> Sometimes I just think that the Americans use too much cars (one person driving a car with four seats is an insult to the nature.)
I'm guessing that you'd be mad if more of us had multiple cars, one with one seat, one with two seats, one with three, and another with four. (An extra car just for gas mileage rarely saves money because $5-7k buys a lot of gas.)
I would like to know how you know how many other people that driver will transport before returning home. After all, if they're going to need four seats at any point before they return, they need to start with four seats.
BTW - most of those "four seat" cars actually have five seats.
The obvious alternative is not to have several different cars, but to live closer to where you work, shop and play.
Another alternative more obvious than keeping a garage full of differently-sized vehicles is to improve the fuel-per-passenger-mile ratio by banding together with other travellers who are going the same way. This is how buses and trains work.
>> one person driving a car with four seats is an insult to the nature.)
> The obvious alternative is not to have several different cars, but to live closer to where you work, shop and play.
Reread the complaint - driving less doesn't solve it.
> but to live closer to where you work, shop and play.
Those are three (or more) places. You may not be able to live close to all of them. For example, I work in Sunnyvale, my wife works in SF, and we play in Monterey. At times, we've worked other places between PA and SJ.
Where can we live that would be close enough to satisfy you?
> This is how buses and trains work.
Buses and trains don't necessarily go where I want when I want.
Consider 101. It looks like a lot of people going to/from SF until you look at the individuals in those cars. There aren't a small number of end-points. And many of those folks will make side trips that trains/buses don't acomodate.
I've ridden Cal Train (I was on the first baby-bullet and that wasn't my first commute). It's great for some things but it isn't a general solution. That's why it doesn't have much ridership.
> Reread the complaint - driving less doesn't solve it.
By "live closer", I mean "within 4 miles", so that you can walk. That does solve it (unless I've completely misunderstood)
> I work in Sunnyvale, my wife works in SF, and we play in Monterey
Yes, but you've chosen those places due to the prevailing social norm in your society to drive all the time. Looking at a map, were I you, I'd live in Sunnyvale/Santa Clara/Cupertino, so that one of you could walk to work, and you wouldn't have to do too much urban driving to get to Monterey.
> Buses and trains don't necessarily go where I want when I want.
How precise do you need to be? Unless I'm going somewhere obscure and far away, or travelling on Sunday, a train can normally get me to within 2 miles of where I want to be, within about half an hour of when I want to be there. That's plenty accurate enough, and certainly as accurate as urban driving.
OTOH I don't trust buses, because there are too many cars jamming up the road.
> > I work in Sunnyvale, my wife works in SF, and we play in Monterey
> Yes, but you've chosen those places due to the prevailing social norm in your society to drive all the time.
You've got it backwards. We chose those jobs because we like to make money. Driving makes it possible for us to earn much more money than we would if we didn't drive.
> Sunnyvale/Santa Clara/Cupertino, so that one of you could walk to work, and you wouldn't have to do too much urban driving to get to Monterey.
There's no "urban" driving between Sunnyvale/SC/Cupertino and Monterey. Urban is inside SF, Oakland/Berkeley.
> Unless I'm going somewhere obscure and far away, or travelling on Sunday, a train can normally get me to within 2 miles of where I want to be, within about half an hour of when I want to be there.
Middle of the day CalTrain schedules aren't every half hour and CalTrain isn't within 2 miles of everywhere I want to go on the Penninsula.
But, let's assume all that AND that CalTrain doesn't take any time to get between destinations. The half-hour schedule gap and 2 miles is an hour travel time.
Only one of our typical weekday trips are anywhere near that.
> That's plenty accurate enough, and certainly as accurate as urban driving.
No, it's not. It's significantly worse than what I've got now. Then again, the only urban driving that we do is inside SF, which is a small minority of our driving as we live in San Jose.
For some of the SJ to SF trips, Caltrain works for us. However, it doesn't a large fraction of the time.
I am seeing that urban transportation doesn't work because people don't use them, so they fail to make money and in the long run getting worse and worse.
I am guessing, if the gas price triples the same thing may not happen just as it is right now.
> am seeing that urban transportation doesn't work because people don't use them
The regions under discussion aren't urban so urban transportation simply isn't relevant.
Urban transportation requires a lot of density or a lot of folks going between common end-points. The latter is fairly rare and is very different from a lot of people going past a given point.
I'm guessing that you'd be mad if more of us had multiple cars, one with one seat, one with two seats, one with three, and another with four. (An extra car just for gas mileage rarely saves money because $5-7k buys a lot of gas.)
I would like to know how you know how many other people that driver will transport before returning home. After all, if they're going to need four seats at any point before they return, they need to start with four seats.
BTW - most of those "four seat" cars actually have five seats.