I’m personally not a huge fan of driving everywhere. But I wonder whether HN’s view on this isn’t out of touch with the average middle class American’s. The average American commute is 48 minutes round trip, significantly shorter than France (71 minutes), Italy (65 minutes), or Spain (61 minutes): https://www.oecd.org/els/family/LMF2_6_Time_spent_travelling...
That’s mainly because Europe has higher public transit use, and public transit is slow. Parisians who work and commute by public transit spend an average of 116 minutes a day on public transit: https://www.thelocal.fr/20160418/parisians-spend-23-days-a-y....
Viewed from a different perspective, a country where most people can spend 48 minutes a day commuting, because it’s rich enough for everyone to afford a car,[1] might be considered better than one where many people have to endure two-hour public transit commutes. Maybe utopia isn’t Paris, with rich people living in beautiful walkable downtowns, but rather Houston, where middle class people can afford big houses with a pool and a short, direct commute.
[1] The median disposable income per US household is a staggering 50% higher than for a French household.
> where middle class people can afford big houses with a pool
And where each person (in the country) consumes twice as much energy as an average French person does [1] and more than 3 times as much water [2]
The "American way of life" is not sustainable.
Mind you, many French can afford a house with a pool as well. The problem is in fact that they do buy houses with pools these days... There were 700k private pools in France in 2000, 1.7 millions in 2012, probably more than 2.5 millions in 2018, making the country the 2nd market after the USA. [3][4]
I think you've got this almost exactly backwards. People in Paris don't buy cars because they have low utility. A car is slower than public transport for almost any journey in Paris. That's because population density in France is 4x higher than that in the US.
What's also important to remember as well is that commuting by car doesn't scale well. As population density rises, commutes become exponentially longer due to grid lock. So in some ways you can see the direction of movement and France is just further along that direction - as population density increases you're forced to move to more efficient forms of transport.
>That's because population density in France is 4x higher than that in the US.
That's a meaningless statement unless you're comparing the Paris metropolitan area to some similar area in the US. France doesn't have a sparsely populated continental interior to drag down the nation wide population density.
Depends on what you compare it with. Compared with Netherland, rural France is very sparsely populated.
But even in rural Netherland (it exists!) you need a car. We're really talking about cities here. In a well-designed city, you shouldn't need a car unless you need to go to a rural area outside the city.
That assumes a value judgment about what is a “well designed city.” Sprawling car dependent cities offend my personal aesthetic sensibilities, but there is a reason that the biggest internal migration trend in the US is away from cities like New York and to cities like Houston and Phoenix. Being able to easily drive everywhere can be very convenient.
But I think it's unhealthy if it comes at the cost of not being able to walk or bike anywhere. Kids need to be able to get around on their own, as should poor people who might not have a car. Cars have a tendency to clog up city centers, and their main value is outside cities, so designing a city so that cars are mainly for getting out of the city, while most places are easily accessible on foot or by bike, I think that creates a healthier, more fun, and more integrated city.
I admit for me personally it's mostly aesthetics, but this is also the direction that many professional city planners are working towards. At least in Netherland. It wasn't always like that; the 60s and 70s were very car-oriented, until people started to realise what the impact of cars on living spaces was.
I tend to agree, but I think it's worth considering that public transit commutes might be longer because people find time on public transit more pleasant, and are willing to do more of it.
To look at two extremes, 45 minutes of bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go driving is a lot less compelling than 45 minutes of reading on a commuter train with a comfortable seat.
> people find time on public transit more pleasant, and are willing to do more of it.
My knowledge of "popular" underground (London) or metro (Paris) lines makes that very unlikely, they're hot, way overcrowded, and odd-smelling when they don't outright stink.
Very useful and convenient, and can be pleasant outside of peak hours, but back when I worked in Paris despite not being a morning person I switched my work hours to take the metro way off-peak (between 6 and 7) so I could commute with some fresh air and have more than "no room whatsoever".
On the most populated lines, the trains are packed line sardine cans, and I don't know now but 20 years back there was no AC let alone AC which could handle a car packed to the brim in high summer.
Just to be clear: I didn't regret not having a car one bit, and given my commute was directly through Paris (from one near suburb to an other on the opposite side of the city) I don't think commuting by car would have been more pleasant. Couldn't have commuted reading books for starters, that's an advantage of a somewhat lengthy train commute (bus is less comfortable for reading especially if you tend to get car sickness, and obviously you can't read in your car though I guess audiobooks might be an option these days).
London has incredible public transport and only one line has no AC so it’s hot(edit) this is completely wrong, actually quite a few lines lack AC.. On being overcrowded - sure, during rush hour. Even then you marvel at the TfL’s efficiency - during rush hour I’ve counted one underground train every 20 seconds. 20 seconds! And this keeps on going for an hour or more.
The Central line during summer is so hot it wouldn't be legal to transport cattle on it.
The Northern line regularly has packed platforms going north in the morning.
The Metropolitan has been undergoing "modernisation" for over a decade...
EDIT trains also frequently run late OR early
They break under the slightest deviation in nature - rain, snow, heat and leaves on the track all caused breakdown in service every year
And let's not forget the dreaded "signal failure".
By comparison my experiences in Munich, China, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore and Hong Kong have all illustrated what an efficient metro system can be. Though they obviously have 50+ years less infrastructure baggage to lit around
The Central line was the one I was thinking of. I was wrong and I’ve edited the post above.
The reason for this is clear tho - those lines are sometimes upwards of 100\80 years old.
It’s still probably the one of the best public transport systems I’ve ever encountered, and imo perhaps one of the best ones in Europe.
edit I haven’t been to Munich but I’ve been to Cologne & Berlin, I found London beat their transport systems particularly in clarity and signage. I find TfL signage systems to be some of clearest in the world, and I give them great credit for that. Their design is excellent and makes it virtually impossible to get lost.
Come visit us in Switzerland, my friend! And say goodbye to delays, overpopulation, climate woes and all the rest of it. And I'm only being slightly hyperbolic.
I've used the S-Bahn for 20 years (nowadays I can use the U-Bahn) and sure, it has its problems, but you are very, very hyperbolic. Most of the time it works just fine, whether the weather is good or bad. Sometimes the central tunnel is blocked, which is a problem for a system with one tunnel. That's why we build a second one.
Meanwhile, cars are stuck in traffic almost all the time. The only way to cross the city in a car without being stuck is driving very early (say before 07:00 in the morning) and very late (21:00 or later).
That's just BS. Do you work for DB? ;-) Sure the U-Bahn is slightly better but with SBahn.. "störung" or "zug fällt aus" is the norm. Off the top of my head the last 5~6 rides I've taken with SBahn every single time the train was either:
- late
- a service was skipped
- broke down half way through the journey
Come to think of it actually just last week I was forced to take the train and ofc the next service "zug fällt aus". Then after some ~40 mins of waiting there was the next service. A group of kids shouted "Oh mein Gott, s-bahn!". Great summary of the quality of the service.
Just because the vehicle traffic also sucks doesn't redeem S/UBahn by any factor!
Another Muenchener here, and I second ensiferum's take - Sbahn is significantly worse than Ubahn, in all measures. ie, if you want to go to the airport, you always schedule an extra hour, just in case you get dumped out in Ismaning or Unterschleissheim (with the confidently delivered excuse "dieser zug faehrt nicht weiter") and need to uber / wait for the next overly full train (whose signage may or may not be correct).
On top of that, unexplained, sudden, irrational waiting time extensions until finally 'zug faellt aus'.. really? if the train doesn't exist, just tell us so we can make other plans now and not in 30 mins. Besides, the posters communicating all of the recent schedule changes due to work are horribly complicated, written in long essay form when all they really need to say is what stops are out of service when (how non-german speakers navigate this nonsense is beyond the imagination). On top of that, the MVG's recent absurdist claim that all schedule changes will be conveniently available per MVG app :DDDD riiiiight... if you read the thirty page long yellow text!
I just did a quick vote with my coworkers who travel by S-Bahn/train every day: Out of all their trips they take one got cancelled or was late this and last week. That's for ten people and using it every day.
I have the feeling you almost never use S-Bahn and think because you had bad luck with the few trips you do all of S-Bahn must always be late/broken.
edit: Full disclosure, there seems to be a breakdown in service (because of a problem in the tunnel) right now.
Lived temporarily in Seoul and Osaka last year for three months, then moved to Berlin.
The trains were always on time in Seoul and Osaka when I had to take them (though to be fair, not very often) but in the first week of being in Berlin, like 60% of the time the "trains are running at an irregular interval". I definitely don't trust the U/S-Bahn in Berlin, but it's still one of my most favourite public transport systems in a city I've lived in. Lived there for 2 years and never had to use a car.
I'm not denying any of these and am absolutely not saying metros are bad, I'm just pointing out that in my experience there's very little chance "public transit commutes" are considered "more pleasant" than car commutes. They're mostly a different kind of unpleasant.
Even the best metro systems in the world are going to be hell when full to the brim (e.g. Tokyo's attendant pushing people so they pack tighter and the doors can close).
Public transport is not just metro. It's also trains, trams, busses, etc. Especially trains are good for getting a bit of work done, or whatever. Someone I know commutes from Rotterdam to Amsterdam and uses it as a chance to get through TV shows.
Really? I was under the impression Central was one of the few. Maybe it’s an air circulation thing, but for someone reason I can only think of the northern and central as being insanely hot. Will google.
edit you’re right I’ve just changed the post above.
London’s public transport consists of trains and buses, not just the tube. And there are several air-conditioned ‘metro’ lines, all the sub-surface lines. The others are hot and horrible, I agree, but the public transport network in London is second to none. It also includes bicycles if you want the wind in your hair.
My experience, on trains, is similar to yours, though perhaps less unpleasant.
I've been taken trains at around 06:30 for about four years and it's such a big difference to a more standard office hour. I can relax, I can sleep without having somebody sat next to me, I can work and best of all I don't have to drive.
When I lived in Paris, I used (for various jobs) lines 2, 6 and 13 to commute, also RER B. The mere idea of getting a seat during rush hour was delusional.
I remember once, at Denfert-Rochereau, I had to let two RER go to the south without me, as there was litteraly no place for me to go inside. Could not even put a foot in.
Have you actually commuted long distance > 70 Miles each way?
I worked out in the UK it costs (after allowing for tax) £10k pa to commute the 70 miles to central London - and thats not counting the costs of the extra hour and a half out of your day.
Or you could live somewhere like Newark in Nottinghamshire where the train is an hour and ten minutes into Kings Cross and it'll cost you £6,000 a year.
Plus house prices/rents are cheaper too.
I'm so glad I live basically on the East Coast mainline, it's the only decent line in the entire country.
> 45 minutes of reading on a commuter train with a comfortable seat
I've never seen that train. The ones I am in - when I am in them, I avoid them as much as I can - are crowded and reading is definitely not going to happen, standing is more common than sitting.
You just can't compare commuting on time alone. If you commute by car then 100% of that time is spent sitting down either driving or stuck in traffic. If you commute by public transport then maybe 50% of the time is spent reading, and 50% is spent walking. If you commute by bicycle then 100% of the time is spent cycling.
It's a shame that study only shows a mean aggregate. I'd be interested to see the raw distribution in commute times. Just anecdotally I've known many people in the UK who spend only ten minutes "commuting" to work each day. That rarely seems to be possible in the US from what I've seen.
But, yes, European people don't understand the American way of life. The amount of waste and unsustainable consumption would shock them to the core.
You're right, mean aggregates don't mean much in this situation. The USA is too diverse of a country. NYC people commute by subway, and walking. Sure it's a long commute but you have ample opportunity to stop and do other things on the way home. If you live in Montana, you can commute home by car, in 10 minutes. But in Montana you are stuck at home, once you get there. What is needed is a 'happiness of commute' index.
For what it’s worth, there is plenty “to do” in those places too. I’m not sure what you mean by “stuck” — maybe your interests are different, but for those who like fishing after work, hiking a remote mountain, playing fetch with the dogs in a big field, or swimming in uncrowded streams — it’s a pretty awesome life. Sure it requires a car. At least to me it’s totally worth it.
France is a weird case (or at least, the case I know better).
First of, a lot of those statistic tend to be skew because of Paris, because France tend to be very Paris-centric (its getting better, but Paris is still the center of "everything").
When it come to Paris, a lot of time, it's often faster to take the public transportation than your own car because of the systemic traffic jam at rush hour (which is common for this type of cities). But as more people move out of Paris or take the public transport or other form of transportation (the city has made a lot of effort to be more bicycle friendly in the last years), travel time by car actually start to decrease.
In my own city, car was almost always faster than public transportation. I had different commute time, from 1h30 to 10 minutes, and I could have always shave some of it by taking the car.
But for me, the 10-15 minutes I could have gain from taking the car was nothing compared to the comfort I was gaining by using the public transportation. I can just hop in a tram or in a bus, listen to my music, read a book, ... I don't have to do any of the mental effort that driving require, which is very valuable for me after a day of work. I also feel more safe, if my bus or my tram has an accident, I know I am more protected.
And in general, I really do enjoy my city a lot more the less car there is. I grew up mostly in the country side and next the the amazonian forest. The noise, and most importantly, the awful smell created by car traffic is very disturbing to me. Staying for too long next to a busy street will usually give me nausea very quickly. I also feel safer as I don't have to worry about my surrounding has much. Since there is no car, I don't have to check if I am going to be run over. Finally, road are just plain ugly, I rather have green area, pedestrian way, and art lying around.
Its for these reason that I accept all the inconvenience that public transportation brings. I rather have a slightly longer commute by feel good in the city than the opposite.
Maybe that average Parisian commute is slower, but more pleasant. Walking and taking in the environment is certainly more positive for the body and mood (on average). You also encounter tons of other people, building social value, even without any direct interactions. Reading or daydreaming also become options when not focused on the road. Time isn't the only measurement.
You are probably correct that the average American, however, doesn't see it from that perspective.
Depends on the environment and the people. I'd often take the long way through campus: pleasant architecture and landscaping, light filtered through tall buildings and trees, chance encounters with classmates and professors, lots of porous buildings with stuff going on.
The walking parts of my Bay Area transit commute, on the other hand, were urine vapor mingled with pot smoke, harsh direct sunlight bouncing off concrete, dozens of homeless people in varying levels of distress, shitty decaying $1.5 million houses, random commercial and industrial facilities with no windows or public access, lifeless expanses of "open space." A $22 parking fee is well worth it to avoid being a pedestrian anywhere near Civic Center Station.
No, it isn’t. The homelessness issues in cities drive the popularity of suburbia, suburban style planning, avoidance of walking/transit, and the need for cars/parking downtown (since few want their kids to grow up where they work, especially outside top 10 cities). Car dependence is far and away the most effective “solution” to visible homelessness, and that’s part of why people are so attached to it.
Urban planning and public transportation also feed back into homelessness by prohibiting cheap housing types (like SROs) and making it nearly impossible to hold a job without owning a car in good repair (bus delays and cancellations will get you fired).
Curious, what is your quick take on it. It's partially related to this topic. Many small cities in N.America give homeless people free bus tickets to NYC or California, so they don't have to deal with them. This allows small cities no to worry about public transit, and widens the urban/rural divide.
I'm not an expert but there are large swathes of rough sleepers in SF, SJ, NY, Austin, LA, etc. And even though the % of population in the US who are classified as homeless in the US is less than e.g. UK, there's nothing on that scale of rough sleepers scale in comparable or larger cities like London, Paris (maybe 17de?), etc.
I don't know if the definitions of homelessness plays a part in the different %s but the suffering of homelessness seems higher in the US than EU.
> Maybe that average Parisian commute is slower, but more pleasant.
LMAO. Try Ligne 13 or Ligne 1 for your commute. Or any RER.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b22yKsTvynQ Pleasant is not the first word coming to my mind. And you're gonna enjoy the experience a lot more during the winter (lot of homeless people live there because it's 30°C) or summer.
Time on a train is at least semi-productive time. You can read HN! Which, face it, is what you'd be doing anyway. Time in a car is just spent staring at the road.
Actually no, here in this German state better bring a book along, because that mobile connection between cities will drop down to G or even go away quite often.
But you can do old style, work offline and then profit from train stop at a station to sync the data.
I like to call my family and girlfriend during my commutes. It’s much nicer to do that in the privacy and comfort of a car than in public transportation. There’s also audiobooks and music.
Not sure why you're getting down-voted as having people talking (often loudly) on their phone on public transport makes it unpleasant for everyone else. I try and save calls for the car part of my commute, but then get accused of only calling cause I have nothing better to do...
You do appreciated the relative silence (no one on their phone or talking above a whisper) on trains in Japan.
Brisbane trains on the other hand - you need to wear noise-cancelling headphones (music optional) to block out other people's conversations - even in the quiet carriages.
>The results indicate that passenger conversations differ from cell phone conversations because the surrounding traffic not only becomes a topic of the conversation, helping driver and passenger to share situation awareness, but the driving condition also has a direct influence on the complexity of the conversation, thereby mitigating the potential negative effects of a conversation on driving.
Thanks for the links, learnt something new. The bit about the cognitive load preparing to speak or speaking rather than passive listening was interesting.
Yes, when talking to someone in the car they should be aware of the traffic and pause the conversation, where you have to tell the person on the other end of the phone that you need to go.
Listening to music is passive (yes, even if you happen to be singing along, as you're just parroting memorized lyrics), whereas during a phone call, you have to focus on what the other party is saying, and formulate sentences to answer them.
Oh, so you're that weirdo who always makes everyone around him in the vehicle listen to his loud phone conversations, making it next to impossible to focus on a book, or whatever else they were trying to do. :)
In the extremely unlikely event that there's room to hold your phone in front of your face, and you have a free hand (usually it's one on the overhead rail, one holding your bag).
It has happened for me, but only if I board at the beginning of the line or commute several hours off peak.
That is certainly not extremely unlikely, at least not in any European country I've been to. I'd say at least 80% of the travelers look at their phones, a book, paper etc. I can do it almost any time I choose to.
It's an interesting point, but I would like to correct one thing: when people in Paris don't buy cars, in most cases it's not because they don't have the means but because it's highly impractical to drive one.
Besides, the French may have lower disposable income, but they have much longer holidays and work way fewer hours on average.
I'm in European city with great public transport, and my commute is 50 minutes by bus or 20 minutes by car (one way).
Every time someone says "we should forbid cars in cities", I hear "we should take away 1 hour a day from your family, you should sit in bus instead". (or more likely stand, since the bus is always full)
My commute by car is 45 minutes, 60 minutes by public transport.
I still take public transport. In a car I need to be focused for the full 45 minutes and be stuck in traffic, having nothing to do. In the train I can put my laptop on the table and work for 35 minutes straight before I need to switch to the subway. I can also recline the seat and take a 35 minute nap instead. It's amazing and really adds to my quality of life.
To be fair, people are mostly saying "we should forbid cars in city centers".
Presumably your commute is so much longer on public transport because neither your home nor your job is in the city center and there are fewer lines out there? Not saying that you deserve to suffer if that's the case, but also probably people aren't coming for cars in your neighborhood first.
Part of the solution is to invest in internet infrastructure and encourage work from home when it is possible. People waste less time and for those who have to get somewhere for their job there is less traffic.
This, so much. I am not needed in cities and should do my part by never setting a foot there again. Just send me specs and I'll code them from home. I'll only leave once a week for groceries.
> Viewed from a different perspective, a country where most people can spend 48 minutes a day commuting, because it’s rich enough for everyone to afford a car,
What's good for individuals might not necessarily be good for society.
In 100 years, we'll look back at our car obsession as some sort of temporary societal madness. The environmental impact of cars alone is a compelling argument in favor of public transport
In 100 years, we'll still be rich enough to afford cars, just they will be electric and self-driving. People only take public transportation because there's no parking, it's faster and/or cheaper, or they can get other stuff done while on it. All these being equal, people will choose cars.
> People only take public transportation because there's no parking, it's faster and/or cheaper
You're kind of neglecting the advertising-led pressure to own a car. Car companies spend literally billions of dollars convincing you that cars are cool, and that they somehow indicate your status.
I see many people 'cottaging' in the summer. Drive for a couple of hours to a cottage, spend two days there, and drive back. It's not that enjoyable of an experience, really like owning two houses, that you need to clean.
I look at the pictures from 100 years ago of little resorts, and little resort towns. You take a train, spend a week in a pleasant atmosphere. Maybe you own a little cottage near the railway tracks, in a small village. It was more communal and more enjoyable. You can walk into the village in 15 minutes.
It’s also worth remembering how comfortable cars are compared to being packed like a sardine in public transit next to total strangers, some of whom are rude or unhygienic.
I'm personally uncomfortable driving even really nice cars, 'cause you have to pay careful attention to not kill someone. I mean, driving can be fun or exciting - but it's not comfortable or relaxing, I would argue, at least not driving in places where there are other people.
On public transit, on the other hand, I can relax and read and pretty safely ignore the world. Worst case someone grabs my kindle or my phone and runs. I can afford a new phone. (which hasn't happened to me; I'm just saying, that's the biggest risk I see on public transit from relaxing my vigilance. In a car, well, a lot of people have killed other humans because they let their attention wander or decided to change the radio station at an unlucky moment.)
I mean, I'm not saying that your view of comfort is invalid... I'm just saying it's not universal.
> On public transit, on the other hand, I can relax and read and pretty safely ignore the world. Worst case someone grabs my kindle or my phone and runs.
That surely isn't really the worst case. This happened last Friday in Madrid, just days after someone pushed a mother and her child in front of a train in Germany (and killed the child): https://twitter.com/el_pais/status/1157564725015851008?
Granted, it's still a rare occurrence, but it seems to happen more often lately. The closest I personally came to this kind of public transport experience was standing in the first subway car when some drunk guy fell on the tracks and got killed around 20 years ago. It's not really a reason why I prefer the car these days, but also not exactly a fond memory.
My sister's best friend being killed at age 17 walking on a residential road wasn't news. It isn't even rare, it's a leading cause of death for teenagers.
The dead motorbike rider I saw lying in the road didn't make the news. This is so common ambulance staff call bikers "organ doners".
The "accident" (gross negligence, IIRC) when about 15 were killed on the motorway, including one of my dad's colleagues, did make the news.
Railway (and even bus) deaths are orders of magnitude less frequent.
> The fear I feel when driving is not fear for my own safety, but fear that my actions (or momentary inattention) might lead to the death of another.
Did you watch the video? It's (also) about pedestrian/biker safety measures. All new crash tests cover this and you can see very well that cars brake automatically these days.
I'm not going to watch a video. what sort of person do you think I am?
I do have a reasonable knowledge of modern car safety features, and yes, high end (well, high trim level; these features are optional at additional cost on many cars I would call low end.) cars bought in the last few years have automatic braking systems that function reasonably well at low speeds, and that's a great thing that has probably saved many lives.
Certainly, if I buy a car again I will be sure to pay extra for these features
But these features don't make driving safe. These cars are not even close to being self-driving, and these features don't absolve the driver of vigilance.
Now, this doesn't apply to me ('cause I have a good job and can afford a recent car and can pay extra for the requisite options) but most cars still don't have those features. The vast majority of cars that are on the road today, and even many cars on the new-car lot don't have any sort of automatic-braking system.
> I'm not going to watch a video. what sort of person do you think I am?
I wish I knew what some people find so worthy of downvoting about suggesting to watch a crash test video that demonstrates the current state of pedestrian safety measures in cars. Or, what is scary/offensive about videos in general. But I suppose I don't need to understand every personality on the Internet...
I don't think you got downvoted for the jokey insults we're trading. (I also think it's pretty funny that I will go out of my way to avoid watching a video. What kind of person do you think I am?)
I think you got downvoted because it's ridiculous to suggest that current safety features make cars safe compared to most other common methods of transportation, especially for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Depends on your city, but in the european metropolis I lived in, packed public transport was the exception (so was rude behaviour and smell). Contrary to that traffic jams and endless searches for parking lots were the norm when I went by car.
European cities are for historical reasons less practical to commute to by car, because they are dense, have never been planned with cars in mind and there is literally no space for your car. In such a setting a well funded public transport system makes all the sense in the world, because it uses the space more efficiently than the usual one-person-car-commuter.
Actually most major cities were rebuilt after WW2 due to destruction. Prague is an example of a city that wasn't rebuilt and the city centre is unusable by public transport - car is about the longest vehicle that can fit in many turns there. We solve that with underground garages and subway.
To be fair, that's not something you escape when you're driving at all. You still have to deal with rude drivers, people that cut you off, honk, road rage etc.
And I don't think in my entire college life of taking public transit to and from school did I ever really encounter anyone or anything that made my day worse. In fact it was the opposite, since one of the things that still stands out in my mind is the day a complete stranger decided to give out roses to men and women aboard the bus I was riding, myself included.
It was such a small thing, but something that really stuck with me.
The recent yellow vest protests in France are interesting for your focus. I believe most of it is driven not by the not-so-high petrol price, but by combination of two facts in France : Real estate is very expensive in cities, more and more disconnected from the average income; jobs are mostly in these places.
In short, the tendency is that most French people can't afford to live where they work, or don't want to live in a smaller flat, hence their commute time.
You are cherry picking the second stats of your document, but the first one indicate that France and USA are very similar. For Paris, it is exactly the same number as NYC : 1h30, the number you used it from an error in the article, if you look at the source it separate the home/work duration to the whole transport time in a day (for example to go to a concert after work).
Pool and all the space in the world don't matter if you rarely use it or have friends/family over. When everyone is so distant, even if in the same city, getting together is harder. Being in a city with more places to meetup and more ways to get there just makes it more convenient and likely to have fun
Don't need your own pool if the building has one. People just have to get more used to sharing common spaces. Even the suburban floorplan could be stacked up a dozen plus stories if people wanted that.
Finnish anecdote: I commute 35km by bike and train in 60 minutes (round trip). By car, I estimate it would take at least 90 minutes. Train service is reliable and runs 6-10 times per hour between 6am and midnight.
I prefer my current commute (by bus in an European city) to a shorter commute by car. While I'm on the bus, I read an ebook, HN, use a Duolingo-like app for language learning, or play some mobile games. All of these are things that I'd do at another time in the day anyway, so I am not really wasting time, as I would be if I had to drive.
By the way, is having 50% more disposable income really being richer if you may need to pay six-figure amounts if you need surgery?
Car ownership rates in cities have nothing to do with being rich enough to own a car. New York is one of the wealthiest cities in the country but has the lowest rate of car ownership.
> Viewed from a different perspective, a country where most people can spend 48 minutes a day commuting, because it’s rich enough for everyone to afford a car,[1] might be considered better than one where many people have to endure two-hour public transit commutes
You are misinterpreting the data, the 113 minute figure is for ALL public transit travel, not just commuting.
> That’s mainly because Europe has higher public transit use, and public transit is slow.
Where's your evidence for that claim? It seems plausible to me that these countries have a larger fraction of the population living in large metro areas, and big cities inevitably involve longer commutes whether you drive or take transit.
Public transit is not intrinsically slow. If your city has decent transit it is usually much, MUCH faster than driving in rush hour traffic. I live 10 minutes away from work by train; the corresponding drive would take 30 minutes during rush hour. If you want to get from the suburbs to downtown for work, it would take you only 30 minutes on the suburban rail whereas driving would take 90.
You're also missing one the main points of public transit, which is that it is compatible with density whereas auto culture is fundamentally not. In denser cities it is physically impossible for every person with a 9-5 job to be in a single occupancy car on the road at the same time. There is literally not enough space for that to happen. It's not about deciding, as a matter or public policy, whether you want everyone to be able to drive or not. You literally CANNOT, within the laws of physics, accomplish that feat.
> New York is one of the wealthiest cities in the country but has the lowest rate of car ownership.
I think that's part causation too. Cars are expensive things to own and operate with most of that money disappearing from the local community. The money that would have been spent on cars still goes somewhere and I'm betting most of it goes locally.
I would like to see what data you assumption that public transit is slower than car is based on but I'm quite sure it's not true. From my experience, car as always been slower than walking + public transport. And much more painful and stressful. Those numbers might also mean that having a good public transport infrastructure allows people to work from further away than car does.
Comparing salaries is also quite a broken. You can turn what you says around. Maybe Paris has a great transport system because of better investment in public infrastructure and distribution of wealth. I have no idea if what you say about Houston is true, but if it's the case, maybe the lack of public infrastructure is due to the lack of investment in public transportation, causing the obligation to have car, which is expensive for the most vulnerable households and causing all the environmental issues we all know.
Alas, it is true. I use PT whenever I can, and it’s way more relaxing. But while my commute to the office in the city takes 1:15 using the bike and train, it only takes 0:50 using the car. The difference becomes smaller under various conditions (eg traffic jam), but on average, the car is faster and arguably cheaper. And I hope very much that this will be fixed.
HN is generally pro-car. Car are viewed as an absolute necessity, and the climate problem is gonna be solved via a tech-fix by going electric, ignoring that this isn't really a solution.
Time might have an edge, especially if you live in a rural area that doesn't have the population to sustain transit infrastructure and zero traffic, but there are a lot more intangible benefits to avoiding the act of driving.
I live in LA and people drive like assholes. In rush hour people merge no blinker from edge to edge of the highway if one lane is moving a mile an hour faster, causing even more traffic in the process downstream from everyone slamming on the brakes to avoid killing the prick. No one ever lets you in unless you threaten to hit them. You are forced to engage in the ruckus, because if you drive at all defensively you will not go anywhere.
Then there is the streets themselves. Highways peel lanes like onions, forcing constant merging and therefore inevitable traffic. Commonly there are 4 way stops with multilane streets and no one knows who should go first, so with any traffic at all it immediately gridlocks. Visiting friends without a parking space means factoring in circling their entire neighborhood if you aren't blessed with a nearby parking structure.
The whole experience is profoundly frustrating and stressful. On public transport, I can read a book. Maybe I'll learn something instead of fighting in the pits.
That’s mainly because Europe has higher public transit use, and public transit is slow. Parisians who work and commute by public transit spend an average of 116 minutes a day on public transit: https://www.thelocal.fr/20160418/parisians-spend-23-days-a-y....
Viewed from a different perspective, a country where most people can spend 48 minutes a day commuting, because it’s rich enough for everyone to afford a car,[1] might be considered better than one where many people have to endure two-hour public transit commutes. Maybe utopia isn’t Paris, with rich people living in beautiful walkable downtowns, but rather Houston, where middle class people can afford big houses with a pool and a short, direct commute.
[1] The median disposable income per US household is a staggering 50% higher than for a French household.