The rest of the world is building subways like crazy. The U.S. has pretty much given up
The rest of the world is building subways like crazy. The U.S. has pretty much given up
www.fastcompany.com
fastcompany.com
65 comments
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Our corporations lobby our government to give up. The American People wish they could travel for extremely cheap every day. Its not fucking freedom to pay an auto manufacturer to traverse your homeland. Its bullshit.
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There's no money in public transport, so at best it would need partial government funding. Here is where automaker lobbyists ears perk up, it's an easy win. Call it socialism, take a nap. You're done.
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Easy solution privatize all roads. No need to pay subsidies to drivers....
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My last city was always quick to point out that the (poor) bus service was not profitable and didn't warrant any new investment.
But, the entire road system isn't profitable. Especially the cul-de-sac in front of your house. But we all agreed it was "worth it" for our taxes to fund thatq because of the obvious benefits of getting goods and people around the city.
Transit should be no different. A service we pay for through our taxes. Not a profit seeking business.
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is brightline not profit seeking?
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Elon convinced everybody The Boring Company’s weird underground car holes a mile long was the only option. And then he quit once he chased off competition from the public option.
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everybody
I think you mean "precisely nobody who was actually paying attention and had any idea what they were talking about". Unfortunately, too many politicians were not in that group.
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Same for hyperloop
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In Brisbane, Australia, we're buying funny-looking buses with wheel covers and calling it a "metro".
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There are lots of reasons trains would be better, but they come down to capacity and if you are building something dedicated tracks are similar price for more capacity. Brisbane has proven that done well the bus works very well and you don't need trains until you need high capacity.
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"Metro" literally can't run on regular roads. The specialised buses are too big to fit in normal lanes. It can only run on dedicated BRT routes. i.e., dedicated tracks.
But more so I'm just angry at the misleading marketing. It's an ok project with the wrong name. And other more substantial problems like already decreasing the promised frequency, giving up on level boarding and off-vehicle tap-ons. But it was the name that I was trying to highlight in my earlier comment.
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From the article:
See the U.S. flatlining in transit miles per capita
A devil’s advocate would rightfully argue that that’s expected given the much lower average population density of the US -- the same factor that made it a struggle to get broadband Internet to everyone in the US. Bizarre to use a nationwide per capita as a basis for mass transit comparisons. It should be a city-by-city comparison that groups cities by comparable population density. US cities would likely still come out behind and embarrassed, but more accurately so.
Consider the marketing angle -- instead of saying “the US is losing” (which diffuses responsibility and makes plenty of room for finger-pointing), instead say “@conditional_soup@lemm.ee’s city lost its ass in the bi-annual city infra competency competition”. Then that mayor has some direct embarrassment to pressure action.
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Subways are pretty much exclusively built in the cities, and the US doesn't lack cities. The same is true for most countries.
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Subways are pretty much exclusively built in the cities
Not just any city. Dense cities. Cities that are so densely populated that it would be /impossible/ for every person to move around in a car. Countless US cities are not even close to crossing that threshold. It just makes no sense to look at nationwide per capita on this. Only a city by city comparison of like with like population density is sensible.
(edit)
There is a baby elephant in the room that needs mention: US cities are designed with shitty zoning plans. They are designed so that each person on avg needs to travel more distance per commute to accomplish the same tasks (work and groceries). This heightens the congestion per capita. So ideally we would calculate daily net commute distance needed per capita plotted against subway track per capita for cities of comparable people per m². Which would embarrass US city mayors even more.
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In my hometown of İstanbul the number of subways have grown like crazy. It's beautiful to watch.
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but if I ride the subway, I won't need to buy a $50,000 ginormous pickup truck I won't ever use for any actual truck stuff!
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Going into depth so your neighbour don't think you're gay is peak truck stuff.
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Light rail is expanding here in Dallas. It was also expanding in DC when I was there this summer. It is still inadequate, but there is some progress.
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I mean duh, We, the US, are a gold plated shithole.
Our tiny, merciless, exploitative, sociopathic oligarch class just skew the numbers.
This place fucking sucks. Always has. Even the supposed "good" times were held up by an explicit, abused underclass. People that take pride in this fucking place are strange to me. Then again I'm against self-delusion in the name of positive feels. 🤷
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Sir, this is an Arby's...
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In that case, I'll take the 2 for $6 beef and cheddars, small curly fry, and a cherry turnover please.
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Many of our subway-worthy cities are coastal. As sea levels rise they can either have flooded subways or attempt to build massive levees to hold the ocean back and skip the subways.
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What a lame excuse. Lots of coastal cities with subways elsewhere
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The point is to install a new subway. Would you install a subway with the expectation that massive earthworks be installed to protect said cities and otherwise flooded subways?
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What happened to this? 😩 Turned out to be more empty promises, as expected https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/12/08/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-billions-to-deliver-world-class-high-speed-rail-and-launch-new-passenger-rail-corridors-across-the-country/
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How quickly do you think these things happen? Billions of those dollars have gone to projects like CAHSR, Brightline West, and the NEC maintenance backlog, among a host of other projects. The fruits of this spending are something we will really see around 2030 for the most part. Also, worth pointing out that subways are usually funded separately from intercity rail, which was the focus of that announcement. Separately, that same act funded 700 million in new rail car purchases for 7 public transit systems (4 light rail systems, 2 subways, and 1 Commuter rail), 1.7 billion for new lower emissions buses for a number of systems across the US, 13 million for a new transit oriented development pilot program, and a number of other programs. It's not as flashy as the turn of the century subway system build outs in Atlanta, DC, and San Francisco, and there's just so much room for more because the US is absolutely starved for transit, but calling that an empty promise is just an absurd mistruth
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65 comments
I dunno, it's weird. I proposed a light rail line along a new arterial road in my city that'll connect the 99 to a UC campus. It doesn't have a ton of development on it yet, so it'd be relatively easy to make it work. The mayor laughed and said "open your wallet", and also informed me that public transit just doesn't work in the US. I've embarked on a campaign of turning up to each city council meeting to re-educate them three minutes at a time.
🫡
Godspeed.
That's right politicians, it's once again time for CONDITIONAL_SOUP'S THREE MINUTES OF TRANSIT.
I fuck with this energy. I think I'll get this printed on a poster board.
It's kinda weird because like...America is super big and super stretched apart. And we really did put off viable transit for so long. I am not really sure what else to say, because it makes me sad. But I am living in the suburbs for the first time in a hundred years and it feels so lonely out here. Like everyone is participating in their daily cycles, but ultimately everyone is an isolated bear in a cave. Likewise there are no sidewalks, and the few kids I do see playing are constantly wandering the streets that are filled with mega-trucks. I sort of feel like I entered one of the layers of hell, and want to escape. But for now I am here, and perhaps I won't be in the future. But where I am at isn't really even all that urbanized as a whole. So, shrugs.
And I am not saying lay concrete down on every corner. And I do think that urban spaces are filled to the brim with a lot of toxins. And lack a lot of nature, outside of pigeons and a couple of trees per block. I don't know as a whole. It feels like we expanded too much as a people. Which makes me feel frustrated yet again. So I'm just gunna sit here and let you wizards wiz it up. Cause I can't seem to get past the first part which is valid but not really conducive to anything.
Perfect for long-distance rail travel. Just get in the train, wait X minutes to get to the next town over, and get out. It's literally how the west was colonized in the second half of the 19th century.
What makes America bad for public transit isn't that the nation is spread out, it's that suburbs are a death knell with how spread out they are. I honestly don't think there's a way to make suburbs self-sustainable short of quadrupling the US' population so you can get decent density even there. Sort of like the SF Bay Area except actually building medium density housing instead of having >8 people to a low density home.
More realistically, the suburbs will probably have to be scrapped. It's not like those homes were built to last, anyway. Just don't replace them when they need to be condemned.
As for there not being enough greenery in cities, that's just a matter of choice, isn't it? Pedestrian boulevards can be lined with trees, building facades with ivy, public parks next to apartment blocks, etc. etc. Almost all the toxins in western urban areas today are from car tire dust and exhaust. Just ban motorized personal vehicles except mobility scooters and e-bikes, and most of what you seem to hate about urban areas can just go away.
America is stretched out, but that mostly referred to Alaska and everything west of the Mississippi and a narrow line of the Pacific ocean. Stick to east of the Mississippi or within 50 miles of the Pacific ocean and you find Americans are dense enough for good transit. However nobody builds good transit, and we are not dense enough to put up with bad transit.
That same mayor is likely to spend millions on a brand new city hall.
Idk, I give the mayor a lot of shit, but he's a pretty alright dude. He's constantly out volunteering in the community to pick up trash or feed the homeless. He also rides our pretty poor bus network every day.
Hell yeah, walking the walk AND talking the talk! Good on ya.
A city council in the valley: “ThAt SoUnDs LiKe SoCiAlIsM!!!1!”
It is in the valley, so, yeah, there's a lot of default car brain to fight. That said, a lot of people I've spoken with here tend to agree with me, and really dislike being tied to a car. Even the mayor said that he agreed in spirit, but there was just no way to fund it. I think the gap that must be crossed here is much smaller than I expected going into it.