Dank Memes

Are trains and busses the crabs of automotives?

And biking, as that one is more efficient than buses in moving people.

Our rail system

Living in France and Belgium, I'd argue it's not that bad. Is this the same "Our"?

I love trains, but hate shitty trains. I'll gladly take a 10 hour train ride instead of a 1 hour flight. But when tens are late, cancelled, delayed by priority cargo trains, etc, it makes me hate trains...

No one wants a bus! That's not cool.

However, I've invented a revolutionary "shared mega limo". It's like an Uber, but with 50 seats, and optionally you can ride standing if you're sporty. It's the size of a bus, but definitely not a bus.

The trick is you do both buses and trains. You use the buses to connect communities that don't have large transit requirements between them and then for commuting you use buses to direct people to train stations where they can get the trains to work/ where they need to go en masse. Transportation is a multilevel solution that requires multiple modes to get people where they need to go but you can't just rely on buses as quite frankly they lack the ability move all that many people even across quite short distances.

Also to address the self driving part: autonomous road vehicles that can operate safely and at scale are well in the fucking magic territory of technology. If you want a proven highly autonomous travel technique that works trains have been doing it for decades.

Why? The one driver per hundreds of passengers is drop in the bucket and it is better to have a human who can deal with various issues an AI can't.

Probably the one running on the line closest to your house.

Imagine a world without the need for a car. There's probably a train station that's in walking distance. Maybe 10-15 minutes. More than that, possibly a quick bus to the corner of your street.

In this world, the grocery store is also a 10-15 minute walk, possibly near the station. Instead of loading up on $200 of groceries once a week, you buy a few pieces on your way to work and/or back home.

There's a nice public park, a library, and even a promenade somewhere also a short walk away. Various retail shops and service centers of all kinds (electronics, home and goods, hardware, appliances) could literally be your downstairs neighbors.

Even if all of these aren't exactly close to you or your train station, they can be a short bus or train ride away. You walk more, bike more. You have a backpack and side racks for the bike. Your health improves, and you interact more with the people of the area.

Welcome to many cities of the world, even in the US.

The North American mind can't comprehend cities where there's no split between residential/urban areas, and every mode of public transportation goes from your house to anywhere you want. Even the next town or country

T-R-A-M

Let's unbuild all the roads for a fair comparison then.