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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

#91

Post by [deleted] »

jeffchien wrote: post #83
tsudounym wrote: post #28

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…

I know you didn't name a city, but since everyone says this about Los Angeles due to Roger Rabbit , I'll zoom in on LA. The LA street cars, Pacific Electric and LA Railways, were operated by Henry Huntington to sell real estate and were increasingly unprofitable over time. This definitely wasn't helped by increasing competition from private automobiles, the 1910-20s version of rideshare called "jitneys", and local bu…

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

#92

Post by LorenPechtel »

vipshek wrote: post #30

This is super cool! I particularly like that you render the route along transit lines to reach each destination, which is differentiated from other isochrone maps I've seen. I would love to use this while hunting for apartments in a large city. I do think there are a number of things you could do to improve the UX here. Hope this doesn't come across as too harsh, but here are some suggestions... 1. Double-click to se…

Arrival time makes perfect sense when the objective is getting to work. If I need to be at work at 8am the (hypothetical) bus that gets me there at 7:50 works but the one that gets me there at 8:05 doesn't. Simply looking at travel time doesn't tell me I need to sit an extra 10 minutes.

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

#93

Post by LorenPechtel »

sfink wrote: post #61
ghaff wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Past a certain density point probably. It also helps if there's some degree of concentration where people want to go even if the city as a whole is only medium density. However, things get too spread out and it breaks down--including that transit runs on a sufficiently spaced-out schedule that people with a choice just don't want to take it.

I was just in Paris. It was a major eye-opener for me to observe people on the Métro when there was a train approaching while I was a little ways away from the platform. Very few people rushed to make it! It initially made me doubt that I understood how the train worked—did they know something I didn't, and this train wouldn't actually stop where I needed? But no, it was just that they knew that if they missed the tr…

And frequency is related to density.

The denser the population the better mass transit works and the more burden having one's own car produces.

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

#94

Post by KronisLV »

What a cool idea! Sadly, the Mapbox vector maps really struggle on my mid/low range Android phone (Firefox as the browser).

I've actually briefly looked into it before, but I've no idea why vector maps in particular are so bad, yet everyone still praises them a lot vs regular tiled raster maps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-IRtBGO9rM

Not to detract from the cool thing you've made, don't mind my musings.

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

#95

Post by blincoln »

nestorD wrote: post #77
jedberg wrote: 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.

I used to visit San Francisco and the Bay Area a lot for work. I could be wrong, but it feels like capping the travel time at 45 minutes is too low. A lot of people down there seem to have commute times more like 1-3 hours each way. I assume the low cap is also why the map also doesn't include the Caltrain heavy rail line that connects San Francisco to cities as far south as Gilroy.

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

#96

Post by ng-henry »

blincoln wrote: post #95
nestorD wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I used to visit San Francisco and the Bay Area a lot for work. I could be wrong, but it feels like capping the travel time at 45 minutes is too low. A lot of people down there seem to have commute times more like 1-3 hours each way. I assume the low cap is also why the map also doesn't include the Caltrain heavy rail line that connects San Francisco to cities as far south as Gilroy.

You can adjust the time where it says "Maximum trip duration".
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