[OldManRyan]

The amount of hoop jumping people go through to avoid saying we should invest more in public transit is insane. You see it on HN every time someone mentions density or transit. No one is saying you can't have a car or should live in a downtown apartment, we just shouldn't build everything around having a car.

[Spivak]

Nobody actually disagrees with this take, but here's what happens. This has happened now three times in my hometown.

1. Some Politician: We need to invest in public transportation.

2. Planning Commission: Okay but it's geographically infeasible to blanket the city in busses, the only thing that is going to work is a rail system to cover the long distances and have busses to cover the last mile.

3. Sounds great! Let's put together a proposal.

4. Politician: Hahahahahahahaha we can't afford that. Also people will riot if we eminent domain literally thousands of homes.

5. Politician: What if we just added really annoying bike lanes to like 3 roads that will sit there empty because a dedicated lane wasn't what was stopping people from riding their bikes?

6. Planning Commission: But that won't actually he....

7. Politician: LOOK AT HOW WE'RE INVESTING IN PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION!!1 MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. GREEN. ENVIRONMENT.

Like good lord if they would actually commit to more than just some symbolic non-solutions I would volunteer to swing a hammer to lay tracks.

[OldManRyan]

Why is it geographically infeasible to expand bus service in a city? Most medium to large US cities are designed with a grid system which would fit more buses perfectly. My city recently expanded one of the main roads to 6 lanes when they could easily done a BRT instead.

[ryukafalz]

> Politician: What if we just added really annoying bike lanes to like 3 roads that will sit there empty because a dedicated lane wasn't what was stopping people from riding their bikes?

Three dedicated lanes won't be what was stopping people from riding bikes (in most cases) but a network of them sure would increase ridership.

[Aloha]

We should invest more in public transit, but there is literally 100 years of built infrastructure which has fueled patterns of development which make taking transport unattractive. So we can invest more, just dont expect it to result in many fewer cars.

[Shawnj2]

More bus lanes would be a cheap and easy start. The problem with current car centered cities is that taking transit is slower than taking a car so people with the means use the fastest transit option by driving. If you remove minimum parking laws and increase bus lanes which let transit users bypass traffic, this is a low cost way to encourage more transit usage.