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The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

nytimes.com

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Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#81

Post by someguy101010 »

romwell wrote: post #13

Hahaha. I lived in Brooklyn, I lived on Long Island, spent a summer in Seattle, and I live in San Jose now. One can't speak for the entirety of the either coast, but no city in CA comes close to what NYC offers in terms of public transportation. And what NYC offers is a true car-free lifestyle which carries you to work, leisure, and back home via public transport. E-scooters aren't a reliable way to get anywhere yet,…

What's funny is that they mention that NYC is reluctant to use scooters but don't mention how dangerous those things are in the snow. NYC has wayyy different weather than LA, Austin etc.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#82

Post by superfx »

romwell wrote: post #13

Hahaha. I lived in Brooklyn, I lived on Long Island, spent a summer in Seattle, and I live in San Jose now. One can't speak for the entirety of the either coast, but no city in CA comes close to what NYC offers in terms of public transportation. And what NYC offers is a true car-free lifestyle which carries you to work, leisure, and back home via public transport. E-scooters aren't a reliable way to get anywhere yet,…

"E-scooters aren't a reliable way to get anywhere yet, and who knows if they'll ever be, not to mention that they are not for everyone. My grandmother is not going to ride one -- nor my wife, for that matter, nor should the kids. But the Subway is a common denominator."

I used to think so, but some European cities really do offer counterexamples. I'm thinking of places like Munich, Vienna, and Copenhagen. It's not uncommon to see people there who, by American stereotypes, wouldn't be expected to ride scooters: moms with kids, men in suits, etc. Perhaps the urban cultural gap is so vast that what you're saying is indeed true of the US, but I wouldn't take it as a given.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#83

Post by dsfyu404ed »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #77
francisofascii wrote: post #71

For the West Coast, the simplest solution is electric buses with dedicated lanes. Buses better serve the existing low density sprawl than trains. Lack of infrastructure is not the problem, the roads are already built. The real problem of course is lack of political will. Every road with two lanes gets at least one dedicated bus lane. Single occupant traffic would slow to a crawl making the buses faster. Buses would r…

Dedicated lanes don't do much to help; the capacity of virtually all city streets is limited by the capacity of the intersections, not the streets themselves. Give buses priority at intersections, or even better build them dedicated overpasses if you want to see buses really move.

>Give buses priority at intersections,

Or just give them the IR transponders that emergency services use to trigger the light in some places and have it go green for the bus rather than red for everyone. You'd accomplish almost the same result with less trade-offs.

Giving one vehicle priority tends to increase complexity and causes a distraction which increases risk of accidents (which clog up the road making the bus late). This is why the modern doctrine for EMTs is to drive in traffic like everyone else and use lights/sirens only in the most time critical cases and when doing so will substantially affect travel time.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#84

Post by callmeal »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #77
francisofascii wrote: post #71

For the West Coast, the simplest solution is electric buses with dedicated lanes. Buses better serve the existing low density sprawl than trains. Lack of infrastructure is not the problem, the roads are already built. The real problem of course is lack of political will. Every road with two lanes gets at least one dedicated bus lane. Single occupant traffic would slow to a crawl making the buses faster. Buses would r…

Dedicated lanes don't do much to help; the capacity of virtually all city streets is limited by the capacity of the intersections, not the streets themselves. Give buses priority at intersections, or even better build them dedicated overpasses if you want to see buses really move.

>Dedicated lanes don't do much to help;

Actually, they do. Take a look at the MetroBus infrastructure in Mexico City[0] for example. Buses run on time, on an extensive, dedicated lane network.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_Metrob%C3%BAs

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#85

Post by BeeOnRope »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #77
francisofascii wrote: post #71

For the West Coast, the simplest solution is electric buses with dedicated lanes. Buses better serve the existing low density sprawl than trains. Lack of infrastructure is not the problem, the roads are already built. The real problem of course is lack of political will. Every road with two lanes gets at least one dedicated bus lane. Single occupant traffic would slow to a crawl making the buses faster. Buses would r…

Dedicated lanes don't do much to help; the capacity of virtually all city streets is limited by the capacity of the intersections, not the streets themselves. Give buses priority at intersections, or even better build them dedicated overpasses if you want to see buses really move.

Of course it would help, since an overloaded intersection causes a large backlog and waiting in line (for multiple light changes) is how each vehicle pays the cost of the backlog.

With dedicated bus lanes, you skip the backlog and cross on the next light, so intersections do not undo the advantage of dedicated lanes.

You don't have to take my word for it - just ride any good dedicated lane system at a high traffic time and note your relatve speed of progression versus car traffic.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#86

Post by plants »

someguy101010 wrote: post #81
romwell wrote: post #13

Hahaha. I lived in Brooklyn, I lived on Long Island, spent a summer in Seattle, and I live in San Jose now. One can't speak for the entirety of the either coast, but no city in CA comes close to what NYC offers in terms of public transportation. And what NYC offers is a true car-free lifestyle which carries you to work, leisure, and back home via public transport. E-scooters aren't a reliable way to get anywhere yet,…

What's funny is that they mention that NYC is reluctant to use scooters but don't mention how dangerous those things are in the snow. NYC has wayyy different weather than LA, Austin etc.

or even how insanely crowded NYC is in general. It might make sense to have scooters in a less crowded neighborhood in Brooklyn, but try driving through lower Manhattan on a scooter...

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#87

Post by francisofascii »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #77
francisofascii wrote: post #71

For the West Coast, the simplest solution is electric buses with dedicated lanes. Buses better serve the existing low density sprawl than trains. Lack of infrastructure is not the problem, the roads are already built. The real problem of course is lack of political will. Every road with two lanes gets at least one dedicated bus lane. Single occupant traffic would slow to a crawl making the buses faster. Buses would r…

Dedicated lanes don't do much to help; the capacity of virtually all city streets is limited by the capacity of the intersections, not the streets themselves. Give buses priority at intersections, or even better build them dedicated overpasses if you want to see buses really move.

I am envisioning this more for urban arterial roads that typically have 35mph and two to three lanes of traffic in one direction. Most of these roads have light priority already.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#88

Post by granshaw »

romwell wrote: post #13

Hahaha. I lived in Brooklyn, I lived on Long Island, spent a summer in Seattle, and I live in San Jose now. One can't speak for the entirety of the either coast, but no city in CA comes close to what NYC offers in terms of public transportation. And what NYC offers is a true car-free lifestyle which carries you to work, leisure, and back home via public transport. E-scooters aren't a reliable way to get anywhere yet,…

I think Chicago's L also allows a true car-free lifestyle, as long as you don't live in the burbs

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#89

Post by cribbles »

chimeracoder wrote: post #56
StreamBright wrote: post #11

How about beating Europe or Asia?

> How about beating Europe or Asia? London is the only city in Europe that even comes close to offering what NYC alone does in terms of public transit. Even Berlin, the second largest city in the EU, has pitiful public transit in comparison.

There's a subjective side to this argument, I suppose, but having lived in both cities I'd argue that Berlin's public transportation is _at least_ a couple orders of magnitude better than NYC's.

The U-Bahn / S-Bahn / Deutsche Bahn / Autobus / Tram inter-connectivity are at least on par with what NYC has to offer (adjusted for geographic factors and population density), and that's before getting into KPIs like on-time arrival percentages, individual line uptime, and peak hour commuter congestion. And then there's the more intangible differences, which are nevertheless important to humans - like vehicle cleanliness, station upkeep... the list goes on and on.

Compare the Berlin Hauptbahnhof to Penn Station. Or the U1 to the L, or the J/M/Z. Or peak-hour Alexanderplatz to Union Square. Or the M29 to... I don't know... the NYC bus of your choosing. My god. Throw whatever numbers you want out there as a counterargument, but I know which I'd prefer in just about any scenario.

Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?

#90

Post by ams6110 »

granshaw wrote: post #88
romwell wrote: post #13

Hahaha. I lived in Brooklyn, I lived on Long Island, spent a summer in Seattle, and I live in San Jose now. One can't speak for the entirety of the either coast, but no city in CA comes close to what NYC offers in terms of public transportation. And what NYC offers is a true car-free lifestyle which carries you to work, leisure, and back home via public transport. E-scooters aren't a reliable way to get anywhere yet,…

I think Chicago's L also allows a true car-free lifestyle, as long as you don't live in the burbs

The El is ok if you live near a stop and are going downtown (Loop) or to the airport. But there are huge areas that are not practical to get to via the El. You need to then use buses, which are slow and don't seem to follow much of a timetable.
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