# Mass Transit vs Personal Transit **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 12, 2016, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-transit-vs-personal-transit/745960 "2016-02-12T19:24:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-transit-vs-personal-transit/745960/121 "2016-02-23T18:16:34Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > They can only drive that close _because_ the road is congested, and therefore speeds are slow, and therefore they don’t need to leave gaps. But the road is congested at a particular point because so many cars are arriving at that point at the same time. If their arrivals were even a little more spread out, there’d be no congestion at that point and they could drive right through it without slowing. This is experimentally demonstrated by the metering lights we have on our freeways, which control the speed at which cars can leave entrance ramps. If the metering lights are off due to copper theft or something, congestion at that point increases significantly. Metering lights don’t cure congestion, but they help a lot. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-transit-vs-personal-transit/745960/122 "2016-02-24T01:49:39Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > Okay, but wouldn’t that mean some cars would have to go slower so they didn’t arrive at that point? How is that any different from going slower due to congestion? Because slow-due-to-congestion is typically much, much slower than slow-for-the-purposes-of-traffic-flow-moderation. Hell, slow-due-to-congestion can involve significant periods of being completely stationary. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-transit-vs-personal-transit/745960/123 "2016-02-24T03:20:34Z")
I spent 6 years in West Philadelphia as an undergrad. After Friday classes, I’d hop on a a smelly, overcrowded circa 1930’s trolley to Center City, transfer onto a city bus to the High Speed Line, then hitchhike the last few miles to my parent’s house in beautiful New Jersey for the weekend. Monday morning, I’d do the reverse. The public transportation was fun and reliable! Then, I spend 4 years in Cleveland. Public transportation was…meh. I needed my motorcycle to get around. Then, I spent 4 years in Miami. Public transportation was…meh. I needed my bigger motorcycle to get around. Then, I spent 30 years in Jacksonville…public transportation is…a little less than meh. A couple weeks ago I took the Skyway (monorail) for the first time. It stalled halfway across the St. Johns River. As a late life-developed agoraphobic, let me tell you, that is definitely not cool. :eek: I need my minivan to get around. I miss Philly. Italian hoagies, cheesesteaks, scrapple and extensive public transportation…who could ask for anything more?? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-transit-vs-personal-transit/745960/124 "2016-02-24T12:38:05Z")
> [@Tibby or Not Tibby](#): > > I spent 6 years in West Philadelphia as an undergrad. I was there '86 to '90, living in an apartment in Lansdowne. SEPTA buses were great. That was the last time I’ve been on a bus or lived in an apartment, though, and I can’t say I really miss either. Cheesesteaks, yeah. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-transit-vs-personal-transit/745960/125 "2016-02-24T12:59:53Z")
My situation is that to get to my job and back, mass transit would mean the following: [ul] [li]walking to the nearest bus stop (early enough that should the bus be 2-3 minutes early I won’t miss it)[/li][li]riding to the transit hub downtown while the bus stops to pick someone up or let someone off damn near every block[/li][li]transferring to another line (again, allowing for extra time should my first bus be late or the second bus be early)[/li][li]taking the second bus to the stop nearest my job[/li][li]Total elapsed time door-to-door approximately 1hr15min[/li][/ul] Or I can take my car, and even with rush hour traffic get there in 25-30 minutes. For someone who is NOT a morning person, personal transit means precious extra time in the morning. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-transit-vs-personal-transit/745960/126 "2016-02-24T14:33:36Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Your point is incorrect. The standard advice of keeping “at least 3 seconds” behind the car in front of you is mostly due to the driver’s ability to assess that the car in front is breaking and then reacting to it. The only time I’ve seen a car break, it was on the opposite lanes on a divided highway. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-transit-vs-personal-transit/745960/127 "2016-02-24T16:35:14Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > The thing is, even leaving aside the understandable instinct to drive as fast as is reasonable in the moment, drivers don’t actually have the information to know what the optimal speed for avoiding congestion is, since this varies according to the time of the day, the day of the week, the weather and lighting conditions, etc, and on what’s happening up ahead, as to which they have little or no information. The other thing is the “prisoner’s dilemma”; if all drivers drive at the optimal speed, all benefit, but if most drivers drive at the optimal speed but one drives as fast as he can, he benefits even more. Thus a driver making a decision about how fast _he_ will drive will make a decision which will benefit him if all other drivers could and did act in the communal interest. But if all drivers act individualistically, congestion results and all lose out. In the UK, some stretches of motorway have active traffic management systems - big gantries over the lanes which flash up not just warnings about traffic conditions ahead, but also advised speed limits. So you might be cruising long in open traffic at 70 and see the sign warning you of congestion between the next two junctions, with a big “40” to tell you how fast to go. In theory, if everyone slowed down to 40 at that point, the congestion ahead would be clear(er) by the time they got to it and they wouldn’t then get stopped/reduced to 10mph. In practice, they (I) continue to sail through at 70 until we hit the congestion because a)psychologically it’s hard to slow to a relative crawl and b) if no one else is, dropping your speed by 30mph is positively dangerous. In theory there’s an enforcement mechanism in that the gantries have speed cameras too, but I don’t believe they’re used. Handing out tickets in draconian fashion is pretty much the only way to enforce the right behaviour from humans. But of course, computer driven cars would only need telling once. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-transit-vs-personal-transit/745960/128 "2016-02-24T19:57:39Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > I was there '86 to '90, living in an apartment in Lansdowne. SEPTA buses were great. That was the last time I’ve been on a bus or lived in an apartment, though, and I can’t say I really miss either. Cheesesteaks, yeah. Lansdowne? Cool. My wife grew up in Lansdowne, walking distance from the train station, which she used when she worked in Philly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mass-transit-vs-personal-transit/745960.md?page=6)