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Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

economist.com

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Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#391

Post by exergy »

sprafa wrote: post #288
yomly wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure we live in the same city? The Central line during summer is so hot it wouldn't be legal to transport cattle on it. The Northern line regularly has packed platforms going north in the morning. The Metropolitan has been undergoing "modernisation" for over a decade... EDIT trains also frequently run late OR early They break under the slightest deviation in nature - rain, snow, heat and leaves on the track a…

The Central line was the one I was thinking of. I was wrong and I’ve edited the post above. The reason for this is clear tho - those lines are sometimes upwards of 100\80 years old. It’s still probably the one of the best public transport systems I’ve ever encountered, and imo perhaps one of the best ones in Europe. edit I haven’t been to Munich but I’ve been to Cologne & Berlin, I found London beat their transport s…

Come visit us in Switzerland, my friend! And say goodbye to delays, overpopulation, climate woes and all the rest of it. And I'm only being slightly hyperbolic.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#392

Post by tremon »

arkh wrote: post #272
dwd wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you're getting down-voted as having people talking (often loudly) on their phone on public transport makes it unpleasant for everyone else. I try and save calls for the car part of my commute, but then get accused of only calling cause I have nothing better to do... You do appreciated the relative silence (no one on their phone or talking above a whisper) on trains in Japan. Brisbane trains on the other…

> Not sure why you're getting down-voted Maybe because just speaking on the phone in traffic makes a lot less attentive so you're prone to create accidents.

That doesn't seem like a good reason to receive downvotes.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#393

Post by kalleboo »

rorykoehler wrote: post #359
konart wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't thing this is what codebolt was talking about. If you can one kid - there is no problem really. Walk him or her to school in the morning, ask grandmother to bring them back etc. When you have more than one - it is entrily possible they will end up going to different schools and after the school one of them had to go to the music shool and the other one to his hockey team or something etc etc. You simply can't…

In a lot of European cities kids walk and bike themselves to school.

Even when I lived in the US as a kid me and my friends would bike to elementary school. But this was in the early 90's before everyone went completely neurotic

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#394

Post by plopilop »

baud147258 wrote: post #347
masklinn wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people find time on public transit more pleasant, and are willing to do more of it. My knowledge of "popular" underground (London) or metro (Paris) lines makes that very unlikely, they're hot, way overcrowded, and odd-smelling when they don't outright stink. Very useful and convenient, and can be pleasant outside of peak hours, but back when I worked in Paris despite not being a morning person I switched my work ho…

For Paris, it depends on the line. I'm taking line 10 daily (and a bit of T2) and it's confortable enough.

When I lived in Paris, I used (for various jobs) lines 2, 6 and 13 to commute, also RER B. The mere idea of getting a seat during rush hour was delusional.

I remember once, at Denfert-Rochereau, I had to let two RER go to the south without me, as there was litteraly no place for me to go inside. Could not even put a foot in.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#395

Post by Nullabillity »

sqren wrote: post #312
codebolt wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many kids do you have? Any more than one and car becomes necessary in my experience.

To the people who say you need a car if you have kids - this is how we do it in Copenhagen: https://live.staticflickr.com/3662/3465284112_5aab494014_b.j... A transporter bike can carry 2-3 kids easily. It's the most convenient, cheap and healthy option. As soon as the kids are old enough they get their own bike. Of course, it's convenient to have access to a car a couple of times a month. But definitely not on a dail…

As someone who commutes by bike regularly, transporters are one of the primary reasons for why it is so miserable.

They usually go 15km/h or even slower (presumably due to the extra weight and/or overprotective new parents), and they're so wide that they take up the whole lane, preventing you from overtaking them. And since we usually have grade-separated bike lanes here (supposedly the holy grail, according to HN!) you can't even spill into the car lane temporarily.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#396

Post by louwrentius »

rpedela wrote: post #363
noobermin wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a pedantic point. The US AFAIK is the only healthcare system that is as dysfunctional as it is in the first world.

While traveling outside the US, I have found many people think Americans are cold and heartless and just let people die. It is an understandable conclusion the way people talk about the US system in the media and internet, but it also isn't true. The US has dysfunctional, public healthcare but it isn't so dysfunctional that you just die if you fall or get an ear infection without insurance. So saying the US has "no p…

But you are fucked with a huge bill that would cripple your life in a way that you might as well be dead.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#397

Post by ourlordcaffeine »

goodcanadian wrote: post #311
lanevorockz wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are ignoring the number one problem. Population Density, dense areas need public transport less dense areas require custom transport. You argument here is against small towns and in favour or ultra dense cities. Public transport is just a mean to complain.

I absolutely hate this argument. In Europe, you take the train and there is literal farm land in between stations. While there are lots of small towns and villages close together in a way that you don't necessarily see in North America, the average density is considerably less than Los Angeles, for example. There is no good reason LA couldn't be crisscrossed by trains instead of by freeways.

In similar vein, I've seen a lot of people use the same argument against high speed inter-city rail (ie cities in the US are far apart), yet the low density interior of China is connected by high speed rail all the way to Ürümqi.

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#398

Post by kalleboo »

vladojsem wrote: post #358
vinay427 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't even seem to follow, in my experience, and their argument definitely makes sense to me as someone that's lived in an urban European city, an urban American city, and some American suburbs and traveled around all of these places extensively. Why do trains work well in many European countries? When there's farmland between stations (or even between some bus stops in the city where I currently live), it mea…

I agree with you. In the case of LA metro area, it is just too spread city = badly designed. If you imagine even fast public transport, to get from one side of LA to the other side, it would still require a lot of stops in the low population density areas. Let's say every stop would cost you 5 minutes which means that even a car could be faster than public transport.

You can have a distinction between local and express trains, where the express trains skip all the small stops

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#399

Post by Dobbs »

noobermin wrote: post #346
neuronic wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spent 6 years in the US as a European. By far the worst part on a daily basis was the missing public transportation due to the enormous focus on cars. Many towns didn't even attempt to be accessible to anyone without a car. I sometimes waited for hours in NY state blizzards to catch a bus before I was able to afford a car. I walked 2-3 hours to a mall and to Walmart when all other students went home for break. Bus se…

There's an old conspiracy, although its accuracy is debatable, google the "General Motors streetcar conspiracy." Another potential possibility is many cities scrapped their streetcars for spare metal during WWII. Along with that, market forces and lobbying and policy by people like Robert Moses, the current form of America was created.

They lost court cases over it, I don't think it is fair to call its accuracy debatable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...

Re: Europe is edging towards making post-car cities a reality

#400

Post by agent008t »

ckris wrote: post #322
H8crilA wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the case not just in Korea and Japan but in most cities outside of America. It's one of American peculiarities, like checks or no public health care. China has a fantastic subway system in most big cities, for example. I once took a subway ride from the Shenzhen airport to the Hong Kong border, crossed the border, switched to another subway and arrived in downtown Hong Kong. That's around 65km (40 miles) by publ…

I wouldn't say most cities unfortunately. European cities are quite walkable and not as sprawling as American ones. But it is still pretty easy to end up were only cars can go not that far from the city center, or where there is only the occasional bus. Asia is really the leader in public transport now. I think the article is slightly misleading. Currently in Europe things like bike infrastructure and public transpor…

It's the same reason why you can have vending machines everywhere in Japan but not in the US. Uniformly high cultural level (relatively speaking), as well as a high level of trust (justified) probably has a lot to do with it.
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