A man in a place with bad public transit gets the call that his mother has been in a car accident and is being rushed to the hospital at 8AM. Since it’s rush hour, he spends the next two hours stuck in gridlock traffic (bad traffic today, something about a big car accident…). He doesn’t make it in time for her last goodbyes.
In contrast:
A man in a city with a good public transport goes to work easily and there is minimal traffic. His mom doesn’t get hospitalized because there are fewer cars on the road and the streets are designed for pedestrian safety.
or
His mom gets to the hospital more quickly because there is less traffic. She survives.
or
He runs (or bikes) to the hospital within 20 minutes because he lives close to it in a dense neighborhood without endless sprawl caused by parking lots and cars.
or
He gets to the hospital quickly via an efficient transit route since there are many routes going to a hospital because… it’s a hospital!
or
He calls a taxi that arrives quickly and gets him to the hospital in 1 hour because there is less traffic.
Also, in all these scenarios everyone in the society is wealthier and healthier due to spending less money on their cars and breathing less pollution. They all get to work quicker because of less traffic congestion.
Nowhere in my post did I mention traffic. Traffic is not a concern in my area.
Emissions are a non-problem as EVs become more common.
The scenario involves a need to get out of your city and into another ASAP. How dense your city is irrelevant if the place you need to go is somewhere else.
The point of the scenario is about balance of time in life, and how to immediately get somewhere in an emergency. Regardless of whether the mother lives or dies in this scenario, is a loved one in the hospital ever not an emergency? Would anyone in the real world ever think “Well I’m sure the ambulance got there quick enough, no need to rush”?
Point 2: actually a very significant portion of pollution from cars are micropollutants from tires and not related to emissions
Point 3: trains.
Point 4: if we’re considering random scenarios: “oh no my car broke down” is… much more common than “my loved one is in the hospital”. Good public transport is only marginally slower, and is a more pleasant experience as a whole.
Most of these are from you never having had actually good public transport, it seems to me.
Since we’re making up stories…
A man in a place with bad public transit gets the call that his mother has been in a car accident and is being rushed to the hospital at 8AM. Since it’s rush hour, he spends the next two hours stuck in gridlock traffic (bad traffic today, something about a big car accident…). He doesn’t make it in time for her last goodbyes.
In contrast:
A man in a city with a good public transport goes to work easily and there is minimal traffic. His mom doesn’t get hospitalized because there are fewer cars on the road and the streets are designed for pedestrian safety.
or
His mom gets to the hospital more quickly because there is less traffic. She survives.
or
He runs (or bikes) to the hospital within 20 minutes because he lives close to it in a dense neighborhood without endless sprawl caused by parking lots and cars.
or
He gets to the hospital quickly via an efficient transit route since there are many routes going to a hospital because… it’s a hospital!
or
He calls a taxi that arrives quickly and gets him to the hospital in 1 hour because there is less traffic.
Also, in all these scenarios everyone in the society is wealthier and healthier due to spending less money on their cars and breathing less pollution. They all get to work quicker because of less traffic congestion.
This is why people want better public transit.
Way to miss the point.
Nowhere in my post did I mention traffic. Traffic is not a concern in my area.
Emissions are a non-problem as EVs become more common.
The scenario involves a need to get out of your city and into another ASAP. How dense your city is irrelevant if the place you need to go is somewhere else.
The point of the scenario is about balance of time in life, and how to immediately get somewhere in an emergency. Regardless of whether the mother lives or dies in this scenario, is a loved one in the hospital ever not an emergency? Would anyone in the real world ever think “Well I’m sure the ambulance got there quick enough, no need to rush”?
Point 2: actually a very significant portion of pollution from cars are micropollutants from tires and not related to emissions Point 3: trains. Point 4: if we’re considering random scenarios: “oh no my car broke down” is… much more common than “my loved one is in the hospital”. Good public transport is only marginally slower, and is a more pleasant experience as a whole.
Most of these are from you never having had actually good public transport, it seems to me.