6 ms·

This is always so weird to me. These problems have already been pretty much solved in other countries, but the US always thinks it's a special snowflake. Public

This is always so weird to me. These problems have already been pretty much solved in other countries, but the US always thinks it's a special snowflake. Public transport works pretty well for non-young healthy people in other countries.

Analemma_ 10y ago
This pattern is sadly typical of our political discourse. "I know that {socialized health care, gun bans, public transit, labor rights, paid pregnancy leave} work great in every other first-world country, but it Can't Work Here, because Reasons".
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  Completely agreed. I wonder why so much of our political discourse is against using proven results?
- Tiktaalik 10y ago
  Amsterdam and other cities in the Netherlands are the some of the best examples of this. People look at the massive portion that bicycles take up in their split of transportation modes and think that it could never happen in their country or city for all sorts of reasons because Amsterdam is special and the Dutch are unique and special. However if you can easily find pictures of Amsterdam in the 1970s where the streets look just as crammed with cars as any other city of that time. What happened is that people decided this wasn't working at all and they simply made a choice and they made a change to their spending priorities. Anyone can do this. All that is needed is the political will to make it a priority.
  - Mekkanox 10y ago
    Regarding commuting via bicycle: it's not necessarily a problem with traffic, as more with weather. Also it's wrong to compare a single city, Amsterdam, with a bunch of American cities because of drastically different weather patterns in those cities. Amsterdam has average temps (in F) from the mid 30's to the mid 60's[0]. That's prime bike weather. That's pretty much in line with San Francisco, which is a good city for biking. Even Manhattan and Brooklyn have reasonably overall pleasant weather for biking. But compare SF to somewhere like Washington, DC, or Austin, TX. For 3-4 months of the year, DC feels like a swamp. Same with Austin. It's much more preferable to use public transit or drive than bike in that weather. [0]http://www.holiday-weather.com/amsterdam/averages/ http://www.holiday-weather.com/amsterdam/averages/
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      Sure, the US climate is diverse, and it makes sense to use the appropriate transportation method for that climate. That doesn't negate the fact that "just keep using cars" is a bad idea.
    - mateo411 10y ago
      While the weather may be comparable, San Francisco is a very hilly city. I imagine that Amsterdam is relatively flat. In spite of its problematic, yet aesthetically pleasing topology, there is a strong culture of biking in SF.
    - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
      Look, if Bostonians can seriously commute by bike, basically anyone can.
  - avn2109 10y ago
    This is a good point. Political will is vital. However, I submit that in America, the design of the built environment as a system is profoundly broken. Basically we need to build our stuff closer together. Like feet apart instead of miles. Credit where credit is due, I stole most of my ideas about this from [0]. It's a non-prestigious contrarian blog that's easy to mock, but he seems to be correct on the merits about cities. [0] http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2008/072008.html http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2008/072008.html
- yongjik 10y ago
  "...however, what happens in Venezuela or Cuba totally applies to US, because Socialism!"
jbob2000 10y ago
The US and Canada are geographically huge. Take the problems the other countries solved and multiply it by 10. The climate here is also different. When was the last time a hurricane or tornado hit Europe? Or an ice storm? Or major snow storm? What about a heat wave over 100F? Public transit is not resilient to these things. Our streetcars shut down in Toronto during heavy snowfall because they'll derail if the tracks aren't clear. Ice gets into the concrete supporting the tracks and they need to constantly be repaired because of that. Asphalt roads are cheap and easy to maintain. Hell, you don't even need asphalt, cars are perfectly capable of driving on dirt or gravel. You can drive a car on shitty, broken asphalt, but you can't drive a train on broken tracks. There is a resiliency to road and cars that public transit just doesn't have.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  So your saying nobody every tries to go from one end of Europe to the other? OK. Sure. /sarcasm They also have weather patterns that generally match ours. Sure, not tornadoes afaik, but that's not a huge chunk of damage to the US either. Public transit is resistant to those things. They have snow, ice, and other cold-weather issues over there as well and somehow seem to get along just fine. And car's resiliency comes at an unsustainable cost. Not only is it environmentally unsustainable, it's not even population-density sustainable. Sure, there are big empty areas of land where it wouldn't make sense to put public transportation, just like in Europe. But that doesn't mean we should ignore the areas where it does make sense to implement it, just like in Europe. None of these problems are really unique to the US.
- pm24601 10y ago
  Ummm... all the time? Seriously, Most of Europe is further north than Maine. Copenhagen and Amsterdam - 2 big cycling/transit cities get plenty of snow and rain. U.S. wrt transit is "special" because we don't spend money to get a functioning system.
- chimprich 10y ago
  > The US and Canada are geographically huge. Take the problems the other countries solved and multiply it by 10. Most journeys are short distance, however. The article describes commuting, where the distances should be comparable between North America and Europe.
Spooky23 10y ago
It's easy to marginalize other people's problems when you don't have them. Even in an urban area with transit, most US cities have forced desegregation which means kids are scattered all over and economies built around cars. I could take public transit to work (30-40 minutes vs 10 in a car), but have to travel to the other side of the city to get to my kids school (15m by car, 60 by transit). Oh and even in an urban area, the nearest supermarket is a 20 minute walk. My relatives in Europe walk 5 blocks to school, have decent local shopping options, etc. Using a car in the US isn't that expensive, but offers a dramatic level of flexibility and freedom. I'm not limited to working in my city's central business district or forced to miss most of my kids school events.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  I'm very aware that the US is structured that way, but it doesn't really change anything. We built this mess, and we're going to have to build ourselves out again someday. Sure, it sucks that we structured our cities incorrectly, but plugging our ears and hoping the problem goes away isn't going to fix it.
Anasufovic 10y ago
If anything it actually enables the disabled and older crowd to become more mobile in those other countries. A car is a burden, and I think we can all understand how terribly efficient of a solution they are.

Analemma_ 10y ago

This pattern is sadly typical of our political discourse. "I know that {socialized health care, gun bans, public transit, labor rights, paid pregnancy leave} work great in every other first-world country, but it Can't Work Here, because Reasons".

CaptSpify 10y ago
Completely agreed. I wonder why so much of our political discourse is against using proven results?
Tiktaalik 10y ago
Amsterdam and other cities in the Netherlands are the some of the best examples of this. People look at the massive portion that bicycles take up in their split of transportation modes and think that it could never happen in their country or city for all sorts of reasons because Amsterdam is special and the Dutch are unique and special. However if you can easily find pictures of Amsterdam in the 1970s where the streets look just as crammed with cars as any other city of that time. What happened is that people decided this wasn't working at all and they simply made a choice and they made a change to their spending priorities. Anyone can do this. All that is needed is the political will to make it a priority.
- Mekkanox 10y ago
  Regarding commuting via bicycle: it's not necessarily a problem with traffic, as more with weather. Also it's wrong to compare a single city, Amsterdam, with a bunch of American cities because of drastically different weather patterns in those cities. Amsterdam has average temps (in F) from the mid 30's to the mid 60's[0]. That's prime bike weather. That's pretty much in line with San Francisco, which is a good city for biking. Even Manhattan and Brooklyn have reasonably overall pleasant weather for biking. But compare SF to somewhere like Washington, DC, or Austin, TX. For 3-4 months of the year, DC feels like a swamp. Same with Austin. It's much more preferable to use public transit or drive than bike in that weather. [0]http://www.holiday-weather.com/amsterdam/averages/ http://www.holiday-weather.com/amsterdam/averages/
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    Sure, the US climate is diverse, and it makes sense to use the appropriate transportation method for that climate. That doesn't negate the fact that "just keep using cars" is a bad idea.
  - mateo411 10y ago
    While the weather may be comparable, San Francisco is a very hilly city. I imagine that Amsterdam is relatively flat. In spite of its problematic, yet aesthetically pleasing topology, there is a strong culture of biking in SF.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    Look, if Bostonians can seriously commute by bike, basically anyone can.
- avn2109 10y ago
  This is a good point. Political will is vital. However, I submit that in America, the design of the built environment as a system is profoundly broken. Basically we need to build our stuff closer together. Like feet apart instead of miles. Credit where credit is due, I stole most of my ideas about this from [0]. It's a non-prestigious contrarian blog that's easy to mock, but he seems to be correct on the merits about cities. [0] http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2008/072008.html http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2008/072008.html
yongjik 10y ago
"...however, what happens in Venezuela or Cuba totally applies to US, because Socialism!"

jbob2000 10y ago

The US and Canada are geographically huge. Take the problems the other countries solved and multiply it by 10. The climate here is also different. When was the last time a hurricane or tornado hit Europe? Or an ice storm? Or major snow storm? What about a heat wave over 100F? Public transit is not resilient to these things. Our streetcars shut down in Toronto during heavy snowfall because they'll derail if the tracks aren't clear. Ice gets into the concrete supporting the tracks and they need to constantly be repaired because of that. Asphalt roads are cheap and easy to maintain. Hell, you don't even need asphalt, cars are perfectly capable of driving on dirt or gravel. You can drive a car on shitty, broken asphalt, but you can't drive a train on broken tracks. There is a resiliency to road and cars that public transit just doesn't have.

CaptSpify 10y ago
So your saying nobody every tries to go from one end of Europe to the other? OK. Sure. /sarcasm They also have weather patterns that generally match ours. Sure, not tornadoes afaik, but that's not a huge chunk of damage to the US either. Public transit is resistant to those things. They have snow, ice, and other cold-weather issues over there as well and somehow seem to get along just fine. And car's resiliency comes at an unsustainable cost. Not only is it environmentally unsustainable, it's not even population-density sustainable. Sure, there are big empty areas of land where it wouldn't make sense to put public transportation, just like in Europe. But that doesn't mean we should ignore the areas where it does make sense to implement it, just like in Europe. None of these problems are really unique to the US.
pm24601 10y ago
Ummm... all the time? Seriously, Most of Europe is further north than Maine. Copenhagen and Amsterdam - 2 big cycling/transit cities get plenty of snow and rain. U.S. wrt transit is "special" because we don't spend money to get a functioning system.
chimprich 10y ago
> The US and Canada are geographically huge. Take the problems the other countries solved and multiply it by 10. Most journeys are short distance, however. The article describes commuting, where the distances should be comparable between North America and Europe.

Spooky23 10y ago

It's easy to marginalize other people's problems when you don't have them. Even in an urban area with transit, most US cities have forced desegregation which means kids are scattered all over and economies built around cars. I could take public transit to work (30-40 minutes vs 10 in a car), but have to travel to the other side of the city to get to my kids school (15m by car, 60 by transit). Oh and even in an urban area, the nearest supermarket is a 20 minute walk. My relatives in Europe walk 5 blocks to school, have decent local shopping options, etc. Using a car in the US isn't that expensive, but offers a dramatic level of flexibility and freedom. I'm not limited to working in my city's central business district or forced to miss most of my kids school events.

CaptSpify 10y ago
I'm very aware that the US is structured that way, but it doesn't really change anything. We built this mess, and we're going to have to build ourselves out again someday. Sure, it sucks that we structured our cities incorrectly, but plugging our ears and hoping the problem goes away isn't going to fix it.

Anasufovic 10y ago

If anything it actually enables the disabled and older crowd to become more mobile in those other countries. A car is a burden, and I think we can all understand how terribly efficient of a solution they are.