Comments by "mindstalk" (@mindstalk) on "Why free public transport doesn't fix traffic (and what does)" video.

@shauncameron8390 "housing is a privilege" You think food is a privilege, too?
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@tommyshanks4198 This is a false argument. Goods and services need only a tiny fraction of the total traffic on city streets. Cities with few and narrow lanes still have lots of goods and services and deliveries.
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Worth mentioning the Dutch approach to biking, by analogy. They've done a lot of work to make biking safe and convenient, but that also include making driving inconvenient for urban trips, the "redesign your city" mentioned briefly in the video. Modal filtering means that bikes have direct routes, cars have to go around. People will bike when it's the fastest way to get where they're going. Same with transit, which can mean bypassing traffic and more direct routes. Also, frequency frequency frequency.
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@HolgerJakobs "They should introduce shops for daily needs in suburbia." Well, it's bad design from the legal zones up. Typically there isn't enough population to support local shops, and even with upzoning, it would take a while to get the density -- and without massive population growth, it couldn't happen everywhere; some places would get less habitable.
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@ianhomerpura8937 It's not "excuses" to point out that US law is different. The stuff you describe is not allowed here. I think those are bad laws and HOA rules, but they're still what we have.
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@tommyshanks4198 Wider streets also mean higher property taxes, as you have fewer taxpayers per unit of infrastructure.
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@stephenspackman5573 "benefit of making it free" I don't think any of those benefits are robust. Pre-paid access from gated platforms improves flow. Any system with good ridership makes a lot more in fares than it spends on inspectors. Paid access doesn't prevent great transit systems from existing. I have nothing against free transit in theory; it's pretty nice. But for any real system, the extra funding it would take to make fares free would be better spent making service better.
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