[augstein]

So serious question: What should they do?

Some solutions come to mind, but they would obviously only work for a fraction of the people currently living in suburbs:

- Work remotely

- Move closer to the city

- Connect suburbs to viable public transportation solutions

[AnthonyMouse]

> Connect suburbs to viable public transportation solutions

This is the thing that can't work. Public transit inherently requires density. Otherwise you have a bus that only comes twice a day and is still mostly empty because there aren't enough people per unit area to fill it.

Expecting commuter rail to eliminate cars in Spokane or Colorado Springs is delusional. It only works at all in major cities and even most of the cities in the US don't have enough density to make it really efficient -- and are prohibited by zoning laws from building at the density necessary to make that happen.

More to the point, even if we fixed the zoning today, it would take many years to actually build the density required to make it work, and until then people are still buying cars. And electric cars are better for the climate than gasoline.

[asdff]

It's way better to ride an ebike to the commuter rail station than a tesla to work. Build excellent bike networks for the suburbs. It's as cheap as sidewalk and/or paint.

[DoctorOetker]

I want to know AnthonyMouse's response to your argument: the treshold density in walking distance versus the treshold density in cycling distance will scale quadratically with the distance (since area is quadratic function of the radius), an electric bike that extends your range twice, will result in a 4 times higher "effective population density" for public transport to make sense.

Edit: just adding that any environmentally responsible form of personal transport doubles range, also results in quadratically (so four times) fewer stations and stops to be built, and linearly (so only half) the total length of rail or road to be laid and maintained

[AnthonyMouse]

> the treshold density in walking distance versus the treshold density in cycling distance will scale quadratically with the distance (since area is quadratic function of the radius), an electric bike that extends your range twice, will result in a 4 times higher "effective population density" for public transport to make sense.

That's exactly the problem you're working against. A bicycle doubles the radius from walking, but a car at 70MPH on the highway multiplies it by 20 or more, so you get hundreds of times the area and consequent sprawl. And ebikes at those speeds are fatally dangerous, so they can't be a replacement.

The thing that can actually be competitive is trains that can go as fast as cars, but then you need the density to fill them.

[thatfrenchguy]

If you build the rail, density will come. Bikes are also cool.

[JetSpiegel]

> density will come

Unless the NIMBY blocks high-rises.

[bazooka_penguin]

Restructuring communities around bus hubs doesnt sound like an awful idea to be honest. Even if everyone had a car, since it's the suburbs, it would probably cut down on day to day traffic and allow people to have more affordable housing.