7 ms·

Explain how trains solve the last mile problem? The thing that roads already solve?

• salmonfamine 4y ago
  Walk. EDIT: or just drive, as you do now.
  • rnk 4y ago
    so we build giant parking lots at our metro train stations? We need different transportation. The us is terrible at building needed train infra. But just like in Europe, you need different solutions at diff levels.
    • SECProto 4y ago
      > so we build giant parking lots at our metro train stations No. The comment you're replying to specifically said "walk", while the comment at top of thread specifically mentioned that building trains "requires a move towards high-density housing". High density housing, trains, and walking is a solved transportation solution for cities with much higher/denser populations than we have in North America. Getting there from here is not such a solved solution, but the general process many places are working on goes: build train (with park and ride at outskirts for current ridership) --> build high density mixed use near stations (which now doesn't need parking for each unit) --> rinse and repeat until city is more sustainable without blowing $$$,$$$,$$$ on road capital projects every year to deal with ever-increasing traffic
      • eric-hu 4y ago
        What cities or countries did this successfully? Were they as dependent on cars as American cities tend to be?
        • scruple 4y ago
          What does past success have to do with anything? We need to solve this problem. For crying out loud, it doesn't have to look like something else that someone else did. We can be innovative! It isn't our first time!
        • SECProto 4y ago
          > What cities or countries did this successfully? As I said, "the general process many places are working on". Look up cities in Can/US/Aus currently building light rail systems and you'll see who is working on it (with greater or lesser degrees of commitment, which will have corresponding outcomes in a decade or so). North American cities successfully built themselves to be car dependent when no one else ever had, now they just need to work in reverse. The problems aren't functionally different whether it's cars jammed in stop-and-go on an interstate, trains overcrowded on a regional rail, horse and carriages clogging a bridge in medieval england (eg like discussed in the historical fiction World Without End), or individual people jamming the gates at Mecca or a large concert entrance/exit. The root problem is vehicle lanes can only accomodate a few thousands of vehicles per hour at most (1800 at 2s following distance), while trains can easily accomodate tens of thousands of passengers in the same right of way. Even a sidewalk can (but generally don't) accomodate more users than single occupant vehicles on a highway lane.
    • squarefoot 4y ago
      No need for giant parking lots at trains stations, just rethink the whole thing so that for traveling bigger distances the driver climbs on the train without leaving the car, not unlike what we already do with ferries.
• tmcw 4y ago
  Sure, so I’m from a tiny town in New Jersey. I was used to having to drive 30 minutes to the train station as a kid, and there are no buses there, so car ownership is mandatory. Took a long time to realize that next to one of the buildings in town was a train station. And twenty years ago there were buses, too. Anyway, solve the last mile by funding transit and rebuilding trains. We had them before, we should have them again.
  • mertd 4y ago
    Zoning needs to change as well. Exclusionary zoning has resulted in very weird town layouts in the US. Make small errands (coffee, dining, convenience items) reachable by walking and the rest reachable by transit.
  • mmazing 4y ago
    Why can't efficient self driving cars also be public transportation? What if we had a publicly funded self driving car network? No more drunk drivers mowing down children, no more gigantic parking lots everywhere (like uber, you wouldn't likely get in the same car that took you there). It would also almost certainly reduce traffic fatalities to near zero. In my opinion the main benefit is the most overlooked - NOT spending X hours of your own mental bandwidth and focus worrying about crashing a deadly vehicle. You could spend that time reading/learning, relaxing watching a movie, or any number of activities other than driving your metal coffin around. Obviously there are a lot of hurdles to get there, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.
    • tmcw 4y ago
      Sure, so the most direct answer is that a belief in self-driving cars that are safe and reliable and accessible isn’t grounded in any current evidence. We’ve spent a few billion on development and spun up dozens of companies and so far accomplished - relative to expectations - almost nothing. No self-driving trip across the country, like Musk thought we’d do years ago. The self-driving fleet in SF keeps breaking down. Maybe in the future it’ll suddenly go from bad technology to good, but in my mind it’s like betting on generalized AI or small-scale cold-fusion nuclear: it could happen, but not a great idea to bet the farm on it. Second. Car form factor is inefficient. Are we doing 1-seaters? 4 seaters with 3 empty seats usually? So every car has four wheels, its own computer, its own engine, and so on? In intersections, even with self-driving technology that does not exist currently and is showing no signs of existing any time soon - even with that technology, you’re still threading individual cars through each intersection? It’s not great. Third. I’ve seen no evidence that the people talking about self-driving cars as a shared or car share-like resource actually believe in it. Remember Musk talking about how public transit is gross because other people breathe on you? Or the tendency of Americans to treat their cars as sacred property, so much that they’ll get in a fistfight with anyone who touches them? Transforming self-driving cars to some sort of public-ish transit requires just as much worldview shifting as actually using public transit, but none of the benefits. So: if self-driving cars suddenly exist, sure. But right now, there is no baby. There is only bathwater.
• simne 4y ago
  It is possible, and it could be extremely effective, but not straight way. 1. exists concept of linear city, and exists few implementations, most known: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volgograd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volgograd 2. In linear city, possible to create just one line of train, and station every mile, and all other transport muscular, or something like pneumatic-mail and open conveyors. In some cases, could be effective to make rectangular network of train lines. Sure, for old cities with lot of legacy, only train transport in many cases impractical, because usually their logistic network is not linear and even not rectangular. And train largest problem, is large radius of turn. Currently in most large cities exists underground train or light city train, in different countries named tube, metro, underground.
  • nradov 4y ago
    The concept of a linear city only works if you completely ignore real world geography like hills, rivers, etc.
    • simne 4y ago
      Exists geographies, very well suited for a linear city concept. Not too many.
• simne 4y ago
  BTW in western Europe railway network is very dense, and in some countries train is more popular than taxi. But I think this is mostly because there high density of population, so they long time ago faced problem of transport large number of people, before appear large city buses.
• anonuser123456 4y ago
  You get off the train onto your segway.