I don't think Musk's goal is to destroy public transit, but things like the hyperloop have been used as a bludgeon to attack high speed rail initiatives. [1]
I agree with him. Public transport doesn't scale well, doesn't completely replace individual transport and is uncomfortable for everyone. Optimal (not the current system) individual transportation is much better.
Public transport scales much better than private transport. The single lane for buses in the Lincoln Tunnel carries more people across the Hudson River than all the other road crossings combined. The NEC tunnels outpaces even that.
A single rail line at 26 trains/hour can carry around 20-25,000 people per hour. A highway traffic line carries about 2,000 cars per hour, or 2,000 people per hour if it's SOV. Personal rapid transit systems have been demonstrated to carry about 7,000 people per hour.
The only way to scale transit to highly dense areas is to minimize the amount of space each person has to themselves. SOV cars are horribly, horribly inefficient uses of space; standing-room-only subway cars are very efficient uses of space.
Please read the rest of my comments here. You're talking about a different idea of individual transport than me.
The problem is that you can't use public transport for cargo, for disabled people, for luxury rides, etc - there are many more use cases. Another problem is time - the bigger area and the more people your bus line has to serve, the less efficient it is for your customers.
There are better ideas than to minimize space (comfort AND usability) per person. E.g. optimizing your route in a way that you go from point A to point B as directly as possible, utilizing buses and shuttles on the way, taking people that need it. Bus lines are just like this, but fixed to specific pickup points, which would definitely remain existing, but the traffic around it would get optimized as well.
Why? Because with growing population, there are more and more people that need to go individually because of time constraints, comfort requirementa, disability or cargo. My solution supports your approach, just extends it to all vehicles on the road.
> The problem is that you can't use public transport for ... for disabled people
Wait what, why not? If anything, public transport is the sole means of transport for many people with disabilities. I'm not going to claim that all public transport is fully accessible to those with physical disabilities, but every new transport project fully accommodates the needs of those with disabilities, and existing ones are gradually retrofitted as they are refurbished and upgraded.
To give you an example in the UK, specifically London;
* All buses and trams are wheelchair accessible, with audio and visual announcements of routes and stops.
* Some parts of the tube network are completely step free. All trains have audio announcements, most also have visual. A map of current accessibility can be seen at [0]. Every time a station is upgraded or refurbished, it is made step-free.
* Many heavy rail stations have step-free access to the platforms, and staff can deploy a ramp to enable wheelchair users to board and alight. At some newer stations, level boarding is available.
So sure, public transport today is not 100% universally accessible to those with physical disabilities, although other disabilities are better catered for. However, in the context of new public transport projects and surface public transport there's no doubt - public transport is much more accessible than other forms of transport and is an absolute lifeline for those who have either temporary or chronic disabilities.
What about harder disabilities? What about multiple disabled people in one vehicle (Prague public transport can handle only up to 2 at a time, and their space is combined with space for child strollers and standing people)? What to do when the vehicle is full of standing people? What if the bus stop is too far away either at origin or at destination, or if you need to change vehicles during the route? Have you ever tried it, have you seen how much physical effort it requires?
And let me correct you: the majority of disabled people with more serious disabilities sit at home because going outside and getting to the bus stop is too hard for them.
Much better than individual transport. Just compare the space taken up by a bus with 40 seats, with 20 individual cars (I'm generously assuming an average two persons per car).
> doesn't completely replace individual transport
That was never the intention of public transport. It aims to supply the majority of rides.
I was born in a smaller city in the Czech Republic and now I live in Prague, Czech Republic, a capital city (±2.8m people in the metro area) with advanced and well functioning public transport that I use regularly. And while today it functions well enough, it has many shortcomings, especially problems connected to more people coming into the city (the metro population has doubled over last 30 years).
> That was never the intention of public transport. It aims to supply the majority of rides.
Yes, and the problem is that it won't, because it doesn't scale well, because it has so few use cases for so many people and is used out of necessity, not desire.
> Much better than individual transport. Just compare the space taken up by a bus with 40 seats, with 20 individual cars (I'm generously assuming an average two persons per car).
I never said that I agree with the current state of things. I actually despise it.
I'm in favor of a decentralized self-managed system of individual self-driving vehicles where usage of a road would cost money per time unit. Sharing rides would be encouraged and parking unused vehicles on the street would be expensive - carsharing and carpooling would be the best option.
Even buses could (and most certainly would) give shared rides, solving the inefficiency you've described. The difference is that this system would be much more flexible.
If usage of the road cost money per time unit, the incentive for whoever is getting that money is that roads become less effective, not more. Wouldn't distance traveled be better? That way ineffective traffic engineering would lead to jams that would mean less money made.
My idea is that no one will be getting this money, the road would be owned by an autonomous organisation and maintained automatically, thus completely eliminating the human factor. The same autonomous organisation would optimize routes, and optionally even announce free places in shared vehicles.
The system described in the link is limited to 2000 passengers per hour, even assuming that Musk's claim of a departure up to once per 30 seconds comes true (hint; it will not). That is less than a decent BRT route, never mind a proper underground train. This system scales far, far, far worse than modern public transport.
Well, either you compare optimal public transport vs optimal individual transportation, or you compare current public transport vs current individual transportation. And current individual transportation doesn't scale at all. Just observe how much city space is wasted on individual transportation (e.g. large streets through cities, parking spots etc.), and how further that can grow...
I'm comparing optimal public transport against optimal individual transport. The problem is that it never will be a solution for everyone, and additionally, the public transport system you're imagining can be integrated into the individual transport system I'm talking about (see my other comments here) - and IMO it's better to do the more integrated, future-proof and optimal solution. Public transport as it is now can never satisfy all people, and making it optimal means moving towards more individual means of transportation.
Thinking about it now, it seems like the distinction of public vs private/individual transport will become less and less important - and that's what we should encourage. Let everyone choose the best option for them - given the prerequisites I talked about in my other comment, the market could take over from there. I'm 100% positive that buses would not cease to exist, just operate more efficiently.