> Public transit is a dream turned nightmare consistently for seventy-five years

*In the United States. For reasons we have avoided in much of the rest of the world...

The United States is freaking huge. By the time modern transportation arrived, people were already living all over the country in pockets every which where. We opted for cars and planes to cover the vast distances. And as it turns out, we have some of the best in the world of both of these - and in vast quantities.

We do have dense pockets. NYC, in particular, has a nice metro (it just needs to be cleaner and more modernized - but it's great otherwise).

Most countries are small. Their dense cities are well-served by public transit. America is just too spread out. Insanely spread out.

China is an exception in that, while a huge landmass, its large cities emerged as the country was wholesale industrializing. It was easy for them to allocate lots of points to infrastructure. And given their unmatched population size and density, it makes a lot of sense.

As much as I envy China's infrastructure (I've been on their metros - they're amazing!), it would be a supreme malinvestment here in the United States to try to follow in their footsteps. The situation we have here is optimal for our density and the preferences of our citizens. (As much as people love to complain about cars, even more people than those that complain really love their cars.)

Public transit in the US is probably going to wind down as autonomous driving picks up the slack. Our road infrastructure is the very best in the world - it's more expansive, comprehensive, and well-maintained than any nation on the planet. We'd be wise to double down. It can turn into a super power once the machines take over driving for us.

The fact that we have this extent of totally unmatched road infrastructure might actually turn out to be hugely advantageous over countries that opted for static, expensive heavy rail. Our system is flexible, last mile, to every address in the country. With multiple routes, re-routes, detours. Roads are America's central nervous system.

Our interstate system is flexible, and when cars turn into IP packets, we'll have the thickest and most flexible infrastructure in the world.

We've shit on cars for the last 15 years under the guise that "strong towns" are correct and that cars are bad. But as it may turn out, these sleeping pieces of infrastructure might actually be the best investment we've ever made.

Going to call this now: in 20 years' time, cars will make America OP.

Those things everything complains about - they'll be America's superpower.

The rest of the world with their heavy rail trains and public transit will be jealous. Our highways will turn into smart logistics corridors that get people and goods P2P at high speed and low cost to every inch of the country.

Roads are truly America's circulatory and nervous system.

I'm so stoked for this. I once fell for the "we need more trains meme" - that was a suboptima anachronism, and our peak will be 100x higher than expensive, inflexible heavy rail.

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TulliusCicero 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> The United States is freaking huge. By the time modern transportation arrived, people were already living all over the country in pockets every which where. We opted for cars and planes to cover the vast distances. And as it turns out, we have some of the best in the world of both of these - and in vast quantities.

You have this narrative precisely backwards.

At the risk of pointing out the obvious: the great sprawl that made us dependent on cars happened after cars got popularized.

Yes, the cities were already spread out relative to each other, but that distance can be covered with trains well enough. What made us need cars, and what cars encouraged, was a huge amount of spread within a city or metro area. If you sprawl out over a city such that population density is constantly low, then public transit and walking can't work effectively anymore, and everyone needs to own a car.

US cities that were already large and well populated before the advent of cars tend to be densely built. Their cores, at least, are walkable as a result. This is true even for non-major cities -- just google "streetcar suburbs" as an example.

	▲	prepend 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		No, GP is right. Check out the urban/rural populations in 1900 [0]. Cars allowed for suburban sprawl but the country was already really spread out before cars. Maybe if cars didn’t exist we would have eventually consolidated into dense population centers. You’re right that US cities were large and well populated, but that’s not where most people (60%) of Americans were. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_Sta...

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jjav 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The United States is freaking huge.

Completely irrelevant. I'm not interested in public transport across vast areas from city to city, I can drive or fly for those (very rare) occasions.

Public transport is most useful for the hyper-local day-to-day movement. I'd just want good reliable public transport within my town and neighboring areas.

(Actually I'd prefer to just bike, which requires secure bike parking in all destinations. I can already bike anywhere in town, but my bike will get stolen if I stop anywhere to shop or eat, so I can't do that.)

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nine_k 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In a way, a fusion of both is possible

Autonomous cars that move largely along the same route could form temporary "trains", or rather convoys, moving in a coordinated fashion. That would simplify navigation, reduce chances of accidents, reduce energy consumption, and definitely give the passengers more peace of mind during the commute.

Such convoys would split when needed, join together when needed, notify other convoys and drivers about their route and timing. This would alleviate traffic jams considerably even under heavy load.

At the same time, they would consist of cars and trucks that would be capable of moving completely separately outside highways.

This, of course, will require some kind of centralized control over entire convoys, and a way to coordinate them. Railways and airways definitely can offer examples of how to handle that.

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prepend 3 days ago | parent [-]

> This, of course, will require some kind of centralized control over entire convoys, and a way to coordinate them. Railways and airways definitely can offer examples of how to handle that.

Not at all. A simple peer to peer protocol based on proximity and mixing in traffic data distributed like the national weather service will do just fine.

These convoys seem like a perfect example of swarm algorithms fitting well where you don’t need a central coordinator.

	▲	nine_k 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Within a convoy, yes. Between convoys, a dispatcher service could be beneficial, distributed and federated, again, like air traffic controllers and railway dispatchers. The same self-driving car companies that produce the software and require subscription could offer it.

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askl 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Roads are truly America's circulatory and nervous system.

Thanks to massive lobbying by car manufacturers that did their best to destroy all traces of public transit infrastructure that existed in the US before the country moved to car dependency.

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ulfw 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> We opted for cars and planes to cover the vast distances. And as it turns out, we have some of the best in the world of both of these

You actually believe that?!

	▲	bluGill 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		It is true. The US has great car infrastructure. The US has a lot of airplanes. For longer distances both work very well. We have terrible transit though, and there are many short trips where transit should work better than it doesn't work at all. However the subject here is vast distances and the US has those and does well.