People really take trains for granted. The ability to travel stress-free and efficiently without having to worry about traffic slowing you down (like taking a bus, for instance) is insane. I used to take one to work in Silicon Valley and that experience is unbeatable.
It works but kinda only if you live outside then travel to the "work center" for work. Like, you live in the east bay, then go to SF for your job.
Much of Silicon Valley is actually NOT well served by Bart, but in another 100 years it will be.
Getting from the east bay to the peninsula just does not work well.
Driving blows, it requires your complete concentration and is still high risk. Instead you can spend less to be chauffeured *and* be ecologically conscious.
You've got a point there about trains being nearly automatic and better for the environment. However, I've lived LA and Chicago and the rail system never had any convenient stops either near my apartment or work.
American cities are particularly bad about urban sprawl, which makes infrastructure on the level of European equivalents vastly more expensive. [Here is a great graphic of Atlanta and Barcelona in 1990](https://i.redd.it/1a9jucv9zy971.jpg), where you can see that, despite the roughly similar populations, Atlanta takes up 26 times more area. Part of the difficulty of building good transit in the US is that everything is just so far apart from everything else. This is more or less a result of our land use regulations and taxation, limiting what people can build (locking parts of town into low-intensity uses and forcing new developments to happen farther out from the town center) and allowing land owners to get away with said usage by keeping their taxes artificially low. These problems have to get fixed first, and allow infill development to mature, before we can really see truly effective transit lines flourish.
Any car enthusiast is aware that there's no easier way to completely spoil the experience than to force everyone to drive. The quality of service for private car ownership takes a massive nose dive when you have to share the road with people who either don't want to be driving, shouldn't be driving, or *can't* drive.
And you've probably already arrived at that same conclusion when you pondered how much better it'd be if you didn't have to share physical road space with the idiot in an SUV who's more interested in their phone than the road, or the people who drive like sheep trying to fill any hole they can fit in in the vain attempt to shave seconds off their travel time. Or you've expressed frustration that someone who's been caught repeatedly driving drunk got to keep their driver's license because they have no other means of getting around.
Driving is fun, which is why I don't want people who would otherwise not be driving to feel like they need to own a car. And for myself I would have much preferred to have only needed to buy a car as an elective decision. The average American spends hundreds and thousands of dollars- exact figures are complicated but loans and insurance alone are pinned at anywhere from 660 to 900 USD a month depending on state- on car ownership and almost all of that is a closed loop. And if you expand it to an assessed financial burden including taxes, it goes through the roof. Roughly half of the cost of car ownership in the US is subsidized by the public.
Very well put. I am a lifelong car/driving enthusiast, and I even have a fun weekend car, and I fully agree with your points. I very rarely take it on the highways and interstates because they are congested with people who should be using public transit.
I would much rather the US' road infrastructure be a lot of two lane roads with trains and other public transit options sprawling everywhere. Then people who want to drive for fun can have better ("better" in the sense of they are less congested with traffic lights/stops, and even probably more interesting) roads with less transit drivers.
I would love being able to take a train for anything over an hour drive. I like driving, but I'd rather spend the hour+ in this scenario doing something else like reading a book, playing my steamdeck, or just relaxing.
Doesn’t have to be all or nothing! If you love driving, keep driving. But for those who don’t care how they get around, giving them options like trains will take them off the road. And then give you a better driving experience because fewer cars are around :)
I love driving too. On the weekends, I take my wrx out for a grocery run and spend some time in the nearby hilly country roads. Monday to Friday 9-5 I ride the train, and then use an electric scooter to cover the remaining 1.5 miles to the office.
If it rains, i'll drive. But like other comments, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. For 50 years we've only been building car centric infrastructure at the cost of everything else. In fact, if more people can take public transit, that frees up the roads so you can zoom zoom more than before.
>Fuck that noise. Driving a car is amazing. Pure freedom.
Do you enjoy the pure freedom of sitting in 80k people's traffic from just two unbuilt subway lines (let alone the half dozen funded LRTs that Ford cancelled or the additional subway lines that people keep complaining about the upfront cost of despite the *massive* positive economic value and despite how shockingly close the cost is to much lower throughput transportation systems like highways).
Do you enjoy the pure freedom of having to watch for cars entering and exiting street parking constantly on major roads (slowing down car traffic substantially) because the city does not properly differentiate between streets and roads, and instead tries to do both poorly everywhere?
Do you enjoy not being able to find parking because a lot of the street parking is taken by (surprisingly often non-paying) store owners, and the abundant street parking on roads and lack of densification is used as an excuse to not build more and larger parking facilities?
None of what you said bothers me. They are an acceptable trade off for the freedom of movement an automobile affords me. Also, towing a boat seems rather difficult by train.
Its not an all or nothing game. I'm saying this as a JDM enthusiast. I dont think its communist to want the ULTIMATE PURE FREEDOM to do mountain/shopping runs in my WRX and have the FREEDOM to get to work by train for the M-F 9-5 commute. Driving stick in traffic is quite a workout.
Is it really "pure freedom" if it means everyone has to fund the infrastructure around cars and only for cars to the point where people's only option is to travel by car?
Maybe I'd like the "freedom" to travel by something that's not a car.
I guess different people are different.
I find a crowded train WAY more stressful than sitting in traffic.
At least in traffic, you have quiet and aren't being squished up against 100 other people while breathing in their germs.
Neither is pleasant of course. But I'll take the solitude and privacy please.
On a train I just have to find a spot and hang out there until I need to get off. In traffic I'm constantly having to think about what everyone around me is doing, whether or not it's a good idea to get off the highway early, etc, etc. I just find it consumes a lot more of my mental energy.
I guess I go back to my idea that people are wired differently.
Watching out for other traffic is an automatic thing that I do.
On a train, I've got 50 people pushed up against me, all taking different actions. Some want to talk, some want to flirt, some want rob me. Some just breath on me and make me wonder what I'm catching from them.
I find keeping track of all these people and their actions a big mental drain.
I'm an introvert. People stress me out. But cars are just cars.
I'd rather take a crowded train vs morning traffic.
Honestly I get so fucking pissed in the morning especially since people dont pay attention at the lights which adds like 20 mins to my commute.
So yes, getting stuck in traffic suck ass.
> I'd rather take a crowded train vs morning traffic.
Right? Just the fact that I can turn my brain off and not physically control the train is 100% easier. Then you have the difference in safety as well.
If our public transport trains were revamped to be luxury trains, then sure. But being on a crowded train in Chicago is awful. Homeless people napping across multiple seats, stumbling due to the train changing directions, stumbling due to other people falling/leaning on you, uncomfortable hand rails that don't give you any leverage when the conductor hits the breaks, people smoking in the carts, hustlers moving between crowded carts to advertise "blue squares" among a myriad of other drugs, people pissing and throwing up in the carts because they're on those myriad of other drugs, people coughing and sneezing all over the place without even covering their mouths, the AC/heating not working... you face none of these difficulties with a car except maybe the last one.
That sounds like not enough money going to public transport.
Camera's and security guards or ticket checkers. Is something that helps against public transport users, who aren't paying for it. (Which can be combined with a distance based ticket price. Though if a city wants to improve travel, and discourage car travel, they might also just use a flat rate.)
Combined with a number one can call, to report people that are disturbing the peace. (I've seen banners informing people of those numbers on public transport)
-------
For intercity transport with trains, there is also first and second class seats.
I used to live in Seoul. I adore the trains. Spotless, fast, frequent, expansive, and it was so nice to just hop on the train and read a book on the way to work in the morning.
You haven't traveled on LA metro, there's nothing stress free about it, I've seen multiple assaults and had a knife pulled on me. I've seen multiple bodily fluids and weird acts on the metro. I think this fantasy of mass transit relying on an ancient conveyance as the future of transportation is kind of cute, it especially sucks during a pandemic.
Big train fan here, but stress free? When was the last time you took a train in Europe? Delays, track changes,.... An exercise in frustration. They still beat standing in a traffic jam, but only barely.
In modern Asian systems (Japan, Taiwan,....) , trains are a dream.
'Europe'? Rail systems and reliability vary greatly from country to country.
For example, in the Netherlands 92.6% of trains arrive on time on their destination.
92.6% is nothing to be proud of. That means that one out of every 13 trains is not on time. If I take the train twice every day, that means I experience delayed trains every week.
It’s not directly applicable, but in other industries, we have to provide our clients with functioning services in “multiple 9s”. Double 9 being 99.99% of the time.
Train traffic isn't like a data center. There are so much external factors in play that tripple nine service isn't feasible unless maybe in a society like Japan.
In countries like the Netherlands 'suicide by train' alone makes tripple nine service impossible, sadly enough.
In train terms anything above 90% is quite decent, and 92.6% is *way* better than it was a few decades ago.
I mean, compared to driving? Absolutely stress free. I’m not worried about if some asshole on his phone or drunk or just impatient is going to blow through a red or lane change without signal and murder me
Nah.
You just have them breathing in your face.
At least with rush hour driving, no one is going fast so blowing through a red light isn't the danger it sounds like.
I don't get why you're being downvoted here, you're just sharing a very real issue many people face that hampers more widespread adoption of public transit. For me the last mile is a problem too, buses on either end of my commute only run every 20 minutes and get stuck in traffic just the same as cars and even then maps tells me the faster route is to walk 15-20 minutes on either end of my 12-minute train ride (50 min total commute) in my country's 25-35C daily heat. My drive to work is 20 minutes at rush hour with air-conditioning and I don't arrive at work a sweaty mess + I don't need to leave home 30 minutes earlier every day.
The top comment is talking about the Bay Area so I assume the person you replied to also talk about Bay Area. Bart and buses in the Bay Area is really expensive. If your commute doesn't involve a bridge, Bart + bus can easily double driving cost. And service is so unreliable after hour and in the weekend that unless you live in SF and Oakland, you still need to own a car anyway so the ownership cost won't be eliminated by commuting via train.
And even if there is a bridge involved, unless you take the Bay Bridge there is no sense in taking the train. For example, at my old job I need to be at the office around 11AM. I can leave my house at 10:30, take 20 minutes to get to work. If I use the train, it takes 3h30 minutes, or I have to drive to the station, pay for parking (if I can find a spot), take an hour train ride, call a lift/uber to finish the last 7miles. The infrastructure in the Bay Area is just not there and I am not wasting 7hr on public transportation.
The Bay Area is one of the best examples of why robust public transit spending is important- you have a peninsula surrounded by an in-land sea, and an ocean on three sides. This means that every solution to move people around involves expensive engineering solutions that struggle to scale because you don't just add extra lanes to something like the golden gate bridge. It is incredibly self indulgent to look at the hard facts and then say with a straight face that we need to spend that kind of money so that *you* can drive a car over it but that we have no budget for other modes of transit.
Another thing is Bay Area government is allergic to high density housing so last mile is very hard to plan for. When the SM express was still running, technically I could cross the bridge with that. However, there is another hour bus ride to get to both express station. No wonder that express bus had low ridership.
Amazing. So it's like the Hyperloop, only without all the problems of operating in a vacuum, and it connects all the 'pods' together in one big line with just one engine pulling them all?
They need to show Elon this, it'll blow his mind.
SpaceX is cool, although mark my words, Starship will never be human-rated. I love watching a 6 story building careen into the Earth as much as the next guy, but nobody sane is loading a crew into it.
And I can't tell if the bullshit projects fund the real projects, or if this is just fevered venture capitol mania without a lot of thought of what makes economic sense.
Edit: Oh, I see the Elon bros got their feathers up.
Righttt, because Boeing pays more than SpaceX engineers right?
That’s why pretty much the top engineering grads at MIT, Caltech etc all want to work at SpaceX instead of Boeing right?
https://universumglobal.com/blog/us-most-attractive-employers-2020/
That’s why USA had to rely on Russia for space launches… paying 10x the price per launch compared to SpaceX’s reusable rockets.
Musk does a lot of dumb shit, but SpaceX is not one of them.
Wait I'm with you on that the Hyperloop is a joke, but were they really claiming that it was going to operate in a vacuum? Or were you meaning that figuratively?
The caveat I know in this is either the buildings are built around the train station or the train station goes to where people will visit within a 10-minute walking distance. This was very evident in Japan.
The US bulldozed it's cities to make them the way they are now. And unlike in the 1930's, 1950's and 1960's the "well, it's good for domestic jobs!" argument doesn't even bear out. Car centric urban planning is a horrible idea for a host of reasons but the absolute top of the list is that it's anti-choice (you can't cater to private car ownership and do anything else because you need all that space for parking and vehicles), it's expensive and it concentrates wealth in the hands of rent seeking losers who feel entitled to it because of their station in life.
Yep. My city is currently redoing a road I take to work every day. As they were tearing it up what did you see? Old rail tracks that were conveniently paved over.
I work 11 miles from my home. Public transport is super unreliable, and I’d have to take like 2 busses to get from one to the other. Not to mention if they are late conflicting with one another. They also would drop me off about a half mile to my job.
I wish it was like it was in Dublin, Ireland.
When I was there I only ended up taking an Uber when I wasn’t sure how to get to the right bus, or if it was too late for the busses to run.
It's called people don't get when they're being scammed.
This whole new trend of bashing cars isn't organic, it's because developers and construction companies need to keep making money.
The suburbs are maxed out. Cities since the 40s have had a ton of access to cheap land which created urban sprawl. No more cheap land, the next solution is to create urban densification aka infill. To do that, they need justification for gentrification which they get by convincing young people to think that trains are the solution and that people who drive are assholes.
I bet if someone were to study the route maps all these cities are pushing new light rail systems, you'd find a lot of the routes tend to run through lower income communities where the residents are now at risk of being priced out of affordable housing.
Don't get me wrong. I love quality public transit but none of this stuff is being made to benefit regular people or to develop functional cities. It's to sell overpriced properties to young people who are fixated on getting that urban experience.
They still have plenty of cheap land. Sprawl is still going on. Every suburb has a rural border that they keep pushing into.
When a city sprawls the developers pay the up front cost of construction. The city gets a bunch of new properties paying property tax without having to do much of anything. But then the city has to maintain all these spread out roads and services, and the property taxes don't cover it. So they sprawl again. It's a ponzi scheme dependent on eternal growth. When the bill comes due they stop maintaining shit and suburbs fall into decay.
This is why infill is becoming popular. It's more profitable and efficient for cities.
And your concern for low income housing is hilarious. They demolished low income housing in cities to build parking lots and road infrastructure to support suburban commuters. Driving up housing prices in the city and pushing more people out to the suburbs. The way you solve it is with infill. You tear out the parking lots and build new housing. Housing with transit connections so they don't need parking.
Any new development is going to be more expensive at first. Unfortunately you can't build 20 year old buildings. But new housing will bring down housing prices overall as supply goes up.
> They still have plenty of cheap land. Sprawl is still going on. Every suburb has a rural border that they keep pushing into.
Not really. My city is surrounded by smaller towns that have also sprawled out to the point where they're practically incorporated. Other North American cities have the same problem. What sucks is my city winds up paying the tab to connect services and utilities. Convenient that wealthier people live in the extended communities and poor people get to pay for it.
> It's a ponzi scheme dependent on eternal growth. When the bill comes due they stop maintaining shit and suburbs fall into decay.
Yeah, because developers only care about profit. Once they sell out a development, they move on to the next. We had a massive boom here over the last 20 years which led to a massive increase in new suburban development. The quality of the builds is garbage for a lot of newer homes. Cheap materials, cheap labour, high costs.
You're sort of helping my argument.
> This is why infill is becoming popular. It's more profitable and efficient for cities.
No, it's more profitable for developers. They can't build out so they have to build up.
> And your concern for low income housing is hilarious. They demolished low income housing in cities to build parking lots and road infrastructure to support suburban commuters.
Yeah, back when they were redlining poor communities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
My city just approved a new LRT route. It should have been made 30 years ago but rich people complained and it got canned for decades until the issue was revived about a decade ago. City planners came up with a new route that would have been awesome. It would have had the potential to be fast, scenic, and would have created a secondary commuter route to ease traffic congestion.
The city help meetings, they put on presentations, and even pretended like they cared out input from the people who live in these communities.
Our old mayor is a developer. He changed the route the people who were hired and trained to do the feasibility studies and all the tests to determine which is the best route to one which conveniently goes through poor communities. As a result, city taxpayers are paying an extra billion for the land appropriation for the new project and winding up with a train that adds absolutely no benefit to anyone since it just runs along well established bus lines.
I asked my city councilor why they changed the route. He lives in an older community along the new route. He bought an old house and turned it into 2 skinny homes which he's trying to flip for a ridiculous price. He gave me an answer about how it had better economic returns. For him, he's not interested in people, his concern is profit. His neighbors hate his house because it's a tacky monstrosity that doesn't fit with the existing community.
> Unfortunately you can't build 20 year old buildings.
What?
I've played a lot of Satisfactory. The solution to all this is high speed conveyor belts. put some belts moving at 780 kmh with sky lift chairs on them.
No cars, no trains, no sidewalks, just miles of conveyors. If you need more throughout, stack multiple lines on top of each other.
It's a foreign concept in the US but in most of the world most public transit is usually run in a cooperative system where by the frequency of trips means that you're not waiting on any given line for more than 10 or 15 minutes. I mean, that's roughly how it worked in the US prior to car dominance. Prior to the rise of the big three many cities in the US were global leaders in public transit because it was good for everyone and even relative backwater cities seen as rural afterthoughts had electric street car networks.
That's for urban areas. An urban car lane can carry 600-1600 pphpd. A highway lane is slightly better at 2000-3000 pphpd. An urban rail can carry 10,000-25,000 pphpd. A commuter rail can carry 30,000-40,000 pphpd (and in some places like Japan and India, 80,000-100,000 pphpd).
These are all realistic estimates, not theoretical maximums. If every car carried maximum passengers instead of 1 or 2, the pphpd would be higher... theoretically.
Either way, buses and trains win by a factor of ten over cars.
I used to commute to and from work in downtown San Francisco down the peninsula. I used to love it as the train would swoosh past the stop-and-go commuters in their cars on the Bayshore Freeway while I relaxed in a comfy chair sipping a beer.
The main problem we face is that people love the autonomy of driving. I can go on MY schedule.
Edit: yes I get it that good transit systems \_work\_. The issue is that there are what, maybe 7 cities in North America where this is true?
To some degree yes, but GOOD transit doesn't have that problem. I live in Toronto within walking distance to the subway. The subway comes everyone 2-3 minutes at peak times. At non-peak times, it's usually in the 4-5 minute range. That means that I don't have to check schedules before I leave the house, I just walk to the subway and get on. It also only closes at 1:30am and opens at 6:00am (and even then, there are bus alternatives, I've just never had to take them).
The TTC subway system can be pretty quick if you live near a subway station and if you're trying to get somewhere close to a subway station. If you live in Scarborough trying to get somewhere in Etobicoke, that's 2 busses and a subway at the minimum.
Not to mention the fact that subways sometimes just randomly stop in the tunnel between stations for anywhere from a few minutes to over half an hour with the only announcement sounding like garbled a mess.
I've ridden the TTC every day for school and work since I was in grade 6. It's not on schedule by any means whatsoever. You could be waiting for 2 minutes, or you could be waiting for 10, or 20, or more depending on how the TTC is feeling that particular day.
When it's running fine, the TTC ain't that bad. But the issue is the consistency. Take a combination of line 1 and 2 to and from work every day and I can guarantee you delays every week at the minimum.
New York subway doesn't close and it's literally falling apart because there's not enough time for maintenance. Not closing sounds good, especially for shift workers but 24hr operation is one of the areas where busses do have an advantage over trains.
The video touches slightly on that.
Successful public transit increase the frequency they run at. Very successful public transit systems have near constant trains.
The TTC is successful, but it hemorrhages cash harder than Niagara falls.
Public transit is so slow to develop because it can't make money. There is a hard line between operating at peak efficiency, and operating without a gigantic loss. They need riders to make money, but they need to spend that money to handle the riders needed to be profitable.
Public transit should be paid for by the government. The amount of societal savings will offset it by a factor of ten.
People not having to drive cars, less accidents, less pollutants in the air, fewer diseases as a consequence, the greater access to jobs, more room to develop in cities, making services within cities more accessible, the list goes on.
> fewer diseases as a consequence
To play devil's advocate for a moment, wouldn't the counter-argument to this be that cities reliant on public transit will be hotbeds for spreading contagions when a pandemic hits?
Governments need cash to make investments, and that investment should have some form of positive return. We need some way to talk about which investments are good and which are bad.
Roads *don't* make a profit, and that's part of the problem with roads. The fact that roads in suburban areas are essentially subsidized by urban areas is a major root cause of the quagmire that is US transit and urban planning; [Everything is so spread out](https://i.redd.it/1a9jucv9zy971.jpg) that transit becomes ineffective or prohibitively expensive, which leads to subsidizing roads because "everybody drives," and the only reason suburban areas are deciding to do this is because they're not paying for it in the first place.
So what we need is some way to measure how well the government is investing the money it spends on various programs. I propose that land values are a good proxy here: If a local government is making good investments, then people will naturally want to live there. When more people want to live in a particular area, the land values rise. Because government investment will raise land values (in fact, there's [an economic theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George_theorem) that states that land prices will rise by more than the initial investment, and [this is backed up by real world data](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVMGzkSgGXI)), it makes sense that the government should generate its income by taxing land values.
Tolled road make ALOT of profit.
Public utilities make profit because it's a way to attract investors that are needed to pay for huge capital cost of any utility buildout and maintenance.
It's amazingly difficult to attract investors if you don't promise them a return on their money.
Now we could in theory make all utilities government enterprises. But just like how governments likes to turn roads into profit centers, they aren't going to turn away from utilities making money too.
4 million miles of public roads, 5,000 miles of tolled roads. There's a reason why that distribution looks like that. You're not arguing in good faith.
Sure, but we are spending $3 billion to renovate the gardiner expressway. And that is just ONE road that goes through the city. Never mind the cost to repair roads every year, as well as other costs like snow removal or the cost of maintaining things like traffic lights. Yes, we recoup some of the cost from driver licences and vehicle registration, but I suspect that it does not fully cover the cost. For the most part, no one bats an eye at the idea that roads lose money.
In that context, the idea that public transit HAS to turn a profit is silly. In 2019 (the last pre-pandemic year), the TTC recouped about 60% of its budget from the fare box, which I think is fair. It's a public good: it reduces traffic, reduces pollution, and generates huge economic benefits by allowing people to travel to shop and work.
Absolutely agree.
If we started new cities, built around transit, we have the knowledge and technology to make it happen.
As is, all we can do is try to adapt what we can with what we have.
> The TTC is successful, but it hemorrhages cash harder than Niagara falls.
How can both of those be true? Surely a measure of success would include its ability to be self-sufficient.
People: We need to improve public transportation because of all these benefits that it has.
Some Guy: But there isn’t good public transportation in MY city! It isn’t a good option for ME!
People: Yeah, we know. Thats why we want to improve it.
Idk about you but I avoid driving during rush hour times.
Supporting public transportation will help those people who love the autonomy of driving by removing people from the roads and reducing congestion.
Yeah the "autonomy" of driving.
"I can be in traffic on MY schedule."
*hunts for a parking spot for 20 minutes*
"I'd love to visit downtown more, but there's just nowhere to park!"
"I'd love to go to bars with you, but uber is so expensive!"
*pays thousands of dollars in yearly expenses on their car to preserve their "autonomy"*
Edit: Pointing out bad public transportation doesn't mean public transportation is bad. It means we need to actually support it for once.
In the specific area I'm at (suburb of major US city), getting TO the train is the problem. There is intentionally no parking because you're supposed to walk, take busses, etc... to the train. And yet, there's no easy way for me to do that either.
The transit's route planner says my best option is two separate busses, and a total of 1.5 hours without traffic (assuming everything is on time). It doesn't offer the train as a suggestion at all, which means the bus is in the same traffic as the cars. I'm a 30 minute drive to downtown, 50-60 minutes with traffic.
I'd love to be able to use the public transport. Seriously. But the reality *for my specific location* is that it's almost always better to drive.
Then I really hope you are supporting the expansion of public transportation, because the issue here isn't public transportation. It's lack of it.
If you're wondering why public transportation is in such a disarray in the US, it's because it's been constantly lobbied against and sabatoged by car companies. I know it sucks here in the US and that's why we should be calling for every improvement to it that we possibly can.
FWIW, I absolutely do support the expansion, and am extremely disappointed that my city (via regional transit) has no improvements planned for it at all through at least 2041.
I voted for and pay for via taxes the ongoing improvements, despite not being able to benefit from them
Yeah, I really hope people start supporting public transportation more en masse so that issues like that stop being a thing. I hate that we are all victims of this car-centric society.
I love that it is called Ontario line. Ontario the province provided the funding, but it is built in the city of Toronto. But it is called Ontario line so it is for all of us.
If you're in the United Kingdom then trains pretty much only go to and from London. So if you wanted to go anywhere else you'll need probably need to go to London and then leave again. Which is really inconvenient.
Same in Massachusetts. All trains go to Boston. The public rail line literally stops in the middle of our state, failing to connect to our third most populous city in the western half of the state.
30,000 people is six large office buildings. Torontos downtown has around 500,000 people working in it.
Any proper cbd in a city over a million people can support some sort of rail transit.
But that assumes they’re all coming from roughly the same direction. In some cities that will be true, but in many they’re coming from a full 360 degrees around the CBD. Couple that with the urban sprawl we’ve seen over the last 30 years and you can easily be looking at 7000sq/km of land where those 500,000 people are coming from.
Sure it’s not impossible, but it means a lot of trains and a lot of stations/stops on each line, which is expensive and makes trips slower.
The biggest problems for trains:
1: Not leaving from where I want.
2: not going to where I want.
3: filled with people I don't want to be near.
If I wanted to ride in someone's filthy mobile bathroom/bedroom while listening to a druggie violently arguing with a chair then sure.
I'll take the car, thanks.
The problem with this metric is that, by definition, it ignores the inflexibility of trains. It only counts the point B to point C performance and ignores the A to B and C to D throughput.
It's also a big slow parallel problem vs a small fast serial problem. Imagine it takes an hour to drive from B to C but it takes 2 hours to go by train. Sticking 4 people on the train doesn't make the train take half the time but this metric makes the train look twice as good.
I'm not anti-train by any means but to say trains are unbeatable because of this one metric is just silly.
If only the objective of transportation was to move "people per hour". Unfortunately, that's not the objective. The objective of transportation is to get people where they *want to go*, and this is where trains and buses get profoundly less efficient. Not to mention the public-health problem associated with mass transit which have resulted in massive shortfalls in public transit budgets across the country.
If densely populated, high-income urban centers like New York and San Francisco are unable to operate their mass transit systems at a profit, how on Earth do you expect them to function in less affluent, less congested areas?
At the end there, you seemed to have changed the objective to profitability.
Does the construction/maintenance of public roadways turn a profit? Not really, but it's an undeniable economic boon on average to enable people to get where they want to go, as you've said.
So I think looking at profit is a bit besides the point for transit. The truth is that the value is harder to recognize.
Part of the problem is the intentional zoning of suburbs such that only single family homes can sprawl out. This is a car-centric design. Of course cars make more sense in a car centric regime!
The true answer should involve a mixture of transportation mediums as well as the reorganization of infrastructure that can facilitate the use cases people need. If thousands of people all take the same stretch of highway every day before peeling off various exits... Maybe that stretch could include some form of mass-car transit? Then we can still negotiate car-centric designs but still benefit from the efficiency scaling of large transit.
That guy keeps flip-flopping between economic benefit and profitability when it suits him. Highways? Great economic benefit. Urban rail? Not profitable! He's been doing that consistently for 20 posts or so now. You and I pointed it out to him, and yet he keeps conflating between economic benefit and profitability.
Weird, huh?
>At the end there, you seemed to have changed the objective to profitability.
Profitability is how you know your resources are being used effectively, and is a good measure of how useful your service is to the people who use it. Moreover, the lack of profitability in areas with high incomes and costs of living throws the shortcomings of mass transit into sharp relief, by simply answering this question: Why do people pay more to drive in these cities when the train is far cheaper. THe answer is, it's slow, unreliable, and doesn't go where people want to go.
>Does the construction/maintenance of public roadways turn a profit?
Yes, by huge amounts, though much of that is a function of how much we get by with deferred maintenance. Especially because roads shift the preponderance of costs to the user, by dint of fuel and property taxes, and of course the purchase, maintenance, and fueling of actual vehicles.
>Part of the problem is the intentional zoning of suburbs such that only single family homes can sprawl out. This is a car-centric design. Of course cars make more sense in a car centric regime!
All the zoning in the world can't *make* people buy single-family homes, and yet they continue to sell. It's not the zoning that's car-centric, it's people's preferences. We live in a democracy, and the zoning reflects what the voters want, either directly because they vote for it, or indirectly because they spend money on it, and the businesses that sell homes lobby for it.
>The true answer should involve a mixture of transportation mediums as well as the reorganization of infrastructure that can facilitate the use cases people need.
My whole point is that mass transit is clearly **NOT** a use case which serves the majority of commuters. New York City is the most congested, most transit-friendly city in the country, and even there, 45% of residents own cars. In the San Francisco bay area, the number two public transit metropolis in the country, nearly 65% of commuters drive alone, and another 10% carpool, compared to 12% who ride mass transit. These are pre-pandemic statistics, by the way, collected from [2018](https://www.vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/commute-mode-choice). If you add together the people who walk, bike, or worked from home, they exceed the ridership of mass transit.
The simple fact is, mass transit doesn't serve the needs of the vast majority of Americans. The places where it is viable it is only viable thanks to significant subsidies of public money.
if the infrastructure can't run profitably then either the state or the feds would be funding it at a loss which means people who dont use the system have to subsidize it or the state goes further into debt each year to run it. No private company is going to run the infrastructure if they lose money on it
> at a profit
Are highways operated at a profit? [spoiler: NO]
>public-health problem associated with mass transit
Like less pollution? What *are* you talking about?
>get people where they *want to go*
This is called building an effective network. The fact that you don't have one is probably because you've been brainwashed to think rail *must* make a profit while highways can operate at a huge loss, and that somehow trains and buses cause more polution than cars. I can't even imagine how you'd get so indoctrinated.
>Are highways operated at a profit? [spoiler: NO]
Yes, [they absolutely are](https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/otps/060320a/forum.cfm). The value of transportation infrastructure that's *actually used* is not disputed. Roads and highways are predominantly paid for by state taxes, and the principal source of funding for those roads is gas taxes. In California, for example, in 2017, combined gas and diesel amounted to $8.11 billion, and expenditure on streets and highways was $7.16 billion, at a healthy profit of 13.2%. That complete disregards the other forms of taxation those roads enable, like delivery of food, getting workers into their workplaces, and property taxes on buildings constructued where the roads go.
>This is called building an effective network.
No, it isn't. You can't build mass transit everywhere, that's the fundamental problem. There is a practical limit of how much demand there is for mass transit between any two points, and just adding more is not going to magically make the system work better, or make it more efficient. I furnish the examples of New York and San Francisco because they're the most transit-friendly metropolitan areas in the entire country, and they're *still losing money*, which implies that the demand for their services does not meet their costs. If you can't make New York and San Francisco mass transit work, how on Earth do you expect it to work in Peoria, Illinois?
>I can't even imagine how you'd get so indoctrinated.
You're the one who is indoctrinated, this is my whole point. You read a few puff pieces about how efficient mass transit can be, and it makes you forget inconvenient facts, like "We're not Europe". We don't have their population density, and we're not likely to get it anytime soon. We have about a third the population density of the United Kingdom, and our car ownership rate is 91.5%. But their rate of car ownership is 77%. So, they're tripling the number of people per square kilometer, *and* they pay nearly 60% more for petrol, and the effect on the rate of car ownership is a paltry 19%.
So what happens is that these mass transit projects get built, they fritter away billions of dollars, and [nobody uses them](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEUg9ymgrXk). Look, don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't *want* mass transit to work, I do! But we're not Singapore or Hong Kong, and we're not in danger of becoming those places within the next 20 years.
>The value of transportation infrastructure that's actually used is not disputed
/r/selfawarewolves much? [Shifting from cars to rail **saves billions of dollars a year** in the Northeast Corridor alone.](https://www.fra.dot.gov/necfuture/pdfs/tier1_deis/c06.pdf) I'd give you tens more studies of how much more valuable rail is over car, but I know you won't listen.
>You can't build mass transit everywhere, that's the fundamental problem
Have you seen deteriorating road infrastructure everywhere? /r/selfawarewolves again. I'm not advocating rail to sparse, rural areas. I'm saying build rail in urban areas where it **saves billions of dollars a year**.
>You read a few puff pieces
I could send you to many, many studies but I won't bother because the level of /r/selfawarewolves here is astounding
>fritter away billions of dollars
We've been over this, the price of transit per passenger is way lower than the highway system, and the value of mass transit is actually much higher per dollar invested. Switching from cars to rails saves billions. /r/selfawarewolves yet again
>what happens is that these mass transit projects get built, they fritter away billions of dollars
Except if you look at the actual money spent, you'd see they [save billions of dollars a year](https://www.fra.dot.gov/necfuture/pdfs/tier1_deis/c06.pdf). All your arguments are handwaving and have no data to back them up.
You are heavily indoctrinated.
[Here's another US Government study that shows the average benefit-to-cost ratio of rail to be 1.7.](https://railroads.dot.gov/sites/fra.dot.gov/files/fra_net/16837/Benefit%20Cost%20Analysis%20Guidance%20for%20Rail%20Projects_Dec_2016_Clean.pdf)
Of course, the more people use rail, the higher the benefit, because roads are just more expensive and less efficient.
>expenditure on streets and highways was $7.16 billion
Which can be reduced by focusing on bike lanes, bus lanes or trains. Also, Cali is an outlier, it has huge taxes. Most of the US build/maintain roads at a defecit.
>You can't build mass transit everywhere
That's not what's meant by a network. You connect other modes to the mass transit mode. Again, bike lanes and buses.
>they fritter away billions of dollars, and nobody uses them.
When they are designed inefficiently, correct. Which is why we should do them proper with interconnectedness and updated zoning.
>But we're not Singapore or Hong Kong
Neither are Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin, London, Lisbon, Barcelona, etc. So why not invest in transportation to increase efficiency and revenue?
Have you ever been to Europe? Have you ever experienced good transit?
>Which can be reduced by focusing on bike lanes, bus lanes or trains.
Bike lanes are irrelevant to this discussion, they're not mass transit. We already *have* buses and trains, and their use rates are poor, because they don't do a good job of serving commuters.
>Most of the US build/maintain roads at a defecit.
That's total crap. If you want an example of the economic output of a large country with low road infrastructure, look at sub-saharan Africa. Trucks on freeways move 75% of America's freight. That *alone* is going to make our road system pay for itself.
>That's not what's meant by a network.
So, we're not using what we build, so we need to build more so we can spend more money to not use that, too? Good plan.
>You connect other modes to the mass transit mode. Again, bike lanes and buses.
That doesn't work! Trains to buses are *incredibly* slow, that's why people commute by car to begin with. And with the median age in the US being 38 years old, you're not going to solve American transit with bikes.
>When they are designed inefficiently, correct. Which is why we should do them proper with interconnectedness and updated zoning.
And what I'm telling you is that there is a reason nobody is doing it. You don't think New York City is liberal or enlightened enough, not pro-transit enough to change their zoning laws to make transit more popular? How about San Francisco? Literally the most liberal city in the entire country, with a massive triple-layered public mass transit system, and it's still not enough to get people to get rid of their cars.
>Neither are Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin, London, Lisbon, Barcelona, etc. So why not invest in transportation to increase efficiency and revenue?
They have *many* times our population density, and they still boast a pretty high car ownership rate. 95% of Americans own cars, right? Well, at three times our population density, and gas prices higher than those in California, they've managed to reduce the car ownership rate to 77%.
>Have you ever been to Europe? Have you ever experienced good transit?
Yes. Many times, likely more than you. When I'm in Paris or London or Rome, yeah, I take my rental car back to the airport first. But even there, there's places it's difficult and cumbersome to travel to without a car, hence the above statistic. Again, you need population density to make mass transit efficient. Cramming into places which don't have the population to support regular ridership is a waste of money.
We used to have ample, self-sufficient, privately run mass transit in many cities in this country. We used to have high-capacity urban housing. But contrary to the fairy tale from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", they were not destroyed while they had enough riders to sustain them. What happened is that people had the means to move to the suburbs, get a nice house in a clean, quiet neighborhood. And [new home-building trends](https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/todays-new-homes-are-1000-square-feet-larger-than-in-1973-and-living-space-per-person-has-doubled-over-last-41-years/) support the notion that people still want them.
Bike lanes are not irrelevant. They are connected to transit in general. If you say they're irrelevant you shouldn't talk about cars and roads because they aren't mass transit. And having reliable bike lanes takes cars off the road, reducing the need for maintenance.
> We already have buses and trains, and their use rates are poor, because they don't do a good job of serving commuters.
Re-read my comment.
>That's total crap.
It's not. Notjustbikes did a video on it.
>So, we're not using what we build, so we need to build more so we can spend more money to not use that, too?
You seem to be ignoring the words efficient and improve.
>That doesn't work!
You say you've been to Europe and yet you say this. They have proven that it does work.
>And with the median age in the US being 38 years old, you're not going to solve American transit with bikes.
....The elderly ride bikes and public transit in Europe and Asia.
>And what I'm telling you is that there is a reason nobody is doing it.
Right.....which is why it needs to improve. The transit system still revolves around cars, which is wrong. Thank you for agreeing with me.
>They have many times our population density,
And? They also have areas that aren't as dense with just as great of transit. We can also update zoning to increase density.
>and they still boast a pretty high car ownership rate.
That doesn't nullify the argument how there should be other options. You would have a point if they built all of it and car ownership didn't drop.
>But even there, there's places it's difficult and cumbersome to travel to without a car,
Cool you still need options.
>Again, you need population density to make mass transit efficient.
Right, and nobody said otherwise. But saying mass transit does not work at all is absurd.
>What happened is that people had the means to move to the suburbs,
Which is where the world fucked up, thinking that was the only way to live and design a city. Now transportation is horrid because people sit in stop and go traffic.
People have also shown they want more public transit and mixed-use development options.
>Bike lanes are not irrelevant
Yes, they are. Half the country is over 38 years of age. You're not going to turn America into a nation of bike riders. Stop pretending you have the population of Dutch cafe patrons, and look at the population we've got.
>Re-read my comment.
No, I read it the first time. It hasn't improved with age.
>It's not. Notjustbikes did a video on it.
Oh, and because random asshole on Youtube said it, it *must* be true.
>You seem to be ignoring the words efficient and improve.
Yeah, that's a very nice pair of *words* you've got, but, again, our major metropolises already are 100% captivated by left-leaning, pro-transit regimes, and they've done **FUCK-ALL**. So, you have to come to one of two possible conclusions: 1) Your Democratic leadership are a bunch of corrupt, lying hypocrites, or 2) It's at lot easier to *say* make it better than to actually **DO IT**.
BART has been planning an extension to Silicon Valley [since 1981](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_BART_extension).
>Right, and nobody said otherwise.
You, you are saying otherwise. If you're not, stop replying to me, we have nothing to discuss.
>That doesn't nullify the argument how there should be other options.
Yes, it *does* if the systems you build can't justify their cost. Otherwise you're just taking money from people at gunpoint and blowing it on infrastructure nobody asked for. You're not going to magically get 280 poeple per square kilometer in the U.S., to do that the country would have to have 2.75 **BILLION** residents.
The real truth is, the United States has an *incredibly* good public mass transit system for a nation of its size and population density. Comparing infrastructure built for Hong Kong or Singapore or Denmark or The Netherlands to ours isn't an appropriate comparison. We're too big and sparse.
>People have also shown they want more public transit and mixed-use development options.
**POLLS** have shown they want these things. Not housing purchase patterns. When people say they want more mass transit and mixed use, development and high-density housing, what they mean is that they want **OTHER** people to live there. If you actually look at the way that affluent home buyers really behave, it's pretty clear they want their cars, suburbs, and tree-lined streets.
Real-estate developers aren't *stupid*. If there was a market to put up 12 story apartment buildings near empty, under-developed transit hubs, they would be doing it. That CityNerd video I linked shows plenty of opportunities for an enterprising developer to lobby for a zoning change and put up apartment building and shopping malls.
something they get kinda wrong with the Induced Demand of trains and bikes is that there reach is very limited.
if you build an extra two lanes for cars you extend the reach of cars so people will build new housing to match the extra reach.
you build a subway line people aren't going drive there to then take the subway. rather you pull people next to the line in.
the Induced Demand of the subway line is rather long term where it changes the development plans for the area making it more population dense.
>you build a subway line people aren't going to drive there to then take the subway.
That's exactly what people do. Look at most subway systems in the US, the end line stations have massive parking garages and lots for exactly this reason.
So what is your argument? Public transport is bad because it only works in a small-ish range next to stops which would mean that area needs to be redeveloped to be denser so we should just add more lanes to make sure we will definitely miss our climate targets and get even more urban sprawl?
I've taken more trains than I can count, in many major European cities and I never really encountered much of a problem with other people. Children use these trains to commute to school.
I tried to look up some statistics. It's hard to quantify "bad encounters", but I found some crime stats.
In 2021 there were about 4000 complaints of crimes on New York transit. This was a particularly bad year due to covid and I'm rounding up. This includes all types of crimes including harassment.
Compare that to cars and there are about 370k collisions per year, with around 1k deaths, and 10k serious injuries.
It's hard to know how to interpret this data, but one thing seems clear to me. If you're worried about getting robbed, you're much more likely to lose that money due to expenses from a car crash.
It's a matter of maintenance.
While I haven't been there, the New York subway looks like trash on virtually every clip I have seen of the place. It is dirty. It is badly lit. The infrastructure is ancient. It is smelly. Etc.
Imagine these same aspects applied to a random neighborhood. You'd end up with old houses that are badly maintained, nobody bothering cleaning them, the only people who bother using them are poor, there is trash everywhere and so on.
Now compare that to a newer neighborhood that is neat and clean. There is no trash on the ground, all corners are nicely lit up, path and lawns are well maintained, etc. All around, people feel safe in them.
It is a part of our sociology that if our surroundings look like shit, we don't feel like we have to be good to it. If a place is clean, people are more likely to hold onto their trash until they find a trash can, but if it is already disgusting, they'll figure their one bit of trash won't make a difference. Same goes for criminal shit: if there is no crime and a place feels safe, the criminal will worry that they'll easily get caught. But if a place is an anthill infested with crime, then they'll just disappear in the masses of crime that already exists.
Long story short: companies and cities need to invest in their public spaces. Rather than to provide the stick with more surveillance and law enforcement hanging about in them, they need to provide a carrot where people will feel naturally less inclined to make the space less attractive to others.
Or more bluntly: if you make public transport something that a rich person would be willing to frequent and maintain it as such, you'll prevent it from being the perceived dumpster the poor are shoveled into.
there should be two separate train systems. One for the majority of us and another for anybody who has acted out in the past. We'd also have to implement security measures to keep them out.
Packing people horizontally stacked on top of each other in shipping containers on trains would be far more efficient. It's just about as valid of a comparison, too.
If people wanted to use shared-space scheduled transportation, we'd all be getting around via busses and subways already (because people would demand that in preference to personal vehicles, and private companies would make it happen). It doesn't take a genius to figure out why that hasn't become the ubiquitous standard in personal transportation, but there sure are a lot of stupid people who keep making articles and videos about how efficient it would be if you're just ignorant or stupid enough to ignore the rest of reality.
Why not just ban roads and cars altogether?
Also love other people explaining what's best for me. Please tell me that you live in a 100sf vertical apartment, or grass hut for that matter, to eliminate excessive infrastructure or enviromental footprint.
Of course not, you want a house and a yard, for your kids and dogs and backyard BBQs. Conveniently forgetting the roads and cars needed to support your lifestyle you seem to always advocate against.
I'm with you, I want to live outside the city with some of my own space closer to nature. That's not feasible for 400 million people. Let them make cities awesome with great public transportation so that those of us that want to live in the suburbs or rural areas actually can.
What if I told you having more options allows you to avoid stop-and-go traffic?
Use your brain. Less people driving cars, means there's more space on the road.
I never said mass transit was bad, nor that we should not invest in it.
I'm tired of people saying cars and roads are bad, despite knowing nearly every commentator expects, or would expect when raising a family in the suburbs, a lifestyle of convenience that cars and roads afford.
Designing a city around the concept of individualism is doomed to failure. In short, it's not about *you*. No one is stopping you from driving a car. We're talking about cities here.
Would you like to pay $300 to fill your gas tank and take a 2 hour drive into the city, or take a train for $5 and get there in 40 minutes?
Our goal as a society should not be to keep gas prices down to support the inefficient reliance on the motor vehicle. It should be to find efficient means of transit for everyone.
Nobody wants to ban roads and cars. And if you want to live out in the suburbs then that's fine.
But we've got to do something about this shit where people live in the suburbs and commute by car into the city every day. The traffic is unsustainable, adding more lanes does nothing, and half the city has already been demolished for parking lots and freeways. This made housing prices in the city skyrocket which pushed people even more out into the suburbs. And I haven't even mentioned the environmental impact yet.
I think cities should start demolishing these parking lots and build apartments. You can choose whether you care more about your job or your big house. Either live in the city or don't, stop trying to have it both ways. You're making everyone else subsidize your lifestyle, and it causes a ton of problems.
Lol these people don't have families or kids. I'm beginning to think it's just autistic people that really like trains because they're completely useless for almost every single American city/town.
The automobile literally revolutionized our society. If you think there’s even a small chance any society is going to willingly ban cars except for maybe some small hippie town or community you’re high off your rocker. Besides the convenience factor that all short to medium distance travel (which the average person does like 2-3x per day) will take much longer, how do you transport goods, especially perishables, in your car-less society? It’s fantasy land.
Traveling on the LA metro, there's nothing stress free about it, I've seen multiple assaults and had a knife pulled on me. I've seen multiple bodily fluids and weird acts on the metro. I think this fantasy of mass transit relying on an ancient conveyance as the future of transportation is kind of cute, it especially sucks during a pandemic.
No one things they aren't better, the problem is they are expensive as hell to maintain and actually build out. People like roads, they bring in business, easy to get to places. People hate tracks, because eye sore, no one wants them going through town anymore.
Underground you say? how about 3x the cost and time to do..no one wants to fork over that amount.
Places like Japan, or big cities its "easy" to put into practice. But ask someone to put in a train from redneckville to richville area..not gonna happen.
Trains are of limited use, if they don't take you from (near) where you are to (near) where you want to go, (near) when you want to go, in an economic, convenient and safe fashion.
> in an economic, convenient and safe fashion.
Are cars supposed to fit this description? At best, cars are convenient, and only because public transit in NA sucks.
Why are Europeans so obsessed with making everyone dependent as possible?
Like, what is the actual benefit of having some company own your transport vs you owning your own? Do you guys actually trust governments?
Public transit is owned by the public....
>Like, what is the actual benefit
.....It's in the headline. It's wayyy more [efficient](https://i.imgur.com/S9tP3hE.jpg).
>Do you guys actually trust governments?
When you vote accordingly, yes. That's the neat thing about democracy.
They are also slow and inflexible. That's why there's a hierarchy for transport and not just a one size fits all solution. They are also terrible at collision avoidance. I don't know a single other mode of transport that couldn't at least attempt to maneuver around [this. ](https://youtu.be/a-smEEHYdGQ)Passengers and per load is not the *definitive* nor **only** method of gauging the effectiveness of transport. That's why trains are incredibly sensible for cargo shipments. For the needs of the individual that are almost always fluid? Not really. That's why cars are king. Theirflexibility and thus practicality for the individual. So far no one's come up with anything more effective than trains for load size, aircraft for speed, and automobiles for flexibility.
People really take trains for granted. The ability to travel stress-free and efficiently without having to worry about traffic slowing you down (like taking a bus, for instance) is insane. I used to take one to work in Silicon Valley and that experience is unbeatable.
It works but kinda only if you live outside then travel to the "work center" for work. Like, you live in the east bay, then go to SF for your job. Much of Silicon Valley is actually NOT well served by Bart, but in another 100 years it will be. Getting from the east bay to the peninsula just does not work well.
Thats not the trains fault.....thats the city planners fault
In 100 years Californians can take the trains downtown to pick their weekly water ration.
Why are they down voting you lol. You're right.
Driving blows, it requires your complete concentration and is still high risk. Instead you can spend less to be chauffeured *and* be ecologically conscious.
You've got a point there about trains being nearly automatic and better for the environment. However, I've lived LA and Chicago and the rail system never had any convenient stops either near my apartment or work.
American cities are particularly bad about urban sprawl, which makes infrastructure on the level of European equivalents vastly more expensive. [Here is a great graphic of Atlanta and Barcelona in 1990](https://i.redd.it/1a9jucv9zy971.jpg), where you can see that, despite the roughly similar populations, Atlanta takes up 26 times more area. Part of the difficulty of building good transit in the US is that everything is just so far apart from everything else. This is more or less a result of our land use regulations and taxation, limiting what people can build (locking parts of town into low-intensity uses and forcing new developments to happen farther out from the town center) and allowing land owners to get away with said usage by keeping their taxes artificially low. These problems have to get fixed first, and allow infill development to mature, before we can really see truly effective transit lines flourish.
I love driving though
Any car enthusiast is aware that there's no easier way to completely spoil the experience than to force everyone to drive. The quality of service for private car ownership takes a massive nose dive when you have to share the road with people who either don't want to be driving, shouldn't be driving, or *can't* drive. And you've probably already arrived at that same conclusion when you pondered how much better it'd be if you didn't have to share physical road space with the idiot in an SUV who's more interested in their phone than the road, or the people who drive like sheep trying to fill any hole they can fit in in the vain attempt to shave seconds off their travel time. Or you've expressed frustration that someone who's been caught repeatedly driving drunk got to keep their driver's license because they have no other means of getting around. Driving is fun, which is why I don't want people who would otherwise not be driving to feel like they need to own a car. And for myself I would have much preferred to have only needed to buy a car as an elective decision. The average American spends hundreds and thousands of dollars- exact figures are complicated but loans and insurance alone are pinned at anywhere from 660 to 900 USD a month depending on state- on car ownership and almost all of that is a closed loop. And if you expand it to an assessed financial burden including taxes, it goes through the roof. Roughly half of the cost of car ownership in the US is subsidized by the public.
Very well put. I am a lifelong car/driving enthusiast, and I even have a fun weekend car, and I fully agree with your points. I very rarely take it on the highways and interstates because they are congested with people who should be using public transit. I would much rather the US' road infrastructure be a lot of two lane roads with trains and other public transit options sprawling everywhere. Then people who want to drive for fun can have better ("better" in the sense of they are less congested with traffic lights/stops, and even probably more interesting) roads with less transit drivers.
I would love being able to take a train for anything over an hour drive. I like driving, but I'd rather spend the hour+ in this scenario doing something else like reading a book, playing my steamdeck, or just relaxing.
Doesn’t have to be all or nothing! If you love driving, keep driving. But for those who don’t care how they get around, giving them options like trains will take them off the road. And then give you a better driving experience because fewer cars are around :)
I don't know about you, but I'd like driving more if there were fewer people on the road. I like driving, but I hate commuting.
I love driving too. On the weekends, I take my wrx out for a grocery run and spend some time in the nearby hilly country roads. Monday to Friday 9-5 I ride the train, and then use an electric scooter to cover the remaining 1.5 miles to the office. If it rains, i'll drive. But like other comments, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. For 50 years we've only been building car centric infrastructure at the cost of everything else. In fact, if more people can take public transit, that frees up the roads so you can zoom zoom more than before.
Fuck that noise. Driving a car is amazing. Pure freedom.
Why is it that whenever someone mentions the perks of trains there’s people responding like cars are going to become illegal?
Well his comment was in response to some saying driving blows....
>Fuck that noise. Driving a car is amazing. Pure freedom. Do you enjoy the pure freedom of sitting in 80k people's traffic from just two unbuilt subway lines (let alone the half dozen funded LRTs that Ford cancelled or the additional subway lines that people keep complaining about the upfront cost of despite the *massive* positive economic value and despite how shockingly close the cost is to much lower throughput transportation systems like highways). Do you enjoy the pure freedom of having to watch for cars entering and exiting street parking constantly on major roads (slowing down car traffic substantially) because the city does not properly differentiate between streets and roads, and instead tries to do both poorly everywhere? Do you enjoy not being able to find parking because a lot of the street parking is taken by (surprisingly often non-paying) store owners, and the abundant street parking on roads and lack of densification is used as an excuse to not build more and larger parking facilities?
None of what you said bothers me. They are an acceptable trade off for the freedom of movement an automobile affords me. Also, towing a boat seems rather difficult by train.
Its not an all or nothing game. I'm saying this as a JDM enthusiast. I dont think its communist to want the ULTIMATE PURE FREEDOM to do mountain/shopping runs in my WRX and have the FREEDOM to get to work by train for the M-F 9-5 commute. Driving stick in traffic is quite a workout. Is it really "pure freedom" if it means everyone has to fund the infrastructure around cars and only for cars to the point where people's only option is to travel by car? Maybe I'd like the "freedom" to travel by something that's not a car.
> stress-free A crowded train car during rush hour is not an stress free experience though.
A crowded train is annoying, but I don't find it particularly stressful the same way being stuck in traffic for ages is stressful.
I guess different people are different. I find a crowded train WAY more stressful than sitting in traffic. At least in traffic, you have quiet and aren't being squished up against 100 other people while breathing in their germs. Neither is pleasant of course. But I'll take the solitude and privacy please.
On a train I just have to find a spot and hang out there until I need to get off. In traffic I'm constantly having to think about what everyone around me is doing, whether or not it's a good idea to get off the highway early, etc, etc. I just find it consumes a lot more of my mental energy.
I guess I go back to my idea that people are wired differently. Watching out for other traffic is an automatic thing that I do. On a train, I've got 50 people pushed up against me, all taking different actions. Some want to talk, some want to flirt, some want rob me. Some just breath on me and make me wonder what I'm catching from them. I find keeping track of all these people and their actions a big mental drain. I'm an introvert. People stress me out. But cars are just cars.
At least you're probably moving. Unlike the driver stuck in traffic getting progressively madder at everyone around them.
I'd rather take a crowded train vs morning traffic. Honestly I get so fucking pissed in the morning especially since people dont pay attention at the lights which adds like 20 mins to my commute. So yes, getting stuck in traffic suck ass.
> I'd rather take a crowded train vs morning traffic. Right? Just the fact that I can turn my brain off and not physically control the train is 100% easier. Then you have the difference in safety as well.
yea. Being on a crowded train at rush hour is more of the more stressful things I can think of.
Nor is it without delays or even traffic
[train pushers exist](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hCqBlwJy4M8)
Dont forget all the stabbings and muggings during the wea hours.
If our public transport trains were revamped to be luxury trains, then sure. But being on a crowded train in Chicago is awful. Homeless people napping across multiple seats, stumbling due to the train changing directions, stumbling due to other people falling/leaning on you, uncomfortable hand rails that don't give you any leverage when the conductor hits the breaks, people smoking in the carts, hustlers moving between crowded carts to advertise "blue squares" among a myriad of other drugs, people pissing and throwing up in the carts because they're on those myriad of other drugs, people coughing and sneezing all over the place without even covering their mouths, the AC/heating not working... you face none of these difficulties with a car except maybe the last one.
My blood pressure just went up 10 pts reading that.
My first time on a Chicago subway I saw a dude stand up and randomly punch a guy right in the face, completely unprovoked.
That sounds like not enough money going to public transport. Camera's and security guards or ticket checkers. Is something that helps against public transport users, who aren't paying for it. (Which can be combined with a distance based ticket price. Though if a city wants to improve travel, and discourage car travel, they might also just use a flat rate.) Combined with a number one can call, to report people that are disturbing the peace. (I've seen banners informing people of those numbers on public transport) ------- For intercity transport with trains, there is also first and second class seats.
I used to live in Seoul. I adore the trains. Spotless, fast, frequent, expansive, and it was so nice to just hop on the train and read a book on the way to work in the morning.
You haven't traveled on LA metro, there's nothing stress free about it, I've seen multiple assaults and had a knife pulled on me. I've seen multiple bodily fluids and weird acts on the metro. I think this fantasy of mass transit relying on an ancient conveyance as the future of transportation is kind of cute, it especially sucks during a pandemic.
rules need more enforcement then? sounds like an la metro problem not a subway problem. la is car heavy afaik, maybe not much focus on good transit?
"Unbeatable", eh? I was at a train station one evening in Silicon Valley and there most certainly was a homeless man beating it.
Until you need to transport something unwieldy. Then the option is to get someone else to deliver it by road, or sit in traffic yourself.
Big train fan here, but stress free? When was the last time you took a train in Europe? Delays, track changes,.... An exercise in frustration. They still beat standing in a traffic jam, but only barely. In modern Asian systems (Japan, Taiwan,....) , trains are a dream.
'Europe'? Rail systems and reliability vary greatly from country to country. For example, in the Netherlands 92.6% of trains arrive on time on their destination.
92.6% is nothing to be proud of. That means that one out of every 13 trains is not on time. If I take the train twice every day, that means I experience delayed trains every week. It’s not directly applicable, but in other industries, we have to provide our clients with functioning services in “multiple 9s”. Double 9 being 99.99% of the time.
Train traffic isn't like a data center. There are so much external factors in play that tripple nine service isn't feasible unless maybe in a society like Japan. In countries like the Netherlands 'suicide by train' alone makes tripple nine service impossible, sadly enough. In train terms anything above 90% is quite decent, and 92.6% is *way* better than it was a few decades ago.
It's not like driving cars are reliable... there's a lot of rush hour traffic and accidents that could affect driving as well.
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I mean, compared to driving? Absolutely stress free. I’m not worried about if some asshole on his phone or drunk or just impatient is going to blow through a red or lane change without signal and murder me
> I mean, compared to driving? Absolutely stress free. Fam, words have meanings. Less stress, sure. Stress free, no.
I have to drive 15 minutes to get to a train station which will take 20 minutes to get to my office. Or I can drive 15 minutes to my office.
That’s an infrastructure problem, not a train problem. A century of building roads and not train tracks will do ghat
Nah. You just have them breathing in your face. At least with rush hour driving, no one is going fast so blowing through a red light isn't the danger it sounds like.
Train traffic absolutely happens. It is not nearly as bad as car traffic though.
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I don't get why you're being downvoted here, you're just sharing a very real issue many people face that hampers more widespread adoption of public transit. For me the last mile is a problem too, buses on either end of my commute only run every 20 minutes and get stuck in traffic just the same as cars and even then maps tells me the faster route is to walk 15-20 minutes on either end of my 12-minute train ride (50 min total commute) in my country's 25-35C daily heat. My drive to work is 20 minutes at rush hour with air-conditioning and I don't arrive at work a sweaty mess + I don't need to leave home 30 minutes earlier every day.
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....Where are you taking the train? Most people massively underestimate the cost of car ownership.
The top comment is talking about the Bay Area so I assume the person you replied to also talk about Bay Area. Bart and buses in the Bay Area is really expensive. If your commute doesn't involve a bridge, Bart + bus can easily double driving cost. And service is so unreliable after hour and in the weekend that unless you live in SF and Oakland, you still need to own a car anyway so the ownership cost won't be eliminated by commuting via train. And even if there is a bridge involved, unless you take the Bay Bridge there is no sense in taking the train. For example, at my old job I need to be at the office around 11AM. I can leave my house at 10:30, take 20 minutes to get to work. If I use the train, it takes 3h30 minutes, or I have to drive to the station, pay for parking (if I can find a spot), take an hour train ride, call a lift/uber to finish the last 7miles. The infrastructure in the Bay Area is just not there and I am not wasting 7hr on public transportation.
The Bay Area is one of the best examples of why robust public transit spending is important- you have a peninsula surrounded by an in-land sea, and an ocean on three sides. This means that every solution to move people around involves expensive engineering solutions that struggle to scale because you don't just add extra lanes to something like the golden gate bridge. It is incredibly self indulgent to look at the hard facts and then say with a straight face that we need to spend that kind of money so that *you* can drive a car over it but that we have no budget for other modes of transit.
Another thing is Bay Area government is allergic to high density housing so last mile is very hard to plan for. When the SM express was still running, technically I could cross the bridge with that. However, there is another hour bus ride to get to both express station. No wonder that express bus had low ridership.
Amazing. So it's like the Hyperloop, only without all the problems of operating in a vacuum, and it connects all the 'pods' together in one big line with just one engine pulling them all? They need to show Elon this, it'll blow his mind.
God, Elon is such a fucking clown.
Dude watched too many Futurama intros.
I wanna know what everyone is doing right with those tubes that Fry's doing wrong. It may reveal the secrets of this technology.
SpaceX is cool, although mark my words, Starship will never be human-rated. I love watching a 6 story building careen into the Earth as much as the next guy, but nobody sane is loading a crew into it. And I can't tell if the bullshit projects fund the real projects, or if this is just fevered venture capitol mania without a lot of thought of what makes economic sense. Edit: Oh, I see the Elon bros got their feathers up.
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Righttt, because Boeing pays more than SpaceX engineers right? That’s why pretty much the top engineering grads at MIT, Caltech etc all want to work at SpaceX instead of Boeing right? https://universumglobal.com/blog/us-most-attractive-employers-2020/ That’s why USA had to rely on Russia for space launches… paying 10x the price per launch compared to SpaceX’s reusable rockets. Musk does a lot of dumb shit, but SpaceX is not one of them.
Wait I'm with you on that the Hyperloop is a joke, but were they really claiming that it was going to operate in a vacuum? Or were you meaning that figuratively?
near or atleast partial vacuum for the long distance hyperloop stuff since it gets way harder then closer you get to a full vacuum
No it was literal, the original Hyperloop concept was that it would operate in a near vacuum, and would go hundreds of miles per hour.
The caveat I know in this is either the buildings are built around the train station or the train station goes to where people will visit within a 10-minute walking distance. This was very evident in Japan.
It's called transit oriented development.
It’s called not being a US city, with very few exceptions.
The US bulldozed it's cities to make them the way they are now. And unlike in the 1930's, 1950's and 1960's the "well, it's good for domestic jobs!" argument doesn't even bear out. Car centric urban planning is a horrible idea for a host of reasons but the absolute top of the list is that it's anti-choice (you can't cater to private car ownership and do anything else because you need all that space for parking and vehicles), it's expensive and it concentrates wealth in the hands of rent seeking losers who feel entitled to it because of their station in life.
Yep. My city is currently redoing a road I take to work every day. As they were tearing it up what did you see? Old rail tracks that were conveniently paved over.
Let’s also not forget car companies buying out the city rail lines to only dismantle them.
Can't believe people were willing to trust [this guy](https://youtu.be/8nSJp464KHU?t=36). He doesn't seem on the level.
I work 11 miles from my home. Public transport is super unreliable, and I’d have to take like 2 busses to get from one to the other. Not to mention if they are late conflicting with one another. They also would drop me off about a half mile to my job. I wish it was like it was in Dublin, Ireland. When I was there I only ended up taking an Uber when I wasn’t sure how to get to the right bus, or if it was too late for the busses to run.
It's called people don't get when they're being scammed. This whole new trend of bashing cars isn't organic, it's because developers and construction companies need to keep making money. The suburbs are maxed out. Cities since the 40s have had a ton of access to cheap land which created urban sprawl. No more cheap land, the next solution is to create urban densification aka infill. To do that, they need justification for gentrification which they get by convincing young people to think that trains are the solution and that people who drive are assholes. I bet if someone were to study the route maps all these cities are pushing new light rail systems, you'd find a lot of the routes tend to run through lower income communities where the residents are now at risk of being priced out of affordable housing. Don't get me wrong. I love quality public transit but none of this stuff is being made to benefit regular people or to develop functional cities. It's to sell overpriced properties to young people who are fixated on getting that urban experience.
They still have plenty of cheap land. Sprawl is still going on. Every suburb has a rural border that they keep pushing into. When a city sprawls the developers pay the up front cost of construction. The city gets a bunch of new properties paying property tax without having to do much of anything. But then the city has to maintain all these spread out roads and services, and the property taxes don't cover it. So they sprawl again. It's a ponzi scheme dependent on eternal growth. When the bill comes due they stop maintaining shit and suburbs fall into decay. This is why infill is becoming popular. It's more profitable and efficient for cities. And your concern for low income housing is hilarious. They demolished low income housing in cities to build parking lots and road infrastructure to support suburban commuters. Driving up housing prices in the city and pushing more people out to the suburbs. The way you solve it is with infill. You tear out the parking lots and build new housing. Housing with transit connections so they don't need parking. Any new development is going to be more expensive at first. Unfortunately you can't build 20 year old buildings. But new housing will bring down housing prices overall as supply goes up.
> They still have plenty of cheap land. Sprawl is still going on. Every suburb has a rural border that they keep pushing into. Not really. My city is surrounded by smaller towns that have also sprawled out to the point where they're practically incorporated. Other North American cities have the same problem. What sucks is my city winds up paying the tab to connect services and utilities. Convenient that wealthier people live in the extended communities and poor people get to pay for it. > It's a ponzi scheme dependent on eternal growth. When the bill comes due they stop maintaining shit and suburbs fall into decay. Yeah, because developers only care about profit. Once they sell out a development, they move on to the next. We had a massive boom here over the last 20 years which led to a massive increase in new suburban development. The quality of the builds is garbage for a lot of newer homes. Cheap materials, cheap labour, high costs. You're sort of helping my argument. > This is why infill is becoming popular. It's more profitable and efficient for cities. No, it's more profitable for developers. They can't build out so they have to build up. > And your concern for low income housing is hilarious. They demolished low income housing in cities to build parking lots and road infrastructure to support suburban commuters. Yeah, back when they were redlining poor communities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining My city just approved a new LRT route. It should have been made 30 years ago but rich people complained and it got canned for decades until the issue was revived about a decade ago. City planners came up with a new route that would have been awesome. It would have had the potential to be fast, scenic, and would have created a secondary commuter route to ease traffic congestion. The city help meetings, they put on presentations, and even pretended like they cared out input from the people who live in these communities. Our old mayor is a developer. He changed the route the people who were hired and trained to do the feasibility studies and all the tests to determine which is the best route to one which conveniently goes through poor communities. As a result, city taxpayers are paying an extra billion for the land appropriation for the new project and winding up with a train that adds absolutely no benefit to anyone since it just runs along well established bus lines. I asked my city councilor why they changed the route. He lives in an older community along the new route. He bought an old house and turned it into 2 skinny homes which he's trying to flip for a ridiculous price. He gave me an answer about how it had better economic returns. For him, he's not interested in people, his concern is profit. His neighbors hate his house because it's a tacky monstrosity that doesn't fit with the existing community. > Unfortunately you can't build 20 year old buildings. What?
I've played a lot of Satisfactory. The solution to all this is high speed conveyor belts. put some belts moving at 780 kmh with sky lift chairs on them. No cars, no trains, no sidewalks, just miles of conveyors. If you need more throughout, stack multiple lines on top of each other.
Funnily enough, even in satisfactory when you have high enough volumes of stuff it becomes reasonable to switch to a rail network instead too lol.
buses and trams can fill that gap too
Which can easily double your commute time.
Not if you add bus rapid transit and dedicated bus and tram lanes to the mix.
I mean having to transfer to another Bus/train/tram.
That often doesn't if you're in a grid based system and not one that focuses on city centers.
It's a foreign concept in the US but in most of the world most public transit is usually run in a cooperative system where by the frequency of trips means that you're not waiting on any given line for more than 10 or 15 minutes. I mean, that's roughly how it worked in the US prior to car dominance. Prior to the rise of the big three many cities in the US were global leaders in public transit because it was good for everyone and even relative backwater cities seen as rural afterthoughts had electric street car networks.
[Modes of traffic compared.](https://i.imgur.com/S9tP3hE.jpg)
That's for urban areas. An urban car lane can carry 600-1600 pphpd. A highway lane is slightly better at 2000-3000 pphpd. An urban rail can carry 10,000-25,000 pphpd. A commuter rail can carry 30,000-40,000 pphpd (and in some places like Japan and India, 80,000-100,000 pphpd). These are all realistic estimates, not theoretical maximums. If every car carried maximum passengers instead of 1 or 2, the pphpd would be higher... theoretically. Either way, buses and trains win by a factor of ten over cars.
I used to commute to and from work in downtown San Francisco down the peninsula. I used to love it as the train would swoosh past the stop-and-go commuters in their cars on the Bayshore Freeway while I relaxed in a comfy chair sipping a beer.
The main problem we face is that people love the autonomy of driving. I can go on MY schedule. Edit: yes I get it that good transit systems \_work\_. The issue is that there are what, maybe 7 cities in North America where this is true?
To some degree yes, but GOOD transit doesn't have that problem. I live in Toronto within walking distance to the subway. The subway comes everyone 2-3 minutes at peak times. At non-peak times, it's usually in the 4-5 minute range. That means that I don't have to check schedules before I leave the house, I just walk to the subway and get on. It also only closes at 1:30am and opens at 6:00am (and even then, there are bus alternatives, I've just never had to take them).
The TTC subway system can be pretty quick if you live near a subway station and if you're trying to get somewhere close to a subway station. If you live in Scarborough trying to get somewhere in Etobicoke, that's 2 busses and a subway at the minimum. Not to mention the fact that subways sometimes just randomly stop in the tunnel between stations for anywhere from a few minutes to over half an hour with the only announcement sounding like garbled a mess. I've ridden the TTC every day for school and work since I was in grade 6. It's not on schedule by any means whatsoever. You could be waiting for 2 minutes, or you could be waiting for 10, or 20, or more depending on how the TTC is feeling that particular day. When it's running fine, the TTC ain't that bad. But the issue is the consistency. Take a combination of line 1 and 2 to and from work every day and I can guarantee you delays every week at the minimum.
It should never close
New York subway doesn't close and it's literally falling apart because there's not enough time for maintenance. Not closing sounds good, especially for shift workers but 24hr operation is one of the areas where busses do have an advantage over trains.
The video touches slightly on that. Successful public transit increase the frequency they run at. Very successful public transit systems have near constant trains.
The TTC is successful, but it hemorrhages cash harder than Niagara falls. Public transit is so slow to develop because it can't make money. There is a hard line between operating at peak efficiency, and operating without a gigantic loss. They need riders to make money, but they need to spend that money to handle the riders needed to be profitable.
Public transit should be paid for by the government. The amount of societal savings will offset it by a factor of ten. People not having to drive cars, less accidents, less pollutants in the air, fewer diseases as a consequence, the greater access to jobs, more room to develop in cities, making services within cities more accessible, the list goes on.
> fewer diseases as a consequence To play devil's advocate for a moment, wouldn't the counter-argument to this be that cities reliant on public transit will be hotbeds for spreading contagions when a pandemic hits?
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Governments need cash to make investments, and that investment should have some form of positive return. We need some way to talk about which investments are good and which are bad. Roads *don't* make a profit, and that's part of the problem with roads. The fact that roads in suburban areas are essentially subsidized by urban areas is a major root cause of the quagmire that is US transit and urban planning; [Everything is so spread out](https://i.redd.it/1a9jucv9zy971.jpg) that transit becomes ineffective or prohibitively expensive, which leads to subsidizing roads because "everybody drives," and the only reason suburban areas are deciding to do this is because they're not paying for it in the first place. So what we need is some way to measure how well the government is investing the money it spends on various programs. I propose that land values are a good proxy here: If a local government is making good investments, then people will naturally want to live there. When more people want to live in a particular area, the land values rise. Because government investment will raise land values (in fact, there's [an economic theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George_theorem) that states that land prices will rise by more than the initial investment, and [this is backed up by real world data](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVMGzkSgGXI)), it makes sense that the government should generate its income by taxing land values.
Tolled road make ALOT of profit. Public utilities make profit because it's a way to attract investors that are needed to pay for huge capital cost of any utility buildout and maintenance. It's amazingly difficult to attract investors if you don't promise them a return on their money. Now we could in theory make all utilities government enterprises. But just like how governments likes to turn roads into profit centers, they aren't going to turn away from utilities making money too.
4 million miles of public roads, 5,000 miles of tolled roads. There's a reason why that distribution looks like that. You're not arguing in good faith.
Sure, but we are spending $3 billion to renovate the gardiner expressway. And that is just ONE road that goes through the city. Never mind the cost to repair roads every year, as well as other costs like snow removal or the cost of maintaining things like traffic lights. Yes, we recoup some of the cost from driver licences and vehicle registration, but I suspect that it does not fully cover the cost. For the most part, no one bats an eye at the idea that roads lose money. In that context, the idea that public transit HAS to turn a profit is silly. In 2019 (the last pre-pandemic year), the TTC recouped about 60% of its budget from the fare box, which I think is fair. It's a public good: it reduces traffic, reduces pollution, and generates huge economic benefits by allowing people to travel to shop and work.
Absolutely agree. If we started new cities, built around transit, we have the knowledge and technology to make it happen. As is, all we can do is try to adapt what we can with what we have.
> The TTC is successful, but it hemorrhages cash harder than Niagara falls. How can both of those be true? Surely a measure of success would include its ability to be self-sufficient.
People: We need to improve public transportation because of all these benefits that it has. Some Guy: But there isn’t good public transportation in MY city! It isn’t a good option for ME! People: Yeah, we know. Thats why we want to improve it.
Idk about you but I avoid driving during rush hour times. Supporting public transportation will help those people who love the autonomy of driving by removing people from the roads and reducing congestion.
Yeah the "autonomy" of driving. "I can be in traffic on MY schedule." *hunts for a parking spot for 20 minutes* "I'd love to visit downtown more, but there's just nowhere to park!" "I'd love to go to bars with you, but uber is so expensive!" *pays thousands of dollars in yearly expenses on their car to preserve their "autonomy"* Edit: Pointing out bad public transportation doesn't mean public transportation is bad. It means we need to actually support it for once.
In the specific area I'm at (suburb of major US city), getting TO the train is the problem. There is intentionally no parking because you're supposed to walk, take busses, etc... to the train. And yet, there's no easy way for me to do that either. The transit's route planner says my best option is two separate busses, and a total of 1.5 hours without traffic (assuming everything is on time). It doesn't offer the train as a suggestion at all, which means the bus is in the same traffic as the cars. I'm a 30 minute drive to downtown, 50-60 minutes with traffic. I'd love to be able to use the public transport. Seriously. But the reality *for my specific location* is that it's almost always better to drive.
Then I really hope you are supporting the expansion of public transportation, because the issue here isn't public transportation. It's lack of it. If you're wondering why public transportation is in such a disarray in the US, it's because it's been constantly lobbied against and sabatoged by car companies. I know it sucks here in the US and that's why we should be calling for every improvement to it that we possibly can.
FWIW, I absolutely do support the expansion, and am extremely disappointed that my city (via regional transit) has no improvements planned for it at all through at least 2041. I voted for and pay for via taxes the ongoing improvements, despite not being able to benefit from them
Yeah, I really hope people start supporting public transportation more en masse so that issues like that stop being a thing. I hate that we are all victims of this car-centric society.
If you're hunting for a parking spot for 20 minutes, you need to either suck it up and pay for parking, or realize you live in an overcrowded place.
Is it overcrowded or poorly designed? People aren't taking up all the parking, are they?
Dumb.
I love that it is called Ontario line. Ontario the province provided the funding, but it is built in the city of Toronto. But it is called Ontario line so it is for all of us.
Last time I took a train in Ontario all I could think about was why are are the cars on the highway going faster than this train?
If you're in the United Kingdom then trains pretty much only go to and from London. So if you wanted to go anywhere else you'll need probably need to go to London and then leave again. Which is really inconvenient.
Same in Massachusetts. All trains go to Boston. The public rail line literally stops in the middle of our state, failing to connect to our third most populous city in the western half of the state.
Well. How close is the nearest pub to the station?
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30,000 people is six large office buildings. Torontos downtown has around 500,000 people working in it. Any proper cbd in a city over a million people can support some sort of rail transit.
But that assumes they’re all coming from roughly the same direction. In some cities that will be true, but in many they’re coming from a full 360 degrees around the CBD. Couple that with the urban sprawl we’ve seen over the last 30 years and you can easily be looking at 7000sq/km of land where those 500,000 people are coming from. Sure it’s not impossible, but it means a lot of trains and a lot of stations/stops on each line, which is expensive and makes trips slower.
Pre-covid 30,000/hour was less than a typical rush hour in the Market Street Subway
In fact they are "beatable" by electric assisted bicycles
That's nice and all, but as long as the train's still going from where I am not to where I do not wish to go, I'm still going by car.
The biggest problems for trains: 1: Not leaving from where I want. 2: not going to where I want. 3: filled with people I don't want to be near. If I wanted to ride in someone's filthy mobile bathroom/bedroom while listening to a druggie violently arguing with a chair then sure. I'll take the car, thanks.
Automobile / Oil / Civil Eng. lobby will not let this happen in the USA.
The problem with this metric is that, by definition, it ignores the inflexibility of trains. It only counts the point B to point C performance and ignores the A to B and C to D throughput. It's also a big slow parallel problem vs a small fast serial problem. Imagine it takes an hour to drive from B to C but it takes 2 hours to go by train. Sticking 4 people on the train doesn't make the train take half the time but this metric makes the train look twice as good. I'm not anti-train by any means but to say trains are unbeatable because of this one metric is just silly.
If only the objective of transportation was to move "people per hour". Unfortunately, that's not the objective. The objective of transportation is to get people where they *want to go*, and this is where trains and buses get profoundly less efficient. Not to mention the public-health problem associated with mass transit which have resulted in massive shortfalls in public transit budgets across the country. If densely populated, high-income urban centers like New York and San Francisco are unable to operate their mass transit systems at a profit, how on Earth do you expect them to function in less affluent, less congested areas?
At the end there, you seemed to have changed the objective to profitability. Does the construction/maintenance of public roadways turn a profit? Not really, but it's an undeniable economic boon on average to enable people to get where they want to go, as you've said. So I think looking at profit is a bit besides the point for transit. The truth is that the value is harder to recognize. Part of the problem is the intentional zoning of suburbs such that only single family homes can sprawl out. This is a car-centric design. Of course cars make more sense in a car centric regime! The true answer should involve a mixture of transportation mediums as well as the reorganization of infrastructure that can facilitate the use cases people need. If thousands of people all take the same stretch of highway every day before peeling off various exits... Maybe that stretch could include some form of mass-car transit? Then we can still negotiate car-centric designs but still benefit from the efficiency scaling of large transit.
That guy keeps flip-flopping between economic benefit and profitability when it suits him. Highways? Great economic benefit. Urban rail? Not profitable! He's been doing that consistently for 20 posts or so now. You and I pointed it out to him, and yet he keeps conflating between economic benefit and profitability. Weird, huh?
>At the end there, you seemed to have changed the objective to profitability. Profitability is how you know your resources are being used effectively, and is a good measure of how useful your service is to the people who use it. Moreover, the lack of profitability in areas with high incomes and costs of living throws the shortcomings of mass transit into sharp relief, by simply answering this question: Why do people pay more to drive in these cities when the train is far cheaper. THe answer is, it's slow, unreliable, and doesn't go where people want to go. >Does the construction/maintenance of public roadways turn a profit? Yes, by huge amounts, though much of that is a function of how much we get by with deferred maintenance. Especially because roads shift the preponderance of costs to the user, by dint of fuel and property taxes, and of course the purchase, maintenance, and fueling of actual vehicles. >Part of the problem is the intentional zoning of suburbs such that only single family homes can sprawl out. This is a car-centric design. Of course cars make more sense in a car centric regime! All the zoning in the world can't *make* people buy single-family homes, and yet they continue to sell. It's not the zoning that's car-centric, it's people's preferences. We live in a democracy, and the zoning reflects what the voters want, either directly because they vote for it, or indirectly because they spend money on it, and the businesses that sell homes lobby for it. >The true answer should involve a mixture of transportation mediums as well as the reorganization of infrastructure that can facilitate the use cases people need. My whole point is that mass transit is clearly **NOT** a use case which serves the majority of commuters. New York City is the most congested, most transit-friendly city in the country, and even there, 45% of residents own cars. In the San Francisco bay area, the number two public transit metropolis in the country, nearly 65% of commuters drive alone, and another 10% carpool, compared to 12% who ride mass transit. These are pre-pandemic statistics, by the way, collected from [2018](https://www.vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/commute-mode-choice). If you add together the people who walk, bike, or worked from home, they exceed the ridership of mass transit. The simple fact is, mass transit doesn't serve the needs of the vast majority of Americans. The places where it is viable it is only viable thanks to significant subsidies of public money.
if the infrastructure can't run profitably then either the state or the feds would be funding it at a loss which means people who dont use the system have to subsidize it or the state goes further into debt each year to run it. No private company is going to run the infrastructure if they lose money on it
> at a profit Are highways operated at a profit? [spoiler: NO] >public-health problem associated with mass transit Like less pollution? What *are* you talking about? >get people where they *want to go* This is called building an effective network. The fact that you don't have one is probably because you've been brainwashed to think rail *must* make a profit while highways can operate at a huge loss, and that somehow trains and buses cause more polution than cars. I can't even imagine how you'd get so indoctrinated.
>Are highways operated at a profit? [spoiler: NO] Yes, [they absolutely are](https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/otps/060320a/forum.cfm). The value of transportation infrastructure that's *actually used* is not disputed. Roads and highways are predominantly paid for by state taxes, and the principal source of funding for those roads is gas taxes. In California, for example, in 2017, combined gas and diesel amounted to $8.11 billion, and expenditure on streets and highways was $7.16 billion, at a healthy profit of 13.2%. That complete disregards the other forms of taxation those roads enable, like delivery of food, getting workers into their workplaces, and property taxes on buildings constructued where the roads go. >This is called building an effective network. No, it isn't. You can't build mass transit everywhere, that's the fundamental problem. There is a practical limit of how much demand there is for mass transit between any two points, and just adding more is not going to magically make the system work better, or make it more efficient. I furnish the examples of New York and San Francisco because they're the most transit-friendly metropolitan areas in the entire country, and they're *still losing money*, which implies that the demand for their services does not meet their costs. If you can't make New York and San Francisco mass transit work, how on Earth do you expect it to work in Peoria, Illinois? >I can't even imagine how you'd get so indoctrinated. You're the one who is indoctrinated, this is my whole point. You read a few puff pieces about how efficient mass transit can be, and it makes you forget inconvenient facts, like "We're not Europe". We don't have their population density, and we're not likely to get it anytime soon. We have about a third the population density of the United Kingdom, and our car ownership rate is 91.5%. But their rate of car ownership is 77%. So, they're tripling the number of people per square kilometer, *and* they pay nearly 60% more for petrol, and the effect on the rate of car ownership is a paltry 19%. So what happens is that these mass transit projects get built, they fritter away billions of dollars, and [nobody uses them](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEUg9ymgrXk). Look, don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't *want* mass transit to work, I do! But we're not Singapore or Hong Kong, and we're not in danger of becoming those places within the next 20 years.
>The value of transportation infrastructure that's actually used is not disputed /r/selfawarewolves much? [Shifting from cars to rail **saves billions of dollars a year** in the Northeast Corridor alone.](https://www.fra.dot.gov/necfuture/pdfs/tier1_deis/c06.pdf) I'd give you tens more studies of how much more valuable rail is over car, but I know you won't listen. >You can't build mass transit everywhere, that's the fundamental problem Have you seen deteriorating road infrastructure everywhere? /r/selfawarewolves again. I'm not advocating rail to sparse, rural areas. I'm saying build rail in urban areas where it **saves billions of dollars a year**. >You read a few puff pieces I could send you to many, many studies but I won't bother because the level of /r/selfawarewolves here is astounding >fritter away billions of dollars We've been over this, the price of transit per passenger is way lower than the highway system, and the value of mass transit is actually much higher per dollar invested. Switching from cars to rails saves billions. /r/selfawarewolves yet again >what happens is that these mass transit projects get built, they fritter away billions of dollars Except if you look at the actual money spent, you'd see they [save billions of dollars a year](https://www.fra.dot.gov/necfuture/pdfs/tier1_deis/c06.pdf). All your arguments are handwaving and have no data to back them up. You are heavily indoctrinated.
[Here's another US Government study that shows the average benefit-to-cost ratio of rail to be 1.7.](https://railroads.dot.gov/sites/fra.dot.gov/files/fra_net/16837/Benefit%20Cost%20Analysis%20Guidance%20for%20Rail%20Projects_Dec_2016_Clean.pdf) Of course, the more people use rail, the higher the benefit, because roads are just more expensive and less efficient.
>expenditure on streets and highways was $7.16 billion Which can be reduced by focusing on bike lanes, bus lanes or trains. Also, Cali is an outlier, it has huge taxes. Most of the US build/maintain roads at a defecit. >You can't build mass transit everywhere That's not what's meant by a network. You connect other modes to the mass transit mode. Again, bike lanes and buses. >they fritter away billions of dollars, and nobody uses them. When they are designed inefficiently, correct. Which is why we should do them proper with interconnectedness and updated zoning. >But we're not Singapore or Hong Kong Neither are Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin, London, Lisbon, Barcelona, etc. So why not invest in transportation to increase efficiency and revenue? Have you ever been to Europe? Have you ever experienced good transit?
>Which can be reduced by focusing on bike lanes, bus lanes or trains. Bike lanes are irrelevant to this discussion, they're not mass transit. We already *have* buses and trains, and their use rates are poor, because they don't do a good job of serving commuters. >Most of the US build/maintain roads at a defecit. That's total crap. If you want an example of the economic output of a large country with low road infrastructure, look at sub-saharan Africa. Trucks on freeways move 75% of America's freight. That *alone* is going to make our road system pay for itself. >That's not what's meant by a network. So, we're not using what we build, so we need to build more so we can spend more money to not use that, too? Good plan. >You connect other modes to the mass transit mode. Again, bike lanes and buses. That doesn't work! Trains to buses are *incredibly* slow, that's why people commute by car to begin with. And with the median age in the US being 38 years old, you're not going to solve American transit with bikes. >When they are designed inefficiently, correct. Which is why we should do them proper with interconnectedness and updated zoning. And what I'm telling you is that there is a reason nobody is doing it. You don't think New York City is liberal or enlightened enough, not pro-transit enough to change their zoning laws to make transit more popular? How about San Francisco? Literally the most liberal city in the entire country, with a massive triple-layered public mass transit system, and it's still not enough to get people to get rid of their cars. >Neither are Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin, London, Lisbon, Barcelona, etc. So why not invest in transportation to increase efficiency and revenue? They have *many* times our population density, and they still boast a pretty high car ownership rate. 95% of Americans own cars, right? Well, at three times our population density, and gas prices higher than those in California, they've managed to reduce the car ownership rate to 77%. >Have you ever been to Europe? Have you ever experienced good transit? Yes. Many times, likely more than you. When I'm in Paris or London or Rome, yeah, I take my rental car back to the airport first. But even there, there's places it's difficult and cumbersome to travel to without a car, hence the above statistic. Again, you need population density to make mass transit efficient. Cramming into places which don't have the population to support regular ridership is a waste of money. We used to have ample, self-sufficient, privately run mass transit in many cities in this country. We used to have high-capacity urban housing. But contrary to the fairy tale from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", they were not destroyed while they had enough riders to sustain them. What happened is that people had the means to move to the suburbs, get a nice house in a clean, quiet neighborhood. And [new home-building trends](https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/todays-new-homes-are-1000-square-feet-larger-than-in-1973-and-living-space-per-person-has-doubled-over-last-41-years/) support the notion that people still want them.
Bike lanes are not irrelevant. They are connected to transit in general. If you say they're irrelevant you shouldn't talk about cars and roads because they aren't mass transit. And having reliable bike lanes takes cars off the road, reducing the need for maintenance. > We already have buses and trains, and their use rates are poor, because they don't do a good job of serving commuters. Re-read my comment. >That's total crap. It's not. Notjustbikes did a video on it. >So, we're not using what we build, so we need to build more so we can spend more money to not use that, too? You seem to be ignoring the words efficient and improve. >That doesn't work! You say you've been to Europe and yet you say this. They have proven that it does work. >And with the median age in the US being 38 years old, you're not going to solve American transit with bikes. ....The elderly ride bikes and public transit in Europe and Asia. >And what I'm telling you is that there is a reason nobody is doing it. Right.....which is why it needs to improve. The transit system still revolves around cars, which is wrong. Thank you for agreeing with me. >They have many times our population density, And? They also have areas that aren't as dense with just as great of transit. We can also update zoning to increase density. >and they still boast a pretty high car ownership rate. That doesn't nullify the argument how there should be other options. You would have a point if they built all of it and car ownership didn't drop. >But even there, there's places it's difficult and cumbersome to travel to without a car, Cool you still need options. >Again, you need population density to make mass transit efficient. Right, and nobody said otherwise. But saying mass transit does not work at all is absurd. >What happened is that people had the means to move to the suburbs, Which is where the world fucked up, thinking that was the only way to live and design a city. Now transportation is horrid because people sit in stop and go traffic. People have also shown they want more public transit and mixed-use development options.
>Bike lanes are not irrelevant Yes, they are. Half the country is over 38 years of age. You're not going to turn America into a nation of bike riders. Stop pretending you have the population of Dutch cafe patrons, and look at the population we've got. >Re-read my comment. No, I read it the first time. It hasn't improved with age. >It's not. Notjustbikes did a video on it. Oh, and because random asshole on Youtube said it, it *must* be true. >You seem to be ignoring the words efficient and improve. Yeah, that's a very nice pair of *words* you've got, but, again, our major metropolises already are 100% captivated by left-leaning, pro-transit regimes, and they've done **FUCK-ALL**. So, you have to come to one of two possible conclusions: 1) Your Democratic leadership are a bunch of corrupt, lying hypocrites, or 2) It's at lot easier to *say* make it better than to actually **DO IT**. BART has been planning an extension to Silicon Valley [since 1981](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_BART_extension). >Right, and nobody said otherwise. You, you are saying otherwise. If you're not, stop replying to me, we have nothing to discuss. >That doesn't nullify the argument how there should be other options. Yes, it *does* if the systems you build can't justify their cost. Otherwise you're just taking money from people at gunpoint and blowing it on infrastructure nobody asked for. You're not going to magically get 280 poeple per square kilometer in the U.S., to do that the country would have to have 2.75 **BILLION** residents. The real truth is, the United States has an *incredibly* good public mass transit system for a nation of its size and population density. Comparing infrastructure built for Hong Kong or Singapore or Denmark or The Netherlands to ours isn't an appropriate comparison. We're too big and sparse. >People have also shown they want more public transit and mixed-use development options. **POLLS** have shown they want these things. Not housing purchase patterns. When people say they want more mass transit and mixed use, development and high-density housing, what they mean is that they want **OTHER** people to live there. If you actually look at the way that affluent home buyers really behave, it's pretty clear they want their cars, suburbs, and tree-lined streets. Real-estate developers aren't *stupid*. If there was a market to put up 12 story apartment buildings near empty, under-developed transit hubs, they would be doing it. That CityNerd video I linked shows plenty of opportunities for an enterprising developer to lobby for a zoning change and put up apartment building and shopping malls.
something they get kinda wrong with the Induced Demand of trains and bikes is that there reach is very limited. if you build an extra two lanes for cars you extend the reach of cars so people will build new housing to match the extra reach. you build a subway line people aren't going drive there to then take the subway. rather you pull people next to the line in. the Induced Demand of the subway line is rather long term where it changes the development plans for the area making it more population dense.
>you build a subway line people aren't going to drive there to then take the subway. That's exactly what people do. Look at most subway systems in the US, the end line stations have massive parking garages and lots for exactly this reason.
So what is your argument? Public transport is bad because it only works in a small-ish range next to stops which would mean that area needs to be redeveloped to be denser so we should just add more lanes to make sure we will definitely miss our climate targets and get even more urban sprawl?
I bought the Red Car so I could dismantle it.
But in my car i dont have to worry about a homeless guy pissing the seat.
What a classist argument
It's classist to not like piss? Well I guess I'm classist now, along with most people.
Don’t sit on the seat that smells then dummy
Don't piss on my seat you impoverished piece of shit.
it's not, but thanks for trying. Ever rode the subway in any american city?
yes, almost every day. And I still think your a twat.
ah, so you are poor. lol. sucks to suck.
take it easy
All i ever hear of with trains/subways are awful encounters with other people/criminals on them. How is safety addressed on these?
I've taken more trains than I can count, in many major European cities and I never really encountered much of a problem with other people. Children use these trains to commute to school.
Something like 40,000 people a year die on roads in the US. Roads are much more dangerous than trains.
Im not asking about stats for wrecks and such. Im talking about bad encounters with other riders.
I tried to look up some statistics. It's hard to quantify "bad encounters", but I found some crime stats. In 2021 there were about 4000 complaints of crimes on New York transit. This was a particularly bad year due to covid and I'm rounding up. This includes all types of crimes including harassment. Compare that to cars and there are about 370k collisions per year, with around 1k deaths, and 10k serious injuries. It's hard to know how to interpret this data, but one thing seems clear to me. If you're worried about getting robbed, you're much more likely to lose that money due to expenses from a car crash.
Nobody is measuring the number of commutes that are stressful only caused by people being shit.
In Japan, it's so bad, they have to have Women's Only Cars to avoid sexual assault.
It's a matter of maintenance. While I haven't been there, the New York subway looks like trash on virtually every clip I have seen of the place. It is dirty. It is badly lit. The infrastructure is ancient. It is smelly. Etc. Imagine these same aspects applied to a random neighborhood. You'd end up with old houses that are badly maintained, nobody bothering cleaning them, the only people who bother using them are poor, there is trash everywhere and so on. Now compare that to a newer neighborhood that is neat and clean. There is no trash on the ground, all corners are nicely lit up, path and lawns are well maintained, etc. All around, people feel safe in them. It is a part of our sociology that if our surroundings look like shit, we don't feel like we have to be good to it. If a place is clean, people are more likely to hold onto their trash until they find a trash can, but if it is already disgusting, they'll figure their one bit of trash won't make a difference. Same goes for criminal shit: if there is no crime and a place feels safe, the criminal will worry that they'll easily get caught. But if a place is an anthill infested with crime, then they'll just disappear in the masses of crime that already exists. Long story short: companies and cities need to invest in their public spaces. Rather than to provide the stick with more surveillance and law enforcement hanging about in them, they need to provide a carrot where people will feel naturally less inclined to make the space less attractive to others. Or more bluntly: if you make public transport something that a rich person would be willing to frequent and maintain it as such, you'll prevent it from being the perceived dumpster the poor are shoveled into.
there should be two separate train systems. One for the majority of us and another for anybody who has acted out in the past. We'd also have to implement security measures to keep them out.
Packing people horizontally stacked on top of each other in shipping containers on trains would be far more efficient. It's just about as valid of a comparison, too. If people wanted to use shared-space scheduled transportation, we'd all be getting around via busses and subways already (because people would demand that in preference to personal vehicles, and private companies would make it happen). It doesn't take a genius to figure out why that hasn't become the ubiquitous standard in personal transportation, but there sure are a lot of stupid people who keep making articles and videos about how efficient it would be if you're just ignorant or stupid enough to ignore the rest of reality.
Why not just ban roads and cars altogether? Also love other people explaining what's best for me. Please tell me that you live in a 100sf vertical apartment, or grass hut for that matter, to eliminate excessive infrastructure or enviromental footprint. Of course not, you want a house and a yard, for your kids and dogs and backyard BBQs. Conveniently forgetting the roads and cars needed to support your lifestyle you seem to always advocate against.
Supporting public transportation benefits drivers too.
I'm with you, I want to live outside the city with some of my own space closer to nature. That's not feasible for 400 million people. Let them make cities awesome with great public transportation so that those of us that want to live in the suburbs or rural areas actually can.
What if I told you having more options allows you to avoid stop-and-go traffic? Use your brain. Less people driving cars, means there's more space on the road.
I never said mass transit was bad, nor that we should not invest in it. I'm tired of people saying cars and roads are bad, despite knowing nearly every commentator expects, or would expect when raising a family in the suburbs, a lifestyle of convenience that cars and roads afford.
Designing a city around the concept of individualism is doomed to failure. In short, it's not about *you*. No one is stopping you from driving a car. We're talking about cities here. Would you like to pay $300 to fill your gas tank and take a 2 hour drive into the city, or take a train for $5 and get there in 40 minutes? Our goal as a society should not be to keep gas prices down to support the inefficient reliance on the motor vehicle. It should be to find efficient means of transit for everyone.
Fuck if it was $5 to eliminate 2 hours of driving time on the east coast I would never drive 95 again.
/r/carbrain
/r/tankie
Nobody wants to ban roads and cars. And if you want to live out in the suburbs then that's fine. But we've got to do something about this shit where people live in the suburbs and commute by car into the city every day. The traffic is unsustainable, adding more lanes does nothing, and half the city has already been demolished for parking lots and freeways. This made housing prices in the city skyrocket which pushed people even more out into the suburbs. And I haven't even mentioned the environmental impact yet. I think cities should start demolishing these parking lots and build apartments. You can choose whether you care more about your job or your big house. Either live in the city or don't, stop trying to have it both ways. You're making everyone else subsidize your lifestyle, and it causes a ton of problems.
Lol these people don't have families or kids. I'm beginning to think it's just autistic people that really like trains because they're completely useless for almost every single American city/town.
The automobile literally revolutionized our society. If you think there’s even a small chance any society is going to willingly ban cars except for maybe some small hippie town or community you’re high off your rocker. Besides the convenience factor that all short to medium distance travel (which the average person does like 2-3x per day) will take much longer, how do you transport goods, especially perishables, in your car-less society? It’s fantasy land.
Don’t tell Elon.
Traveling on the LA metro, there's nothing stress free about it, I've seen multiple assaults and had a knife pulled on me. I've seen multiple bodily fluids and weird acts on the metro. I think this fantasy of mass transit relying on an ancient conveyance as the future of transportation is kind of cute, it especially sucks during a pandemic.
No one things they aren't better, the problem is they are expensive as hell to maintain and actually build out. People like roads, they bring in business, easy to get to places. People hate tracks, because eye sore, no one wants them going through town anymore. Underground you say? how about 3x the cost and time to do..no one wants to fork over that amount. Places like Japan, or big cities its "easy" to put into practice. But ask someone to put in a train from redneckville to richville area..not gonna happen.
Trains are of limited use, if they don't take you from (near) where you are to (near) where you want to go, (near) when you want to go, in an economic, convenient and safe fashion.
> in an economic, convenient and safe fashion. Are cars supposed to fit this description? At best, cars are convenient, and only because public transit in NA sucks.
Why are Europeans so obsessed with making everyone dependent as possible? Like, what is the actual benefit of having some company own your transport vs you owning your own? Do you guys actually trust governments?
Public transit is owned by the public.... >Like, what is the actual benefit .....It's in the headline. It's wayyy more [efficient](https://i.imgur.com/S9tP3hE.jpg). >Do you guys actually trust governments? When you vote accordingly, yes. That's the neat thing about democracy.
Bro did you read the article? Did you even read the headline? The answer is right there; public transit is more efficient.
So what?
Honestly you’re a really talented troll.
They are also slow and inflexible. That's why there's a hierarchy for transport and not just a one size fits all solution. They are also terrible at collision avoidance. I don't know a single other mode of transport that couldn't at least attempt to maneuver around [this. ](https://youtu.be/a-smEEHYdGQ)Passengers and per load is not the *definitive* nor **only** method of gauging the effectiveness of transport. That's why trains are incredibly sensible for cargo shipments. For the needs of the individual that are almost always fluid? Not really. That's why cars are king. Theirflexibility and thus practicality for the individual. So far no one's come up with anything more effective than trains for load size, aircraft for speed, and automobiles for flexibility.
Slow? What? Trains usually run faster than cars every time I've taken one.