You don’t need to make cars worse to have people use public transit. I visited Japan last year for a couple weeks and their train and bus infrastructure was so good I would have just taken the buss instead of a car if I had a car there. Google maps times were like a 3 minute difference between public transit and car times every single time I checked it. In cali it’s at least double the time if not triple depending on where I’m at. Both of these were in the middle of Metropolitan areas. They just need to make public transic as good, cheap and clean as it is in japan. Not an easy task granted.
Yeah, I kind of added that sarcastically. My view of the US is that it needs some capitalist nuance to it or people won’t like it. It’s not enough if it’s better, or just cheaper for society.
In reality, I understand that people in rural areas need their car. And it’s a hassle to do the shopping for a family of 5 without a car. Unless you can have that delivered…
I’m not sure if Japan is a good example for exactly this. As far as I know a parking spot in Tokyo is more expensive than an apartment in other places of the world. And the city mandates that you have some parking spot or you can’t have a car in the first place.
But public transit in Japan is awesome. They’re on time, get you everywhere, are affordable and run every few minutes… The scenic train routes have cute mascots. Everything works. There are colored lines on the floor (in the big city) and you can get by without being able to read… I’d like to have that where I live.
You don’t need to make cars worse to have people use public transit. I visited Japan last year for a couple weeks and their train and bus infrastructure was so good I would have just taken the buss instead of a car if I had a car there. Google maps times were like a 3 minute difference between public transit and car times every single time I checked it. In cali it’s at least double the time if not triple depending on where I’m at. Both of these were in the middle of Metropolitan areas. They just need to make public transic as good, cheap and clean as it is in japan. Not an easy task granted.
Yeah, I kind of added that sarcastically. My view of the US is that it needs some capitalist nuance to it or people won’t like it. It’s not enough if it’s better, or just cheaper for society.
In reality, I understand that people in rural areas need their car. And it’s a hassle to do the shopping for a family of 5 without a car. Unless you can have that delivered…
I’m not sure if Japan is a good example for exactly this. As far as I know a parking spot in Tokyo is more expensive than an apartment in other places of the world. And the city mandates that you have some parking spot or you can’t have a car in the first place.
But public transit in Japan is awesome. They’re on time, get you everywhere, are affordable and run every few minutes… The scenic train routes have cute mascots. Everything works. There are colored lines on the floor (in the big city) and you can get by without being able to read… I’d like to have that where I live.