5 ms·

I'm not surprised to hear that bay area politicians would be happy to rid themselves of something "unpleasant" like a military base. Also, I wish we would give

I'm not surprised to hear that bay area politicians would be happy to rid themselves of something "unpleasant" like a military base. Also, I wish we would give up all the grandiose and expensive plans for trains as a means of public transportation in the US. This pandemic has just added another reason why they are not viable here.

IAmEveryone 6y ago
Berlin, New York, London, and Tokyo, and dozens more show that it’s perfectly possible to get the virus under control even in places where public transport is popular.
- corty 6y ago
  By getting ridership down to 5-20% of normal levels. Which is a level where public transport is unsustainable, both from a monetary and from an environmental standpoint.
  - Cerium 6y ago
    To get a handle on what 5 to 20% means in the context of Japan, I did some searching around. It turns out that the Tokyo Metro and BART have similar amount of track (121.2 miles vs 131 miles), though the Tokyo Metro has many more stations. If the Tokyo Metro was operating at 5 to 20% or normal, it is still exceeding BART's daily ridership.
    - skizziepop 6y ago
      "Tokyo Metro" is one of several metro networks in greater Tokyo. 121 miles only represents the sum total of a single subway system
  - pas 6y ago
    What's the argument here? The decreased mobility affects roads and airports too, should we tear them up ASAP?
    - corty 6y ago
      The deeper, obvious (I thought) argument is that corona is a special, temporary circumstance, not a point for or against anything long-term.
so33 6y ago
Bus rapid transportation could be a better fit, given existing freeway infrastructure. But good luck taking away two lanes of highway anywhere in the United States (true right-of-way separation is necessary for any effective _rapid _transit). A lot of other BRT ends up most of the time being express buses with fancy stations/shelters that still cost a bunch of money. Honestly I think that the way we plan cities in North America is broken to the point where any transportation strategy is doomed to result in sprawl and congestion. To use a train analogy, I’d say that city planning is the true third-rail of American politics.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  The problem is that moonshots do not work for solving bread and butter problems, and generally speaking you need to do lots of legwork before a metro area is ready for such things. The poster child I like to use for this is San Jose VTA, which has not a lot to show for its large light rail network despite being the home to Silicon Valley, but similar stories can be told in most major US metropolitan areas. The odd one out in terms of public transportation in the last two decades is Seattle. Seattle is now investing tens of billions of dollars to extend the tentacles of its light rail throughout the region, eventually to 116 miles. But before this has even been completed, the metro area is one of the only non-NYC metros to have recorded consistently positive transit ridership growth in total, and probably the only one that had an actual percentage growth in mode share too, all with a rapidly expanding population. This has mostly occurred via the normal, no-frills bus. The vast majority of bus routes do not have lanes or traffic priority or separation, but the very important thing is that frequency was massively increased; 70% of Seattle households are a ten minute walk from very frequent transit in 2019, up from 25%. [1] It turns out that if bus services are actually convenient, and driving is a pain in the ass, people will switch to transit to save themselves the frustration of having to actually pay attention to maddening road congestion. In addition land use in Seattle has long been focused on smart growth, with growth being funneled into dense regional nodes and highway buses being set up to link them on an hourly or half-hourly basis. [1] https://seattletransitblog.com/2019/10/30/seattle-tbd-annual-report/ https://seattletransitblog.com/2019/10/30/seattle-tbd-annual...

IAmEveryone 6y ago

Berlin, New York, London, and Tokyo, and dozens more show that it’s perfectly possible to get the virus under control even in places where public transport is popular.

corty 6y ago
By getting ridership down to 5-20% of normal levels. Which is a level where public transport is unsustainable, both from a monetary and from an environmental standpoint.
- Cerium 6y ago
  To get a handle on what 5 to 20% means in the context of Japan, I did some searching around. It turns out that the Tokyo Metro and BART have similar amount of track (121.2 miles vs 131 miles), though the Tokyo Metro has many more stations. If the Tokyo Metro was operating at 5 to 20% or normal, it is still exceeding BART's daily ridership.
  - skizziepop 6y ago
    "Tokyo Metro" is one of several metro networks in greater Tokyo. 121 miles only represents the sum total of a single subway system
- pas 6y ago
  What's the argument here? The decreased mobility affects roads and airports too, should we tear them up ASAP?
  - corty 6y ago
    The deeper, obvious (I thought) argument is that corona is a special, temporary circumstance, not a point for or against anything long-term.

so33 6y ago

Bus rapid transportation could be a better fit, given existing freeway infrastructure. But good luck taking away two lanes of highway anywhere in the United States (true right-of-way separation is necessary for any effective _rapid _transit). A lot of other BRT ends up most of the time being express buses with fancy stations/shelters that still cost a bunch of money. Honestly I think that the way we plan cities in North America is broken to the point where any transportation strategy is doomed to result in sprawl and congestion. To use a train analogy, I’d say that city planning is the true third-rail of American politics.

bobthepanda 6y ago
The problem is that moonshots do not work for solving bread and butter problems, and generally speaking you need to do lots of legwork before a metro area is ready for such things. The poster child I like to use for this is San Jose VTA, which has not a lot to show for its large light rail network despite being the home to Silicon Valley, but similar stories can be told in most major US metropolitan areas. The odd one out in terms of public transportation in the last two decades is Seattle. Seattle is now investing tens of billions of dollars to extend the tentacles of its light rail throughout the region, eventually to 116 miles. But before this has even been completed, the metro area is one of the only non-NYC metros to have recorded consistently positive transit ridership growth in total, and probably the only one that had an actual percentage growth in mode share too, all with a rapidly expanding population. This has mostly occurred via the normal, no-frills bus. The vast majority of bus routes do not have lanes or traffic priority or separation, but the very important thing is that frequency was massively increased; 70% of Seattle households are a ten minute walk from very frequent transit in 2019, up from 25%. [1] It turns out that if bus services are actually convenient, and driving is a pain in the ass, people will switch to transit to save themselves the frustration of having to actually pay attention to maddening road congestion. In addition land use in Seattle has long been focused on smart growth, with growth being funneled into dense regional nodes and highway buses being set up to link them on an hourly or half-hourly basis. [1] https://seattletransitblog.com/2019/10/30/seattle-tbd-annual-report/ https://seattletransitblog.com/2019/10/30/seattle-tbd-annual...