4 ms·

> You don't sit on the train for an hour. In properly designed large cities the metro beats the car by a huge time margin unless they made cars so expensive by

> You don't sit on the train for an hour. In properly designed large cities the metro beats the car by a huge time margin unless they made cars so expensive by policy that nobody has a car and there is no traffic at that city as a result. You should meet some of my old coworkers in large cities in Asia... (you don't SIT on the train at all in rush hour!) In a smaller city it can work great! But in a small NA city, everything is a 5-to-10-minute drive from everything and everyone's also happy about that. That's easy mode. But London, NY, Paris, Beijing, etc - those are the cases that are somewhat broken everywhere, affordability-wise and commute-wise.

novok 3y ago
In China right? You know they are the equivalent of people in LA who live so far away from their job and have 2 hour car commutes right?
- majormajor 3y ago
  Not just in China. China is maybe the most interesting point of comparison with big cities in the US, though, since its cities are both much denser than most AND more sprawling than most. And I don't follow your second question. If the trains OR freeways are full of people who can't afford to live closer to their jobs and have hours-long commutes, isn't that bad? And if it can happen even with extensive public transit, what does that tell us about fundamental assumptions about "city should grow forever, number must always go up!"?
  - oceanplexian 3y ago
    China isn't even remotely comparable to the USA. The urban mega cities are a prop that the CCP puts on display for the world. There's a reason that China's GDP-per-capita lands somewhere between Kazakhstan and Cuba.I would know because I've been there. If you go to a random exurban part of China you're going to find people living in makeshift tin structures, a lack of running water, oxcarts used as serious transportation, and a society that is functionally in the 1930s. The CCP are masters of propaganda though, and flood Youtube and social media with influencers riding around on maglev trains and showing off new airports and architecture. Even on American Social Media, if you look for videos of "The Real China", or "Chinese Poverty" you'll get carefully curated propaganda that does not line up with what I saw first hand.
    - nradov 3y ago
      The SerpentZA YouTube channel is somewhat sensationalist, but it has good firsthand videos showing the real China from someone who lived there for years and is fluent in Mandarin. The reality is a lot darker than what most Westerners see. https://www.youtube.com/@serpentza https://www.youtube.com/@serpentza
- kurthr 3y ago
  China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan... I can break it down by city, but the idea that people don't commute more than an hour in any of these places is pretty laughable. HK is a bit better, because it's so small, but unless you're really wealthy or willing to live with your family in 100m2 even that is challenging. It's not that there aren't places to live (eg in Tokyo), but most people with a family and moderate incomes would rather live outside the city, and that means long commutes, standing during rush hours. I once had a commute longer than 15min in Silicon Valley and decided I'd never do it again.
yitianjian 3y ago
The traffic in a medium sized NA city like Atlanta or Dallas can be a lot better than it is now, and it's definitely not comparable to Shanghai, London or Tokyo.
- majormajor 3y ago
  Do you have any examples in mind of 6-10M cities with stress-free comfortable commuting and affordable housing for all? Off the top of my head, but without a lot of first- or second-hand experience, Rome seems like the commute is probably a lot better than the larger cities, but my perception is that the affordability is pretty poor? Otherwise most of my experience is in larger or much smaller places. Something that I think often makes this discussion tough is that there are a LOT of well-known historical European cities that are at under-2M population that I don't think Americans typically realize are THAT much smaller than, say, an Atlanta. I think the challenges of serving a growing city of 5M+ are much harder than a well-established old city of 2M.
  - kiba 3y ago
    If you want stress free comfortable commuting, you're going to need to build an efficient way to move people. Cars are not really an option when it comes to moving people en mass. It's just too low capacity. Rome's metro system in particular is stymied by buried Roman artifacts and laws for archaeology. That's not really the worst thing, given that NYC subway construction cost are some of the highest in the world. That said, I saw what Atlanta looks like. Aside from down Atlanta, a lot of Atlanta is literally just low rise, even downright suburban sometime. It's a smaller city than people thought, given that only half a million people lives within its border proper, but nonetheless traffic is somehow a nightmare.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Internationally the statistics depend quite a bit on how the data is collected and aggregated, so do it's hard to international comparisons accurately. I will say using US definitions, commute times are very sticky around the 30 minute time period. Longer commutes and people have a large incentive to move closer, short ones and they don't generally bother. So in the US Tulusa Oklahoma population 400,000 (1M metro) has a 20 minute commute and NYC population 8,800,000 (20M metro) is 50% worse at 32 minutes average and ~100 cities between those extremes. https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/planes-trains-and-automobiles__trashed/100-u-s-cities-ranked-by-commute-time/ https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/planes-trains-and-... Edit: This suggests allowing people to move easily move around the metro area would meaningfully lower the need for transportation infrastructure. I suspect NYC has issues with people living in rent controlled apartments having long commutes but being unwilling to leave their cheap apartment, but don't have data backing it up.
wolverine876 3y ago
> In a smaller city it can work great! The best transit is generally thought to be in NYC.
- lo_zamoyski 3y ago
  In the US? Very likely. And given the status of NYC and the US in the world, even that is embarrassing.
- cpursley 3y ago
  NYC city transit is shameful vs. even places like Moscow. Americans have no freaking idea.
- Empact 3y ago
  Fun fact: the vast majority of the NYC system was built between 1904 and 1940 when there were several competing subway companies. Since the subway companies were unified in 1940, essentially no new lines have been built. The NYC Subway is a relic from a foregone age, from a time when we built things and wasn’t mired in bureaucracy and carbrained thinking. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City_Subway https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City...
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    They don't need many new lines, having already built them. They also haven't built many new bridges to Brooklyn in awhile nor midtown tunnels under the Hudson nor large parks in the center of Manhattan.
mlsu 3y ago
We only have 2 cities in the United States that even approach a "medium sized" Asian metro in population. Los Angeles and NYC. Only NYC has a usable public transit system. This is actually an argument for transit systems. Los Angeles, San Francisco/San Jose, Dallas, Phoenix -- could be (and should be) a global metropolises, with a populations and cultural relevance rivaling Tokyo or Hong Kong. They would be, if not for the car. There are people who commute daily from the suburbs of Stockton to the SF bay area.
- nradov 3y ago
  Most people who currently live in San Francisco/San Jose don't particularly want to turn it into a global metropolis and don't give a damn about abstract concepts like "cultural relevance". Cultural elitists should have some humility and not presume that they know best. Another option would be to set policies that encourage greater economic development and job growth in Stockton so that residents aren't forced to commute long distances. There's nothing special about the SF Bay Area: it's just another place.
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    The Los Angeles example pretty much proves that spinning out employment into multiple areas does not mean people will just move to the closest area to their job; it just adds another destination to the list of "places people drive an hour to." It is not really that people living in Stockton already are commuting into the Bay, but Bay Area workers are being displaced into Stockton. The Bay Area has added more jobs than housing for a while now.
    - mjevans 3y ago
      LA _could_ be much more like Tokyo if USA cared to make mass transit work. # Service accurate enough to set a clock by. # Service mesh that provides walk-able freedom. # Safety and cleanliness (both a culture and enforcement issue) Yes, there would need to be a slight increase in density as well as much more transit service; but that metro area could scale up were there enough water.
avar 3y ago
> you don't SIT on the train > at all in rush hour! The horror!
- theendisney 3y ago
  Imagine the travelers all sitting in large cars and you have a good picture of how much space that consumes.
fuzztester 3y ago
>You should meet some of my old coworkers in large cities in Asia... (you don't SIT on the train at all in rush hour!) Tokyo (I heard) Mumbai

novok 3y ago

In China right? You know they are the equivalent of people in LA who live so far away from their job and have 2 hour car commutes right?

majormajor 3y ago
Not just in China. China is maybe the most interesting point of comparison with big cities in the US, though, since its cities are both much denser than most AND more sprawling than most. And I don't follow your second question. If the trains OR freeways are full of people who can't afford to live closer to their jobs and have hours-long commutes, isn't that bad? And if it can happen even with extensive public transit, what does that tell us about fundamental assumptions about "city should grow forever, number must always go up!"?
- oceanplexian 3y ago
  China isn't even remotely comparable to the USA. The urban mega cities are a prop that the CCP puts on display for the world. There's a reason that China's GDP-per-capita lands somewhere between Kazakhstan and Cuba.I would know because I've been there. If you go to a random exurban part of China you're going to find people living in makeshift tin structures, a lack of running water, oxcarts used as serious transportation, and a society that is functionally in the 1930s. The CCP are masters of propaganda though, and flood Youtube and social media with influencers riding around on maglev trains and showing off new airports and architecture. Even on American Social Media, if you look for videos of "The Real China", or "Chinese Poverty" you'll get carefully curated propaganda that does not line up with what I saw first hand.
  - nradov 3y ago
    The SerpentZA YouTube channel is somewhat sensationalist, but it has good firsthand videos showing the real China from someone who lived there for years and is fluent in Mandarin. The reality is a lot darker than what most Westerners see. https://www.youtube.com/@serpentza https://www.youtube.com/@serpentza
kurthr 3y ago
China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan... I can break it down by city, but the idea that people don't commute more than an hour in any of these places is pretty laughable. HK is a bit better, because it's so small, but unless you're really wealthy or willing to live with your family in 100m2 even that is challenging. It's not that there aren't places to live (eg in Tokyo), but most people with a family and moderate incomes would rather live outside the city, and that means long commutes, standing during rush hours. I once had a commute longer than 15min in Silicon Valley and decided I'd never do it again.

yitianjian 3y ago

The traffic in a medium sized NA city like Atlanta or Dallas can be a lot better than it is now, and it's definitely not comparable to Shanghai, London or Tokyo.

majormajor 3y ago
Do you have any examples in mind of 6-10M cities with stress-free comfortable commuting and affordable housing for all? Off the top of my head, but without a lot of first- or second-hand experience, Rome seems like the commute is probably a lot better than the larger cities, but my perception is that the affordability is pretty poor? Otherwise most of my experience is in larger or much smaller places. Something that I think often makes this discussion tough is that there are a LOT of well-known historical European cities that are at under-2M population that I don't think Americans typically realize are THAT much smaller than, say, an Atlanta. I think the challenges of serving a growing city of 5M+ are much harder than a well-established old city of 2M.
- kiba 3y ago
  If you want stress free comfortable commuting, you're going to need to build an efficient way to move people. Cars are not really an option when it comes to moving people en mass. It's just too low capacity. Rome's metro system in particular is stymied by buried Roman artifacts and laws for archaeology. That's not really the worst thing, given that NYC subway construction cost are some of the highest in the world. That said, I saw what Atlanta looks like. Aside from down Atlanta, a lot of Atlanta is literally just low rise, even downright suburban sometime. It's a smaller city than people thought, given that only half a million people lives within its border proper, but nonetheless traffic is somehow a nightmare.
- Retric 3y ago
  Internationally the statistics depend quite a bit on how the data is collected and aggregated, so do it's hard to international comparisons accurately. I will say using US definitions, commute times are very sticky around the 30 minute time period. Longer commutes and people have a large incentive to move closer, short ones and they don't generally bother. So in the US Tulusa Oklahoma population 400,000 (1M metro) has a 20 minute commute and NYC population 8,800,000 (20M metro) is 50% worse at 32 minutes average and ~100 cities between those extremes. https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/planes-trains-and-automobiles__trashed/100-u-s-cities-ranked-by-commute-time/ https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/planes-trains-and-... Edit: This suggests allowing people to move easily move around the metro area would meaningfully lower the need for transportation infrastructure. I suspect NYC has issues with people living in rent controlled apartments having long commutes but being unwilling to leave their cheap apartment, but don't have data backing it up.

wolverine876 3y ago

> In a smaller city it can work great! The best transit is generally thought to be in NYC.

lo_zamoyski 3y ago
In the US? Very likely. And given the status of NYC and the US in the world, even that is embarrassing.
cpursley 3y ago
NYC city transit is shameful vs. even places like Moscow. Americans have no freaking idea.
Empact 3y ago
Fun fact: the vast majority of the NYC system was built between 1904 and 1940 when there were several competing subway companies. Since the subway companies were unified in 1940, essentially no new lines have been built. The NYC Subway is a relic from a foregone age, from a time when we built things and wasn’t mired in bureaucracy and carbrained thinking. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City_Subway https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City...
- wolverine876 3y ago
  They don't need many new lines, having already built them. They also haven't built many new bridges to Brooklyn in awhile nor midtown tunnels under the Hudson nor large parks in the center of Manhattan.

mlsu 3y ago

We only have 2 cities in the United States that even approach a "medium sized" Asian metro in population. Los Angeles and NYC. Only NYC has a usable public transit system. This is actually an argument for transit systems. Los Angeles, San Francisco/San Jose, Dallas, Phoenix -- could be (and should be) a global metropolises, with a populations and cultural relevance rivaling Tokyo or Hong Kong. They would be, if not for the car. There are people who commute daily from the suburbs of Stockton to the SF bay area.

nradov 3y ago
Most people who currently live in San Francisco/San Jose don't particularly want to turn it into a global metropolis and don't give a damn about abstract concepts like "cultural relevance". Cultural elitists should have some humility and not presume that they know best. Another option would be to set policies that encourage greater economic development and job growth in Stockton so that residents aren't forced to commute long distances. There's nothing special about the SF Bay Area: it's just another place.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  The Los Angeles example pretty much proves that spinning out employment into multiple areas does not mean people will just move to the closest area to their job; it just adds another destination to the list of "places people drive an hour to." It is not really that people living in Stockton already are commuting into the Bay, but Bay Area workers are being displaced into Stockton. The Bay Area has added more jobs than housing for a while now.
  - mjevans 3y ago
    LA _could_ be much more like Tokyo if USA cared to make mass transit work. # Service accurate enough to set a clock by. # Service mesh that provides walk-able freedom. # Safety and cleanliness (both a culture and enforcement issue) Yes, there would need to be a slight increase in density as well as much more transit service; but that metro area could scale up were there enough water.

avar 3y ago

> you don't SIT on the train > at all in rush hour! The horror!

theendisney 3y ago
Imagine the travelers all sitting in large cars and you have a good picture of how much space that consumes.

fuzztester 3y ago

>You should meet some of my old coworkers in large cities in Asia... (you don't SIT on the train at all in rush hour!) Tokyo (I heard) Mumbai