191–200 of 994 posts
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I've seen many times how some people react to a single bus lane or even a tiny bicycle lane as though cars are getting the raw end of the deal when 90%+ of infrastructure is for cars.
Some cities build dedicated bike paths. This is much nicer as you aren't fighting with cars that way.
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No amount of "transit is more efficient" statistics is going to convince someone to ride it if they feel unsafe. Pretending that these are not real concerns just makes sure that we'll keep building monster highways.
They're not gonna use it unless you build it, and they're not gonna use it unless it becomes more convenient than the car.
Right now you've got 3 unreliable bus lines, each bus 30 minutes apart, service stops at 8pm and the schedule is useless because they get stuck in traffic. Consequence is, nobody uses it and there's always a crackhead in the back (they're part of the population that actually uses it to get around even when it's inconvenient)
My point is, you can clean busses regularly (and you should but -), you can put a cop on every bus, you can do a lot of things to improve "the feeling of safety", but it's not going to offset inconvenience, and you won't need to do all that if you just make public transport the most convenient way to get around in your city. Except cleaning them. You'll still need to clean the bus.
First sort out how people can manage to visit cities without having to own a car on first place. Most European villages and town are unreachable without cars. Some can already consider themselves lucky if there is a daily connection into one direction. Everyone likes to think we are all living in Paris, Berlin within city boundaries.
The topic is about cities, not about rural areas. No cars in cities, simple. This concept will probably blow your mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_and_ride Imagine a city without personal cars in its inner limits. Residents who decide to own a personal car can park it in a Park&Ride which also includes unlimited transit access for the duration of the parking. Deliveries, you say? Those aren't personal cars, b…
What I need is a transport infrastructure that cares about people that live outside city central area.
Maybe it will blow your mind that with P+R some of us take about 2h to come to work, versus 45m with a car.
Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy? P+R isn't even a known concept.
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Some cities build dedicated bike paths. This is much nicer as you aren't fighting with cars that way.
In some places the only way to make a bike bath is to reduce a car lane. I am all for it out of general principle, but most car drivers will likely disagree.
I think the thing that really struck a chord with me about car-centric development, as someone who lives in a city with fairly poor public transport (by certain standards, it would actually be quite good if it were in the US) and where driving is the norm for getting around - Prioritising cars actually makes things worse for drivers. We spend many tens of billions of dollars a year on roads in my state and traffic in…
Car oriented people seriously underestimate how many people that can be transported in a subway train and how much highway space it would take to transport the same number of people in cars. One subway line can transport more people than even the widest existing highway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Passenger_Capacity_of_dif... (edit: spelling)
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From an efficiency point of view public transportation makes a lot of sense. From a quality of life point of view, I have never been comfortable being crammed into a sardine can with that many other people. I've done it. I've never enjoyed it. I do look forward to travelling to the Netherlands one day and I will enthusiastically use public transit there just as a personal experiment to see if my experience differs en…
I love my personal car bubble as much or more than most people (though maybe not as much as you), but at some point we have to get over ourselves. We're all so spoiled. Why the hell do we deserve to all have our own giant speed machines careening through cities where people (including us drivers!) are trying to live? It doesn't make any sense and it's a shame that we've let it go so far, especially in the US. It shou…
I'm more dependent on my car(s) when I got the first newborn than I ever was.
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> It's not pro- public transit and better urban planning that bothers me. It's the anti-car "lobby". The absolute worst are the "war on cars" people. Not the people who are "anti-car", because while there are some, there's really not that much, so you don't hear those people. No, the people who argue that spending a dime on anything that's not for cars is a "war on cars" and will vociferously reject any investment in…
>The absolute worst are the "war on cars" people. Not the people who are "anti-car", because while there are some, there's really not that much, so you don't hear those people. No, the people who argue that spending a dime on anything that's not for cars is a "war on cars" and will vociferously reject any investment in public transit. And those tend to be the people who run transportation departments! These people ar…
Normal people don't want to ride on a vehicle used for turf wars, robbery getaway express, and as a homeless sleeping center. Normal people are alarmed when ear-splitting rap music is being played provocatively, normal people get alarmed when lethal weapons are pulled out for immediate use in a crowded box. An occasion before that, a schizophrenic person tried to corner me in the back of a train car while going on an increasingly aggressive rant about how the government is out to get us.
And this would bother me even less if I weren't disarmed, because of course it was illegal for me to carry a gun or knife to protect myself from the literal knife fights surrounding me on the train. I presume anyone poor enough to need public transit with half a brain in that town bought, borrowed, or stole a bicycle.
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Car oriented people seriously underestimate how many people that can be transported in a subway train and how much highway space it would take to transport the same number of people in cars. One subway line can transport more people than even the widest existing highway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Passenger_Capacity_of_dif... (edit: spelling)
From an efficiency point of view public transportation makes a lot of sense. From a quality of life point of view, I have never been comfortable being crammed into a sardine can with that many other people. I've done it. I've never enjoyed it. I do look forward to travelling to the Netherlands one day and I will enthusiastically use public transit there just as a personal experiment to see if my experience differs en…
Then, you've experienced poor public transit systems. A good one doesn't make you so packed in because there's enough trains for people to have comfortable amounts of space.
Anyway, it's moot - if your city has lots of people, the only feasible way to move them around is public transit. Trying anything else will fail due to the nature of two things not being able to exist in one place at the same time. One somewhat packed subway car is several hundred square meters of unmoving packed highway.
The problem that car solved years ago, is the following: you can develop a city without cars up to a point where the distance that you have to move to get to your work, or the supermarket, the hospital, etc is at max some km, let's say not more than 10/20. That has the consequence that all people wants to live in the city center, and not in peripherals areas. This has the consequence of making the cost of an house (o…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Car oriented people seriously underestimate how many people that can be transported in a subway train and how much highway space it would take to transport the same number of people in cars. One subway line can transport more people than even the widest existing highway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Passenger_Capacity_of_dif... (edit: spelling)
People don’t pick their mode of transportation based on space efficiency. They pick their mode of transportation based on their needs and priorities. Taking the subway works when there’s a stop near your home, a stop near your destination, and you have all of the time necessary to wait for it. If these conditions aren’t met then you need additional transport to and from one or both ends of the subway journey. There’s…
That isn't how it should be. A good subway system is faster than your car for the trips you normally make, and it comes so often you don't think about waiting. There are very few good subways in the world, (much less the US), and so people think it needs to be bad because that is all they see - but it need not be that way.