4 ms·

> It's not just hermits that live far from urban centers in the US. The US is famous for sprawling contiguous suburbs. Sprawling suburbs can be, and often are,

> It's not just hermits that live far from urban centers in the US. The US is famous for sprawling contiguous suburbs. Sprawling suburbs can be, and often are, served by public transportation. The critical factor affecting the US approach to public transportation, which is purely ideological, is the neoliberal belief that public transportation services are only worth considering if they are provided by private corporations and only if they are profitable right from the start. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world these services are either public or public-private partnerships, and subsidized with clear externalities in mind. For example, if I recall correctly the Tokyo subway network is operated by a few private companies which profit not by the direct exploration of their railway lines but from real estate investments coordinated by the expansion of their railway lines. Consequently, we have european capitals which coordinate urban planning (i.e., where suburban sprawls can and cannot be built) with coverage of their public transportation services, including investing in extensions of subway lines to deserted places where medium- and high-density housing projects have been approved. > Subway systems work well when people from the edges of a city to an urban center. Subway is not a good example in discussions over public transportation in urban sprawls. The main purpose of subway networks is to enhance mobility within a urban area. Consequently, typically you see subway networks with subway stops at 500-800 meters and travel speeds of around 50km/h, which just happens to be slightly better than traveling by car. Park-and-ride stops are only another aspect of the main goal of eliminating car traffic within the city. The standard strategy to serve urban sprawls with public transportation is to cover them with bus routes which feed into a high-throughput mass transport systems such as commuter rail or bus rapid transit, also serving as park-and-ride stations. > suburban office parks -- this makes it difficult to effectively meet people's needs with an affordable hub-and-spoke model, because large numbers of people commute not to the urban center, but between adjacent suburbs This is not true. I happen to have worked for a company located in a suburban office park which wasn't served very well by public transportation, but the office park itself organized bus services from one of the city's multimodal hub to the office park. Also, this is so common and mundane that I know for a fact that even some Ikea stores in europe located in industrial districts offer free bus services connecting public transport hubs to them.

the_only_law 4y ago
> Sprawling suburbs can be, and often are, served by public transportation. Very ineffective though, very limited hours, akward stops where you have to walking stretches with the sun beating down on you and the annoying unsettling noise of cars rushing past you on a main road, worst case the particular place they’re at doesn’t have sidewalk for a good stretch and they have to hug the grass line to stay out of the road and out of peoples yards. I’ve lived in several small cities/large towns with primarily suburban areas, as well as highly sprawled MSAs and this describes any suburban bus system I’ve seen.
kube-system 4y ago
I'm not really saying it can't be done. I'm just saying that, comparatively, this puts the US at a huge disadvantage. It requires a larger investment per rider, and when you're done, you still have a metro area that was specifically designed to be convenient for drivers that your transport system must compete with. I worked a job for several years where I could have taken either bus or light rail to work. I still chose to drive because I already had a car, my car had more privacy, I didn’t have to go outside in the weather, and I had more autonomy. For public transit to compete, it has to be someone’s best option. Being usable is not good enough to cause people to switch. Yes, you could build it all anyway, and that’s probably the only long-term solution. But it’s not politically popular. If not for budgetary reasons, then because people don’t want construction interfering with their drive. In the end, I feel like we’re better off just concentrating on public transit in the neighborhoods that want to use it.

the_only_law 4y ago

> Sprawling suburbs can be, and often are, served by public transportation. Very ineffective though, very limited hours, akward stops where you have to walking stretches with the sun beating down on you and the annoying unsettling noise of cars rushing past you on a main road, worst case the particular place they’re at doesn’t have sidewalk for a good stretch and they have to hug the grass line to stay out of the road and out of peoples yards. I’ve lived in several small cities/large towns with primarily suburban areas, as well as highly sprawled MSAs and this describes any suburban bus system I’ve seen.

kube-system 4y ago

I'm not really saying it can't be done. I'm just saying that, comparatively, this puts the US at a huge disadvantage. It requires a larger investment per rider, and when you're done, you still have a metro area that was specifically designed to be convenient for drivers that your transport system must compete with. I worked a job for several years where I could have taken either bus or light rail to work. I still chose to drive because I already had a car, my car had more privacy, I didn’t have to go outside in the weather, and I had more autonomy. For public transit to compete, it has to be someone’s best option. Being usable is not good enough to cause people to switch. Yes, you could build it all anyway, and that’s probably the only long-term solution. But it’s not politically popular. If not for budgetary reasons, then because people don’t want construction interfering with their drive. In the end, I feel like we’re better off just concentrating on public transit in the neighborhoods that want to use it.