Comic misses a parked car
this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2025
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Yeah, that matches my experience on public transport alright.
Crammed in so tight you can't even bend a knee, and god help you if you're travelling with luggage or groceries...
That's not really a car issue, that's a "no-one invests in public transport" issue.
That’s not really a car issue, that’s a “no-one invests in public transport” issue.
...which is absolutely a car issue. It's not happening for no reason!
Also too many public transport is being treated like a business, where you optimally want to cut expense therefore always reduce frequency until the vehicle is crammed to full capacity.
People don't invest in public transit because they have cars. Imagine if cars were banned. People would be falling over themselves to improve the systems they need to use every day.
No they wouldn't.... They'd be trying to find new jobs, because they would no longer be able to manage their commutes.
99% of folks driving during rush hour do not want to be driving - they're given the option of a 1 hour commute or a 2 hour cycle. You'd need a societal shift away from working to manage this.
That's more complicated, similar to 99% of americans want free healthcare, but then if you frame it as "the government will run it" or " might benefit" or "the government wants to take away your health insurance", then the numbers start to dwindle and a vocal minority get extremely worked up.
It is in the interest of 99% of Americans, but you still have to lead them there.
Por que no los dos?
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"I can beat them all to the next red light."
Oh man.
I remember when I think it was Houston started using timed lights, the idiots said that a light timed for 30 MPH was also timed for 60 and 90 MPH. It's hard to comprehend such stupidity and bad math.
Houston is the only place where I've ever been passed on the right ... while I was in the right lane.
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I was on my usual bike ride a couple of years ago. On a particularly wide road, a car passed me and went way over into the other lane to do so, even though he could have kept the required 4' distance from me without crossing the double yellow line. Because he went so far into the opposite lane, a van coming the opposite way had to slow down a little bit - not even stop, just slow down. As this van passed me, the driver literally stuck his upper body out the window and yelled "you're gonna get somebody killed!" ... at me, not at the driver of the car that passed me.
I just couldn't believe the insanity of this dude. Like, I didn't make the fucking car pass me like that, and at most it made him get to the red light two seconds later than he otherwise would have.
This reminds me "nice" cars that do stupid shit because they see a biker. I just want cars to be predictable. I don't want them to be nice.
I can't stand the "oh I'll stop for you when I'm not supposed to at this 2 way stop" cars.
Like, dude. This doesn't help me. I have to wait and make sure the the car coming up behind you also stops and doesn't just pass you because you're being stupid.
And then now there is a car coming the other way and they aren't stopping (because they don't actually have a stop sign).
Can you just drive safe and predictable? I literally WANT to wait here until there are NO cars. Not 3-4 cars I now have to hope stop and don't kill me.
When people do this I literally just get off my bike now to make it obvious I don't want their "help". I've had too many times where people doing this have put me in danger. I have eyes. I want to wait until it's clear.
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whilst I agree with the message, no busses are that narrow
There's some artistic liberties taken but neither are the bike lanes or passenger cars that narrow.
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The only thing cars are better at than public transit and/or riding a bike (or similar), is traveling long distances. I'm not talking about your commute to the office; I'm taking about driving a percentage of the way across the country.
In that context and that context only, vehicles move more quickly, more consistently, and without needing as many breaks. With the obvious caveat of: traffic.
Other than that, for any notable Metro area, public transit should be the default, not your backup plan when your vehicle won't start.
Cars are actually sub-par for long distance travel. They have to stop to refuel every few hundred miles, require horrifyingly expensive highway infrastructure to travel at speed, have to manually negotiate all intersections / exchanges, and their individualized form factor multiplies the maintenance upkeep required for that sort of mileage. Trains and planes both kick their ass at distance travel in different ways.
What cars are actually superior at is medium to short distance adhoc hauling trips at medium speeds on the edges of a transportation system. Rural work and visits, last mile drop-offs, back country mobility.
What cars are actually superior at is medium to short distance adhoc hauling trips at medium speeds on the edges of a transportation system
Motorcycles/scooters. You can get way more out of limited road infrastructure and are much more flexible when it comes to obstacles such as traffic.
Ah, but in a world where the optimal vehicle is utilized for each trip, there isn't much traffic :P Also they can't haul much. Honestly I do feel like I want to embrace motos but in a system where the best vehicle for a given trip is always available I suspect they would be largely displaced by bicycles and ebikes.
they can’t haul much
Idk, I've seen a family of 5 with a dog, construction workers hauling 30 foot rebar, and dudes with like 200 lbs of plywood, in like an aframe around the bike. A hero of a construction worker with a 20 year old Ship of Thesisus'd Honda Winner probably hauls more stuff per year than your average GMC Canyon.
Lol... OK maybe replace "can" with "should".
Interesting take.
Especially considering internal combustion engines are most efficient at high gear, moving at a steady pace on a freeway.
I gave my opinion, you gave yours. It would seem that my opinion and your opinion are both different and to some extent, incompatible.
It's interesting, isn't it? In any case, I respect your opinion, even if I don't share it, and I hope you have an excellent day.
So we're not going to do any examination of data to figure out which ~~model~~opinion matches reality?
I don't have the funding to do such an examination.
Can we get a grant for this?
I submitted a grant proposal, but we were automatically denied because of the word "transport".
Figures.
Airplanes, long distance busses, or trains?
Cars a good for long distance travel to the middle of nowhere. Which I personally rarely do, if I need to, I carpool or rent a car.
I live in the middle of nowhere, I am basically obligated to own a car.
Circumstances have always demanded that I have one. Whether work demands, or simply being able to travel away from my house at all.
If I lived and worked in a city, at a job that didn't demand a vehicle, I wouldn't have one.
what if your local community and the trek into town was bikeable and/or had a bus route to a robust rail network
I would be utterly amazed that they decided to send a whole assed bus through my <10k population town, when even the taxis and Uber drivers won't bother, and our police presence is one officer in a vehicle that drives through town twice a day.
Which isn't to mention that pretty much every home here has 3+ cars in the driveway.... Aka, zero demand (or close enough to not make it viable even stopping in the town). The nearest "city" with more than 10k population is at least a 15 minute drive down country roads with little if any shoulder; so overhauling the routes to make them bike friendly for the handful of people that actually own a bike who live out here, and not only can ride that far, but are able to go that distance in a reasonable timeframe.....
To be blunt, I'd wonder what the local government is smoking, because there's so few people who would either want, or benefit from, such an infrastructure project that would likely go into the tens of millions in costs, if not more.
I get what you're saying, but my town could triple in population and I still don't think transit would make sense economically.
Forget buses, there are smaller towns that have 15 minute train service, for an average ridership of <1/day on their unmanned platform. Here's a random line: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyohashi_Railroad_Atsumi_Line
On trains in the US-
I have to be across the country soon, and looked into the best ways to get there. I axed airplanes due to a fear of flying at this time.
A car would've gotten me there in 50 hours, the train takes 75. I went with the train bc I would be exhausted driving for 50 hours. In the US, trains are much less time efficient for cross country travel 9 times out of 10.
(Amtrak is a private company and not owned by the government. i wonder why this is.... /s)
The only reason that's true in the US at least, is because our long distance public transport infrastructure is horrific. Trains here are slow, dirty, expensive, and limited in their routes.
If we had a dense network of cross-country high speed trains, cars would be far less necessary. It's a vicious cycle. More cars requires more car-centric infrastructure, which creates incentive to continue using cars, which feeds the need for expanding the car-infra, etc.
The fun part is that the freeway system isn't built for cars. It's built to a standard that will survive entire armies, tanks, and other equipment being shipped across country, and they can act as impromptu runways for aircraft.
The American road network was built the way it is for national defense in case anyone were foolish enough to try to invade, so the military can quickly and effectively relocate their assets to where they are needed.
Sure, most of that stuff could go offroading to wherever they needed to go, but it would not be a quick trip.
Cars just use the highways and justify their existence until something else needs the roads as something other than a road.... Automakers have taken advantage of the fact that most of America is isolated in small pockets and Metro areas, while the vast majority of the country is borderline desolate. There's hundreds of miles of grassland, desert, forests, farmland, etc between some places. No transit goes there, because nobody lives there and nobody goes there, so if you need to go through that place, GFL without a vehicle.
The story isn't any different in my country.
It's all just a charade to make it seem like the government is doing everyone a favor in building highways and freeways, meanwhile the military is pulling the strings for where these roads should be built.
The public transit vehicles that go short distance are optimized for short distances. The ones that go long distance are designed differently. This is feasible, because there is no need for a single vehicle to work both short range and long range routes.
Take busses for example:
- The plastic seats in urban busses are less comfortable than the cushioned ones in long range busses - but this design makes them easier to get into and out of, which you will be doing a lot more when the rides are short.
- Urban busses have less seats and more area for standing and walking. This area allows you to get off the bus more quickly (because there is more room to walk) - compared to long distance busses where once the bus stops at the station everyone who want to get off need to form a line (there is not enough room to not form a line). Short distance busses need this to shorten the time the bus stops at each station - a properly that's less needed for long distance routes, making long distance busses opt for more seats so people will not have to stand.
- This standing area also means you can stand up and move toward the doors when the bus approaches your station - which streamlines the process. Long range busses are less comfortable to stand at, so you are expected to seat until the bus stops.
- Long range busses have storage compartments, so that your luggage won't bother the other passengers. Short range busses don't have it, because it'll make the stops take more time, so all that standing area is also useful because people will have their luggage with them (and it'll also be smaller luggage because most passengers aren't going on long trips)
The standard for passenger rail over long distances is 200kmh, which is about 124mph. Can your Toyota pickup do that?
No. I also don't own a Toyota, or a pickup. But I need to go to my city in "middle of nowhere". Your high speed train, local transit buses, and even taxis, don't go where I live.
There's lots of cases where vehicle ownership is not a requirement. There's also plenty of examples where if you don't have a vehicle, you're just not going anywhere.
My car could probably hold 200kph somewhat indefinitely but there are laws preventing that. And my bank account after that when I run out of my not cheap fuel.
Yes, most vehicles today can do that.
Yeah that sounds about right.
Countries with super good train infrastructure can get around that pretty well but countries without that would rely on cars.
I'm in Canada, the only thing we have in ample supply is land.... If you're not in a city, you're either driving through farmland, or a forest.
Even then I would much rather be in a TGV going 300 kph than driving a car myself for hours on end..
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public transit is only that crowded one trip in a hundred in my city. This comic feels anti-bus as much as it feels anti-car.
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