Mass transit must scale. An underground metro rail system is the most valuable intracity transit system, but it does not offer full value. A high-value comprehensive transit system also offers transit systems for getting users to the underground metro rail system from their local sources and destinations. This is usually done by trams, buses, or treating trams as the intermediary value transit system between buses and underground metro rail systems. If you rely exclusively on a high cost, high-value system like an underground metro rail system, your system will not be comprehensive enough as it will not reach all of your city's citizens, leaving many to rely on car infrastructure to get to and from the metro rail system stops.

Thats waay more expensive

I mean, Helsinki has those, too. The metro line is extremely good here.

But the same goes for these tram lines, they tend to cover connecting lines into residential areas, as they are slower, but a lot cheaper to build.

The metro meanwhile is an extreme capacity line that runs literally less than every five linutes, between the varius transit hubs of Helsinki.

But then i have to walk downstairs

Why would you go the whole way to your destination and not exit the next stop to return home?

That's the dumbest argument for cars I've ever heard. And I've heard a lot of dumb ones.

If your commute is an hour by train, it's gonna be like >2 hours by car in traffic. But sure, if you ignore all the benefits of trains and only look at the downsides they look bad.

Extremely relevant to bring up in a post about urbanism and trams of course. So did this experience make you hate all public transport by association?

If you got off at the next stop and turned around you’d add maybe an hour to your commute. A car would still be 30-40 minutes. Plus trains are way less stressful since there’s no dealing with idiot drivers.

@penix @poVoq what do you forget that is important enough to bother going back for, but that is not important enough to remember in the first place? I wouldn’t go back after 20 mins of driving tbh.

That's a very edge case scenario to bring to the table as a counterargument... Like my buddy who was sceptical about reverse cameras in cars because "and what if it breaks?". Well, then we just use the rear view mirror like we always did. Nobody is arguing for abolishing them, just as nobody is arguing for completely abolishing cars.

Don't forget things.

Living in Europe I completely don't share that sentiment.

Cars should be used only when necessary and actually save significant proportion of time, otherwise cities become inhospitable hellholes and everyone loses (including cars now stuck in traffic).

But then again, I don't forget things too often, and in other post I saw you said that you regularly need to make a 3 part jurney. This would be a good situation to get a car.

As an extremely forgetful person who commutes by public transit, this is why you make a mental checklist to run through before you leave home / the office. Phone, wallet, keys, lunchbag, anything else important you need for that day.

The trick is to run through it every single time you leave for your commute, no exceptions. It does take a few repetitions to get in the habit. But once you do, it'll dramatically reduce the number of times you forget anything important.

Well if rich enough, you could just buy a car and sit in traffic... It would solve this anxiety somewhat