The thing is, people are not ideological. If the car is 5x faster and nicer, then people will use it. People use what is convenient, most people don't pick public transport when it is 'workable' they pick it when it is actually good.

And the reason it seen as 'for poor' people is because you only use it when you can't get a car.

So the underlying issue is the overall quality of the service (frequency, reliability, comfort and so on).

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taeric 2 days ago | parent [-]

Ish. If the car costs 10x, then they will stick to not having one. See Tokyo.

Again, I lived for over a decade with a tech job and no car. In Atlanta. It is easily doable. Especially for younger people that don't have a family. When I got married and we started having kids, I never had "my" car. Stayed on transit and cycling to get to work.

It is frustrating, because I would be surrounded by progressive people at work that would go on about why transit doesn't work. But... it did. Just fine. You just can't also have a 4k square foot house at the same time. (I feel like I'm exaggerating, but that is literally the size of average home in some areas just around Seattle. My shared living in Atlanta was almost 1000 square feet. I remember dreaming of a 650 square foot "luxury apartment" someday.)

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panick21_ a day ago | parent [-]

If a car cost 10x but public transport is 20x worse then people will still buy cars unless they can't afford it.

Look it might be easily doable for you, but the data shows pretty clearly that if one thing is easier and faster then another, most people, not all people will pick what is easier and faster. There are always 10-20% of people who will just prefer one thing, no matter what. See people who ride bikes in horrible dangerous conditions threw traffic. You might be willing to, but most people are not.

But what you need is a system with enough quality that enough people use it so they can demand continued increases in quality.

	▲	taeric 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The data clearly shows that if you keep cars cheap, people use them. That is literally the point of this entire article. When they started making driving into the city more costly, more people started taking transit. Is literally the data. Even in places like Tokyo, you will find that the wealthy neighborhoods have cars. The catch is in Tokyo, this is enforced by law. If you can't show that you have a legal parking spot, you aren't allowed to register a car. That is a very steep hurdle that makes the vehicle far more than just 10x. And is a large part of why even the largely confusing mess of major transit offerings that will require different tickets works, there. In spite of that, commute times in Tokyo are, on average, still HIGHER than SF and NYC commute times. My commute time even on public transit in Atlanta was better than the average commute in Tokyo. I don't know how you want to start quantifying "worse" or "better." Are they "workable?" Yes. Absolutely. Will people use if they can afford to get and operate a car? No.