What Elon Musk doesn’t understand about public transit hurts everyone — Quartz

Written by Rich Sampson

Recently, Elon Musk shared his perceptions during a tech industry conference that public transit is both inconvenient and dangerous. “It’s a pain in the ass,” he said. “That’s why everyone doesn’t like it. And there’s like a bunch of random strangers, one of who might be a serial killer, OK, great. And so that’s why people like individualized transport, that goes where you want, when you want.”

Several commentators—including myself, along with transit network design expert Jarrett Walker—called out his views as an uninformed elitist, perched atop his high-tech empire:

When you’re white, wealthy & emotionally estranged, you view everyone else as an inconvenience at best and a threat at worst. @elonmusk proves time and again he should have no role in planning communities. https://t.co/wwPluazVtL

— RAIL Magazine (@RAILMag) December 14, 2017

 

In cities, @elonmusk‘s hatred of sharing space with strangers is a luxury (or pathology) that only the rich can afford. Letting him design cities is the essence of elite projection. https://t.co/gtSVgPkfPohttps://t.co/CmCpoIJ5NE

— Jarrett Walker (@humantransit) December 14, 2017

 Musk presents a dilemma for many mobility advocates—as do other transportation tech sector-disruptors, such as the Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) Uber and Lyft: their ideas offer clever innovations to overcome network gaps and sluggish bureaucracy, but are rooted in profit motives that run counter to transit’s primary aim of affordable accessibility.



Musk’s dig at transit raises our industry’s dander when a billionaire (whose Boring Company is currently digging a privately-funded tunnel from his home to his corporate headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif.) scoffs at a resource that millions of less-fortunate people—as well as vast numbers of people of color, women and people with disabilities—rely on every day to get to work, healthcare, school, childcare and myriad other destinations. . .

 

via What Elon Musk doesn’t understand about public transit hurts everyone — Quartz