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How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

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Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#181

Post by decafninja »

vvillena wrote: post #100
aianus wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anyone prefer public transit over a self driving comfortable personal car?

Because public transit, done well, is the fastest way to move around. It gets you everywhere, even to places personal vehicles can't reach. It's a lot cheaper. It generates hubs of activity that keep cities lively and relevant. It doesn't get stuck in traffic. It doesn't need to be parked. The benefits of good public transport are so mind blowing that it's difficult to explain unless you have lived on a city that has…

Key words: "done well" and "good public transport".

Whenever I see discussions like this, I always feel the standards that most public transportation advocates consider "good" or even "acceptable" are far lower than mine.

Mine - Seoul, Tokyo, other East Asian cities.

Most public transportation advocates - Maybe NYC, many even lower.

Factors - reliability, cleanliness (both cars and stations), reach, safety (both actual and perceived, and both violent and non-violent).

Give me the Seoul or Tokyo subway and I'll gladly ditch my car (actually...no, but I'd only use it for excursions outside the city).

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#182

Post by decafninja »

gonzalohm wrote: post #138
otikik wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Car only takes 30 minutes That is not rush hour time, though.

Oh yeah, I'm talking about recreationally. I would never accept a job offer that requires a commute to the city. 100% agree that commuting to work in public transport is way better

I work in NYC but live in the inner suburbs, as does most of my social circle.

For most of us, when it comes to commuting for work, it's always public transportation.

But when it comes to going into the city for leisure, it's always the car.

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#183

Post by decafninja »

jodrellblank wrote: post #114
aianus wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anyone prefer public transit over a self driving comfortable personal car?

Collectively (as in, the collective action problem): - Areas with few/no cars are nicer to be in. To breathe, to talk quietly and hear others talking, to walk around safely. - Transport moves more people in less space and less overall investment. Toronto Highway 401[1] is an eighteen lane road and it moves fewer people per day than Metro line 1. - Low car areas are better for local economies. People object to reducin…

You describe some of the best possible transit scenarios and compare it to the worst possible car scenarios. That can easily be flipped.

My daily experience with transit is that you're far more likely to be standing, jam packed like sardines with your nose up someone's armpit. The train/bus is constantly heaving and shaking. You have to be always be concentrating not to stumble or fall into the person next to you.

This is a problem that still exists with some of the best transit systems, and is even more pronounced on the ones that aren't quite so nice.

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#184

Post by Schiendelman »

BDPW wrote: post #111
Schiendelman wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a small country, stable government, and national level funding, that's perfectly feasible. I wish that would work in the US, but we have hundreds of transit agencies that do capital projects.

Has nothing to do with size, see Japan and China.

Japan is mostly using exactly the model I suggested.

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#185

Post by Schiendelman »

rangestransform wrote: post #157
Schiendelman wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that point, you're just hiring an engineering firm, so there's no real benefit to government doing it.

Having a single buyer gives the government the ability to force standardization across cities, and squeeze contractors. Knowing the US though, it’ll become a jobs program for bumfuck towns like Plattsburgh NY

I'm not sure I see any mechanism through which government would gain those powers. I'm also not sure standardization across cities is a good idea - that sounds good but it would slow innovation in technology.

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#186

Post by victorbjorklund »

jodrellblank wrote: post #155
victorbjorklund wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need to be able to think for themselves. I once stayed in an apartment house where I noticed a door 1.5 m up in the air on the outside of the building. When opening the door there was a small bathroom with a toilet. With no way of accessing it from the inside. Just that normal inside door on the outside wall up in the air. 100% someone in the chain made a mistake and said the door should be on the wrong wall.…

Which is why we have https://old.reddit.com/r/NotMyJob/

Thanks. That’s amazing.

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#187

Post by vvillena »

gonzalohm wrote: post #105
vvillena wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because public transit, done well, is the fastest way to move around. It gets you everywhere, even to places personal vehicles can't reach. It's a lot cheaper. It generates hubs of activity that keep cities lively and relevant. It doesn't get stuck in traffic. It doesn't need to be parked. The benefits of good public transport are so mind blowing that it's difficult to explain unless you have lived on a city that has…

Hmm I disagree. I lived in Madrid. In fact in one of those cities that this article mentions from the new subway construction. Subway takes 1h15min to reach the city center. Car only takes 30 minutes. This is because when you are building a subway every one wants their station. The map above may look like straight lines, but if you look at the real map, the north of line 10 is not straight at all, it's more zig zag.…

I also lived in Madrid. 1h15 means you were not in Madrid, but in one of the surrounding towns. 30 minutes in a car is enough to get from any point in Madrid to any other (assuming clear traffic).

It's obvious that people outside of the areas where transport is dense enough won't enjoy all the benefits. This is a usual complain about all dense public transport areas, but it simplifies to the fact that you were not in the area with dense coverage. In the case of Madrid, Metro is only dense enough in areas surrounded by the Circular line. There's also a very dense bus network that covers everywhere within M-40 and even some areas outside it (some bus lines can be hindered by traffic though, there are bus lanes in most critical spots but there's always some unpredictability).

Also, you're wrong on the closing time, it's been 1:30 AM for a long long time. That's the time where the last train departs on each line, so it's possible to catch trains at almost 2 AM depending on where you are. By Madrid standards, if you are out and about at 1 AM it means you are in a bar or in a party, and it's time to decide whether to continue through the night and get back when Metro opens again at 6 AM, to use a taxi to get back home, or to use the night bus network if you're lucky to be near a stop and willing to wait for it.

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#188

Post by [deleted] »

thatmf wrote: post #8

> Unlike infrastructure projects in Britain or America, which are heavily reliant on external consultants to handle all stages of the project, this group of well-paid in-house engineers led much of the Madrid Metro expansion. The team stayed largely the same throughout the different projects, meaning that they were able to learn from their experience and apply it to future projects. Imagine that: building expertise i…

[deleted]

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#189

Post by DrewADesign »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #32
tormeh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visited China recently and it's pretty astonishing what can be achieved if you just ignore the whiners, complainers, environmentalists, and local governments. NIMBYs? Get lost. Have unique local culture? Funny but no. There's a special kind of beetle living there? Tough shit. It's ugly? So is your face. Etc. This is how the West built its infrastructure back in the day - nobody consulted NIMBYs or the native American…

Rail lines in the US were not great examples of this. Many towns refused to grant right of way to the rail unless a stop was added which basically forced passengers to change trains. As a result, there’s were so many changes it took two to three days to get from say, Chicago to NYC when it should have taken no longer than a day

Isn’t Chicago to NYC like going from Lisbon to Munich? Over a hundred years ago, 3 days would have been pretty great.
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