3 ms·

Among all the other problems: lack of imagination. This especially comes up in discussions with those who do not live in the dense, Tier-1 cities of the USA.

Among all the other problems: lack of imagination. This especially comes up in discussions with those who do not live in the dense, Tier-1 cities of the USA. The ability to imagine and envision what a dense, urban city serviced by public transit, connected to outlying communities via regional rail, in a way that is reliable, timely, and convenient is hard to come by if all you have ever experienced is the average sized, suburban sprawl in the USA. One example: I was talking to a transplant to Los Angeles, and they objected to removing some parking in favor of more transit stations because "where would all the customers park?" To which I responded, "there will be even more customers just walking in because of the nearby transit station." To which they accused me of outlandishness.

sokoloff 2y ago
Businesses run on cashflow. If you take away parking spaces in 2024 to begin construction for a transit station that will open in 2028, it's easy for me to see the 2024 businessperson's objection.
IIAOPSW 2y ago
>To which they accused me of outlandishness. The response to this is to do the math for them. Let's make modest assumptions. Crappy headways of 8 trains per hour (7.5 min), 800 people passing through per train, 1% of passengers getting on/off at that stop, simple 2 track system (trains in both directions). Multiplying it all out that comes out to 128 people per hour via the train line. If we generously assume that customers who arrive and park via car only stick around for an average of 20 min, each parking space is delivering 3 people per hour. Therefore ripping out up to 42 parking spots to put in a train line instead is worth it (and that's with assumptions generous to the car). 42 parking spaces is like what, one row of a parking lot? For less analytical people, the simple visual version of the argument is this picture: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_9F9_RUESS2E/S7tbclwxiPI/AAAAAAAACmw/uI1bCpNuKNA/s800/picoftheday0012-space-60people.jpg http://lh3.ggpht.com/_9F9_RUESS2E/S7tbclwxiPI/AAAAAAAACmw/uI...

sokoloff 2y ago

Businesses run on cashflow. If you take away parking spaces in 2024 to begin construction for a transit station that will open in 2028, it's easy for me to see the 2024 businessperson's objection.

IIAOPSW 2y ago

>To which they accused me of outlandishness. The response to this is to do the math for them. Let's make modest assumptions. Crappy headways of 8 trains per hour (7.5 min), 800 people passing through per train, 1% of passengers getting on/off at that stop, simple 2 track system (trains in both directions). Multiplying it all out that comes out to 128 people per hour via the train line. If we generously assume that customers who arrive and park via car only stick around for an average of 20 min, each parking space is delivering 3 people per hour. Therefore ripping out up to 42 parking spots to put in a train line instead is worth it (and that's with assumptions generous to the car). 42 parking spaces is like what, one row of a parking lot? For less analytical people, the simple visual version of the argument is this picture: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_9F9_RUESS2E/S7tbclwxiPI/AAAAAAAACmw/uI1bCpNuKNA/s800/picoftheday0012-space-60people.jpg http://lh3.ggpht.com/_9F9_RUESS2E/S7tbclwxiPI/AAAAAAAACmw/uI...