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tfehringyesterday at 8:54 PM2 repliesview on HN

Driving to work is the most common way of commuting everywhere in the US except NYC. So in that sense, no, taking a taxi to work daily is not normal, just as walking, biking, and taking public transit aren’t normal.

When I worked in San Francisco I took Caltrain to the city, but I took Waymo from the train station to the office. San Francisco, like almost all US cities, has poor local transit coverage. In my case there was a bus that took a similar route, but it only ran every 20 minutes even during commute hours and wasn’t coordinated with the train, so if everything was running on time it would have been a 17 minute wait (plus an extra 5 minutes walking). I was busy and well paid enough that spending the extra $10 to save ~20 minutes of travel (and the uncertainty of when the bus would arrive, and how strongly it would smell like piss) was well worth it.


Replies

vasilipupkinyesterday at 9:32 PM

not everywhere in the US except NYC. People take trains in Chicago, for example.

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fragmedeyesterday at 10:16 PM

San Francisco's connection to Caltrain is deplorable, but as far as US cities go, the heart of it has pretty good public transportation.

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