3 ms·

Build trams, subways and local rail then. There shouldn't be places where the rail doesn't go. I live in a small village of 800 people and we have a rail conne

Build trams, subways and local rail then. There shouldn't be places where the rail doesn't go. I live in a small village of 800 people and we have a rail connection. Remoteness is not an excuse.

esyir 5y ago
The catch is that by rail, a trip can take 40min to an hour. By car it's less than half of that.
- malermeister 5y ago
  A car in the US reaches around 100km/h in the best case. Rail reaches thrice that. Not sure what kind of math you did there.
  - esyir 5y ago
    The kind that comes from 30 years in a country considered to have "amazing" public transport. Rail is great if you're going long distances, or if traffic is an absolute nightmare. Not so much for the much shorter distances inday to day travel. Worse, if you're walking out to the train station, that's even more time spent that would have been covered by a car.
    - throwaway22032 5y ago
      Right. I live super super metroland central compared to like 99% of the world. The tube station is ten mins away and then on the other side it's ten mins from my friend. If it's close enough I just drive or cycle the whole thing in 15. Roads and paths are everywhere by definition, they're like, what "outside" is.
  - throwaway22032 5y ago
    Real world math. I live in London, we have a billion trains and shit, my mate 4 miles away is still 45 mins by train/bus because public transport is worse by definition for rarely travelled routes. I can cycle in half the time or drive in 1/4.
    - malermeister 5y ago
      I'm sorry, but London's public transit is horrible. I've moved there from Vienna and it was a huge downgrade. Don't think it's fair to use that city as benchmark.
forgetfulness 5y ago
That goes in both senses though, and that becomes a tougher sell. Both the "there shouldn't be places" and the "where the rail doesn't go" Sprawl just doesn't pay for itself[1]. The more of it there is, more a government will bleed money building and maintaining infrastructure for few people per square kilometer. It doesn't make economic sense. Now, of course "does it make money" is not a criterion to be applied to everything in life and society, but sprawl just makes it harder to fund everything, and you can end up subsidizing low-density well-to-do neighborhoods with the tax collected from lower-income people if they live in more densely zoned areas. It's just a road to not having money to maintain the infrastructure, or improve education, or provide daycares, or anything else that would improve the life of the population. 1. Youtube "citations" are lame but this is a presentation of a consultancy ran for a few municipalities on the matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI

Build trams, subways and local rail then. There shouldn't be places where the rail doesn't go. I live in a small village of 800 people and we have a rail connection. Remoteness is not an excuse.

esyir 5y ago

The catch is that by rail, a trip can take 40min to an hour. By car it's less than half of that.

malermeister 5y ago
A car in the US reaches around 100km/h in the best case. Rail reaches thrice that. Not sure what kind of math you did there.
- esyir 5y ago
  The kind that comes from 30 years in a country considered to have "amazing" public transport. Rail is great if you're going long distances, or if traffic is an absolute nightmare. Not so much for the much shorter distances inday to day travel. Worse, if you're walking out to the train station, that's even more time spent that would have been covered by a car.
  - throwaway22032 5y ago
    Right. I live super super metroland central compared to like 99% of the world. The tube station is ten mins away and then on the other side it's ten mins from my friend. If it's close enough I just drive or cycle the whole thing in 15. Roads and paths are everywhere by definition, they're like, what "outside" is.
- throwaway22032 5y ago
  Real world math. I live in London, we have a billion trains and shit, my mate 4 miles away is still 45 mins by train/bus because public transport is worse by definition for rarely travelled routes. I can cycle in half the time or drive in 1/4.
  - malermeister 5y ago
    I'm sorry, but London's public transit is horrible. I've moved there from Vienna and it was a huge downgrade. Don't think it's fair to use that city as benchmark.

forgetfulness 5y ago

That goes in both senses though, and that becomes a tougher sell. Both the "there shouldn't be places" and the "where the rail doesn't go" Sprawl just doesn't pay for itself[1]. The more of it there is, more a government will bleed money building and maintaining infrastructure for few people per square kilometer. It doesn't make economic sense. Now, of course "does it make money" is not a criterion to be applied to everything in life and society, but sprawl just makes it harder to fund everything, and you can end up subsidizing low-density well-to-do neighborhoods with the tax collected from lower-income people if they live in more densely zoned areas. It's just a road to not having money to maintain the infrastructure, or improve education, or provide daycares, or anything else that would improve the life of the population. 1. Youtube "citations" are lame but this is a presentation of a consultancy ran for a few municipalities on the matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI