Agreed. I live in Hong Kong which has arguably some of the best public transport in the world - which is great until you are out of a service area of the MTR, then it's undersized packed busses mixed with convoluted bus routes - which even without the heavy road traffic leave you feeling exhausted.
Doing the same commute by car has been a significant quality of life improvement - not least because I have a few square feet to myself while I'm in transit!
I actually live in Hong Kong and don't have a car and that has nothing to do with buses. Everything is within walking distance. Within 5 blocks of my apartment off the top of my head I can think of 4-5 grocery stores, 3-4 butcher shops, a wet market, 3-4 vegetable stands, 3-4 different dentist offices, several different daycares / pre-schools, at least 2 gyms, a public pool, about a dozen hair salons / barbers, dozens of restaurants and bars, and on and on. There is literally nothing I need on a daily basis that I couldn't walk to. I almost never take the bus anywhere.
If you had to commute regularly from, say the New Territories in to Central (about as far as you can go in HK), the bus/MTR takes 2-3 times as long as driving.
I think Hong Kong can pull this off in part because so much of the city is long thin corridors which can be nearly entirely serviced by the metro, commuter train, by light rail in the new territories (and I guess the cable car). This covers a high percentage of commuter needs, and so buses, minibuses, and taxis are to some extent gap-fillers to get people from major arteries to the remaining small proportion of outlying destinations.
Yep. I would actually prefer to just drive on the weekends / to places without trains, hopefully out in the mountains or something. Europe even has trains which go to remote locations. Having to park a car is terrible in cities. Combine this with the social acceptance of alcohol consumption plus the danger (and laws) of driving intoxicated and public transit is fantastic. Public trans like trains also avoid traffic, so they can be significantly faster than driving. Pollution-wise, it's also no contest. Hong Kong has a great subway system and because of it, most people there don't need personal vehicles. Taxis are also cheaper and much better service-wise than in the US. Busses service more remote routes, like to the beach (which is kinda far on HK Island).
There are many human-oriented cities around the world in which mass-transit reigns, and they manage to make life work. I've been in Hong Kong a lot, and I'm not sure I can pick two points in Hong Kong that are 80 minutes apart from each other. I mean, maybe getting to the New Territories from Sai Wan Ho or something, but they have their own closer hospitals, so...
It's hard to explain dry land to a fish, but life without cars is possible.
I’ve lived in and frequently traveled to cities with what is considered the best public transportation in the world (Paris, NYC, London, HK, Singapore, Zurich, etc etc).
In almost all the above places, there have been frequent instances where I’ve had to use taxis and/or rent a car. And that was while living/staying in the core of these cities.
99.99% of places on earth aren’t nearly as densely populated as the ones above, so increase the need for cars proportionally if you ever want to go elsewhere.
We need both good public transport and autonomous vehicles. It’s not one or the other.
Whenever I see people citing public transport as a panacea for all problems, it’s typically a wealthy, single, childless, digital minimalist 20-something who lives in the core of the aforementioned cities, and never does much outside of it.
You ever wonder where the food you eat gets grown and how it gets delivered to that fast casual restaurant you love down the street? It’s not public transport.
Where I live, public transport is a breeze. Roomy, punctual, good serving frequencies, clean, constantly improving (more stations, modernizing vehicles). I don't have to concentrate on driving, I dont have to worry where to put the vehicle when its not in use, I have not been in a traffic-jam for year. And they cost less than owning a car.
Public transport is so inconvenient, even in the best cities. Your life revolves around transportation schedules. We walk several miles in our neighborhood every day. Yet we love the freedom a car gives us.
Good public transport does really help. I live in a big city with lots of it and I really love not needing a car anymore. Gone is the worry about damage, accidents, fines for missing a speed sign, whether I topped up the parking meter in time, costly repairs and insurance bills. Not to mention the stress of driving and all the wasted hours.
I never thought of it as providing me with freedom, instead it felt like a necessary ball and chain. Now I can go where I please for peanuts with no worries and no constraints (eg always having to go back to where I parked).
But public transport needs to be excellent and affordable for this to work.
Cities with good public transportation have longer commutes because a long commute on public transportation is far more tolerable than a long commute by car.
I’m not against public transit. I lived in Taiwan for a while which has very good public transport. But what’s good for a single person doesn’t necessarily work for a family living outside the city. The benefits of owning a car are pretty clear there.
Hong Kong does indeed have excellent public transport, and you are right that public transport is mediocre in many territories, particularly in rural areas. But most places really don’t require you to have a car (for starters, because many people cannot afford one). Thus, there is almost always a relatively cheap and decent option to get around, from matatus in Kenya, jeepneys in the Philippines, songthaew in Laos, to the agua guagua in Puerto Rico and the marshrutka in the former USSR. That has been my experience in all the places you mentioned except the USA and Australia.
Let me rephrase my point a bit - independently of the quality of public transport, not being able to drive is not a big deal in most places except the USA. (An additional indicator for that might be the fact that the driver’s license operates as the de-facto ID card in the US.)
But this assumes "well-functioning public transport". In reality, this does not exist. Many, even most buses where I live are empty most of the time.
Energy efficiency issues aside, cars provide something even more valuable: isolation and privacy from the disgusting and invasive sensory overload that is public transport.
I wish for good public transportation. Many Asian countries seem to get it right and it's way less risky statistically. My friend in HK love talking about the buses and trains. They are always on time.
Right now, I would prefer to have this over my bike or a scooter because Indian roads are such a hell. Many people here don't even have driving license and jaywalking is common. A new emerging trend is people sticking to their phone while driving.
I would feel much safer. Even my dad get into almost accidents a few times monthly. He has been driving for decades and always maintain a stable speed of under 45kmph.
London, Paris, Rome - all have a gasp workable public transport (can't speak for Shanghai or MC), dwarfing the vehicular traffic. Unless I had no option to choose at all, separated public transit beat the car traffic each and every time; even the delay of leaving the car at the outskirts and taking the train downtown is quicker than hopping along, a meter a minute (and then getting the privilege of hopping around blocks, trying to find a parking spot, with everyone else doing the same). Not the buses, of course; those get stuck in traffic like everyone else - but the trains get you wherever. Yes, I understand it's unfashionable, and you don't get a coffee cup holder or your own comfy chair for the whole trip ;) But it works. (Yes, there are other people on the metro. Well if you can't stand people, what are you doing in a city - which is a concentrated blob of people by definition?)
Europe only has good public transport in very few selected cities and you have to ignore strikes in France to pretend its working well and is reliable. The city with the best public transport in the world is probably Tokyo in terms of frequency and service reliability but it is constantly over capacity and things are not getting better. Crowded trains are hell.
so no commute is certainly better pretty much just anywhere.
Doing the same commute by car has been a significant quality of life improvement - not least because I have a few square feet to myself while I'm in transit!
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