8 ms·
I cant speak to all this, but as an American doing a lot of work in London, wow transportation is incredibly great. Shockingly impressive. Traveling to London,
by TuringNYC 8mo ago
I cant speak to all this, but as an American doing a lot of work in London, wow transportation is incredibly great. Shockingly impressive. Traveling to London, and getting around London, and doing a lot of meetings in a small trip, is easier than anywhere in the US now because of how beautifully their transit system works (despite occasional delays which can be expected.)
The rollout of the Elizabeth Line from Heathrow airport is also eye-opening. In NYC we speak about new subways lines with hundred-year plans (recall the 2nd ave subway extension) but in London the smoothly operating Elizabeth Line seemed to be introduced out of thin air.
- oceansky 8mo agoI've visited Paris and London a few months ago as a tourist. I am really impressed by London public transport, both the classical red double deck buses and the subway.
- techterrier 8mo agohaving done a lot of work on it in a previous career, I can confirm that it was born out or no shortage of blood, sweat and signalling snafus.
- sjhuda 8mo agoThin air? It was delivered 3 years late and cost £5bn more than it should have. While projects like HS2 to the North are scaled back. The UK uses other parts of the county as a piggy bank to fund London projects. I have a dog in this fight as I'm quite close to the public transport industry in the North and it's pretty disheartening to see politicans use us as some sort of "policy win" and then never follow through with it. Manchester only recently got devolved powers meaning the region did not have to get approval from Westminster on how they use their money and the bus and tram system has completely improved in the sapce of a couple of years (unified tickets, tap and go) with the suburban rail to come into that this year. What is also interesting is that London's productivity growth is falling compared to Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool. So those cities that aren't getting the fancy new train lines are actually performing better.
- matt-p 8mo ago3 years late is practically early in UK infrastructure! HS2 was originally due to open in December! We're a decade off at least.
- blibble 8mo ago> The UK uses other parts of the county as a piggy bank to fund London projects. it's the exact opposite
- youngtaff 8mo agoAlthough Yes CrossRail was partly funded by a levy on London homes and businesses, London get's more funding per capita for public transport than anywhere else in the country Imagine what we achieve if we invested London levels of money in transport across the rest of the country
- etothepii 8mo agoLondon pays more taxes per capita than the rest of country.
- yardie 8mo agoAnd decisions made in London have drained those other cities of investment and tax revenue.
- whywhywhywhy 8mo agoImagine if the money spent on transport in London wasn't funding things like fake jobs to carry people to massive pensions because TFL employees can't be made redundant.
- youngtaff 8mo agoWhat have you got against TfL employees?
- 8mo ago
- anonymous908213 8mo ago> Under the project name of Crossrail, the system was approved in 2007, and construction began in 2009. Originally planned to open in 2018, the project was repeatedly delayed [...] The service is named after Queen Elizabeth II, who officially opened the line on 17 May 2022[...]. I wouldn't say thin air, exactly.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- TuringNYC 8mo ago>> I wouldn't say thin air, exactly. Fair but have you seen how long things take in the US? The original proposal for the 2nd ave line was in 1920 and they have only managed to deploy four stops. I read about it in the news when I was in 5th grade and still read about it now, 40yrs later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway Similar for the Hudson tunnel which is supposed to allow commuter trains to function w/o the current madness...
- johnisgood 8mo agoI think it is widely known that public transport in the US is god awful. Public transportation is lovely in most European countries, IMO.
- eloisant 8mo agoIt's pretty good in NYC. I heard it's nice in Boston too.
- clickety_clack 8mo agoIf they ran the suburban rail more frequently Boston would have a phenomenal system.
- ghaff 8mo agoThe suburban rail in Boston is very much commuter rail. I live about 50 miles west (pretty near a station though I have to drive) and I'll absolutely take it for a 9-5ish urban event. But it's completely useless for anything in the evening.
- kevin_thibedeau 8mo agoNJ Transit is commuter rail and they made it not suck by providing usable evening and weekend service.
- ghaff 8mo agoDifferent cities. Different transport situations. I'm not convinced I would take commuter rail in and out of where I live to Boston even if it ran more frequently. Chicken and egg and all that but it's empty in the evening as it is. Even the reverse commute in the evening is annoying but then it's quite straightforward to go home. There are usually reasonable parking options. Personally, not sure I'd use it outside of rush-hour in and back.
- philipallstar 8mo agoThe Elizabeth Line was unbelievably expensive to build; that's how the UK did it.
- TuringNYC 8mo ago>> The Elizabeth Line was unbelievably expensive to build; that's how the UK did it. Fair. But what is also expensive is every single citizen taking $100 Uber rides to the airport, like in NYC. In NJ, the transit service has become so volatile and sporadic and opaque that people have reduced NJTransit use for Newark airport in favor of simply driving.
- direwolf20 8mo agoThat cost doesn't show up on government books, so we can pretend it doesn't exist. The joys of decentral planning.
- philipallstar 8mo agoWe don't have to pretend it doesn't exist. It actually doesn't cost the taxpayer anything.
- matt-p 8mo agoWrong, $100 Uber rides boost employment and the economy! (Just ignore the impacts of congestion, wasted time, road spending)
- badc0ffee 8mo ago> But what is also expensive is every single citizen taking $100 Uber rides to the airport, like in NYC. Last time I went to NYC I took the AirTrain to Jamaica station and then an express train to Penn. it took like 35 minutes total.
- chpatrick 8mo agoIt's a massive investment in the areas near its stations.
- pdpi 8mo agoSome bits about the service can be pretty astounding. I used to live near the Central line. The station near home was open air and the exit was at the very end of the platform, so I always wanted to make sure I entered the train from the correct end. Service on the Central line is frequent enough (24 trains per hour off-peak), that, if I hopped off the train from the wrong end, the time it took me to walk the length of the platform was long enough for the next train to arrive.
- mft_ 8mo agoHah, the joys of optimising your morning commute on the Underground. “If I stand here on the platform, then the door will open right in front of me, and I’ll be exactly at the exit of the next platform where I need to change…”
- dasil003 8mo agoYeah or “the signs all say to walk down this long passage, and then back via a circuitous route for flow control, but my destination is actually 100 feet away through this unmarked passage so I’ll just go that way” situation at Bank
- martypitt 8mo agoI've lived in London for a decade, and feel incredibly lucky to have access to the transit here - having lived in Aus, NZ and Canada previously. It's not perfect. It's late sometimes, pollution sucks, and often crowded - but people here who like to criticise it really don't recognise how much better they have it than lots of other places. Same with travel from here to Europe (by train), is just awesome.
- interludead 8mo agoAnd for a city that wants to be a global startup hub, that kind of frictionless mobility matters way more than people realize
- pjc50 8mo agoThe Elizabeth Line, formerly known as Crossrail, is a lot more similar to the hundred year plan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossrail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossrail My dad was a tunnels engineer and worked on Crossrail feasibility studies at several points in his career across decades. London is is many ways one of the less impressive subway systems simply because much of it is so old, with small trains running in Victorian era tunnels. Not as bad as the Glasgow one, which feels like travelling on a 2/3 scale model of a subway with alarmingly narrow platforms. It is however a point of contention within the UK that London public transport is better than public transport in almost every other city, due to being properly nationalized.
- nialv7 8mo agoVery true. If you really want to see rail lines materialise out of thin air, go to any major cities in China.
- kakacik 8mo agoTo americans, London public transport feels amazing. To rest of Europe, its lets say OKish
- WentFullRetard 8mo ago[dead]
- short_sells_poo 8mo agoTo people who have to commute to London, particularly if it's not a mainline train, it's tragically bad and overpriced. Train outages happen on a daily basis, the fare is very expensive compared to mainland Europe and the quality is quite a bit worse.
- matt-p 8mo agoTrue, but it's not london public transport (e.g not TFL) and that may actually be the only reason it's bad. Look what happened when TFL took over national rail services inside london (silverlink > overground).
- PunchyHamster 8mo agoI feel that's more "US public transport being bad"
- nervousvarun 8mo agoRight as an American this reads like "American who's never been to large Asian cities like Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing etc..
- christophilus 8mo agoI'm with you. Tokyo is incredible. It's the only large city I've ever been to where I left thinking, "I'd love to live there." Transportation in Japan is a whole other level compared to my experiences in Germany and Austria. I've never been to England, though, so can't make that comparison.
- esseph 8mo ago> American who's never been to large Asian cities like Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing 30% of all Americans have never left the North Western hemisphere.
- direwolf20 8mo agoMany European cities have this. London has the biggest, though. And Asian cities. Paris has a metro, Berlin has a metro, Tokyo has a metro, many cities in China but that information is a bit less accessible. China built an entire national high speed rail network while America was waiting to see if the Hyperloop was anything.
- VoodooJuJu 8mo ago[dead]
- amadeuspagel 8mo agoWhen I visited London for the first time (from germany) I was impressed by how you can pay for the tube by swiping your credit card at the entry and exit. It's not just a great experience for the rider, but it also gives the transit agency the resources and the incentive to improve. A new line is not a question of politics, it's just profitable.