301–310 of 374 posts
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To americans, London public transport feels amazing. To rest of Europe, its lets say OKish
I've lived in and visted many other cities in Europe. Public transport is often much cheaper than London, but there's few examples where I'd really say it was /better/. Can you think of an example?
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I don't know London all that well, I've only spent about a month there. But in my limited experience the food scene didn't come close to LA, SF, NYC, Tokyo. As an example, the LA metro Area (LA, OC, SB), 46% latino, 27% white, 15% asian 7% african, 3% mixed There huge sections of those cities, several kilometers long where you drive for miles and see majority one culture. Several areas majority korean, chinese, japan…
I disagree, NYC was OK but LA and SF specifically, the average quality of food was pretty bad. There were absolutely good options, plenty of them, but on average, just walking around, seeing something that looks good and checking Google Maps reviews (including reading them), had 0 guarantee of the food being of any quality. Compared to London and Paris where you're guaranteed a good meal in any random place as long a…
I am completely biased but I think London is one of the best places to live in the world, everything considered. There's a guy on Instagram who spins a wheel for a random country and goes to eat that cuisine somewhere in London. There are maybe 1 or 2 places in the world you can do that. It's an incredible feat of human diversity to pack hundreds of global cuisines into a 10 mile radius.
You can do that in any big international city. NYC, LA, SF, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, and I'm probably missing a lot of them. Way more than "1 or 2".
For example, there are 4 Uyghur restaurants just on my cycle to work. According to Google, Paris has 1 and Berlin has 0.
Only NYC can compare for population, density and diversity.
I am completely biased but I think London is one of the best places to live in the world, everything considered. There's a guy on Instagram who spins a wheel for a random country and goes to eat that cuisine somewhere in London. There are maybe 1 or 2 places in the world you can do that. It's an incredible feat of human diversity to pack hundreds of global cuisines into a 10 mile radius.
Food only takes you so far. The housing stock is simply terrible. Extremely small, damp, badly insulated ... I lived in four boroughs, from poor Southwark to rich Richmond. Had a couple of friends sharing a luxury flat by the Emirates stadium, you could hear the neighbours two doors down. It was alright in my twenties. Built a career, made a ton of money before the IR35 reform, but you sort of felt like everyone had…
Bizarre take. Zone 1 is the absolute worst part of London, full of tourists and unimaginative morons.
Paris is ruthlessly segregated by race and class, not what I'd call charming.
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I disagree, NYC was OK but LA and SF specifically, the average quality of food was pretty bad. There were absolutely good options, plenty of them, but on average, just walking around, seeing something that looks good and checking Google Maps reviews (including reading them), had 0 guarantee of the food being of any quality. Compared to London and Paris where you're guaranteed a good meal in any random place as long a…
Unless if you plan on eating cheap kebabs or inauthentic asian food, a good meal in london is gonna cost you at least 20 pounds
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This is irrelevant, though, since the size of the country isn’t what determines where people go. It’s not like trains got less practical when Alaska got admitted to the union. Sprawling, low density, single use zoning, combined with parking minimums, have much more to do with it. Here’s a video that explores the topic if you’re curious https://youtu.be/REni8Oi1QJQ
The question was what the train network is like outside the cities. And the answer is we don’t use trains because it is not efficient for the scale of the country. This is correct. Most people ARE interested in coast to coast travel. It is called flyover country for a reason. There are a few exceptions like the Baltimore corridor, or the San Francisco peninsula, and these are in fact serviced by good trains.
It is always shocking to me when I land at an airport in the US and there no public transport available.
It is common for conversations about good local public transport to have a retort in some sub-thread about how big the US is, as if the feasibility of long distance travel affected the feasibility of other modes of local travel.
You mention the SF peninsula. When I first moved there, I lived in the westside of SF and had friends living in Sunnyvale. On a weekend, it took 4 hs to get to Mountain View (~40miles, at the time, checking now it seems like Caltrain weekend service might have improved, so the same trip would take about 2hs), and then had to be picked up by car to finish the rest of the trip. It was faster (~3:30hs, if more expensive) to go from Paris to Amsterdam (>300miles) by train.
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I feel that's more "US public transport being bad"
A big problem in America is the entrenchment that is happening. People are becoming so polarised there is no common ground left for discussions and people aren't open to new ideas or thinking. I genuinely feel I can't even discuss this with many Americans. They stalwartly believe car culture is superior in every single aspect, any deviation from this narrative is simply met with 'you don't understand'. I recall in Ir…
On the other hand a lot of European cities were laid out in the time of horse and cart.
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I've lived in and visted many other cities in Europe. Public transport is often much cheaper than London, but there's few examples where I'd really say it was /better/. Can you think of an example?
Anywhere in Germany? E.g. Frankfurt has much higher density of subway lines and trams.
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But are the places you’re eating 1) fairly affordable and 2) quick / fast food and not a proper sit down restaurant? I had an extremely difficult time finding places with those requirements. Everything seemed to require sitting down for at least 20-30 minutes, which didn’t fit my walking schedule. I didn’t have the same problem in NYC or Paris, where it’s very easy to find a variety of places to grab a kebab, baguett…
Yeah definitely affordable and quick. And can get all of those in London with zero effort. Most of the time I just search for food on Google Maps and pick something which doesn't look poisonous. For example, going here tomorrow at lunch time https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/food-and-drink/southbank-c... - will work out what I'll eat when I get there.
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It's a pretty extensive system and the pretty new Elizabeth Line is great. But if you take something like the Piccadilly Line in from the airport, you probably shouldn't have a lot of luggage because a lot of stations just have stairs and platforms are often at a significant offset from the underground cars. (The double decker busses also work pretty well although they're not generally my default.)
> a lot of stations just have stairs Very few, if any. They may not have escalators (Covent garden, for eg., but no-one in their right mind uses that - just use Leicester Square and walk on the street) but there are almost always ways of getting up to the street, and assistance is signposted for people with problems. > platforms are often at a significant offset from the underground cars Not sure what you mean here -…
Agree that the Underground is good in general. I've used it a lot. That particular trip was just a case of having heavier luggage than I usually carry and I should have handled things differently.