| ▲ | thelastgallon 7 hours ago |
| Meanwhile, bay area has companies with market cap of 30T (50T?), has nonexistent/incompatible and the slowest public transit. 1) BART 'works' for a subset of the population. 2) ACE train is one route only, from Stockton to San Jose. 3) Caltrain is one straight line. Caltrain has a bullet train that takes an hour for ~20-30 miles. 4) There is a ferry service for some parts of north bay. There are probably dozens of other bus systems and ferries and what not, all incompatible and disconnected. When people from bay area (and the big tech companies) tell you they are the greatest minds on the planet solving (or going to solve) world problems, look at their public transit and think. Then weep/laugh. Source: I lived in the North bay, East bay and South bay. |
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| ▲ | thomasfl 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Private companies and competition, solve a lot of problems in the society. Like making food supply work. Planning and building cities and public transport is something the public sector is better at solving. Clean, nice and walkable cities with a good working public transport system, is important for the local economy to work. City planning is the art of compromises - no body get’s what they want, but overall everybody is better off in the end. |
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| ▲ | notarobot123 26 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > Like making food supply work Producers make what will sell but without any incentives, subsidies or regulation this would be a mess of profit chasing, unsafe practices and fragile supply chains. In my view, the value of the public sector is in setting the rule of the game for private actors in exactly this kind of way (rules and incentives) instead of the politics of picking winners and losers directly or making direct decisions about what to build where, etc. Rule makers play the meta-game of designing how the game works and they leave agents free to play as they wish. | |
| ▲ | tsimionescu 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Private companies and competition, solve a lot of problems in the society. Like making food supply work. Is there any food market in the developed world that is not heavily subsidized by the state? | | |
| ▲ | raybb 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | New Zealand and Australia have very minimal subsidies. I do wonder what it would be like if our system was designed to feed people rather than to make money. It's baffling that in Florida the land of oranges you see little cups of pealed that say product of Spain and packaged in Thailand. I know supply chains are complex and labor costs are a big factor but still. | | |
| ▲ | jerojero 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Its natural for companies to push boundaries for better and better profits. It's sort of their nature. Things might be fine in Australia and NZ right now, but as the hydric crisis deepens we might see a need for government to step up. I think a problem is that, if you have a market-first approach you run the risk of the businesses growing so large and powerful that when you do need to intervene, it has become an impossible task. This happened with banking, it is happening with consulting in the UK and big tech in the US. Not to mention big pharma pretty much everywhere. So I think its a very careful balance of carrot and stick that the government needs to have over its industries. | | |
| ▲ | sillyfluke 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | >if you have a market-first approach you run the risk of the businesses growing so large and powerful that when you do need to intervene, it has become an impossible task. It's also said that four companies control 85% beef market in the US, which normally should make people rather queasy I would think. |
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| ▲ | tirant 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If including tax breaks, New Zealand and Australia are not subsidized in total terms. But the level of efficiency achieved thanks to the development of technology by private companies is what keeps them efficient around the world. |
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| ▲ | SJC_Hacker 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| . Caltrain has a bullet train that takes an hour for ~20-30 miles. San Jose Didrion to SFO (4th and Townsend} is 48 miles highway distance. You will not beat the bullet train during rush hour. It would like take you an hour and a half if lucky, probably closer to 2 hours driving |
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| ▲ | frollogaston 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| BART alone was confusing before they made the trains actually match with the colors on the map, circa 2016. Used to insist on only designating trains by endpoint, except the endpoints changed as they expanded lines, and also changed depending on the day/time. So even a year into daily riding BART to/from work, I took the wrong train a few times. I went to NYC and also various other countries, easily understood the train/subway system even if it was in a language I don't understand. Except for Italy. |
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| ▲ | SJC_Hacker 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The transit times seem long, but often beat driving times especially during rush hour Thw CalTrain being “one line” makes perfect sense because it runs parallel to the Valley No the system is not perfect, but it is still one of the best in the country, except for NYC and maybe Boston |
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| ▲ | msm_ 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | >No the system is not perfect, but it is still one of the best in the country, except for NYC and maybe Boston I mean, there are a lot of poorer countries (especially in europe) that manage to solve this in a much better way, so this kind of proves OP point that raw purchasing power is not equivalent to the standard of living. |
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| ▲ | kurthr 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The morning "bullet" trains (503/507/511) from San Jose Diridon take 1hr to go 48miles with 10 stops. I think electrification and widening to 3 tracks improved times and reduces the likelihood of delays. Certainly, they run more often now, about every 10 minutes at rush hour and every 30min off hours and weekends. https://www.caltrain.com/?active_tab=route_explorer_tab |
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| ▲ | aianus 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Why would anyone prefer public transit over a self driving comfortable personal car? |
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| ▲ | dkdbejwi383 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | In addition to the other good reasons also raised, PT has much more optimal land-use than private cars. Train stations or metro stations take up relatively little land and can be integrated with business and services or have nice public plazas and small parks. Compared with multi-lane highways, parking lots, giant intersections that are hostile to pedestrians and active transport. | |
| ▲ | tirant 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Because it’s available to everyone, including kids and elderly, and does not need high upfront payments. I can just move to Madrid and move anywhere in the city for around 1-2€ per trip without upfront investment of 20.000€ for a car, plus insurance, maintenance, fuel and taxes. | |
| ▲ | mitthrowaway2 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Trains don't get stuck in traffic, and some of them have restrooms and space to walk around in. They're also better for the people outside of the vehicle. | |
| ▲ | globular-toast 2 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Why would anyone prefer a self driving comfortable personal car over teleportation? | |
| ▲ | thelastgallon 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Why would anyone prefer a car that YOU have to drive over an autonomous all terrain comfortable personal horse? A horse knows how to navigate any kinds of terrain, while a car requires constant microsecond attention, extremely stressful, if you lose focus, might end up dead, worse kill a lot of other people! Horses don't need roads to be built, or the elaborate supply chains of fossil fuels, and trillions of dollars per year in subsidies. | |
| ▲ | wasmitnetzen 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Because of the lesser impact on land usage, fuel usage, noise, ...? | |
| ▲ | the_gipsy an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Why would anyone prefer airline transit over a comfortable private jet? |
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