12 ms·

America’s Transit Exceptionalism

104 points by jseliger 2y ago

flerchin 2y ago
Is the graph showing that only China and South Korea are actively growing their rail networks? It kinda looks like that. Also apparently Istanbul has a train under the Bosporus.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- paxys 2y ago
  It's adjusting for population, which skews the data too much.
  - twiss 2y ago
    For China, you'd expect that to skew the data in the other direction, though. Since China has over 4x the population of the US, the number of metro lines is apparently over 4x higher (since China has more metro lines per capita than the US, according to the chart).
    - paxys 2y ago
      China has a decreasing population and is just building a ridiculous amount of everything. It is however now running into the opposite problem – entire cities and transit systems are sitting empty. A lot of development over there is happening for development's sake without trying to reasonably match actual demand.
      - twiss 2y ago
        > China has a decreasing population Not in the period shown in the chart, which seems to end in 2021.
      - maxglute 2y ago
        >without trying to reasonably match actual demand It's reasonably matching short/medium term demand. Actual demand is PRC increasing urbanization from current 65% to 80/90% in next 10/20 years = need infra+housing for 200m-300m people. Utilization rate of HSR increasing every year. Current excess housing sqft is enough for ~100m (persons not household), ~5-10 years of urbanization headroom. This is without accounting for depreciated housing stock, QoL upgrades. For reference 80% urbanized US is short on ~6M homes, that's 2% relative to population. PRC gunning for 80% urbanization = PRC is net short 7-10%. Realistically much higher since a lot of people in rural stuck in very shitty housing stock. Of course there's some misallocation when building so much, but few under (yet to be) occupied developements / ghost cities or 50-60m empty units reasonbly matches demand/what can be absorbed over 5-10 year horizon. Population decrease doesn't factor much until after 2050/60s, by which time need to start factoring deprecated housing stock / end of life for concrete buildings. Other "demand" consideration is demographics aging out blue collar workers, might as well as build now while labour is plentiful and cheap, better to leave future with too much built capita than too little, as many developed economies with insane building costs are finding out.
        seanmcdirmid 2y ago
        There is just no way farmers from the villages of China are going to be able to afford the million dollar apartments speculators are buying up anticipating this continued movement from rural to urban areas. Add to that a still inflexible hukou system where even if you buy the apartment, you still can’t put your kids in local schools, it makes me think that the cities are still in for a hard time. Many buildings are never going to be actually lived in before being torn down. The construction techniques they use to soak up unskilled labor results in concrete buildings that will only last 20-30 years.
        maxglute 2y ago
        Farmers (really the poor/underclass) directed o T3/4+ surplus that aren't worth $$$, where RE price declining. Also see central gov recently spending 300B rmb (imo just start) to transition vacancies into social housing. T1/T2 vacancies for more affluent/educated gen. Hukou likely self correcting problem (they'll keep reforming), lots of education surplus resources =going to free up YoY relative to trend of decline in past births. It's a big challenge - but IMO it's a easier problem to fill housing when you already have it then try to build enough housing when you don't/can't. Broader urban policy - central gov trying to distribute growth, urbanize/move ppl to less developed interior 2 tier cities with higher % vacancies with new industries. Big coastal hubs likely has soft upper bound in population (look at post 2014 population stalling for big T1s), I'd expect them to slowly settle 10% higher where they are by soaking up surplus to leave vacancies at healthy range, higher than 5% in hot western markets, lower than 15-20% in PRC. It's definitely a hard problem, but it's a problem where most of the physical pieces are are there. >The construction techniques they use to soak up unskilled labor results in concrete buildings that will only last 20-30 years. Unskilled gets trained by skilled, and do not remain unskilled. Bulk of building stock was built in last 15-20 years by migrant construction lifers already with 10+ years experience (entire demo skews old) with a lot of concrete pouring and steel welding experience. You don't build as much as PRC and have unskilled construction workers, half the world is built by diasphora migrant workers drawn from even less developed countries. TLDR on China collapse meme narrative of PRC construction, for what it's worth my previous field. The chinese buildings have 30-40 years life spans (no one credible guestimates 20) narrative conflates PRC construction standards in last 20 years, where vast majority of new building stock was accumuluated, and is fine for 50-75+ years (as in the concrete structure is durable), with not affluent at the time PRC choosing to cheapen out on building systems that can be easily retrofit up to modern standards. TLDR is concrete/structure/frame is FINE, "short" lifespan is really about shittier/lower quality mechanical systems, not ecological, expensive to maintain etc, and until recently because PRC so good at building fast, the answer is just to tear down and rebuild. Now PRC richer, can still choose to rebuild or retrofit (both of which they're still good at), new HVAC, facade etc, to meet performance standards now that vastly richer. This got twisted into PRC concrete last 30 years. Quality of towers being put up in CAN are comparable (and frequently worse) as stuff I see in PRC where the entire process of erecting hires has been optimized to death. There are some legit shit tier construction pre 90s (and much older) builds, i.e. all the gross mid rise you see in left behind township/village level admin divisions, exactly the kind of bad/poverty building stock reaching end of life that urbanization drive is designed to move people out of (stuff that's still all over SKR/TW). But even then, they're not collapsing out of nowhere in any numbers that actually matter, other than in event of natural disasters (i.e. Sichuan earthquake scandal), which is a real consideration, in some geographic areas. But most of building stock, built in last 20 years after - again we're really talking about the frame/structure - are fine for 50/60/70+ years like west. Also important to note vacant towers mostly not abandoned projects, there's still basic maintenance happening because they're on someone's portfolio. They're not sitting derelict for 10+ of years getting killed prematurely by elements -> they're not going to come falling down. Yes some will, but rounding error. Regardless, IMO broader consideration is RE surplus was 1-2% of GDP for ~15 years where boom was happening. Even if they sit idle/unproductive indefinitely, you're looking at in aggregate ~1 quarter of misallocation at current GDP over ~60 quarters. That's not too bad of inefficiency relative to how much was built, and inefficiency of too much > too little, especially when any solution to urban housing / infra congestion starts with having enough.
      - gruez 2y ago
        Nah, they're slowly filling up: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-01/chinese-ghost-cities-2021-binhai-zhengdong-new-districts-fill-up https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-01/chinese-g...
    - darth_avocado 2y ago
      China has 50% more metro length than next 10 countries combined: https://medium.com/@gravitonaiconsulting/china-has-50-more-metro-length-than-the-next-10-countries-combined-3e8ebc8e9c86 https://medium.com/@gravitonaiconsulting/china-has-50-more-m...
- DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
  Every curve in the plot is going up, except for the US and UK. South Korea and China just have the most dramatic rises.
  - simonbarker87 2y ago
    UK is still building we’re just struggling for space and already have a tonne of railways. The issue here is more about getting extra capacity with what we have.
    - TylerE 2y ago
      Don’t you also have routing issues on many trips? Basically everything runs to or from London.
      - chgs 2y ago
        Long distance a lot of trains run through Birmingham. If you pick a journey between two of the top 20 urban areas cities by most direct rail routes very few go though London. There’s certainly a capacity issue though.
      - gerdesj 2y ago
        Take a look at say, Yeovil (Gifle for the historians) with its five stations from the past, of which two remain. If you look closely at a particular flag stone on platform 2 at Pen Mill station it doesn't have "TylerE is a wanker" chiseled into it. I can make a change. This is all rather silly. We don't engage. Bloody kids.
        TylerE 2y ago
        What the hell is your problem?
        gerdesj 2y ago
        "Basically everything runs to or from London." No it doesn't. Yeovil is still a junction with only two stations these days. It used to have four or five. Its also the confluence of the A30 and A37 roads. I don't have a problem - you clearly are not from these parts. That's fine and you will be welcome.
- nine_k 2y ago
  To build (more of) a subway, you need density and wealth. So NYC or Shanghai or Moscow have extensive subway systems and keep extending them. OTOH Houston does not (lacks density), and Kinshasa does not (lacks wealth).
- teractiveodular 2y ago
  The graph is scaled per inhabitant, which means that eg. India's apparent minor bump is actually massive. Here's the Delhi Metro, which has gone from 0 to 350 km in 20 years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjG0quY5uoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjG0quY5uoI And the rest of the country is following: https://themetrorailguy.com/metro-rail-projects-in-india/ https://themetrorailguy.com/metro-rail-projects-in-india/
  - darth_avocado 2y ago
    The graph doesn't account for population growth. Which is why India's growth is not looking great, but in reality, India has built almost 900 km (560 miles) of metro rail in the last 20 years, making it the third largest metro rail system in the world. (After US and China) They have additional 779 km (484 miles) under construction, which on completion will put them ahead of the US.
dr_dshiv 2y ago
What’s the status on the Boring company? That seemed promising. But I recognize that, in America, the issue is not a lack of technology but rather the political will.
- eptcyka 2y ago
  The boring company was a play to ensure California doesn't bother with its owned rapid transit systems. Much like hyperloop.
- fallingknife 2y ago
  I wouldn't say it's lack of political will. It's more that we are so excessively bureaucratized and regulated that it just takes more political will to get the same thing done because it will be stuck for years getting regulatory approval.
  - 9question1 2y ago
    Too much bureaucracy is often at fault, but seems very unlikely in this particular case. Are all the other countries mentioned in the article less bureaucratized or regulated? There seems to be a strong correlation between countries that have good public transit and invest heavily in public transit and countries that are perceived as having too much regulatory red tape (EU, East Asia). If that's the case, how could this possibly be the problem here?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - fallingknife 2y ago
      According to the chart in the article the EU seems to be building at about the same pace as Russia, so I'm not sure it is a great example for the success of bureaucracy. And is East Asia particularly bureaucratic? The idea that I get is that building a train line over there isn't going to be held up for years in environmental review and lawsuits, but I could be wrong.
  - 2y ago
itronitron 2y ago
Personally, I prefer trams. You can see the buildings and the stops are typically closer to your destination.
- FredFS456 2y ago
  IMO you need both. Trams for local transit, metros for faster mid-range transit, and finally urban rail for long(ish) range transit.
  - bitmasher9 2y ago
    Subway/Light Rail is fantastic for highly congested areas, even if you only need to move a few miles. There’s nothing like looking out of a light rail window moving peacefully to your destination and seeing stop and go highway traffic.
  - epoxia 2y ago
    I disagree about trams for local transit. A metro system is sufficient, the issue is the flat-rate pricing model of most public transit systems in the US. It prevents the casual short hop usage of public transit, needlessly subsidizing longer distance travel. Trams are just unreliable trains, with an inflexible route as compared to a bus. Notably, Tokyo only has 1 operating tram.
    - Gud 2y ago
      Have you been to Zürich? It is by far the best public transport system I’ve ever used, with Stockholm a distant second. It’s trams all the way down 0) trams are hardly unreliable 1) tram lines are routinely changed around 2) in Switzerland, there is no distinction between local and remote public transport. This has the advantage that you can use the regular trains for short hops. Zürich itself has 20+ railway stations. Zürich has really opened my eyes for what a good tram network can do.
      - defrost 2y ago
        Few things beat a dedicated personal tram: https://youtu.be/zWDt_Rmu9MQ?t=89 https://youtu.be/zWDt_Rmu9MQ?t=89
revscat 2y ago
It is helpful to remember that America is the world’s largest petrostate.
- TeaBrain 2y ago
  That's not helpful, because it's far from being true. The US mining sector, which includes oil and gas, is less than 2% of the US economy. https://www.statista.com/statistics/248004/percentage-added-to-the-us-gdp-by-industry/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/248004/percentage-added-...
  - revscat 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_produ... 1. United States 2. Russia
    - TeaBrain 2y ago
      This is what makes the US economy interesting, in that despite being a leading producer of oil, unlike other large producers of oil, it does not come close to being reliant on the industry. In comparison, almost all other large producers of oil are petrostates, in that much of their economy is dependent on oil and gas. The US oil and gas industry could cut its production in half and it would change the GDP by a percentage point at most. US oil production is more important for natural security, so that the country is not reliant on other countries for production, than it is for the GDP.
bitmasher9 2y ago
> High-quality transit is the only way to facilitate upward growth without causing unbearable amounts of congestion. It’s the only way to speed up trips through crowded neighborhoods This is the primary reason why. Subways/rail is fantastic for dense cities. The US is much less dense than the rest of the world. So we don’t feel the need for subways. Seattle and LA care about this, so they are expanding. Seattle is geographically limited and can pretty much only expand up. LA doesn’t have the same geographic limitations, but it becoming the first city to maximize the amount of sprawl available. As other regions lose their ability to sprawl and are forced to expand up we’ll see more US regions build subways.
- nox101 2y ago
  The SF bay area is way more than dense as Switzerland with comparable populations but Switzerland has way more public transportation
nemo44x 2y ago
In America most everyone can afford a car and most families have many and the roads are generally excellent. People have large homes single family and prefer less density and the country is more than large enough to support this. Most people don't want to live in cramped quarters, on top of each other, and having to take mass transit. Not everyone wants a NYC lifestyle. I can't understand why a small minority of people are so intent on convincing people that living in stacked boxes with a walls separation to whoever, with communal spaces for outdoor space, and mass transit, is a better life. I think globally nearly everyone would prefer to have a single family home with a private yard and with automobiles for getting around in most cases. I'd agree train access into the big city for a day out is nice. But most "big cities" aren't big enough or dense enough to require them.
- unregistereddev 2y ago
  I agree with you, but it is an unpopular opinion here. Many commenters either fancy themselves to be city planners or take a "tragedy of the commons" view of infrastructure. The latter is not wrong ... but it doesn't mean we all want to live in stacked boxes.
  - nemo44x 2y ago
    I think a plurality of people here are single and young and can’t possibly imagine not living in a city with all the social advantages and lifestyle perks being in one has. I did too when I was younger. But you quickly find there are better options when you want certain things and have options.
  - pxmpxm 2y ago
    > unpopular opinion here Amusingly the unpopularity is almost universally originating from the same young white upper middle class suburb childhood people. Something pathological about rejecting their parents lifestyle rather than anythign to do with urban planning. Private transit is universally superior to public transit, which is why the take rate of the former to latter correlated with things like income.
- jltsiren 2y ago
inglor_cz 2y ago
Yeah, I am somewhat baffled that the city I live in (Ostrava), a rust-belt city which lost 15 % of its population since 1990 (and a nontrivial share of that loss were high earners who moved to adjacent suburbia, taking their tax money with them), somehow has much cleaner, nicer and safer public transport than the richest metropolitan areas of the US, with their massive GDP advantage. The passengers may be a bit uncouth (the upper half of the society tends to drive here instead of riding public transport), but the system is still unflinchingly reliable and comfortable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELtfOekhkcw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELtfOekhkcw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMMnSwZWmKw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMMnSwZWmKw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKRrzgDIwgo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKRrzgDIwgo
pdabbadabba 2y ago
> These are the statistics underlying the reality that in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Boston, Atlanta, and many other major cities in the U.S., not a single mile of rail transit is currently under construction. Not true. In DC, the Purple Line is currently under construction to connect DC's Maryland suburbs to one another. (OK. This is technically just over the border in Maryland, but it is clearly part of the DC metro area and it interconnects with lines in the District proper.) And DC just finished (in November) adding another new line, the Silver Line, out to Dulles Airport and some of the further flung Virginia suburbs. (Similarly, I think a major project was completed in San Francisco last year.) And isn't the K under construction in LA? And what about East Side Access in New York? And the Skyline in Honolulu? I'm sure another 2 minutes of Googling could uncover more examples. The general story might be true — cthet ities outside the U.S. are investing more in rail infrastructure — but this makes me question the research. The metric "mile of transit" is also probably misleading. Many U.S.cities (though not enough) already have robust mass transit systems. The primarily challenge in many places is therefore not just to build new lines, but to expand the use of what is already there. (A particular challenge after Covid wiped out ridership.)
- TylerE 2y ago
  Rail and subway are distinct modes.
  - TeaBrain 2y ago
    Subways can be non-rail, as seen with the Montreal subway, but subways are usually a type of rail transit. Also, once you read the article, you'll see that the author is referring to subways.
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      >Subways can be non-rail, as seen with the Montreal subway Yes, and it's terrible. The Montreal subway is by far the noisiest subway system I've ever used. Even standing on the platform is a terrible experience because it's so loud when the cars are moving.
m3kw9 2y ago
America loves urban sprawl, so cars it is.
jmyeet 2y ago
I agree with other commenters: it's not "the rest of the world". It's China. For regional transit, China's high speed rail buildout [1] is truly breathtaking. If you look at the miles of track [2], China has 45000km with 25000km under construction. Number 2 on the list is Spain (with 4000 and 1000 respectively). For urban transit, China again completely dominates [3] by like a factor of 6-7 to #2. The US actually fares better here bu that's skewed by a handful of outliers, most notably NYC. It makes me so mad because of the concerted effort made to dismantle and derail (pun intended) public transit efforts in the United States. The Koch brothers (well, brother) spend a fortune fighting these projects [4]. Elon Musk famously only propsosed the Hyperloop in the hopes of killing the California High Speed Rail ("HSR") [5]. Look at Las Vegas, a huge tourist destination. What Las Vegas actually needs is a subway line between the airport and the major Strip hotels. This would require probably less than 20 miles of tunnels. It could even be a mix of light rail in the suburbs and to the airport and tunnels under the Strip. You could extend it to key parts of Las Vegas to include all the people that need to work on the Strip through Park and Ride stations. It would be incredibly cheap for the benefit. But instead we got the idiotic Tesla tunnels by The Boring Company, which I'm convinced was only proposed to kill the idea of any public transit infrastructure in Las Vegas. It's all so short-sighted because public transit scales and it would make life easier for anyone who actually wants or needs to drive. But instead we get idiotic infrastructure like the Katy Freeway in Houston [6]. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/xszhbm/chinese_highspeed_railway_map_2008_vs_2020/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/xszhbm/chinese_hig... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-speed_railway_lines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-speed_railway_lin... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems#List_by_country/region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems#List_by_... [4]: https://archive.is/UFujh https://archive.is/UFujh [5]: https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688 https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688 [6]: https://b93.net/widest-freeway-in-the-united-states-is-in-texas/ https://b93.net/widest-freeway-in-the-united-states-is-in-te...
- pdabbadabba 2y ago
  Maybe you can help me understand: Why would Elon Musk go to such lengths to kill HSR and public transit in Vegas? Is it just that he sells cars? The impact of these projects on Tesla sales doesn't seem like it would justify such an elaborate scheme to derail them.
AcerbicZero 2y ago
Hmmmmmmmm the places where riding the subway means obeying social norms, continue to build subways. The places where riding the subway does not require any social norms be obeyed, have stopped.
kkfx 2y ago
Well, I'm from EU and I think the article's claim is exaggerated, beside that metros are good to move people in a dense city, but they are economically untenable, of course with public subsidies in abundance they operate, but that's still some absurd as absurd are dense cities in the modern, present world. So well, if USA invest less in metros is a very good thing for them. It's about time to massively understand that dense cities are needed now ONLY BY FINANCE capitalism to rule over gazillion of people owing nothing, tied to their services, but it's a nightmare for everyone else, environment included since they consume an enormous amount of resources, much more NOW than spread homes (modern buildings and modern homes, with energy performances, anti-seismic design, fire safety, HVAC etc) and can't evolve while being a big on-ground thermal mass to be heated by the Sun much more than spread green areas.
- dddddaviddddd 2y ago
  Cities aren't going anywhere. Building and maintaining roads and cars is expensive. Essentially you can either pay for endless freeways, or pay for a subway system. People need to get around.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    >People need to get around. No, they don't. They can just stay at home all the time, working at a work-from-home job and socializing entirely online while getting deliveries from Amazon. /s
    - kkfx 2y ago
      I've left the big city for the Alps and well... I never had in any city as much social life as here. In cities you cross countless of people you ignore, you have just made few friends and you go with them mostly to consume some service, while in low density areas "home parties" are the norm, having less neighbors you tent to frequent almost all, so instead of being in a bubble you meet people of a variety of background and wealth all together with their ideas, experiences etc. From home many works without a desktop, farmers, laundry with the shop in the basement and the home upstairs, medicine doctors and so on. So well... I see you scenario much more in a dense city, goshiwong alike, than in spread area of single family homes intermixed with works buildings like EU Rivieras. With this lifestyle you get: - much more in-person social activities - much better environment - much more personal space - much less to spend in consuming services, from ready made foods to fast fashion, mobile smart macrobugs devices and so on. This last point is the reasons why big tech and in general finance capitalism hate such model.
black_13 2y ago
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ProfessorLayton 2y ago
The article makes some questionable statements. BART is building more miles of its network extending to downtown San Jose. It also refers to it as San Francisco's metro, but that's certainly not the case (That would be MUNI), and that fact is stated right in its name: Bay Area Rapid Transit. This distinction isn't some pedantry, because BART is funded by the many counties it serves, not just SF. Those counties are on the board and get a say on where it extends to as well.
- harimau777 2y ago
  Somewhat off topic but: How difficult is it get get between SF and San Jose via public transportation? I ask because I'm looking at jobs and initially wasn't considering San Jose; however, I would if it was fairly easy to get to SF's amenities.
  - anonymousDan 2y ago
    I flew into SFO recently and got a BART to Milbrae (a few minutes, regular) and from there a Caltrain towards San Jose to Mountain View. From an outsiders perspective (living in London) if you live/work near one of the Caltrain stations I guess it's not too bad. The Caltrain feels slowish (and looks like something out of Mad Max), but does the job. You better be sure you have some way of getting from the Caltrain station to wherever you want to go on the other end though. I thought I'd walk to my hotel as it didn't look too far on the map but was actually a 1h30 walk!
  - ProfessorLayton 2y ago
    Highly depends on where in SJ<>SF you'll be, but over all I'd say it's pretty difficult for a few reasons: - Caltrain currently terminates at 4th & King, not exactly a prime spot in SF, so you'll likely want to transfer to MUNI, so add that to your commute time and expense. - The Caltrain ride itself is over an hour between SF/SJ. - Caltrain lead times are't great outside of rush hour. - I live in the middle of SF and it's 2hrs door to door to Diridon (SJ). It isn't difficult if you're looking at the occasional trip to SF, but as a daily commute I would not recommend. I know quite a few people who do it and it's not pleasant spending that much time on a commute.
beaglesss 2y ago
[flagged]
- wnc3141 2y ago
  While yes, a planned economy is inefficient, the provision of public goods is inefficient when left to private markets. Essentially, the private market is inefficient for any type of "market failures". This article is a decent starting place to look for more detail. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketfailure.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketfailure.asp
  - beaglesss 2y ago
    It needn't remain a public good. It can be a private 'good'.
big-green-man 2y ago
The US has a fantastic transit system, for rural areas, independent movers, and to move massive distances in short periods of time. Highways and cars, and passenger airplanes are fantastic. Just the other day the president went from Las Vegas to DC in under 4 hours, for anyone who is unaware how impressive that is that's like going from London to Cairo. If you need to be able to move around freely unscheduled, need to be able to go basically anywhere in north america, even remote places, or need to go far fast, you can't beat the US. Unless you live in an urban or suburban area. I agree with the author particularly about densely populated areas, the US is not just lacking, it is basically undeveloped. If I were inclined to live in such a place, I would pick a foreign city over the US. The congestion is probably the number one factor for me in deciding not to, although it isn't the only factor. There is not one single good reason why, if you live in a tightly packed place, you cannot get around your immediate environment with just the shoes on your feet. Especially considering that such places are supposedly designed exclusively for human habitation. It is downright shameful.
- chgs 2y ago
  He’s in a private plane. You can fly Helsinki to Madrid which is about the same distance in about the same time with slightly less hassle than flying Vegas to Washington. There’s nothing particularly special about the US, and highlighting the insane logistics of moving someone from one part of the country to another doesn’t really say anything one way or another
  - big-green-man 2y ago
    I see nobody really reads past the point at which they get emotionally jolted.
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      You don't know that for sure. There's a bunch of city-hating pro-suburbia people in this discussion who might be downvoting you because they're angry you're calling the US "basically undeveloped". But there may also be many downvotes from the walkable city lovers who read your lengthy first paragraph and didn't get to the second one. Personally, while I agree with your overall point, I think you shouldn't write that way. Expecting people to read a somewhat-long post before getting to the "twist" on an internet forum full of hundreds of posts is a bit much; people aren't reading everything fully here. You need to make your main point in the beginning, then expand on them in the subsequent paragraphs if any.
cyberax 2y ago
Public transit sucks. It has always sucked. And it's necessary if you want dense cities. The fix? Don't do dense cities. 80-85% of the US population prefers single-family houses to apartments. We need to promote remote work and BUILD NEW SPARSE HOUSING. Do not do the nonsense "upzoning", instead build new suburbs. Remote work can be promoted by giving tax breaks for remote positions or by taxing dense office space.
- uoaei 2y ago
  For the discerning reader: every single expert disagrees vociferously with this take. The economics simply do not work to make this sustainable. Let's not forget how expensive basic infrastructure is just because it's normalized. Water/power/sewer/trash/roads/lighting is a massive expense that just keeps getting more expensive, not to mention that you have to factor in maintenance costs.
  - beaglesss 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - uoaei 2y ago
      No one said anything about planning economies. I am only advocating a realistic understanding of markets. > Deregulate and totally privatize housing and roads and people will vote with their dollars Your lack of acknowledgment of the role corporations play in this (and the green username) makes this out to be a FUD-y and bad-faith take.
      - beaglesss 2y ago
        Public services are, generally, planned economies. I struggle to envision how they could not be, at least if publicly funded.
        uoaei 2y ago
        Seems like a bastardization of the concept of "planned". Obviously pricing and subsidies come into play but that doesn't prevent the result from still being a market-based approach. You will not find a single capitalist who doesn't do some market research to determine a price for their product. Utilities are largely the same.
Animats 2y ago
It's a book ad. He never answers his own question, just pitches his book. "This is one of the central questions underpinning this newsletter and my book."
ijidak 2y ago
I was in Istanbul last year. Didn't see these wonders he mentioned. The subways seemed to be closer in quality to a NYC than a London. Very capable, but didn't seem cutting edge.
- teractiveodular 2y ago
  If anything I think this underlines how backwards public transit in the US is. If Istanbul is a "sci-fi movie", then Shenzhen or Singapore would be utopia.
Animats 2y ago
San Francisco just built a short subway to Chinatown. Not quite clear why. SF's Chinatown is stuck in the 1950s. It's not modern China. No black-glass skyscrapers in exotic shapes. No outposts of Shenzhen manufacturers. It's mostly a retirement village.
- omegaworks 2y ago
  >San Francisco just built a short subway to Chinatown. Not quite clear why. Largely to set the stage for service to the Richmond. >It's mostly a retirement village. A testament to the resilience of the community in the face of an ongoing housing supply shortage. There is no doubt immense pressure from our typical economic processes to displace retirees from the place that they've lived their entire lives. You'd rather see old folks trapped in car-dependent suburbia, eventually unable to drive themselves to their basic needs?
- jacobolus 2y ago
  > Chinatown is stuck in the 1950s. It's not modern China. This is a really weird complaint. SF Chinatown is a neighborhood settled by mostly Cantonese speaking immigrants in the mid 19th century, and still mostly inhabited by descendants of Chinese immigrants who moved to the US generations ago. Why would you expect it (or want it) to be "modern China"?
- nox101 2y ago
  It was way way over budget, took way longer than it was supposed to, and ... no one is using it. https://www.transittalent.com/articles/index.cfm?story=SF_Central_Subway_Chinatown_3-4-2024 https://www.transittalent.com/articles/index.cfm?story=SF_Ce...
standardUser 2y ago
I'm a huge proponent of building more rail of all kinds, but in the end we have to accept that traditional public transit options can only solve part of the problem. For the low and medium density parts of this country we should leverage the infrastructure we already have, which is a comprehensive road system. Automated shuttles and taxis remove the most expensive and dangerous part of driving - the human driver - and they already have all the infrastructure they require. I see it as only a matter of time before automated transit services on public roads outnumber individual drivers.
- Zamiel_Snawley 2y ago
  Don’t forget that the upkeep costs of that existing, low density infrastructure is very expensive, and is often net negative for municipalities.
rdlecler1 2y ago
Do driverless cars make all this moot?
- noahtallen 2y ago
  No, cars are still very space inefficient which is a big problem in the densest cities in the world. A train carrying a thousand passengers past every three minutes is much better than the capacity of a road, especially during congestion
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    Driverless cars could easily boost mass transit use by efficiently handling last mile problems. Although driverless short jaunt tuktuks might be better.
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      Bicycles (or e-bikes if you prefer) are far more efficient than cars for this purpose. Bike-share is also really helpful here, so you don't need to have your own personal bike.
      - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
        Not if you have packages and such, you really need a cargo bike or something. Weather would also play a role. I don’t see bike share as very successful, but I guess with better security and places for the bikes to hangout it could work out better.
        shiroiushi 2y ago
        Bike-share works extremely well here in Tokyo. I see people on the red Docomo bikes every time I go almost anywhere. For cargo, people generally pay for a delivery service if it's something too cumbersome to carry. In large cities like this, people don't buy a month's worth of groceries all at once; they only buy as much as they can carry.
kazinator 2y ago
Why would Americans need subways? Silicon Valley bros got their back. Uber, Lyft, Waymo, ...
- anonymousDan 2y ago
  Can they magically avoid traffic?
akira2501 2y ago
Italy and Spain, in particular, do not care about the quality of ridership on their metro lines outside of tourist heavy areas. So, if you plan to ride the train, in particular if you are alone, have a plan to deal with pick pockets and gropers. No one ever really addresses this trade off.
- adventured 2y ago
  People that can convince politicians to build nice mass transit, are the ones unwilling to ride it. The US is heavily bifurcated socio-economically. It's quite simple and nobody much likes to talk about it (admit it): the top 50% do not want to ride on mass transit with the bottom 50%. And even more so, the top 1/3 absolutely do not want to ride on mass transit with the bottom 1/3. The top 1/3 pay most of the taxes in the US. In the US the top 50% are relatively well off, affluent by Western standards. The top 1/3 in the US is equivalent to Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway - highly rich, highly educated. The bottom 1/3 is not well off. The bottom 1/3 is poor and uneducated by Western standards, with extremely high rates of violent crime, murder and untreated mental illness. The murder/violent crime/rape rate in the bottom 1/3 is truly terrifying in the US. Nothing is done to address (improve) any of it. edit: The same premise largely applies to the top 1/3 blocking the construction of new housing, because they don't want to live near the bottom 1/3. The people that can make new construction happen (financially, politically), are the ones that don't want it to happen. This goes on in blue cities, it goes on in red cities.
  - teractiveodular 2y ago
    As usual, the Onion nailed it years ago: https://www.theonion.com/report-98-percent-of-u-s-commuters-favor-public-trans-1819565837 https://www.theonion.com/report-98-percent-of-u-s-commuters-...
  - creer 2y ago
    At least here, the problem is absolutely not the "bottom 1/3" but the mentally deranged and the outright violent. Completely different category. You seem to conflate the two and that doesn't represent the situation on the ground. The 1st category is poor but civil. Even then, the system is slow, sparse, unreliable. Most of the time this wouldn't be a desired transport, more like one of the rare ones available.
shmerl 2y ago
> There’s no easy answer, though there is a growing consensus around certain factors that are holding America’s transit systems back. In a future post, I’ll describe these factors in depth. So what are these factors?
- bitwize 2y ago
  (Jay Sherman voice) "Buy my book! Buy my book!"
ineedaj0b 2y ago
The rail situation in California is so bad, the company in charge of building rail packed up and moved to Africa - because they thought they’d have better luck there.
- bilbo0s 2y ago
  The Chinese already have a tight hold on rail in Africa. So the joke’s on them.
  - tyoma 2y ago
    They successfully completed high speed rail service that has been operational since 2018: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Boraq https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Boraq Meanwhile California has yet to start service.
    - two_handfuls 2y ago
      Oh very cool, they have the TGV there!
treflop 2y ago
How come no one ever looks at population density? US cities have very low density compared to other cities in other countries. New York is the exception, and their transit isn't that bad. But it's still lower than other major cities.
- bongodongobob 2y ago
  Right. That and the fact they'll want to connect two cites that are 2-3 hours away by car and neither city is walkable. So it takes longer to get there and then you have to rent a car when you get there anyway.
- tsunagatta 2y ago
  The tail wags the dog a little in this case; you could equally say that America’s chosen mode of transport forces lower density: large parking lots and wide roads take up a lot of space where people could otherwise live and work. Wide roads also make it harder to walk around locations, making transit less inviting since walking itself is less inviting.
  - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
    The interstate highway system is largely to blame. As it expanded, It usurped rail travel that only effectively served a smaller number of established cities. It is more convenient to drive shortish distances within a region than to hassle with train schedules and the problem of getting transport from the station to the final destination. This then assisted the growth of post-war cities that were mere backwaters 75 years ago.
  - treflop 2y ago
    In my opinion, it's largely because American cities are new. If you are building a new city, you do not start with high density. Individual developers start with the cheapest build out because no one will pay a premium for a multi-level structure until cheap single-level builds are exhausted. Then as centuries pass, because there is no more undeveloped land, the city is forced to redevelop existing plots and increase density. Many Asian and Western cities are hundreds or thousands of years old. America's transit woes is because we live in a new country with new cities in previously mostly uninhabited land.
User2273 2y ago
It's always funny how people like this start from the assumption that Americans want mass transit, such as this. Take a look around - I don't want my tax dollars spent on a transit project full of graft in NY. It's really that simple. And I don't want mass transit where I live. This also belies the writer's condescension and hubris. I've been on many city mass transit systems, in the US and abroad, contrary to the story posted here, they aren't all "like star trek to (ignorant) Americans". Spare me.
oslis 2y ago
[dead]

104 points by jseliger 2y ago

Is the graph showing that only China and South Korea are actively growing their rail networks? It kinda looks like that. Also apparently Istanbul has a train under the Bosporus.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
paxys 2y ago
It's adjusting for population, which skews the data too much.
- twiss 2y ago
  For China, you'd expect that to skew the data in the other direction, though. Since China has over 4x the population of the US, the number of metro lines is apparently over 4x higher (since China has more metro lines per capita than the US, according to the chart).
  - paxys 2y ago
    China has a decreasing population and is just building a ridiculous amount of everything. It is however now running into the opposite problem – entire cities and transit systems are sitting empty. A lot of development over there is happening for development's sake without trying to reasonably match actual demand.
    - twiss 2y ago
      > China has a decreasing population Not in the period shown in the chart, which seems to end in 2021.
    - maxglute 2y ago
      >without trying to reasonably match actual demand It's reasonably matching short/medium term demand. Actual demand is PRC increasing urbanization from current 65% to 80/90% in next 10/20 years = need infra+housing for 200m-300m people. Utilization rate of HSR increasing every year. Current excess housing sqft is enough for ~100m (persons not household), ~5-10 years of urbanization headroom. This is without accounting for depreciated housing stock, QoL upgrades. For reference 80% urbanized US is short on ~6M homes, that's 2% relative to population. PRC gunning for 80% urbanization = PRC is net short 7-10%. Realistically much higher since a lot of people in rural stuck in very shitty housing stock. Of course there's some misallocation when building so much, but few under (yet to be) occupied developements / ghost cities or 50-60m empty units reasonbly matches demand/what can be absorbed over 5-10 year horizon. Population decrease doesn't factor much until after 2050/60s, by which time need to start factoring deprecated housing stock / end of life for concrete buildings. Other "demand" consideration is demographics aging out blue collar workers, might as well as build now while labour is plentiful and cheap, better to leave future with too much built capita than too little, as many developed economies with insane building costs are finding out.
      - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
        There is just no way farmers from the villages of China are going to be able to afford the million dollar apartments speculators are buying up anticipating this continued movement from rural to urban areas. Add to that a still inflexible hukou system where even if you buy the apartment, you still can’t put your kids in local schools, it makes me think that the cities are still in for a hard time. Many buildings are never going to be actually lived in before being torn down. The construction techniques they use to soak up unskilled labor results in concrete buildings that will only last 20-30 years.
        maxglute 2y ago
        Farmers (really the poor/underclass) directed o T3/4+ surplus that aren't worth $$$, where RE price declining. Also see central gov recently spending 300B rmb (imo just start) to transition vacancies into social housing. T1/T2 vacancies for more affluent/educated gen. Hukou likely self correcting problem (they'll keep reforming), lots of education surplus resources =going to free up YoY relative to trend of decline in past births. It's a big challenge - but IMO it's a easier problem to fill housing when you already have it then try to build enough housing when you don't/can't. Broader urban policy - central gov trying to distribute growth, urbanize/move ppl to less developed interior 2 tier cities with higher % vacancies with new industries. Big coastal hubs likely has soft upper bound in population (look at post 2014 population stalling for big T1s), I'd expect them to slowly settle 10% higher where they are by soaking up surplus to leave vacancies at healthy range, higher than 5% in hot western markets, lower than 15-20% in PRC. It's definitely a hard problem, but it's a problem where most of the physical pieces are are there. >The construction techniques they use to soak up unskilled labor results in concrete buildings that will only last 20-30 years. Unskilled gets trained by skilled, and do not remain unskilled. Bulk of building stock was built in last 15-20 years by migrant construction lifers already with 10+ years experience (entire demo skews old) with a lot of concrete pouring and steel welding experience. You don't build as much as PRC and have unskilled construction workers, half the world is built by diasphora migrant workers drawn from even less developed countries. TLDR on China collapse meme narrative of PRC construction, for what it's worth my previous field. The chinese buildings have 30-40 years life spans (no one credible guestimates 20) narrative conflates PRC construction standards in last 20 years, where vast majority of new building stock was accumuluated, and is fine for 50-75+ years (as in the concrete structure is durable), with not affluent at the time PRC choosing to cheapen out on building systems that can be easily retrofit up to modern standards. TLDR is concrete/structure/frame is FINE, "short" lifespan is really about shittier/lower quality mechanical systems, not ecological, expensive to maintain etc, and until recently because PRC so good at building fast, the answer is just to tear down and rebuild. Now PRC richer, can still choose to rebuild or retrofit (both of which they're still good at), new HVAC, facade etc, to meet performance standards now that vastly richer. This got twisted into PRC concrete last 30 years. Quality of towers being put up in CAN are comparable (and frequently worse) as stuff I see in PRC where the entire process of erecting hires has been optimized to death. There are some legit shit tier construction pre 90s (and much older) builds, i.e. all the gross mid rise you see in left behind township/village level admin divisions, exactly the kind of bad/poverty building stock reaching end of life that urbanization drive is designed to move people out of (stuff that's still all over SKR/TW). But even then, they're not collapsing out of nowhere in any numbers that actually matter, other than in event of natural disasters (i.e. Sichuan earthquake scandal), which is a real consideration, in some geographic areas. But most of building stock, built in last 20 years after - again we're really talking about the frame/structure - are fine for 50/60/70+ years like west. Also important to note vacant towers mostly not abandoned projects, there's still basic maintenance happening because they're on someone's portfolio. They're not sitting derelict for 10+ of years getting killed prematurely by elements -> they're not going to come falling down. Yes some will, but rounding error. Regardless, IMO broader consideration is RE surplus was 1-2% of GDP for ~15 years where boom was happening. Even if they sit idle/unproductive indefinitely, you're looking at in aggregate ~1 quarter of misallocation at current GDP over ~60 quarters. That's not too bad of inefficiency relative to how much was built, and inefficiency of too much > too little, especially when any solution to urban housing / infra congestion starts with having enough.
    - gruez 2y ago
      Nah, they're slowly filling up: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-01/chinese-ghost-cities-2021-binhai-zhengdong-new-districts-fill-up https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-01/chinese-g...
  - darth_avocado 2y ago
    China has 50% more metro length than next 10 countries combined: https://medium.com/@gravitonaiconsulting/china-has-50-more-metro-length-than-the-next-10-countries-combined-3e8ebc8e9c86 https://medium.com/@gravitonaiconsulting/china-has-50-more-m...
DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
Every curve in the plot is going up, except for the US and UK. South Korea and China just have the most dramatic rises.
- simonbarker87 2y ago
  UK is still building we’re just struggling for space and already have a tonne of railways. The issue here is more about getting extra capacity with what we have.
  - TylerE 2y ago
    Don’t you also have routing issues on many trips? Basically everything runs to or from London.
    - chgs 2y ago
      Long distance a lot of trains run through Birmingham. If you pick a journey between two of the top 20 urban areas cities by most direct rail routes very few go though London. There’s certainly a capacity issue though.
    - gerdesj 2y ago
      Take a look at say, Yeovil (Gifle for the historians) with its five stations from the past, of which two remain. If you look closely at a particular flag stone on platform 2 at Pen Mill station it doesn't have "TylerE is a wanker" chiseled into it. I can make a change. This is all rather silly. We don't engage. Bloody kids.
      - TylerE 2y ago
        What the hell is your problem?
        gerdesj 2y ago
        "Basically everything runs to or from London." No it doesn't. Yeovil is still a junction with only two stations these days. It used to have four or five. Its also the confluence of the A30 and A37 roads. I don't have a problem - you clearly are not from these parts. That's fine and you will be welcome.
nine_k 2y ago
To build (more of) a subway, you need density and wealth. So NYC or Shanghai or Moscow have extensive subway systems and keep extending them. OTOH Houston does not (lacks density), and Kinshasa does not (lacks wealth).
teractiveodular 2y ago
The graph is scaled per inhabitant, which means that eg. India's apparent minor bump is actually massive. Here's the Delhi Metro, which has gone from 0 to 350 km in 20 years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjG0quY5uoI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjG0quY5uoI And the rest of the country is following: https://themetrorailguy.com/metro-rail-projects-in-india/ https://themetrorailguy.com/metro-rail-projects-in-india/
- darth_avocado 2y ago
  The graph doesn't account for population growth. Which is why India's growth is not looking great, but in reality, India has built almost 900 km (560 miles) of metro rail in the last 20 years, making it the third largest metro rail system in the world. (After US and China) They have additional 779 km (484 miles) under construction, which on completion will put them ahead of the US.

dr_dshiv 2y ago

What’s the status on the Boring company? That seemed promising. But I recognize that, in America, the issue is not a lack of technology but rather the political will.

eptcyka 2y ago
The boring company was a play to ensure California doesn't bother with its owned rapid transit systems. Much like hyperloop.
fallingknife 2y ago
I wouldn't say it's lack of political will. It's more that we are so excessively bureaucratized and regulated that it just takes more political will to get the same thing done because it will be stuck for years getting regulatory approval.
- 9question1 2y ago
  Too much bureaucracy is often at fault, but seems very unlikely in this particular case. Are all the other countries mentioned in the article less bureaucratized or regulated? There seems to be a strong correlation between countries that have good public transit and invest heavily in public transit and countries that are perceived as having too much regulatory red tape (EU, East Asia). If that's the case, how could this possibly be the problem here?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - fallingknife 2y ago
    According to the chart in the article the EU seems to be building at about the same pace as Russia, so I'm not sure it is a great example for the success of bureaucracy. And is East Asia particularly bureaucratic? The idea that I get is that building a train line over there isn't going to be held up for years in environmental review and lawsuits, but I could be wrong.
- 2y ago

itronitron 2y ago

Personally, I prefer trams. You can see the buildings and the stops are typically closer to your destination.

FredFS456 2y ago
IMO you need both. Trams for local transit, metros for faster mid-range transit, and finally urban rail for long(ish) range transit.
- bitmasher9 2y ago
  Subway/Light Rail is fantastic for highly congested areas, even if you only need to move a few miles. There’s nothing like looking out of a light rail window moving peacefully to your destination and seeing stop and go highway traffic.
- epoxia 2y ago
  I disagree about trams for local transit. A metro system is sufficient, the issue is the flat-rate pricing model of most public transit systems in the US. It prevents the casual short hop usage of public transit, needlessly subsidizing longer distance travel. Trams are just unreliable trains, with an inflexible route as compared to a bus. Notably, Tokyo only has 1 operating tram.
  - Gud 2y ago
    Have you been to Zürich? It is by far the best public transport system I’ve ever used, with Stockholm a distant second. It’s trams all the way down 0) trams are hardly unreliable 1) tram lines are routinely changed around 2) in Switzerland, there is no distinction between local and remote public transport. This has the advantage that you can use the regular trains for short hops. Zürich itself has 20+ railway stations. Zürich has really opened my eyes for what a good tram network can do.
    - defrost 2y ago
      Few things beat a dedicated personal tram: https://youtu.be/zWDt_Rmu9MQ?t=89 https://youtu.be/zWDt_Rmu9MQ?t=89

revscat 2y ago

It is helpful to remember that America is the world’s largest petrostate.

TeaBrain 2y ago
That's not helpful, because it's far from being true. The US mining sector, which includes oil and gas, is less than 2% of the US economy. https://www.statista.com/statistics/248004/percentage-added-to-the-us-gdp-by-industry/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/248004/percentage-added-...
- revscat 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_produ... 1. United States 2. Russia
  - TeaBrain 2y ago
    This is what makes the US economy interesting, in that despite being a leading producer of oil, unlike other large producers of oil, it does not come close to being reliant on the industry. In comparison, almost all other large producers of oil are petrostates, in that much of their economy is dependent on oil and gas. The US oil and gas industry could cut its production in half and it would change the GDP by a percentage point at most. US oil production is more important for natural security, so that the country is not reliant on other countries for production, than it is for the GDP.

bitmasher9 2y ago

> High-quality transit is the only way to facilitate upward growth without causing unbearable amounts of congestion. It’s the only way to speed up trips through crowded neighborhoods This is the primary reason why. Subways/rail is fantastic for dense cities. The US is much less dense than the rest of the world. So we don’t feel the need for subways. Seattle and LA care about this, so they are expanding. Seattle is geographically limited and can pretty much only expand up. LA doesn’t have the same geographic limitations, but it becoming the first city to maximize the amount of sprawl available. As other regions lose their ability to sprawl and are forced to expand up we’ll see more US regions build subways.

nox101 2y ago
The SF bay area is way more than dense as Switzerland with comparable populations but Switzerland has way more public transportation

nemo44x 2y ago

In America most everyone can afford a car and most families have many and the roads are generally excellent. People have large homes single family and prefer less density and the country is more than large enough to support this. Most people don't want to live in cramped quarters, on top of each other, and having to take mass transit. Not everyone wants a NYC lifestyle. I can't understand why a small minority of people are so intent on convincing people that living in stacked boxes with a walls separation to whoever, with communal spaces for outdoor space, and mass transit, is a better life. I think globally nearly everyone would prefer to have a single family home with a private yard and with automobiles for getting around in most cases. I'd agree train access into the big city for a day out is nice. But most "big cities" aren't big enough or dense enough to require them.

unregistereddev 2y ago
I agree with you, but it is an unpopular opinion here. Many commenters either fancy themselves to be city planners or take a "tragedy of the commons" view of infrastructure. The latter is not wrong ... but it doesn't mean we all want to live in stacked boxes.
- nemo44x 2y ago
  I think a plurality of people here are single and young and can’t possibly imagine not living in a city with all the social advantages and lifestyle perks being in one has. I did too when I was younger. But you quickly find there are better options when you want certain things and have options.
- pxmpxm 2y ago
  > unpopular opinion here Amusingly the unpopularity is almost universally originating from the same young white upper middle class suburb childhood people. Something pathological about rejecting their parents lifestyle rather than anythign to do with urban planning. Private transit is universally superior to public transit, which is why the take rate of the former to latter correlated with things like income.
jltsiren 2y ago

inglor_cz 2y ago

Yeah, I am somewhat baffled that the city I live in (Ostrava), a rust-belt city which lost 15 % of its population since 1990 (and a nontrivial share of that loss were high earners who moved to adjacent suburbia, taking their tax money with them), somehow has much cleaner, nicer and safer public transport than the richest metropolitan areas of the US, with their massive GDP advantage. The passengers may be a bit uncouth (the upper half of the society tends to drive here instead of riding public transport), but the system is still unflinchingly reliable and comfortable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELtfOekhkcw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELtfOekhkcw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMMnSwZWmKw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMMnSwZWmKw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKRrzgDIwgo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKRrzgDIwgo

pdabbadabba 2y ago

> These are the statistics underlying the reality that in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Boston, Atlanta, and many other major cities in the U.S., not a single mile of rail transit is currently under construction. Not true. In DC, the Purple Line is currently under construction to connect DC's Maryland suburbs to one another. (OK. This is technically just over the border in Maryland, but it is clearly part of the DC metro area and it interconnects with lines in the District proper.) And DC just finished (in November) adding another new line, the Silver Line, out to Dulles Airport and some of the further flung Virginia suburbs. (Similarly, I think a major project was completed in San Francisco last year.) And isn't the K under construction in LA? And what about East Side Access in New York? And the Skyline in Honolulu? I'm sure another 2 minutes of Googling could uncover more examples. The general story might be true — cthet ities outside the U.S. are investing more in rail infrastructure — but this makes me question the research. The metric "mile of transit" is also probably misleading. Many U.S.cities (though not enough) already have robust mass transit systems. The primarily challenge in many places is therefore not just to build new lines, but to expand the use of what is already there. (A particular challenge after Covid wiped out ridership.)

TylerE 2y ago
Rail and subway are distinct modes.
- TeaBrain 2y ago
  Subways can be non-rail, as seen with the Montreal subway, but subways are usually a type of rail transit. Also, once you read the article, you'll see that the author is referring to subways.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    >Subways can be non-rail, as seen with the Montreal subway Yes, and it's terrible. The Montreal subway is by far the noisiest subway system I've ever used. Even standing on the platform is a terrible experience because it's so loud when the cars are moving.

m3kw9 2y ago

America loves urban sprawl, so cars it is.

jmyeet 2y ago

I agree with other commenters: it's not "the rest of the world". It's China. For regional transit, China's high speed rail buildout [1] is truly breathtaking. If you look at the miles of track [2], China has 45000km with 25000km under construction. Number 2 on the list is Spain (with 4000 and 1000 respectively). For urban transit, China again completely dominates [3] by like a factor of 6-7 to #2. The US actually fares better here bu that's skewed by a handful of outliers, most notably NYC. It makes me so mad because of the concerted effort made to dismantle and derail (pun intended) public transit efforts in the United States. The Koch brothers (well, brother) spend a fortune fighting these projects [4]. Elon Musk famously only propsosed the Hyperloop in the hopes of killing the California High Speed Rail ("HSR") [5]. Look at Las Vegas, a huge tourist destination. What Las Vegas actually needs is a subway line between the airport and the major Strip hotels. This would require probably less than 20 miles of tunnels. It could even be a mix of light rail in the suburbs and to the airport and tunnels under the Strip. You could extend it to key parts of Las Vegas to include all the people that need to work on the Strip through Park and Ride stations. It would be incredibly cheap for the benefit. But instead we got the idiotic Tesla tunnels by The Boring Company, which I'm convinced was only proposed to kill the idea of any public transit infrastructure in Las Vegas. It's all so short-sighted because public transit scales and it would make life easier for anyone who actually wants or needs to drive. But instead we get idiotic infrastructure like the Katy Freeway in Houston [6]. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/xszhbm/chinese_highspeed_railway_map_2008_vs_2020/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/xszhbm/chinese_hig... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-speed_railway_lines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-speed_railway_lin... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems#List_by_country/region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems#List_by_... [4]: https://archive.is/UFujh https://archive.is/UFujh [5]: https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688 https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1571628269555826688 [6]: https://b93.net/widest-freeway-in-the-united-states-is-in-texas/ https://b93.net/widest-freeway-in-the-united-states-is-in-te...

pdabbadabba 2y ago
Maybe you can help me understand: Why would Elon Musk go to such lengths to kill HSR and public transit in Vegas? Is it just that he sells cars? The impact of these projects on Tesla sales doesn't seem like it would justify such an elaborate scheme to derail them.

AcerbicZero 2y ago

Hmmmmmmmm the places where riding the subway means obeying social norms, continue to build subways. The places where riding the subway does not require any social norms be obeyed, have stopped.

kkfx 2y ago

Well, I'm from EU and I think the article's claim is exaggerated, beside that metros are good to move people in a dense city, but they are economically untenable, of course with public subsidies in abundance they operate, but that's still some absurd as absurd are dense cities in the modern, present world. So well, if USA invest less in metros is a very good thing for them. It's about time to massively understand that dense cities are needed now ONLY BY FINANCE capitalism to rule over gazillion of people owing nothing, tied to their services, but it's a nightmare for everyone else, environment included since they consume an enormous amount of resources, much more NOW than spread homes (modern buildings and modern homes, with energy performances, anti-seismic design, fire safety, HVAC etc) and can't evolve while being a big on-ground thermal mass to be heated by the Sun much more than spread green areas.

dddddaviddddd 2y ago
Cities aren't going anywhere. Building and maintaining roads and cars is expensive. Essentially you can either pay for endless freeways, or pay for a subway system. People need to get around.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >People need to get around. No, they don't. They can just stay at home all the time, working at a work-from-home job and socializing entirely online while getting deliveries from Amazon. /s
  - kkfx 2y ago
    I've left the big city for the Alps and well... I never had in any city as much social life as here. In cities you cross countless of people you ignore, you have just made few friends and you go with them mostly to consume some service, while in low density areas "home parties" are the norm, having less neighbors you tent to frequent almost all, so instead of being in a bubble you meet people of a variety of background and wealth all together with their ideas, experiences etc. From home many works without a desktop, farmers, laundry with the shop in the basement and the home upstairs, medicine doctors and so on. So well... I see you scenario much more in a dense city, goshiwong alike, than in spread area of single family homes intermixed with works buildings like EU Rivieras. With this lifestyle you get: - much more in-person social activities - much better environment - much more personal space - much less to spend in consuming services, from ready made foods to fast fashion, mobile smart macrobugs devices and so on. This last point is the reasons why big tech and in general finance capitalism hate such model.

black_13 2y ago

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ProfessorLayton 2y ago

The article makes some questionable statements. BART is building more miles of its network extending to downtown San Jose. It also refers to it as San Francisco's metro, but that's certainly not the case (That would be MUNI), and that fact is stated right in its name: Bay Area Rapid Transit. This distinction isn't some pedantry, because BART is funded by the many counties it serves, not just SF. Those counties are on the board and get a say on where it extends to as well.

harimau777 2y ago
Somewhat off topic but: How difficult is it get get between SF and San Jose via public transportation? I ask because I'm looking at jobs and initially wasn't considering San Jose; however, I would if it was fairly easy to get to SF's amenities.
- anonymousDan 2y ago
  I flew into SFO recently and got a BART to Milbrae (a few minutes, regular) and from there a Caltrain towards San Jose to Mountain View. From an outsiders perspective (living in London) if you live/work near one of the Caltrain stations I guess it's not too bad. The Caltrain feels slowish (and looks like something out of Mad Max), but does the job. You better be sure you have some way of getting from the Caltrain station to wherever you want to go on the other end though. I thought I'd walk to my hotel as it didn't look too far on the map but was actually a 1h30 walk!
- ProfessorLayton 2y ago
  Highly depends on where in SJ<>SF you'll be, but over all I'd say it's pretty difficult for a few reasons: - Caltrain currently terminates at 4th & King, not exactly a prime spot in SF, so you'll likely want to transfer to MUNI, so add that to your commute time and expense. - The Caltrain ride itself is over an hour between SF/SJ. - Caltrain lead times are't great outside of rush hour. - I live in the middle of SF and it's 2hrs door to door to Diridon (SJ). It isn't difficult if you're looking at the occasional trip to SF, but as a daily commute I would not recommend. I know quite a few people who do it and it's not pleasant spending that much time on a commute.

beaglesss 2y ago

[flagged]

wnc3141 2y ago
While yes, a planned economy is inefficient, the provision of public goods is inefficient when left to private markets. Essentially, the private market is inefficient for any type of "market failures". This article is a decent starting place to look for more detail. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketfailure.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketfailure.asp
- beaglesss 2y ago
  It needn't remain a public good. It can be a private 'good'.

big-green-man 2y ago

The US has a fantastic transit system, for rural areas, independent movers, and to move massive distances in short periods of time. Highways and cars, and passenger airplanes are fantastic. Just the other day the president went from Las Vegas to DC in under 4 hours, for anyone who is unaware how impressive that is that's like going from London to Cairo. If you need to be able to move around freely unscheduled, need to be able to go basically anywhere in north america, even remote places, or need to go far fast, you can't beat the US. Unless you live in an urban or suburban area. I agree with the author particularly about densely populated areas, the US is not just lacking, it is basically undeveloped. If I were inclined to live in such a place, I would pick a foreign city over the US. The congestion is probably the number one factor for me in deciding not to, although it isn't the only factor. There is not one single good reason why, if you live in a tightly packed place, you cannot get around your immediate environment with just the shoes on your feet. Especially considering that such places are supposedly designed exclusively for human habitation. It is downright shameful.

chgs 2y ago
He’s in a private plane. You can fly Helsinki to Madrid which is about the same distance in about the same time with slightly less hassle than flying Vegas to Washington. There’s nothing particularly special about the US, and highlighting the insane logistics of moving someone from one part of the country to another doesn’t really say anything one way or another
- big-green-man 2y ago
  I see nobody really reads past the point at which they get emotionally jolted.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    You don't know that for sure. There's a bunch of city-hating pro-suburbia people in this discussion who might be downvoting you because they're angry you're calling the US "basically undeveloped". But there may also be many downvotes from the walkable city lovers who read your lengthy first paragraph and didn't get to the second one. Personally, while I agree with your overall point, I think you shouldn't write that way. Expecting people to read a somewhat-long post before getting to the "twist" on an internet forum full of hundreds of posts is a bit much; people aren't reading everything fully here. You need to make your main point in the beginning, then expand on them in the subsequent paragraphs if any.

cyberax 2y ago

Public transit sucks. It has always sucked. And it's necessary if you want dense cities. The fix? Don't do dense cities. 80-85% of the US population prefers single-family houses to apartments. We need to promote remote work and BUILD NEW SPARSE HOUSING. Do not do the nonsense "upzoning", instead build new suburbs. Remote work can be promoted by giving tax breaks for remote positions or by taxing dense office space.

uoaei 2y ago
For the discerning reader: every single expert disagrees vociferously with this take. The economics simply do not work to make this sustainable. Let's not forget how expensive basic infrastructure is just because it's normalized. Water/power/sewer/trash/roads/lighting is a massive expense that just keeps getting more expensive, not to mention that you have to factor in maintenance costs.
- beaglesss 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - uoaei 2y ago
    No one said anything about planning economies. I am only advocating a realistic understanding of markets. > Deregulate and totally privatize housing and roads and people will vote with their dollars Your lack of acknowledgment of the role corporations play in this (and the green username) makes this out to be a FUD-y and bad-faith take.
    - beaglesss 2y ago
      Public services are, generally, planned economies. I struggle to envision how they could not be, at least if publicly funded.
      - uoaei 2y ago
        Seems like a bastardization of the concept of "planned". Obviously pricing and subsidies come into play but that doesn't prevent the result from still being a market-based approach. You will not find a single capitalist who doesn't do some market research to determine a price for their product. Utilities are largely the same.

Animats 2y ago

It's a book ad. He never answers his own question, just pitches his book. "This is one of the central questions underpinning this newsletter and my book."

ijidak 2y ago

I was in Istanbul last year. Didn't see these wonders he mentioned. The subways seemed to be closer in quality to a NYC than a London. Very capable, but didn't seem cutting edge.

teractiveodular 2y ago
If anything I think this underlines how backwards public transit in the US is. If Istanbul is a "sci-fi movie", then Shenzhen or Singapore would be utopia.

Animats 2y ago

San Francisco just built a short subway to Chinatown. Not quite clear why. SF's Chinatown is stuck in the 1950s. It's not modern China. No black-glass skyscrapers in exotic shapes. No outposts of Shenzhen manufacturers. It's mostly a retirement village.

omegaworks 2y ago
>San Francisco just built a short subway to Chinatown. Not quite clear why. Largely to set the stage for service to the Richmond. >It's mostly a retirement village. A testament to the resilience of the community in the face of an ongoing housing supply shortage. There is no doubt immense pressure from our typical economic processes to displace retirees from the place that they've lived their entire lives. You'd rather see old folks trapped in car-dependent suburbia, eventually unable to drive themselves to their basic needs?
jacobolus 2y ago
> Chinatown is stuck in the 1950s. It's not modern China. This is a really weird complaint. SF Chinatown is a neighborhood settled by mostly Cantonese speaking immigrants in the mid 19th century, and still mostly inhabited by descendants of Chinese immigrants who moved to the US generations ago. Why would you expect it (or want it) to be "modern China"?
nox101 2y ago
It was way way over budget, took way longer than it was supposed to, and ... no one is using it. https://www.transittalent.com/articles/index.cfm?story=SF_Central_Subway_Chinatown_3-4-2024 https://www.transittalent.com/articles/index.cfm?story=SF_Ce...

standardUser 2y ago

I'm a huge proponent of building more rail of all kinds, but in the end we have to accept that traditional public transit options can only solve part of the problem. For the low and medium density parts of this country we should leverage the infrastructure we already have, which is a comprehensive road system. Automated shuttles and taxis remove the most expensive and dangerous part of driving - the human driver - and they already have all the infrastructure they require. I see it as only a matter of time before automated transit services on public roads outnumber individual drivers.

Zamiel_Snawley 2y ago
Don’t forget that the upkeep costs of that existing, low density infrastructure is very expensive, and is often net negative for municipalities.

rdlecler1 2y ago

Do driverless cars make all this moot?

noahtallen 2y ago
No, cars are still very space inefficient which is a big problem in the densest cities in the world. A train carrying a thousand passengers past every three minutes is much better than the capacity of a road, especially during congestion
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  Driverless cars could easily boost mass transit use by efficiently handling last mile problems. Although driverless short jaunt tuktuks might be better.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    Bicycles (or e-bikes if you prefer) are far more efficient than cars for this purpose. Bike-share is also really helpful here, so you don't need to have your own personal bike.
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      Not if you have packages and such, you really need a cargo bike or something. Weather would also play a role. I don’t see bike share as very successful, but I guess with better security and places for the bikes to hangout it could work out better.
      - shiroiushi 2y ago
        Bike-share works extremely well here in Tokyo. I see people on the red Docomo bikes every time I go almost anywhere. For cargo, people generally pay for a delivery service if it's something too cumbersome to carry. In large cities like this, people don't buy a month's worth of groceries all at once; they only buy as much as they can carry.

kazinator 2y ago

Why would Americans need subways? Silicon Valley bros got their back. Uber, Lyft, Waymo, ...

anonymousDan 2y ago
Can they magically avoid traffic?

akira2501 2y ago

Italy and Spain, in particular, do not care about the quality of ridership on their metro lines outside of tourist heavy areas. So, if you plan to ride the train, in particular if you are alone, have a plan to deal with pick pockets and gropers. No one ever really addresses this trade off.

adventured 2y ago
People that can convince politicians to build nice mass transit, are the ones unwilling to ride it. The US is heavily bifurcated socio-economically. It's quite simple and nobody much likes to talk about it (admit it): the top 50% do not want to ride on mass transit with the bottom 50%. And even more so, the top 1/3 absolutely do not want to ride on mass transit with the bottom 1/3. The top 1/3 pay most of the taxes in the US. In the US the top 50% are relatively well off, affluent by Western standards. The top 1/3 in the US is equivalent to Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway - highly rich, highly educated. The bottom 1/3 is not well off. The bottom 1/3 is poor and uneducated by Western standards, with extremely high rates of violent crime, murder and untreated mental illness. The murder/violent crime/rape rate in the bottom 1/3 is truly terrifying in the US. Nothing is done to address (improve) any of it. edit: The same premise largely applies to the top 1/3 blocking the construction of new housing, because they don't want to live near the bottom 1/3. The people that can make new construction happen (financially, politically), are the ones that don't want it to happen. This goes on in blue cities, it goes on in red cities.
- teractiveodular 2y ago
  As usual, the Onion nailed it years ago: https://www.theonion.com/report-98-percent-of-u-s-commuters-favor-public-trans-1819565837 https://www.theonion.com/report-98-percent-of-u-s-commuters-...
- creer 2y ago
  At least here, the problem is absolutely not the "bottom 1/3" but the mentally deranged and the outright violent. Completely different category. You seem to conflate the two and that doesn't represent the situation on the ground. The 1st category is poor but civil. Even then, the system is slow, sparse, unreliable. Most of the time this wouldn't be a desired transport, more like one of the rare ones available.

shmerl 2y ago

> There’s no easy answer, though there is a growing consensus around certain factors that are holding America’s transit systems back. In a future post, I’ll describe these factors in depth. So what are these factors?

bitwize 2y ago
(Jay Sherman voice) "Buy my book! Buy my book!"

ineedaj0b 2y ago

The rail situation in California is so bad, the company in charge of building rail packed up and moved to Africa - because they thought they’d have better luck there.

bilbo0s 2y ago
The Chinese already have a tight hold on rail in Africa. So the joke’s on them.
- tyoma 2y ago
  They successfully completed high speed rail service that has been operational since 2018: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Boraq https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Boraq Meanwhile California has yet to start service.
  - two_handfuls 2y ago
    Oh very cool, they have the TGV there!

treflop 2y ago

How come no one ever looks at population density? US cities have very low density compared to other cities in other countries. New York is the exception, and their transit isn't that bad. But it's still lower than other major cities.

bongodongobob 2y ago
Right. That and the fact they'll want to connect two cites that are 2-3 hours away by car and neither city is walkable. So it takes longer to get there and then you have to rent a car when you get there anyway.
tsunagatta 2y ago
The tail wags the dog a little in this case; you could equally say that America’s chosen mode of transport forces lower density: large parking lots and wide roads take up a lot of space where people could otherwise live and work. Wide roads also make it harder to walk around locations, making transit less inviting since walking itself is less inviting.
- kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
  The interstate highway system is largely to blame. As it expanded, It usurped rail travel that only effectively served a smaller number of established cities. It is more convenient to drive shortish distances within a region than to hassle with train schedules and the problem of getting transport from the station to the final destination. This then assisted the growth of post-war cities that were mere backwaters 75 years ago.
- treflop 2y ago
  In my opinion, it's largely because American cities are new. If you are building a new city, you do not start with high density. Individual developers start with the cheapest build out because no one will pay a premium for a multi-level structure until cheap single-level builds are exhausted. Then as centuries pass, because there is no more undeveloped land, the city is forced to redevelop existing plots and increase density. Many Asian and Western cities are hundreds or thousands of years old. America's transit woes is because we live in a new country with new cities in previously mostly uninhabited land.

User2273 2y ago

It's always funny how people like this start from the assumption that Americans want mass transit, such as this. Take a look around - I don't want my tax dollars spent on a transit project full of graft in NY. It's really that simple. And I don't want mass transit where I live. This also belies the writer's condescension and hubris. I've been on many city mass transit systems, in the US and abroad, contrary to the story posted here, they aren't all "like star trek to (ignorant) Americans". Spare me.

oslis 2y ago

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