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Show HN: I built a transit travel time map

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Re: Show HN: I built a transit travel time map

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a chicken and egg problem, stop making excuses for Western governments. Nearly all US cities had streetcars and dense walkable downtowns. There are pictures of this. They were destroyed in the 1950s due to pressure from car/oil lobbies, as well as eager house buyers who wanted cheap FHA loans. (Only available to whites) Europe is not immune either, they would've followed the US's footsteps entirely if it were…

> They were destroyed in the 1950s due to pressure from car/oil lobbies Popular explanation but largely false. They were destroyed because people quit using them.

A decent article on their demise. https://www.vox.com/2015/5/7/8562007/streetcar-history-demis...

Re: Show HN: I built a transit travel time map

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a chicken and egg problem, stop making excuses for Western governments. Nearly all US cities had streetcars and dense walkable downtowns. There are pictures of this. They were destroyed in the 1950s due to pressure from car/oil lobbies, as well as eager house buyers who wanted cheap FHA loans. (Only available to whites) Europe is not immune either, they would've followed the US's footsteps entirely if it were…

> They were destroyed in the 1950s due to pressure from car/oil lobbies Popular explanation but largely false. They were destroyed because people quit using them.

Why and how did people quit using them? Suppose you're in a world where the interstate highway system hasn't been built and subway trains are the dominant mode of transportation, and you would like to stop taking trains to get to places, what do you do? Walk? Bike? Ride a horse? Drive offroad in a car with a manual transmission and no seatbelts or airbags, with no gas stations in between?

Seems like you'd be S.O.L. unless the government kindly free-markets a continent-wide network of paved roads, with conveniently placed roadside stops along the way where they sell gasoline. Can't imagine why they would undertake such an exorbitant public works project when the transcontinental railroad already exists; it's not like the government is disproportionately influenced by any industries that would very obviously materially benefit from such a thing.

Re: Show HN: I built a transit travel time map

#74

I get sad every time I return back to America from Asia because of how small the public infrastructure is in many parts of America compared to Asia. If anyone has lived or at least visited places like Tokyo, Japan or Shanghai, China, you probably understand what I am referring to.

Last time I went to Japan, they had announcements of apologies about severe delays. The delay was less than 5 minutes.

Today I'm stuck on a tram for an hour and the tram company did not even tell us what happened or when would we be unstuck.

Re: Show HN: I built a transit travel time map

#75
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. It took weeks of researching to find this term when I was looking to optimize travel time search. Once I did, everything became easier! Ended up forking Open Transit Planner, this was back in 2015. Turned 40 minutes real estate searches into 40ms or so.

What is this Open Transit Planner and where do I find it?

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: I built a transit travel time map

#77
post #69

Pull up San Fransisco, double-click on the Sunset, get depressed at how little distance you can cover in 45 minutes.

I believe the author is missing some data sources (bus lines?). There are areas I know are reachable within 30 minutes from downtown Berkeley that do not appear on the map.

Re: Show HN: I built a transit travel time map

#78
SF Bay Area map is somewhat lacking of about half the BART system (SF to Antioch by BART is less than 90mn, but doesn't show at all. Same for Dublin). Also everything North and East of Berkley is cut off, and most of San Jose is missing. As is everything in the North Bay. SMART, County Connection, Marin Transit, SOLTrans are all listed by no data shows up.

Re: Show HN: I built a transit travel time map

#79

I open it on mobile and got an entirely white page

i had the same in FF desktop , blank page with JS enabled (ublock default = disable everything)

Then i enabled all Font and Cosmetic Filtering to ON on uBlock, and the website worked.

One of the few sites that requires Cosmetics / Fonts enabled to work right.

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