3 ms·
> I’ve lived all over this country, the only places I can think of where most of an urban area can take any sort of train from most of the city to the airport a
by jcranmer 3y ago
> I’ve lived all over this country, the only places I can think of where most of an urban area can take any sort of train from most of the city to the airport are NY, Boston, Chicago.
DC has the most convenient airport for transit access; if you park, you literally have to work through the train station to get to the airport. Atlanta has a mediocre train system, but it has excellent access to the airport. Philadelphia has a mediocre connection to the airport, but stronger system overall. SFO also is reasonably accessible by BART.
Indeed, the only US city I can think of with a large urban rail system with an abysmal airport connection is LA, although LA's rail transit network in general is just a smorgasbord of sadness.
> The US has a population density of 1/12th the Netherlands.
Yeah, that's because there's large expanses of land in Alaska or the West where literally nobody lives. But most people live in urban environments of some kind; the fifty largest MSAs account for over half the population (too lazy to do the math to get the exact number), and even the fiftieth largest is of a size that would, in Europe, have a functional transit system of some kind.
- mattmaroon 3y agoPerhaps fair counting DC. SFO does have it, I’m not sure even half of the people going to/from the airport have access to BART/Caltrain but I am ok counting it too. NYC, Boston. Anything else? Go down the list of the biggest cities (all of which I’ve spent time in and commuted to an airport except DC) and ask if the average person can walk to a station and get to it and it’s like 90% NFW. https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_ci... A lot more Americans live in a city that looks like Houston than NY. (Though I have a place in Phoenix and the tram system is getting better by the year and it is quite possible they’ll change categories.)
- jcranmer 3y agoCity population isn't the right metric to use; you want to use metro population, i.e., MSAs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area). Most of the cities in the US don't have a functional mass transit system, but there is no population density reason they couldn't.
- mattmaroon 3y agoYes I was using “city” to mean metro area, as it is colloquially.
- jcranmer 3y agoYou linked to a list sorting cities by population proper, rather than sorting them by metro area population.
- mattmaroon 3y agoThe picture doesn’t change markedly. Not everyone in a metro area has access to a city subway system. Most Americans can’t walk from their door to train station to the airport. However you want to count it, it’s unlikely to be even a double digit percent.
- jcranmer 3y ago> Most Americans can’t walk from their door to train station to the airport. I'm not denying that. What I'm trying to point out is that most Americans live someplace where a viable mass transit system can be designed to facilitate that. In other words, in the places where Americans actually live, the US isn't all that much less dense than the corresponding places in Europe. If Nice can have a viable tram system, there's no reason that, say, Nashville couldn't.
- mattmaroon 3y agoYeah, that’s just not accurate, if you look at those metro areas, you find significantly less population density outside of the city. The success of public transit is entirely a function of population density, because the amount of riders is directly proportional to population, and the cost is proportional to the distance you were moving them. People always say that, and somebody even said that in this thread, and I pointed out that Amsterdam would be the fifth most dense city in America if it were here. Three of the more dense cities are the ones that actually have usable public transit. Of course, everywhere could have public transit if you are not counting return on investment. If you had infinite money, and no necessity to make it back, you could put public transit in Columbus, Ohio. But that is not how our world works, and roads and cars simply make economic sense when the population density drops below, a certain threshold, which is where most of America lives. And by most I mean like 90 some percent. I mean look at the existing public transit in very dense cities, like New York, Boston, etc. They are all losing money and struggling to pay for it while cutting services. It’s just really difficult in America because we are spread out and everything is expensive, in Europe, where the cities have substantially higher population density and lower expenses it makes sense.
- nemomarx 3y agoPhilly has a very good airport line - I figure most of the Eastern Coast will? Less sprawl here.
- tptacek 3y agoAm I missing something, or did you forget New York City, perhaps the best example in the world of a city with great internal rail and godawful airport connectivity?
- jcranmer 3y agoNYC has a janky train-to-train-to-train connection to the airports (except LaGuardia), but it at least has train connectivity. LAX is currently in the process of upgrading its connection to NYC-levels of jank.
- loeg 3y ago> Indeed, the only US city I can think of with a large urban rail system with an abysmal airport connection is LA Seattle has pretty awful train <-> airport access. You walk from the train through the parking garage to the terminal.