XPost: rec.arts.sf.written, rec.arts.sf.science   
   From: leszek.karlik@gmail.com   
      
   On Tue, 14 Jan 2014 21:02:59 +0100, Doc O'Leary   
    wrote:   
      
   [...]   
   >> The sentence "Some people can't afford a taxi." doesn't mean that   
   >> some people are not able to buy a taxi cab. :-)) When I was a student,   
   >> I used public transport, because taxis were pretty much too expensive   
   >> for my budget.   
   >   
   > But that is the application of current, scarcity-constrained thinking on   
   > the matter.  A taxi is a car + driver, and the majority expense in that   
   > equation is the driver.  A bus works essentially the same way, but by   
   > spreading the cost of the driver across more people.  They *should* be   
   > treated very much alike, but current systems fail to subsume them   
   > properly.   
      
   Cost is only one factor, and may not the most significant. In dense   
   European cities a small economy-class car could be cheaper than mass   
   transit, but it will be less convenient (because of congestion,   
   bus-only lanes and the problems with finding a parking spot). Also, if   
   everybody would commute by car, the traffic would be unbearable, or you   
   would have to devote humongous areas of concrete-covered wasteland   
   solely for communication and parking purposes, thus turning thriving   
   European cities into, well, American ones ;-)))   
      
   >> Whey there's a fleet of municipal smart cars that don't need taxi   
   >> drivers, you could plausibly have taxis at a price point of   
   >> public transport. Say, a monthly "taxi card", with a discount   
   >> for being lower-priority (for students and poor people) and   
   >> surcharge for being a high-priority passenger.   
   >   
   > In reality, you could do this today with some adjustments to logistics.   
   > Public transit is *not* efficient when your best idea is to have big   
   > empty busses moving along fixed routes at fixed schedules.   
      
   In Europe, you have plenty of buses moving along fixed routes at fixed   
   schedules (and trams, and metro, and light rail and such), and they are   
   rarely empty. Again, it's the issue of population density and   
   traffic congestion. With cities such as here, you can't have everyone   
   commuting by car because cities would become completely gridlocked.   
   And when you have an efficient public transport system, it makes sense   
   to use it for purposes other than commuting to work or to school.   
      
   In China, for example, the car culture of the US will probably never   
   develop.   
      
   --   
   Leszek 'Leslie' Karlik   
   http://leslie.hell.pl/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)