4 ms·

Germany's a big place. Where exactly are you talking about? My 20 minutes U-Bahn commute from Britz to Kreuzberg becomes a 35 minutes one if I ride a car. That

by elros 9y ago

Germany's a big place. Where exactly are you talking about? My 20 minutes U-Bahn commute from Britz to Kreuzberg becomes a 35 minutes one if I ride a car. That's also assuming that finding a parking spot is instantaneous, which it isn't.

chopin 9y ago
I live outside of one of the large cities. Apart from Berlin and maybe Hamburg people tend to live more in the outskirts. That's where the service is bad. I've been in Japan last year for vacation. Public transportation was a breeze compared to Germany (5 min stepover time was no problem; try this in Germany). Anecdotal: We returned from (another) vacation by plane and took the train back home from the airport. We had to stepover once. Not only was the first train late, but also time schedule of the catching train was at odds. When we left the train station there was (in the train!) an announcement that the train will not stop at some of the advertised stops in order to catch up with time. We had to leave the train at an earlier station and where left to sort out the problem ourselves.
- guitarbill 9y ago
  I would have to agree with this. In the last few years, the terrible connection and high train prices have been "solved" by private bus companies, e.g. Flixbus et al. But light rail services outside of city centres usually suck. Japan's rail is on a whole different level though. Also anecdotally, living in a rural area and getting a bus to school in the city was at least a 45 minute bus journey, with busses maybe every hour. Driving was 20 minutes. I had no choice, at that age I couldn't drive. But if I started working, no way I would do that. A nice side effect of this is people leave these rural-isa areas to move to cities, which increases congestion.
- Barrin92 9y ago
  then again this pollution and car traffic issue isn't really that much of a problem outside of the big hubs. It's specifically city air quality that has been suffering.
- lispm 9y ago
  > Apart from Berlin and maybe Hamburg people tend to live more in the outskirts. That's why there are huge integrated public transport regions around the cities. In Hamburg the public transport system reaches a metropolitan area of around 4 million people. Some 750 connections are being offered, which reach far into neighbour states. I've been a long time user of the public transport system here and never has there been a more extensive service and a simpler handling of tickets than what we have now. Any complaints are from a very very high level. > We returned from (another) vacation by plane and took the train back home from the airport. In Hamburg you drop off the plane, head to the public transport S-Bahn at the airport and in 20 minutes you are in the center of the city. The S-Bahn comes every ten minutes until 11pm and then the S-bahn is still providing public transport throughout the whole night.
- kaybe 9y ago
  To be fair, the Shinkansen system is pretty much one-dimensional.
- emj 9y ago
  Simply put your commute time is artificially low, by cities designed to be cheap for driving and owning a car. Your anecdote is fine and all, but those problems are worse if you use a car, and they are cheaper to fix in public transport since it reallyis problem in the organization and prioritization of resourcse rather than sunk costs in infrastructure and space.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    Given the effects of commute time on happiness, if I wanted to make life drastically worse for as many people as possible like some sort of cartoon villain, this brand of public-transit advocacy is exactly how I'd go about it. Artificially depressing commute time is one of the greatest accomplishments of humanity.
    - emj 9y ago
      First, I'm a bit sad that you choose to put words in my mouth to paint my argument as evil. Commute times go down with public transport, for all modes of transport, individually and on a population level. When you try to fit public transport after the fact on infrastructure built for personal cars, there will always be an edge for the cars, making the choice for cars easier. In the end you have to see infrastructure for public transport and bicycles as a tool to increase network capacity. If you only prioritize cars you are making it worse for everyone and yourself because more people will use cars and your commute time is longer until you build more roads (Rinse repeat). This is not rocket science, it has been known for a long time.
      - closeparen 9y ago
        >In the end you have to see infrastructure for public transport and bicycles as a tool to increase network capacity Prioritizing capacity at all costs makes sense in a bursting-at-the-seams megacity like New York, San Francisco, London, etc. There, sure, everyone needs to give up some convenience so that everyone else can fit. There's a point beyond which personal cars as a transportation system doesn't scale, and above that point, we need to put them down. But much of the world doesn't live that way and doesn't want to. It's completely appropriate for smaller and slower-growth communities which have the space (i.e. away from the major cities, like parent's comment) to optimize for quality of life, mobility, detached houses, yards, etc. instead. You don't need to sacrifice everything in the name of capacity when your capacity demands are small. That doesn't mean complete car supremacy like the exurban US, but it also doesn't mean treating hours of people's lives as necessary sacrifices.

by elros 9y ago

chopin 9y ago

I live outside of one of the large cities. Apart from Berlin and maybe Hamburg people tend to live more in the outskirts. That's where the service is bad. I've been in Japan last year for vacation. Public transportation was a breeze compared to Germany (5 min stepover time was no problem; try this in Germany). Anecdotal: We returned from (another) vacation by plane and took the train back home from the airport. We had to stepover once. Not only was the first train late, but also time schedule of the catching train was at odds. When we left the train station there was (in the train!) an announcement that the train will not stop at some of the advertised stops in order to catch up with time. We had to leave the train at an earlier station and where left to sort out the problem ourselves.

guitarbill 9y ago
I would have to agree with this. In the last few years, the terrible connection and high train prices have been "solved" by private bus companies, e.g. Flixbus et al. But light rail services outside of city centres usually suck. Japan's rail is on a whole different level though. Also anecdotally, living in a rural area and getting a bus to school in the city was at least a 45 minute bus journey, with busses maybe every hour. Driving was 20 minutes. I had no choice, at that age I couldn't drive. But if I started working, no way I would do that. A nice side effect of this is people leave these rural-isa areas to move to cities, which increases congestion.
Barrin92 9y ago
then again this pollution and car traffic issue isn't really that much of a problem outside of the big hubs. It's specifically city air quality that has been suffering.
lispm 9y ago
> Apart from Berlin and maybe Hamburg people tend to live more in the outskirts. That's why there are huge integrated public transport regions around the cities. In Hamburg the public transport system reaches a metropolitan area of around 4 million people. Some 750 connections are being offered, which reach far into neighbour states. I've been a long time user of the public transport system here and never has there been a more extensive service and a simpler handling of tickets than what we have now. Any complaints are from a very very high level. > We returned from (another) vacation by plane and took the train back home from the airport. In Hamburg you drop off the plane, head to the public transport S-Bahn at the airport and in 20 minutes you are in the center of the city. The S-Bahn comes every ten minutes until 11pm and then the S-bahn is still providing public transport throughout the whole night.
kaybe 9y ago
To be fair, the Shinkansen system is pretty much one-dimensional.
emj 9y ago
Simply put your commute time is artificially low, by cities designed to be cheap for driving and owning a car. Your anecdote is fine and all, but those problems are worse if you use a car, and they are cheaper to fix in public transport since it reallyis problem in the organization and prioritization of resourcse rather than sunk costs in infrastructure and space.
- closeparen 9y ago
  Given the effects of commute time on happiness, if I wanted to make life drastically worse for as many people as possible like some sort of cartoon villain, this brand of public-transit advocacy is exactly how I'd go about it. Artificially depressing commute time is one of the greatest accomplishments of humanity.
  - emj 9y ago
    First, I'm a bit sad that you choose to put words in my mouth to paint my argument as evil. Commute times go down with public transport, for all modes of transport, individually and on a population level. When you try to fit public transport after the fact on infrastructure built for personal cars, there will always be an edge for the cars, making the choice for cars easier. In the end you have to see infrastructure for public transport and bicycles as a tool to increase network capacity. If you only prioritize cars you are making it worse for everyone and yourself because more people will use cars and your commute time is longer until you build more roads (Rinse repeat). This is not rocket science, it has been known for a long time.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      >In the end you have to see infrastructure for public transport and bicycles as a tool to increase network capacity Prioritizing capacity at all costs makes sense in a bursting-at-the-seams megacity like New York, San Francisco, London, etc. There, sure, everyone needs to give up some convenience so that everyone else can fit. There's a point beyond which personal cars as a transportation system doesn't scale, and above that point, we need to put them down. But much of the world doesn't live that way and doesn't want to. It's completely appropriate for smaller and slower-growth communities which have the space (i.e. away from the major cities, like parent's comment) to optimize for quality of life, mobility, detached houses, yards, etc. instead. You don't need to sacrifice everything in the name of capacity when your capacity demands are small. That doesn't mean complete car supremacy like the exurban US, but it also doesn't mean treating hours of people's lives as necessary sacrifices.