4 ms·

If only there had been solutions to heating and cooling, or ride comfort. Sadly, we as a species never got around to inventing heat pumps, springs, or cushioned

If only there had been solutions to heating and cooling, or ride comfort. Sadly, we as a species never got around to inventing heat pumps, springs, or cushioned seating. LOL. Cars were popular post war, so were suburbs. But surely GM had no incentive to make them so. I'm not saying they personally went out and sabotaged the streetcars, but they absolutely put their thumb on every scale they could.

bobthepanda 4y ago
AC came to public transportation pretty late, mostly due to reliability issues; a broken AC in a car is a personal problem, but a broken AC in public transit is the operator's problem. It also didn't really help that the US made a "standard" streetcar that was such a lemon that they were starting to get scrapped only 11 years after entering service: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Standard_Light_Rail_Vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Standard_Light_Rail_Vehicle Most of our modern improvements to modern light rail vehicles came from manufacturing designs either straight from or derivatives of successful European ones. But that wasn't an option in the less globalized mid-century.
- jahewson 4y ago
  > that wasn't an option in the less globalized mid-century. Oh it wasn’t less global, the Republican administration forced government entities to buy (or in this case build) American instead of European in an attempt to fight inflation.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Oh it wasn’t less global, Yes, it was; trade globalization progressively advanced under the GATT regime shortly after Ww2 through the formation of (and further after and by expansion of both the membership and scope of rules of) the WTO to replace the GATT in 1997. > the Republican administration forced government entities to buy (or in this case build) American instead of European in an attempt to fight inflation. The Buy America Act was not a unilateral partisan or executive actions, but was a bipartisan law passed by a Democratic-majority House and Republican-majority Senate under a lame-duck Republican Administration, and it was more motivated by stimulating the domestic economy during the Depression (it was signed on the last day of the Hoover Administration) than fighting inflation, which had been negative and getting more negative for the three years preceding the passage of the bill.
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    They still do. Just now it's European and Japanese companies with American factories.
Tade0 4y ago
> If only there had been solutions to heating and cooling, or ride comfort. Effectiveness of heating and cooling is considerably diminished when a vehicle opens all its doors every few minutes. The transport authority of the city I grew up in tried to solve this problem by setting the temperature to a cool 18°C - you could catch a cold from taking a longer trip via tram in the middle of summer. As for ride comfort: there isn't much you can do against people drinking alcohol, having their phone on speaker or just urinating in the middle.
- srinivasan 4y ago
  > there isn't much you can do against people drinking alcohol, having their phone on speaker or just urinating in the middle Yes there is. You eject them from the vehicle.
- washbrain 4y ago
  > there isn't much you can do against people drinking alcohol, having their phone on speaker or just urinating in the middle. What? Nothing about public transit is different from libraries, restaurants, cabs, or any other public space. You wouldn't say, "well, you can't go book shopping because you know book stores - people just urinating in the middle!"
  - Tade0 4y ago
    Chief difference is that you generally get a much broader spectrum of people in public transport. The places you mentioned aren't necessary for anyone on a daily basis. Transport, on the other hand, is.

bobthepanda 4y ago

AC came to public transportation pretty late, mostly due to reliability issues; a broken AC in a car is a personal problem, but a broken AC in public transit is the operator's problem. It also didn't really help that the US made a "standard" streetcar that was such a lemon that they were starting to get scrapped only 11 years after entering service: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Standard_Light_Rail_Vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Standard_Light_Rail_Vehicle Most of our modern improvements to modern light rail vehicles came from manufacturing designs either straight from or derivatives of successful European ones. But that wasn't an option in the less globalized mid-century.

jahewson 4y ago
> that wasn't an option in the less globalized mid-century. Oh it wasn’t less global, the Republican administration forced government entities to buy (or in this case build) American instead of European in an attempt to fight inflation.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Oh it wasn’t less global, Yes, it was; trade globalization progressively advanced under the GATT regime shortly after Ww2 through the formation of (and further after and by expansion of both the membership and scope of rules of) the WTO to replace the GATT in 1997. > the Republican administration forced government entities to buy (or in this case build) American instead of European in an attempt to fight inflation. The Buy America Act was not a unilateral partisan or executive actions, but was a bipartisan law passed by a Democratic-majority House and Republican-majority Senate under a lame-duck Republican Administration, and it was more motivated by stimulating the domestic economy during the Depression (it was signed on the last day of the Hoover Administration) than fighting inflation, which had been negative and getting more negative for the three years preceding the passage of the bill.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  They still do. Just now it's European and Japanese companies with American factories.

Tade0 4y ago

> If only there had been solutions to heating and cooling, or ride comfort. Effectiveness of heating and cooling is considerably diminished when a vehicle opens all its doors every few minutes. The transport authority of the city I grew up in tried to solve this problem by setting the temperature to a cool 18°C - you could catch a cold from taking a longer trip via tram in the middle of summer. As for ride comfort: there isn't much you can do against people drinking alcohol, having their phone on speaker or just urinating in the middle.

srinivasan 4y ago
> there isn't much you can do against people drinking alcohol, having their phone on speaker or just urinating in the middle Yes there is. You eject them from the vehicle.
washbrain 4y ago
> there isn't much you can do against people drinking alcohol, having their phone on speaker or just urinating in the middle. What? Nothing about public transit is different from libraries, restaurants, cabs, or any other public space. You wouldn't say, "well, you can't go book shopping because you know book stores - people just urinating in the middle!"
- Tade0 4y ago
  Chief difference is that you generally get a much broader spectrum of people in public transport. The places you mentioned aren't necessary for anyone on a daily basis. Transport, on the other hand, is.