.
For mass transit to work, population density matters. At least in the EU, there is a trend of people being priced out of capital cities to the surrounding countryside, where the population density drops to levels where providing extensive bus service becomes uneconomical. An important limitation is availability of bus drivers. People are loath to take lives of 40 strangers in their hands + rise out of their beds at 4am, and you can only pay them so much before exhausting the budget. And it is not just question of "more money". Prague, the capital of Czechia, spends about 33 per cent of its municipal budget on public transport and it still has a shortage of drivers.
Reliable self-driving, which was the original topic of this discussion, would be a huge boon to public transport. It would reduce hourly costs and address the driver shortage (which becomes especially acute in flu season etc., where too many people call in sick at the same time).
For mass transit to work better, we need to increase population density, and that means killing of the NIMBY phenomenon. Plenty of people, at least where I live, don't mind living in condos, as long as these are safe and clean. They are just priced out of cities by lack of development and the consequent soaring of prices.
Edit: interesting that this post attracted two downvotes, but no rebuttals. Is public transport such a sacred object for some?
From my personal point of view, it is a service like any other, and obviously cannot work efficiently everywhere.
There's way bigger problems for 'the 2-5 person capcity mass transit vehicle' (by which you basically mean 'car') than people owning and driving the vehicle.
Time is completely out of your hands (am I first or fifth in? What route will it take? How long are we going to wait for this person to show up?). Its not solving infrastructure issues massively (cars still need roads - you might make it attractive by having a lane for 3 or more people vechiles though). Its not really a system suited for dense walkable centres (see European cities) - and we are going further that way. And whats the objective benefit vs a train or tram? You are still in a space with strangers.
There are places in the world where labour costs are so low that this doesnt figure. There are also those where shared rides are common (e.g. taxis that run 'routes') - I'm not sure in any of these places they are considered a better solution than public transport at all. Of course they have a place, and I think Walker acknowledges this too, but its not really a game changer like building proper public transport can be.
So, rather than examining if there are ways to make public transport more convenient, appealing, and competitive, the only solution is to make private transport less appealing?
I think you're right in that mass transit is the best solution to transportation from a social and environmental standpoint. But the reality is that most people prefer cars. It's unrealistic to force people to use the socially optimum solution rather than their prefered solution. Many governments have tried and many have failed to force people to use the socially beneficial solution over their preferred one. A good example of this is the failure of carpool lanes.
Any system that caters to humans has to account for what people want. The way to make people take transit is to make transit comparable to cars - in terms of speed, reliability etc. And to make it better now rather than holding out some promise that it will be better at some future date when enough people take transit. People will take transit now if its better now, not if it promises to be better in the future.
I mean at the end of the day we can't force or guilt people into taking our preferred solution. We have to create a solution that caters to them. People will do their part for society and the environment - recycling programs are proof of this. You just have to create a solution that's not too much of an inconvenience. People would take transit more if it was cleaner, faster and more reliable. Rather than pouring more money into it hoping it gets better, or goading more people to take it under the promise it will get better - I don't think its unreasonable to ask to make current systems more user friendly and then increase funding as service improves and ridership increases
If the citizens don't want it, then of course it's game over.
If the citizens do want it, you can just gradually make private car ownership more expensive and less convenient vs public transit.
Anecdotally many anti-public transit opinions from US folks seem to be around having the less well-to-do present in buses, complaints about hygiene and/or safety. So maybe improve the social safety net at the same time, or go full classist and have separate 1st class & 2nd class compartments.
The biggest problem with mass-transit is that it's "public", i.e. state owned. Back in Kyrgyzstan (my home country), there are plenty of cheap private shuttles ("marshrutkas") which ferry people on pre-set routes. They are only slightly slower than cabs. Legalizing private mass-transit would be a good way to make it better.
Is that the only obvious solution? Wouldn't better public transportation (which benefits from economies of scale unlike private automobiles) be equally if not more obvious? Especially since it has a much more proven track record.
In America, it's frustrating, but the breakthrough Americans need is some sort of separation between mass transit and poverty - that mass transit is something for all of us, not just the poor.
(I also argue that it needs to be faster than individual transit. Unfortunately, individual transit is something people won't accept being slower, even if mass transit could make the whole trip faster.)
So build more effective mass transit systems... We have to work harder as a nation to make it a point of pride to use public rather than private transit. We got ourselves into this pickle by convincing everyone that owning your own car was the ultimate status symbol, when in fact we have merely traded the tyranny of transit schedules for the tyranny of parking garage fees, gas taxes, foreign oil imports and trade imbalances.
That's something that can only be viable if millions+ people make the change, over the long term. Public transportation is better, but not always practical for everyone. It's certainly something governments should be investing in.
It’s never that simple. There are loads of people for which a personal or work vehicle is a necessity. Public transport cannot, and is never designed to catch every edge case.
I’m all for better public transportation but strong statements and mishandled public funds just sways the support of the average joe.
This is a Hard Problem. In almost all parts of the US, mass transit is just awful, which is a huge part of why people don't use it. But people not using it means that there's no funding to make it no longer awful (which would require massive amounts of funding).
I don't think anyone wants to solve the hard problems of mass transit, I think people are looking for cheap workarounds. Everyone wants to start the next Uber, and this is a major unsolved problem. However, the history of failed private transportation ideas is really interesting, and really detrimental to the stuff that actually works: walkable areas, biking, trains, buses, etc.
Hell, there's a suburb outside of Miami that just vetoed a rail project because "self driving cars are right around the corner!" which sure sounds like the flying car predictions of the 50s-70s.
But wealthier people are less likely to want mass transit, since they can afford private transportation. That's basically the fundamental issue to providing good mass transit in the US: anybody who can afford to, avoids it.
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