4 ms·

> Suburban bus transport is equally shit in Europe and USA [paraphrased] Ridiculous thing to say. Suburbs, as a consequence of their low density, must have bad

by tormeh 3y ago

> Suburban bus transport is equally shit in Europe and USA [paraphrased] Ridiculous thing to say. Suburbs, as a consequence of their low density, must have bad or nonexistent public transport - unless you somehow finance a billion busses driving idly around. Old and big European cities achieve good public transport by having people not live in suburbs.

bluetomcat 3y ago
> Old and big European cities achieve good public transport by having people not live in suburbs. And by not having huge empty spaces between houses, wide roads, 2-garage houses with long driveways. Ultimately, it's a different geographical and historic reality.
rayiner 3y ago
> Old and big European cities achieve good public transport by having people not live in suburbs. Yeah, and that sucks. Even in Europe, areas that have money and space to build have adopted pretty car-dependent layouts. In France, 70% of people outside Paris and Lyon drive to work: https://www.fleeteurope.com/en/smart-mobility/europe/features/car-remains-primary-means-commuting-western-europe https://www.fleeteurope.com/en/smart-mobility/europe/feature...
- tormeh 3y ago
  > 70% of people outside Paris and Lyon drive to work I don't see a problem with this. You use whatever works the best, and for smaller cities and towns that's going to be a car. Public transport only starts to make sense above the 1 million inhabitants mark, and even then it doesn't really get good until 2-3 million.
  - rspoerri 3y ago
    Funny how switzerland with no city above 500‘000 inhabitants has public transport to the furtest edge. Even to villages with only a few hundert people. The whole country only has 9mio peoples.
  - ralfn 3y ago
    It has to do with density, not size. I live in the Netherlands. Most major cities and smaller cities has good public transit and walkable centers. Not even Amsterdam has one 1 million inhabitants. The general consensus about urban design suggest it's all about density, mixed zoning and separated bike paths and traffic calming.
    - tormeh 3y ago
      Of course it's about density, but car-centric cities aren't really forced to become dense until they cross that 2-3 million threshold somewhere. But that's not what I wanted to say. The issue with the Netherlands is that the Randstad is really one big city, and that makes comparisons with other places misleading.
throw0101b 3y ago
> Suburbs, as a consequence of their low density, must have bad or nonexistent public transport […] Please note the silent car-centric in front of "suburb" here. Suburbs used to be different pre-WW2: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 More generally it is sprawl—when residential is not with-in walking distance of commercial—that is the problem. You want to have cars be optional and not mandatory. Also, "density" ≠ Manhattan/Hong Kong: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCmz-fgp24E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCmz-fgp24E

by tormeh 3y ago

bluetomcat 3y ago

> Old and big European cities achieve good public transport by having people not live in suburbs. And by not having huge empty spaces between houses, wide roads, 2-garage houses with long driveways. Ultimately, it's a different geographical and historic reality.

rayiner 3y ago

> Old and big European cities achieve good public transport by having people not live in suburbs. Yeah, and that sucks. Even in Europe, areas that have money and space to build have adopted pretty car-dependent layouts. In France, 70% of people outside Paris and Lyon drive to work: https://www.fleeteurope.com/en/smart-mobility/europe/features/car-remains-primary-means-commuting-western-europe https://www.fleeteurope.com/en/smart-mobility/europe/feature...

tormeh 3y ago
> 70% of people outside Paris and Lyon drive to work I don't see a problem with this. You use whatever works the best, and for smaller cities and towns that's going to be a car. Public transport only starts to make sense above the 1 million inhabitants mark, and even then it doesn't really get good until 2-3 million.
- rspoerri 3y ago
  Funny how switzerland with no city above 500‘000 inhabitants has public transport to the furtest edge. Even to villages with only a few hundert people. The whole country only has 9mio peoples.
- ralfn 3y ago
  It has to do with density, not size. I live in the Netherlands. Most major cities and smaller cities has good public transit and walkable centers. Not even Amsterdam has one 1 million inhabitants. The general consensus about urban design suggest it's all about density, mixed zoning and separated bike paths and traffic calming.
  - tormeh 3y ago
    Of course it's about density, but car-centric cities aren't really forced to become dense until they cross that 2-3 million threshold somewhere. But that's not what I wanted to say. The issue with the Netherlands is that the Randstad is really one big city, and that makes comparisons with other places misleading.

throw0101b 3y ago

> Suburbs, as a consequence of their low density, must have bad or nonexistent public transport […] Please note the silent car-centric in front of "suburb" here. Suburbs used to be different pre-WW2: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 More generally it is sprawl—when residential is not with-in walking distance of commercial—that is the problem. You want to have cars be optional and not mandatory. Also, "density" ≠ Manhattan/Hong Kong: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCmz-fgp24E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCmz-fgp24E