4 ms·

The article mentions how global cities outside the US are building out urban rail systems. Here's some more detail about China, which has the two largest trans

by rayval 2y ago

The article mentions how global cities outside the US are building out urban rail systems. Here's some more detail about China, which has the two largest transit systems in the world: Shanghai and Beijing. In 1993, Shanghai had one line running 2.7 miles with 4 stations. Less than 30 years later, the system had 15 lines, 500 miles of track, and 500 stations. [1] And in that same time frame, the Beijing subway system was expanded, from 2 lines in 2002 to 27 lines and 500 miles of track, with 13 million riders per day in 2022. [2] Also in that time, 30 other cities in China got subway systems as well.[3] In 1993, China's per-capita GDP was $537. By comparison, per-capita GDP in the US was 50 times larger (about $23k). Since then, the gap has narrowed. US per-capita GDP is now 5x of China (66k vs 12k). China demonstrates that, even with small GDP, if you prioritize the needs of the people over entrenched commercial interests, it can be done. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Shanghai_Metro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Shanghai_Metro [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Subway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Subway [3] https://qz.com/1010911/a-beautiful-data-animation-shows-the-unprecedented-speed-of-development-of-chinas-rail-system https://qz.com/1010911/a-beautiful-data-animation-shows-the-...

shiroiushi 2y ago
In the US, if you prioritize the wants of the people, you'll just get wider roads. The people there don't want better public transit; you can see this every time these discussions come up on HN and Americans here respond about how much they hate riding on public transit or walking anywhere. And their all-suburban cities aren't dense enough to make it work economically or practically anyway: everything is just too far apart. Finally, the largest transit system in the world isn't in China, it's in Tokyo, Japan (though to be fair, it isn't really a single system since it's run by many different companies).
- Kbelicius 2y ago
  > In the US, if you prioritize the wants of the people, you'll just get wider roads. The people there don't want better public transit; you can see this every time these discussions come up on HN and Americans here respond about how much they hate riding on public transit or walking anywhere. Everybody wants a car because public transit sucks. Do you think that those people would still want a car if they lived somewhere with a good public transit and walkability?
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    >Do you think that those people would still want a car if they lived somewhere with a good public transit and walkability? Yes, I really do. You can see it in comments here on HN and any other place the transit-vs-cars discussion comes up and Americans are involved. Sure, there's some Americans who'd really like to live someplace with good public transit and walkability, but don't be fooled: most Americans (IMO) just aren't like this and really do want to stick with their car-based lifestyle. If most Americans were like you say, there'd be a huge exodus of Americans moving to Europe.
    - Kbelicius 2y ago
      > Yes, I really do. So you don't think that people respond to incentives? Quite an interesting take. > most Americans (IMO) just aren't like this and really do want to stick with their car-based lifestyle. Because nobody, not just Americans, likes change. I'd like to stick with my public transit/walking lifestyle but if overtime that lifestyle becomes hard to maintain I'd want to get a car. > If most Americans were like you say, there'd be a huge exodus of Americans moving to Europe. You've missed the point. I made absolutely no claims about Americans. If I made a claim about people it was about all people, Americans, Europeans, Asians... That claim is that people respond to incentives. When a person moves from a place with bad public transit and walkablity to place with good public transit and walkablity it is likely that they'll go car free or at least use their care much less. Same applies the other way around.
      - shiroiushi 2y ago
        >You've missed the point. I made absolutely no claims about Americans. You didn't, but I did. Like any place, Americans have a culture of their own, and car ownership is a big, big part of that culture in most of the country. (Similarly, owning guns is a big part of that culture for a large fraction of the population.) >When a person moves from a place with bad public transit and walkablity to place with good public transit and walkablity it is likely that they'll go car free or at least use their care much less. Same applies the other way around. Well, of course: people have to be practical at some point. Someone moving to a car-bound hellscape is going to need to get a car to have an enjoyable life, and someone moving to a dense city where car ownership is extremely expensive and inconvenient is likely to not want a car at all. But people don't just randomly move to these places: they move there because they want to for some reason, and the ubiquity (or not) of cars is probably a big part of that reason for many. People who absolutely love driving everywhere and hate public transit aren't going to move from suburban USA to Manhattan or Berlin or Tokyo, and people who like living carfree in major cities aren't likely to make the reverse move unless there's some huge incentive (high-paying job, family obligation, etc.) and even here they're probably not going to be too happy with the change. I really feel like a large portion of the pro-dense-city people really think that almost everyone really secretly wants to live this way and only buys into car culture because it's forced on them. While growing up in a particular environment obviously has a huge effect on your personal preferences, and people sometimes change their opinions after seeing or experiencing a different environment, I think they're discounting how many people really do like car culture, even after seeing the alternatives. My view is that car ownership is a luxury, and a car-based society has huge economic and ecological costs and is ultimately unsustainable outside of rural areas, and eventually more-efficient societies are going to outcompete car-based societies (or, they'll both be destroyed in an ecological collapse leading to general societal collapse). I think we're already seeing a lot of this with the US, where labor costs there are absolutely insane compared to the rest of the world.
- fragmede 2y ago
  > all-suburban cities aren't dense enough to make it work economically or practically I'm not sure why we even call those cities, because they're not. They're big sprawling towns.
HDThoreaun 2y ago
> China demonstrates that, even with small GDP China's public transit success was because of their small gdp per capita, not in spite of it. Their developing economy gave them labor at slave wages and allowed the government to just bulldoze peoples houses without much backlash. Not having those things are the biggest problems the US faces when it comes to building infrastructure.

by rayval 2y ago

shiroiushi 2y ago

In the US, if you prioritize the wants of the people, you'll just get wider roads. The people there don't want better public transit; you can see this every time these discussions come up on HN and Americans here respond about how much they hate riding on public transit or walking anywhere. And their all-suburban cities aren't dense enough to make it work economically or practically anyway: everything is just too far apart. Finally, the largest transit system in the world isn't in China, it's in Tokyo, Japan (though to be fair, it isn't really a single system since it's run by many different companies).

Kbelicius 2y ago
> In the US, if you prioritize the wants of the people, you'll just get wider roads. The people there don't want better public transit; you can see this every time these discussions come up on HN and Americans here respond about how much they hate riding on public transit or walking anywhere. Everybody wants a car because public transit sucks. Do you think that those people would still want a car if they lived somewhere with a good public transit and walkability?
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >Do you think that those people would still want a car if they lived somewhere with a good public transit and walkability? Yes, I really do. You can see it in comments here on HN and any other place the transit-vs-cars discussion comes up and Americans are involved. Sure, there's some Americans who'd really like to live someplace with good public transit and walkability, but don't be fooled: most Americans (IMO) just aren't like this and really do want to stick with their car-based lifestyle. If most Americans were like you say, there'd be a huge exodus of Americans moving to Europe.
  - Kbelicius 2y ago
    > Yes, I really do. So you don't think that people respond to incentives? Quite an interesting take. > most Americans (IMO) just aren't like this and really do want to stick with their car-based lifestyle. Because nobody, not just Americans, likes change. I'd like to stick with my public transit/walking lifestyle but if overtime that lifestyle becomes hard to maintain I'd want to get a car. > If most Americans were like you say, there'd be a huge exodus of Americans moving to Europe. You've missed the point. I made absolutely no claims about Americans. If I made a claim about people it was about all people, Americans, Europeans, Asians... That claim is that people respond to incentives. When a person moves from a place with bad public transit and walkablity to place with good public transit and walkablity it is likely that they'll go car free or at least use their care much less. Same applies the other way around.
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      >You've missed the point. I made absolutely no claims about Americans. You didn't, but I did. Like any place, Americans have a culture of their own, and car ownership is a big, big part of that culture in most of the country. (Similarly, owning guns is a big part of that culture for a large fraction of the population.) >When a person moves from a place with bad public transit and walkablity to place with good public transit and walkablity it is likely that they'll go car free or at least use their care much less. Same applies the other way around. Well, of course: people have to be practical at some point. Someone moving to a car-bound hellscape is going to need to get a car to have an enjoyable life, and someone moving to a dense city where car ownership is extremely expensive and inconvenient is likely to not want a car at all. But people don't just randomly move to these places: they move there because they want to for some reason, and the ubiquity (or not) of cars is probably a big part of that reason for many. People who absolutely love driving everywhere and hate public transit aren't going to move from suburban USA to Manhattan or Berlin or Tokyo, and people who like living carfree in major cities aren't likely to make the reverse move unless there's some huge incentive (high-paying job, family obligation, etc.) and even here they're probably not going to be too happy with the change. I really feel like a large portion of the pro-dense-city people really think that almost everyone really secretly wants to live this way and only buys into car culture because it's forced on them. While growing up in a particular environment obviously has a huge effect on your personal preferences, and people sometimes change their opinions after seeing or experiencing a different environment, I think they're discounting how many people really do like car culture, even after seeing the alternatives. My view is that car ownership is a luxury, and a car-based society has huge economic and ecological costs and is ultimately unsustainable outside of rural areas, and eventually more-efficient societies are going to outcompete car-based societies (or, they'll both be destroyed in an ecological collapse leading to general societal collapse). I think we're already seeing a lot of this with the US, where labor costs there are absolutely insane compared to the rest of the world.
fragmede 2y ago
> all-suburban cities aren't dense enough to make it work economically or practically I'm not sure why we even call those cities, because they're not. They're big sprawling towns.

HDThoreaun 2y ago

> China demonstrates that, even with small GDP China's public transit success was because of their small gdp per capita, not in spite of it. Their developing economy gave them labor at slave wages and allowed the government to just bulldoze peoples houses without much backlash. Not having those things are the biggest problems the US faces when it comes to building infrastructure.