For anyone who really likes driving:
More public transport = less people driving = less traffic = win-win situation for everyone
I watched a few episodes of that recent show “Paradise,” and as soon as I saw that they chose to make their giant bunker inside a mountain a fucking suburb with cars as the main form of transportation, I was like “fuck this…”
Then I remembered what time line we were on, and of course that’s exactly something that the US government would do.
Could fit several times more people by building vertically, but instead fill it up with one-family homes with a quarter-acre backyard and swimming pool. Sounds about right.
I still want self driving cars
Safe and reliable self driving cars, affordable and accessible high speed public transit, a smart grid that can handle a nationwide shift to renewables… I want so many things. But my expectations have never been lower for what we’ll actually get.
During rush hour my city’s transit comes every 15 minutes, 7.5 minutes on the shared line. I only used it for commuting. On the weekend I saw the train leaving and didn’t worry but had to wait a while 30 minutes. Which sucked.
A train/bus every 30 minutes is fine for work - most people can plan their work day around that, so long as the schedule is reasonably consistent. However when going doing anything else there is too much risk that you will have to wait 29 minutes when you finish whatever it was you came to do and that is not acceptable to most people.
you see, if the City does that then it’s the city’s responsibility to maintain, both the infrastructure for transportation and the transportation itself. With cars, they only do infrastructure
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Agreed, traffic suck whether it jam or not
Woooo yeahhhh!
Developed high speed rail since 2008 in China vs the US:
The silver lining of autocracy.
Why would a democratically elected leader plan for the long term if their sucessors, possibly from an opposition party, can claim credit for it.
In a dictatorship, they can plan for the long term, since they know they will be in power.
Also, the hyper-individualism in western countries doesn’t make “working together” as a country easier. Just look at the anti-maskers and anti-vax people lol
And also, the big population in China would never allow for a “car culture” in the firsr place, since there just isn’t room for that many cars, public transit is a must for a densely populated country.
And also, the big population in China would never allow for a “car culture” in the firsr place, since there just isn’t room for that many cars, public transit is a must for a densely populated country.
I’ve been to China as part of a company visit. They took us everywhere by car. Even what I would consider walking distance.
I did not see mass transit once.
That’s because you were visiting. When I was in China (as a citizen), I always had to take public transit if I want to go anywhere. My mom had to take public transit to work. Parking costs wete high, because there’s no street parking like in the US. (This was in Guangzhou btw) Now in the US, they just drive, because free street-parking is everywhere.
As a visitor, you’d of couse visit places by car.
part of a company visit.
Well that’s why… they don’t want ya’ll getting lost and your group split up.
I did not see mass transit once.
Lol where did you go? Some rural area?
Shenzen.
Okay, so I’ve never been to Shenzhen (or at least I don’t remember ever going there), but I just looked it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhen_Metro
If you went there like… before 2010 or something, pehaps you wouldn’t see much of that, because they were kinda still building it.
The subways are all underground, so you probably didn’t notice them unless you went looking for them, it’s not like the US where some parts of the subway are above-ground, and others are underground. I have no idea how you didn’t see any of the busses tho… perhaps you didn’t pay attention to your surroundings… 😅
TLDR: Public transit exists, you either went there like a long time ago before they got built, or just didn’t pay enough attention.
Yeah, I don’t doubt it exists and probably is well used by the people living there. Just wanted to address the part of the comment saying “China would never allow for a “car culture” in the firsr place” because there sure was a car culture. It felt like an American city.
I’m also aware that Shenzen is different from the rest of China, and, well, that the rest of China is different from the other rest of China.
“China has good railways because China bad” is one hell of a bad take.
China isn’t an autocracy any more than the US is, getting to vote which party gets to erode your rights and enact genocide on your behalf isn’t democracy
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A democracy would be voting for a party promising not to erode your rights and getting your rights not eroded. That’s not what you get in the ol’ US of A, anywhere in the west for that master
Yeah that’s what happens when all your manufacturing is outsourced there. China is insanely insanely rich now
USA is very wealthy. It’s always a choice what to invest in.
One of the most annoying things is cities that were designed pre-car being retrofitted for car, and then people acting like that’s the city’s fault for not making the city better for car, rather than the city’s fault for not assessing their situation and emphasizing other methods of getting from place to place
One more lane! /S
wHy Is ThErE nEvEr EnOuGh StReEt PaRkInG
in my country during the day, you dont need to check schedules.
but then public transit is slow, uncomfortable and expensive.
they just made it frequent and to cover a big area because most of us cant afford cars but they still need us to get to work.
Please Colorado ffs connect our major cities.
Maybe if they did then they’d actually remember there is more to Colorado than just Denver area, sincerely, someone who lives an hour and half south of Pueblo.
If Colorado expands public transit, it would be too OP. /j
I’d like for where I lived in Denver to be simply walkable. Or safely bikable. I was living in a pretty urban area in SW Denver proper and my car was lost to a collision, so I started walking everywhere. Great area for that, theoretically - I was surrounded by Asian and Central American markets, convenience stores, liquor stores, dispensaries, local restaurants, all within about a mile. However, the major roads nearby were stroads. Crossing at crosswalks was much more dangerous than just wiring for cars to disperse and running across in the middle of the block.
Worse though, I was near a kinda fun hipster shopping and bar area, but there was this horrific freeway/highway/stroad exchange where you had to go across something like 6 roads and exit ramps. It was the most pedestrian unfriendly thing I’d ever seen, and coincidentally it divided a more affluent white section of town from the Hispanic area.
I think Denver is the least walkable city I’ve ever been in. Was there a few years back and was floored by how hard it was to get anywhere as a tourist without a ride share
Really depends on the part of town. It definitely wasn’t built with pedestrian or bicycle access in mind when Denver expanded in the 60s-80s, but no city in the US was back then, really. If you’re in a dense area like Cap Hill, it’s great. Overall Denver is set up the same as most western cities, like LA, Phoenix, Albuquerque, but for the most part is better than those. If you want something really horrible try suburbs of Houston where they don’t even have sidewalks.
Cool I can ride a bike to buy fudge. Now get to Mackinac without a car. Whomp whomp.
I’m interested in how you might get there with a car.
Drive car from your shitbox house. Park car take ferry, (that’s a boat) ta-da.
That sounds like getting there with a boat.
That’s great. If you are in the US it isn’t going to happen at a meaningful scale. Best we can do is larger scale self driving mini busses for public transport and single user self driving vehicles for expediancies. Use existing infrastructure but work to eliminate human driving (save that for track driving for pleasure) and enforce heavy pedestrian priorities so foot traffic and bicycling becomes easier and safer.
If you are in the US it isn’t going to happen at a meaningful scale.
Your defeatism mindset is a large part of why it’s not happening right now. Stop posting this shit so that progress can actually be made.
I’d rather direct progress in a meaningful direction. My attitude isn’t breaking trains coming to the US. Autonomous vehicles are way behind where they should be for meaningful progress and fear and misunderstanding is the only real obstacle there.
I’ve heard this said a lot, and I’m not necessarily doubting its true, but what’s the reason behind the richest country in the world not being able to build good public transport? Large countries like China yave good public transport, and the continent of Europe has great trains- is it just the USA’s size combined with its lack of public infrastructure in general?
Low taxes so nothing goes to infrastructure
All the wealth is concentrated in the hands of selfish pricks who don’t give a shit. Why advocate for high speed rail when you have a private jet?
Also making people waste time in traffic is probably good for the ownership class. You’re not organizing if you’re stuck in your car.
unless the trains could use the existing land building the rail would be extremely costly due in part to the slowness of emminent domain and the us actually having functional property rights that make it hard to take land from people (those that can afford lawyers). coupled with the large number of citys with populations under 100,000 buses are generally going to work better here.
It’s the fact that our cities were built around cars. Kinda bad timing really.
It might happen. Manhattan just introduced congestion charges and it apparently made a big difference.
And places that we now think of as bike and public transit focused cities in Europe were very car-centric in the 70s. I don’t know why or how they changed, but they did.
