171–180 of 207 posts
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In the ideal scenario you build the subway or other transit when density is low and land is relatively cheap, and THEN you make it high density. Doing it after the fact is much, much harder.
You don't decide to make things high density out of the blue. People have to WANT to live there.
I'm of the opinion that every 500k+ city should have a subway line. I grew up in a city with one (just one for the majority of my 20 years there) and if there's one thing I miss from that place it's the ability to move at an average speed of 35km/h at any time the trains were operating, especially at 2am on a Friday night after a couple of beers with the guys. The other thing I noticed when I was visiting my family t…
If not a subway at least some form of transport that won't get stuck in gridlock. Three examples I can think of are the Wuppertal suspension railway, Las Vegas monorail (though more of a tourist pull than for the locals) and the dedicated Metrobus lanes in Mexico City. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppertal_Schwebebahn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Vegas_Monorail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_Metrob%…
When I was commuting by bus, the inbound morning trip (with XBL) was 20-30 minutes, and the outbound evening trip (without XBL) was 30-45 minutes.
https://www.panynj.gov/bridges-tunnels/en/lincoln-tunnel/xbl...
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In some countries the transit companies (public or private) also become the landowners of the adjacent areas - this would be the "rail plus property" model. In fact, the rail plus property model allows the rail operate to better capture their added value, so it applies even in "private" scenarios. The most famous example would be Tokyo. The goal shouldn't be for the public to be able to reap direct financial benefits…
This is the case in Hong Kong as well. The subway company is also involved in the malls built on top of them. There are malls and neighborhoods built entirely around the subway station
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the ideal scenario you build the subway or other transit when density is low and land is relatively cheap, and THEN you make it high density. Doing it after the fact is much, much harder.
> In the ideal scenario you build the subway or other transit when density is low and land is relatively cheap, and THEN you make it high density Do we have examples of this working? (Genuine question.)
In the US, I don't know specific examples, but you can definitely use a combination of policies (building public transit, zoning laws to encourage high density, making parts of the city more pedestrian-friendly - and generally less car-friendly) to encourage high density.
Ex: The A in general goes express from 125th to 59th st without any stops. Therefore, one would think those stations should be sort of disconnected from each other (sort of islands in the the graph), but the data as presented shows them with a simple gradual extension of time.
makes me wonder about its accuracy in general.
Travel times would be much improved by a high speed line. Ie. a route with 4 stops and a travel speed of 100 mph. The finances of railways actually get better with faster trains - because the sooner you can get the person to their destination, the quicker you can get that train serving another passenger.
MTA runs express trains. They don't get up to 100mph, but they skip many local stops along the way. Raising their speed to 100mph would likely not meaningfully increase transit time - you'd maybe shave off a few minutes.
I mean when were these built, a 100 years ago? Surely there's room for improvement.
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Where would you put the subway line in Tucson, AZ?
I'm no city planner, but I would definitely connect the Amrtak station with the University of Arizona and on the other end make it reach the edge of downtown. The rest of the city is really spread out with all those detached houses, so I'm out of ideas but then again my city put a subway station in such a location and it serves a whopping fifteen hundred people daily - that's one subway car, but at the same time appr…
I take it your book isn't an economics book?
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MTA runs express trains. They don't get up to 100mph, but they skip many local stops along the way. Raising their speed to 100mph would likely not meaningfully increase transit time - you'd maybe shave off a few minutes.
it boggles my mind that a place like new york doesn't have the money to just do that. Raising the speed limit gets more important the longer you travel and connects distant parts your city better. It's a recent trend to build high-speed lines to complement an existing, dense subway network (e.g. Paris goes up to 75 mph). I mean when were these built, a 100 years ago? Surely there's room for improvement.
Because building a subway in New York City costs $4 billion per mile.