Top all-time · #8272
Daniel Bowen
Personal blog · danielbowen.comeconomicsdata
Daniel Bowen's personal blog at danielbowen.com covers economics and data. Since 2015, 10 different Hacker News readers have linked it 11 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-26, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (9) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Commenters cite a road-space photo on this blog to show that cars take up far more street space than buses, bikes or robotaxis. Another post covers Myki ticketing and the 3G shutdown.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 9 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- /2012/09/19/road-space-photo/4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2023-07-07
- /2012/09/19/road-space-photo/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-10-25
What Hacker News says?
Computerised public transport is even more efficient Your public transport with robo taxis takes up far more space in the surface than there is available in a normal city, as shown in this photo. https://danielbowen.com/2012/09/19/road-space-photo/
Comment linking /2012/09/19/road-space-photo/
on “Elon Musk wanted an OpenAI for-profit”Submitted Y2K was not a hoax as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSo hundreds of millions of dollars to be saved then, and that's just for the periodic upgrades, which are an up-front cost and therefore cost you even more in terms of time value of money. Then as long as the system is in place you need to pay ongoing costs to repair and maintain the equipment, enforcement against anyone who skips the fare, payment network fees, customer service for anyone with payment issues or dam…
Comment linking /2025/07/11/brisbane-pt-patronage-growth/
on “Iowa City made its buses free. Traffic cleared, and so did the air”Submitted Why is rail patronage 50% higher in Sydney than Melbourne? (2020) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionhttps://danielbowen.com/2012/09/19/road-space-photo/ Bike and bus take the same amount of space. Cars take up far more.
Comment linking /2012/09/19/road-space-photo/
on “Changes since congestion pricing started in New York”In this particular case, that's the result of misconfiguration on the devices https://danielbowen.com/2024/11/09/myki-and-3g/ I have a certain amount of sympathy for Myki's operator in this case, this would have been a difficult edge case to test.
Comment linking /2024/11/09/myki-and-3g/
on “Australia's 3G Shutdown – Why your 4G/5G Phone is now Blocked”1 per 3 people? We're at like 2.8 per 10 in Taiwan. If Taiwan had 1 car per 3 people the country would be in permanent gridlock, there's absolutely not enough road infrastructure to handle that. Taipei already experiences near gridlock every single rushhour. We handle traffic with busses, MRT, docked bicycle rental system, and also the fact that our cities are very dense, with lots of small businesses like restauran…
Comment linking /2012/09/19/road-space-photo/
on “Organizing OpenStreetMap mapping parties”obligatory link to the road space picture that shows why this would not be a good move for urban transit systems: https://danielbowen.com/2012/09/19/road-space-photo/
Comment linking /2012/09/19/road-space-photo/
on “How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business”While it is a local optimum, it can lead to global inefficiencies. For example, L.A. traffic, where because everyone wants to drive (and, to be fair, in L.A. where everything is super spread out and public transport is non-existant, this is understandable), you end up getting a solution that, due to horrific space inefficiency of cars [0], comfort and convenience go to zero. [0] https://www.danielbowen.com/2012/09/1…
Comment linking /2012/09/19/road-space-photo/
on “Finally, no bid on mortgage-backed securities”What you're describing is a lot like this picture: https://www.danielbowen.com/2012/09/19/road-space-photo/
Comment linking /2012/09/19/road-space-photo/
on “Message from cycling heaven: it’s not that fantastic here”> You won't be satisfied until you accept that the public has demonstrated that they want low occupancy vehicles by using there dollar What the public wants is irrelevant; the public wants to eat its cake and have it as well, all the while riding a magical flying unicorn. Low occupancy vehicle use in urban areas is not sustainable, and never has been . There simply isn't enough road space. In the space of 2-3 cars w…
Comment linking /2012/09/19/road-space-photo/
on “San Franciscans disable robotaxis by placing a traffic cone on the hood”
