146 points
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Depending on your definition, this actually is not peak performance.

Subways are.

Obviously, the tunnels are absurdly expensive, but nothing moves as many people as quickly around a city as a subway.

They’re also extremely reliable, meaning people are even more likely to actually use them, and their above-ground footprint is essentially zero.

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95 points

Subways are for mobility (moving large numbers of people rapidly); trams are for access (getting you close to your destination). They complement each other and a well-designed city would have both.

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21 points

STOP I can only get so erect

You’re going to make me write a cute green-urbania fiction of my self-insert walking around a beautiful city with parks everywhere and using the sub-rails to go far distances and then get on cute retro san francisco style over land trams to make my way to walk-only brick roads and then walk to some book store, the corners piled high with books, with books stacked outside the store under a cloth awning, owned by a wise old man of unclear nationality who spends his days reading the books he sells, who knows me well enough to offer a glass of tea.

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5 points

😩

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50 points
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I have to disagree. Accessibility of underground transport is abhorrent. Changing from underground to aboveground buses and trains is also shit. The space use of public transport in comparison to car infrastructure is completely negligible. If anything put all the cars underground as they are ugly and stinky. This picture also give you happy chemical because it is green and is not another dead, sealed asphalt hellscape.

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15 points

I quite like underground transport, the stations can be absolutely stunning.

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4 points

That might be the higher-than-is-really-safe concentration of fumes doing the stunning…

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3 points

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4 points

wym accessability is abhorrent?

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11 points

Its literally underground. Anyone that has a wheelchair, old people, blind people etc are not gonna enjoy using it. Elevators are often out of order and even if not its a hurdle.

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23 points

But I like watching things outside the trams.

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15 points

Skytrains my dude, similar footprint, same tech, and I assume it costs significantly less, and is able to dip underground when there absolutely ISNT the footprint for it above ground

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16 points

Monorail!

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12 points

While monorails are cool, skytrains are literally just trains and thus insanely hard to beat for cost vs efficiency

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1 point

Bleh

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6 points

Would sky trains be as reliable? I assume subways are more reliable partially due to not being exposed to the elements.

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1 point

My guess would be that they are separated from any traffic, just like a subway and unlike trams or buses which are a part of it. No other traffic = less delays and accidents = more reliable transport

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1 point

At the end of the day, they’re still just trains, and while Vancouver’s trains DO seem to be somewhat bafflingly effected by severe weather, for the most part things keep running like normal as it still is only somewhat

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9 points

Tunnels also don’t take away space from people. This nice looking tramway could be a nice promenade for people instead.

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2 points

Without trees. And with asphalt. Basically another asphalt field.

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2 points

Asphalt field? Your comment makes zero sense.

Have you never seen a promenade with trees, greenery, benches, … ? You know a place where it’s nice for people to spend time instead of space taken up by yet another vehicle?

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If San Francisco informs, light rail streetcars are a gateway to underground subways. It gets the city in the habit of getting on a railcar to go places while the greater infrastructure (the tunnels) are built.

MUNI is mixed undeground and street. BART is over and under and being extended to this day.

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9 points

Yeah, I guess it depende of definition. For example there is also extra costs with lighting and ventilation for example for subways.

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Completely agree, however I think this is decent intermediary between the larger investment into subways, especially depending on geology

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4 points

Also if you really want you can put trams underground.

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7 points

Living in a big city there’s nothing more reliable than a subway. Driving you might always get stuck in traffic. But if you take the Metro your travel time is guaranteed to be as predicted.

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2 points

True. 45-50 minutes on metro or 35-100 minutes on car.

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7 points

Totally agreed, but the image looks so nice with the grass, subways don’t have that

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1 point

Grass is kind meh. Trees are better.

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1 point

But the grass looks so nice to sit on!

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3 points

Agreed, trams look good, but they aren’t able to move as many people as a train because of the limitation of the positioning of the doors. This means that for the same traffic you need more carts, and bigger, more expensive stations.

In cities where the density isn’t that high, digging a subway isn’t ideal, and you’d probably be better off with a tram, but for high density cities, subways are peak.

Generally speaking, the digging has to be done once, so I think it’s a good investment for a lot of cities.

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7 points

Trams are, as you’ve noticed, a different usecase - subways are for getting you from A to B quickly, and trams are for getting you to the subway stop/straight to your destination on a shorter trip. One prioritises speed and throughput, the other - access and ease of use. Both should be used together to form a good transportation network, with buses and trains going to more remote/less dense areas.

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1 point

Agreed 100%.

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1 point

This is all a very abstract discussion. In Munich we have all - light suburban rail, a subway, a tram system and a bus system.

It’s not either or, but a very specific discussion which system is best for a specific use case given the existing city where you put things in.

We have parts where the trams sharing space with buses or even cars, that’s where the tram network is just kind of a higher capacity bus.

Other parts has dedicated spaces for the tram rails, they are connected to traffic signs so trams are nearly as fast as the subway.

Currently the city seems to build more trams as the subway network is at a capacity limit - and they can’t increase it without huge investments.

There’s a new subway line planned, as well as construction for a second light rail tunnel crossing the city underway - but those are hugely expensive, long term projects.

Sometimes they build a tram first, because it’s a lot cheaper to plan and implement and then replace it by aubway 15 years later.

And yes whe also have a tram line which uses a corridor of a former train line, so it looks like the picture. Whenever I go there I love that place, trams and buses available but no through traffic by cars (You can still go there by cars, but no through traffic as the whole area is a cul de sac)

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2 points

Positioning of the doors?

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3 points

Trams generally gave more doors than trains, resulting in less seating

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1 point
Deleted by creator
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1 point

Trams are literal trains

where the density isn’t that high

Or shit soil

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2 points

The problem is moving people to tunnels

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1 point
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99 points

I cannot understand people that argue their 6 lane stroad is better than this in any way. It may feel more convenient for some, but at what cost?

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66 points

Probably because public transit requires people to be around other people, and they’d rather get around in their little bubble without interaction (except giving a BMW the finger).

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51 points

This but also a lack of experiencing good transit

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15 points

True, but I’m just going off of my experience as an American. Too many people are so antisocial that the idea of sharing space with other strangers is foreign, mostly because they’ve lived so long without it. Obviously this isn’t true in places like NYC, but in Los Angeles you’d have a hell of a time convincing people to give up their cars.

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10 points

For me its mostly the time factor. A 45 min drive takes 2 to 3 hours by transit in my city, or longer one way. And thats if busses show up and make connections. I would love to take transit but can’t make it work in a any that would mean I still get to sleep.

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30 points

That is because your transit is underfunded and under prioritized. Good, viable transit is as fast or faster than cars.

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15 points

Japanese transit it a sight to behold. Experienced it firsthand. In the greater Tokyo area taking a car was literally always just a 3 or 4 minute time save AND this was including the walk from anywhere I was at, to the sub, to my destination. If you accounted for parking time, since I didnt see much easily accesible parking over there, it was probably quicker to take public transit. If I lived over there I legit wouldn’t bother owning a car and I say this as someone who currently has one and really likes it.

There’s no fucking public sitting areas though so that sucks.

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6 points

This is what headphones are for, fuck cars

This is from someone who feels physical discomfort when someone interacts me unprompted

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1 point

Agreed, but I can understand the apprehension for those who aren’t familiar

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6 points

I think the key thing is most people don’t like change. They know stroads. They may not love stroads but they work and it’s what they’ve used. I’ve been all over the place in this country and by and large public transportation SUCKS and creates more headaches than anything. Just hopping into a car is 1000x easier. So that’s the view I think most people go into this with. In the cities where public transportation is good, it’s a complete game changer, but they are few and far between so most people don’t have a good reference point. They see people pushing public transportation and think of their own shitty system and say F that.

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6 points

They’ve also had to invest in their car personally and they don’t want to have their investment nullified. Who do they sell the car to if they’re no good anymore?

Of course, there will still be roads and you might still need the car; but if you have the car why not just drive straight to the place you need to go?

So personal transportation itself is a bit of a problem - you need to make the replacement better than the current status quo. If it doesn’t save people time, if it doesn’t allow people to transport goods as easily as vehicles do, they’re not going to want to give up their car; because at the end of the day it will ultimately complicate things for them.

It’s a huge challenge towards gaining acceptance for public transit.

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1 point

The whole problem is that you are asking the individual to assume societal costs. The individual is only seeking to meet their personal needs, and is not ready to engage on social progress.

To them, the transition from full utility via their own car, to relying on public transit suggests there will be a time of hardship, where the system is not fully laid out, but their options are curtailed.

Getting over that hump is critical to progress, and cars will be an important part of the shift

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1 point

The whole problem is that you are asking the individual to assume societal costs.

Forcing everybody to drive does that way more than providing viable alternatives and letting people to choose which best suits them does.

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1 point

Society already pays the costs of car centric infrastructure and it is bankrupting many cities.

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1 point

I mean, you can kind of understand it since you listed one way it’s better: It’s more convenient for some.

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1 point

It is only less than half of stroad. You stil have another half to add for people.

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91 points

Just today I saw this list of the largest tram networks in history: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_tram_and_light_rail_transit_systems_ever

The largest existing one is Melbourne, at a little over 250 km of tramways. Los Angeles at its peak had over 1700 km of tramways.

Truly insane what we tore up. A crime against humanity.

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47 points

Truly insane what we tore up.

Didn’t know much about this so just looked it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy

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13 points

Why does every problem ever always boil down to capitalism?

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6 points

I think many of them simply got converted to sub ways and such.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suburban_and_commuter_rail_systems

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15 points

A few of them did, but certainly not the majority.

Atlanta’s streetcar system got entirely torn out, paved over and converted to buses. We didn’t get a subway system (on entirely different right-of-way, and much less of it) until decades later.

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7 points

Similar with Montreal. A whole grid of streetcar lines just got torn up and replaced with buses. We now have a nice metro now at least, but it certainly wasn’t made from pre-existing tramways.

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1 point

In truly large urban areas with a budget and needs, yeah.

In small towns?

In best transatlantic accent The automobile wins the day. Huzzah!

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1 point
1 point

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

And toonanity.

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.

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33 points

The combination of those trees and overhead power lines might be problematic in some climates, but overall, I’m all for getting as much greenery into city centers as possible.

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23 points

This is at Helsinki, Finland. So all kind of weather is present here… Well except hot and dry 😄

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11 points
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On the other hand, there’s a billion saunas around the city if you want hot and dry

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1 point

If your sauna is hot and dry, you’re doing something wrong 😟

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4 points

Do we actually have a boulevard like in the pic? I recognized the trams but don’t know a place like in the pic

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7 points

Sure, Mäkelänkatu at Vallila

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29 points

Off camera, there’s a lawn mower driving as fast as it can away from the approaching tram

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