5 ms·

Public transit does not work in a place like Montana or Wyoming. Sorry. Too large, too sparsely populated. Same reason it won't work for most of Texas either.

Public transit does not work in a place like Montana or Wyoming. Sorry. Too large, too sparsely populated. Same reason it won't work for most of Texas either. It's fine in Dallas or Austin, parts of Fort Worth... it doesn't scale to Lubbock or New Braunfels. A lot of people have no interest in living in your concrete jungle... myself included.

Muromec 3y ago
I though you are talking about a village with 200 residents, so I had to look it up and oops, it's quarter million city? You gotta be kidding.
- ponector 3y ago
  Yes, that is funny to read. European cities with population less than 100k could have public transport and bicycle infrastructure while much bigger American city could not.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    There are American cities of less than 100k people that have public transport and bicycle infrastructure. However nobody knows about them.
JAlexoid 3y ago
No one is asking you to live there or not have a vehicle. What makes it a problem is the financially unsustainable suburban sprawl(single family zoning laws or covenants with the same effect) and people's expectations of car owners being catered to primarily. I mean... why else would high density cities like Atlanta and DFW have massive X+Y lane interstates cut through the city? In so many places in the US it's straight up impossible to walk 1000ft.
- moojd 3y ago
  > No one is asking you to live there or not have a vehicle. Several of the most upvoted comments in this very thread are advocating banning vehicles.
estebank 3y ago
> urban areas, defined as densely developed residential, commercial, and other nonresidential areas, now account for 80.0% of the U.S. population > (as of 2018) 31% of the U.S. population lives in urban core counties Improving public transportation in cities, makes those cities better for those who live and/or work in them. In downtown SF I counted the number of people in cars backed up in a single city block. The traffic looked miserable. It was ~30 people, less than a single bus' ridership that passed by. The only way reducing the supremacy of cars in cities affects people who don't live in "concrete jungles" is that they either have to pay for the externalities of their chosen transportation mode when they visit cities, or "park and ride" from the periphery into the the city proper. No one wants someone in a Montana ranch to take the bus. That's either a misunderstanding or a purposeful straw man.
- FredPret 3y ago
  Yes but the bus in SF isn't a place where the people in those cars would like to be. For anyone who has ever been on a bus, and who has the money to never get on a bus again, buses are a non-starter.
  - estebank 3y ago
    > For anyone who has ever been on a bus, and who has the money to never get on a bus again, buses are a non-starter. Feel free to elaborate, because that's not a universal position.
    - FredPret 3y ago
      You ever been on a bus with a raving lunatic? Wiled away the hours as the bus chugs along circuitously to a point that is not quite at your destination? Tried to carry heavy shopping on a bus? Walked to a bus stop through bad weather? Taken one mode of transport that was delayed, making you miss the next leg? Waited forever for a bus that never comes? Public transport sucks balls. In the world's densest, biggest cities, you can make it kind-of-tolerable by throwing a ton of tax money at it, but it will never hold a candle to the most basic of cars / bikes / mopeds.
bluGill 3y ago
Public transit would work in a lot more places than you give it credit for. Sure Wyoming isn't dense enough, but that is because nobody lives there. If your town has 10,000 or more people public transit could work and would be cheaper than cars. However it requires a large investment to make it work. (the town of 10,000 can't work alone - it needs all the other towns in an hour drive to also have transit and a network of transit between them)
KennyBlanken 3y ago
> Public transit does not work in a place like Montana or Wyoming. Sorry. Too large, too sparsely populated. And individual car ownership only works in those places because of the massive federal welfare they receive in the form of multi-billion-dollar federal highway grants. The federal government spends over $1800 per person per year on roadways in Montana.
- lotsoweiners 3y ago
  To be fair $1200 of that was to plan the potlucks and the Christmas party.
- cbozeman 3y ago
  And you don't eat without them. A lot of so-called "smart people" on this website seem to forget where all their food is grown. It isn't in Times Square.
ahoy 3y ago
It doesn't matter if everyone in lubbock drives cars, thats obviously not what this thread of discussion is about and you know it. It matters if everyone in Austin/Dallas/Houston is forced to drive cars. Quit being dense on purpose.
smileysteve 3y ago
Unless you consider that most areas (urban and rural) in both Texas and Montana were founded before the car existed; that the ebike has higher speed, higher carrying capacity, and lower costs of ownership. If you add that in with legacy residents complaining of population booms and losing "the old ways", or nostalgia for self reliance, then Montana fits in perfectly. (Ps I rode in the ~1 uber in Missoula in 2018, and the hotel I stayed in Bozeman in 2022 had free bikes - and many bike lanes, and a nice bike trail)

Muromec 3y ago

I though you are talking about a village with 200 residents, so I had to look it up and oops, it's quarter million city? You gotta be kidding.

ponector 3y ago
Yes, that is funny to read. European cities with population less than 100k could have public transport and bicycle infrastructure while much bigger American city could not.
- bluGill 3y ago
  There are American cities of less than 100k people that have public transport and bicycle infrastructure. However nobody knows about them.

JAlexoid 3y ago

No one is asking you to live there or not have a vehicle. What makes it a problem is the financially unsustainable suburban sprawl(single family zoning laws or covenants with the same effect) and people's expectations of car owners being catered to primarily. I mean... why else would high density cities like Atlanta and DFW have massive X+Y lane interstates cut through the city? In so many places in the US it's straight up impossible to walk 1000ft.

moojd 3y ago
> No one is asking you to live there or not have a vehicle. Several of the most upvoted comments in this very thread are advocating banning vehicles.

estebank 3y ago

> urban areas, defined as densely developed residential, commercial, and other nonresidential areas, now account for 80.0% of the U.S. population > (as of 2018) 31% of the U.S. population lives in urban core counties Improving public transportation in cities, makes those cities better for those who live and/or work in them. In downtown SF I counted the number of people in cars backed up in a single city block. The traffic looked miserable. It was ~30 people, less than a single bus' ridership that passed by. The only way reducing the supremacy of cars in cities affects people who don't live in "concrete jungles" is that they either have to pay for the externalities of their chosen transportation mode when they visit cities, or "park and ride" from the periphery into the the city proper. No one wants someone in a Montana ranch to take the bus. That's either a misunderstanding or a purposeful straw man.

FredPret 3y ago
Yes but the bus in SF isn't a place where the people in those cars would like to be. For anyone who has ever been on a bus, and who has the money to never get on a bus again, buses are a non-starter.
- estebank 3y ago
  > For anyone who has ever been on a bus, and who has the money to never get on a bus again, buses are a non-starter. Feel free to elaborate, because that's not a universal position.
  - FredPret 3y ago
    You ever been on a bus with a raving lunatic? Wiled away the hours as the bus chugs along circuitously to a point that is not quite at your destination? Tried to carry heavy shopping on a bus? Walked to a bus stop through bad weather? Taken one mode of transport that was delayed, making you miss the next leg? Waited forever for a bus that never comes? Public transport sucks balls. In the world's densest, biggest cities, you can make it kind-of-tolerable by throwing a ton of tax money at it, but it will never hold a candle to the most basic of cars / bikes / mopeds.

bluGill 3y ago

Public transit would work in a lot more places than you give it credit for. Sure Wyoming isn't dense enough, but that is because nobody lives there. If your town has 10,000 or more people public transit could work and would be cheaper than cars. However it requires a large investment to make it work. (the town of 10,000 can't work alone - it needs all the other towns in an hour drive to also have transit and a network of transit between them)

KennyBlanken 3y ago

> Public transit does not work in a place like Montana or Wyoming. Sorry. Too large, too sparsely populated. And individual car ownership only works in those places because of the massive federal welfare they receive in the form of multi-billion-dollar federal highway grants. The federal government spends over $1800 per person per year on roadways in Montana.

lotsoweiners 3y ago
To be fair $1200 of that was to plan the potlucks and the Christmas party.
cbozeman 3y ago
And you don't eat without them. A lot of so-called "smart people" on this website seem to forget where all their food is grown. It isn't in Times Square.

ahoy 3y ago

It doesn't matter if everyone in lubbock drives cars, thats obviously not what this thread of discussion is about and you know it. It matters if everyone in Austin/Dallas/Houston is forced to drive cars. Quit being dense on purpose.

smileysteve 3y ago

Unless you consider that most areas (urban and rural) in both Texas and Montana were founded before the car existed; that the ebike has higher speed, higher carrying capacity, and lower costs of ownership. If you add that in with legacy residents complaining of population booms and losing "the old ways", or nostalgia for self reliance, then Montana fits in perfectly. (Ps I rode in the ~1 uber in Missoula in 2018, and the hotel I stayed in Bozeman in 2022 had free bikes - and many bike lanes, and a nice bike trail)