me like tramz
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?
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).
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.
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.
That is because your transit is underfunded and under prioritized. Good, viable transit is as fast or faster than cars.
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.
This is what headphones are for, fuck cars
This is from someone who feels physical discomfort when someone interacts me unprompted
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.
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.
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
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.
This is at Helsinki, Finland. So all kind of weather is present here… Well except hot and dry 😄
On the other hand, there’s a billion saunas around the city if you want hot and dry
Do we actually have a boulevard like in the pic? I recognized the trams but don’t know a place like in the pic
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.
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
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
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.
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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Zooms out to show the street
