Public transport bros?

[mozfonky]

Yeah buses. PT advocates usually hate buses which have most of the same issues cars have. That is not the issue here. PT advocates are almost always talking about some type of rail whether it be a train or a street car(which has a rail). When people are complaining about "car dominant infrastructure" thats the infrastructure buses use too.

i dunno, depends on the rail system, we have a few in my town, some of them are very efficient for certain parts of the city, others end up nearly totally unused. Either way, you still have idiots getting on making shit hard for other people, starting shit, not paying.

My take is just based on the sociological take, not the logistics of infrastructure. Like a Navy Seal once told me when talking about our lifestyle, "humans are not meant to live like this". It's that simple, we aren't. We evolved in groups of 50-150 people and then we were conned into living the way we do and it's unnatural and misery producing.

 

[GSP_37]

What if they had like a separate car on each train chain that costed more fare to let people avoid the riff raff and druggie bums? They could have guys who couldn't make it in NFL as linemen block non-elite train riders from entering those elite cars.

 

[ShinkanPo]

Currently on the train to work on the train. I work in IT, often out seeing customers in the car but if in the office all day I usually get the train.

Anyone else sound poor like me and use PT?

Pros and cons below:

Pros: Attractive females sometimes in business attire, can have an extra one or two drinks in the office cause I don’t have to drive, don’t have to deal with traffic, it’s usually quicker going to the CBD

Cons: Dealing with riff raff, delays, sometimes I have to stand, sometimes the trains stink, people having annoying conversations on their phone, people playing shit music on their phone without earphones sometimes

PT in my city is total shit.

Trains are packed like sardines all thr time busses as well.


I was working for 18 years just using public transpo but recently it is just so outright dehumanizing so I was forced to buy a beatup car just to avoid really getting sick.

 

[Savant21]

There are just too damned many people on earth and we don't really like each other. Bill Maher said it once when he talked about atm machines and the grocery machines where we don't have to deal with anyone.

Neighbors don't get along much of the time, sue each other, complain about everything and that's with the suburban sprawl they have, packing them in tighter won't help. Packing people into busses doesn't make life less stressfull for most people. Some people might not mind it but most probably would rather not have to sit or stand next to a bunch of strangers several times a day.

There's nuance to this. First off, all cities (before the invention of the car) were walkable (including the suburbs). Secondly, there is a middle ground between NYC style of walkability & suburban sprawl, they're called street-car suburbs (aka walkable suburbs, aka the "Missing Middle").

With walkable suburbs, it's basically high-density, low-rise. It still feels like a neighborhood, chill & quiet, however, you don't need to spend all this paper/get into all this debt just so that you can move yourself from point A to point B. Usually in these cases, there's either light rail nearby, walking lanes and/or bike lanes & obviously the zoning laws enable commercial businesses to be either in the same building as the housing units or within walking distance of them.

I get that you & many others dislike walkability/walkable living areas, that's ok. My point is that how housing & land development is conducted with car-centric infrastructure in mind, isn't sustainable. Car-dependent infrastructure isn't profitable in any way, it's funded by property taxes & sales taxes. Housing is more expensive in dense/walkable areas for a reason & businesses generate more profit in walkable areas for a reason. Just because some people hate density doesn't mean that all housing & land development should be designed around cars. It's the fucking zoning laws & parking minimums that perpetuate car-dependent infrastructure.

There's literally NOTHING positive about car-dependent infrastructure whatsoever: average American (& Canadian as well I believe) spends about $10-$12k annually on car expenses alone (that's a fuckton outta your income, whereas in say Chicago an annual pass for the CTA is $900), 40k people or so die on our roads every year but we act like "that's just life", we're in a housing crisis & isolation/loneliness crisis, then you got climate change as the cherry on top of it all.

North American cities weren't designed around cars, they were BULLDOZED for cars.

 

[Savant21]

You can have rails within walking distance of everything. You know how we know? This country once had that. It was dismantled.

You're forgetting peoples main issues with cars are mainly with roads, highways and the various negative things they've done to society. Buses do nothing to solve that. Yes buses take away the expense of owning a vehicle and minimize various logistical problems within the current framework that you've referred to. PT advocates generally want an alternative to roads not a more convienant way of travelling by them.

But the biggest issues with buses is it is not possible for them to be on time because they do not have a right of way and they are limited in the amount of passengers they can take. People are looking for transit to be something reliable they and everyone can rely on to meet a schedule. Buses can never be that they are beholden to road conditions.

The solution is to eliminate these fucking zoning laws & parking minimums (which is the main reason the US & Canada, maybe Australia as well since it's car-dependent, are in a housing crisis & isolation crisis too). When you have mixed-use zoning & zero parking minimums, you can have all sorts of transportation: buses, light rail, rail, bike lanes, walking lanes & yes even cars too. It enables everyone to ya know, actually participate in society & be able to navigate their environment without needing to get into debt/spend $10-$12k annually just to get from point A to point B (ridiculous!).

There's zero positive about car-dependent infrastructure, it's not even profitable at all. It's perpetuated by the damn zoning laws & parking minimums (urban planning is honestly political no matter which way you slice it). All cities before the invention of the car, were walkable (including the suburbs as well). Humans are social creatures so the idea that we NEED to live far away from our amenities & from each other is total bullshit.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, there's a middle ground between NYC style density & suburban sprawl car-dependency, they're called streetcar suburbs (aka walkable suburbs, aka "The Missing Middle Housing").

Not Just Bikes Talks about it here:

 

[mozfonky]

There's nuance to this. First off, all cities (before the invention of the car) were walkable (including the suburbs). Secondly, there is a middle ground between NYC style of walkability & suburban sprawl, they're called street-car suburbs (aka walkable suburbs, aka the "Missing Middle").

With walkable suburbs, it's basically high-density, low-rise. It still feels like a neighborhood, chill & quiet, however, you don't need to spend all this paper/get into all this debt just so that you can move yourself from point A to point B. Usually in these cases, there's either light rail nearby, walking lanes and/or bike lanes & obviously the zoning laws enable commercial businesses to be either in the same building as the housing units or within walking distance of them.

I get that you & many others dislike walkability/walkable living areas, that's ok. My point is that how housing & land development is conducted with car-centric infrastructure in mind, isn't sustainable. Car-dependent infrastructure isn't profitable in any way, it's funded by property taxes & sales taxes. Housing is more expensive in dense/walkable areas for a reason & businesses generate more profit in walkable areas for a reason. Just because some people hate density doesn't mean that all housing & land development should be designed around cars. It's the fucking zoning laws & parking minimums that perpetuate car-dependent infrastructure.

There's literally NOTHING positive about car-dependent infrastructure whatsoever: average American (& Canadian as well I believe) spends about $10-$12k annually on car expenses alone (that's a fuckton outta your income, whereas in say Chicago an annual pass for the CTA is $900), 40k people or so die on our roads every year but we act like "that's just life", we're in a housing crisis & isolation/loneliness crisis, then you got climate change as the cherry on top of it all.

North American cities weren't designed around cars, they were BULLDOZED for cars.

I'm saying we're not built to live like this to begin with, either one. We're duped to live like this. I think people's attempt to spread out are a reaction to being packed in. I know that for me, as big a headache as driving is, and it can be a nightmare, it's still not as bad as being around a crowd of strangers bumping into you. Neither one is good for us really but it's where we are.

From your perspective you're right but it's inhuman to live like this. However, we can't go back 50 thousand years without killing 99 percent of the population, which, looking at the world, may happen.

 

[TankAbbott4Eva]

PT in my city is total shit.

Trains are packed like sardines all thr time busses as well.


I was working for 18 years just using public transpo but recently it is just so outright dehumanizing so I was forced to buy a beatup car just to avoid really getting sick.

What city are you in? That sounds grim my man, maybe i shouldn't complain about my situation ha ha

 

[IIIIIIII]

What if they had like a separate car on each train chain that costed more fare to let people avoid the riff raff and druggie bums? They could have guys who couldn't make it in NFL as linemen block non-elite train riders from entering those elite cars.

oh, like carpool on highways? sounds great, but it would probably cost billions upon billions to build.

 

[Thepaintbucket]

I mean for the average person do you really have much of a choice in a large metropolitan city? Even if you have money I'm not sure if it's worth the trouble. Got to deal with parking garages, finding parking on the streets, traffic jams, looking to avoid pedestrian accidents.

 

[ShinkanPo]

What city are you in? That sounds grim my man, maybe i shouldn't complain about my situation ha ha

Hi... Nah we all have the right to complain hahaha we all have different perspectives

I am in Manela. https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/07/eb/e2/1c/manila-mrt-at-3pm-on.jpg

This is why I a scoff at some of the more extreme urbanists online. I am all for better public transport and other micro mobility solutions. I was not infavor of banning the electric kick scooters. But its those anti car weirdos I really don't get.

They say I should just take the metro


The metro.....

 

[GSP_37]

oh, like carpool on highways? sounds great, but it would probably cost billions upon billions to build.

No. I see the trains here and it's like 4 cars connected together. Say you designate one of the cars no druggie bums criminals.

Right now, often when I look at the trains running by, it's so empty one passenger could have an entire car to himself.