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Combed Thunderclap
Jan 4, 2011



Welcome to the Transit Infrastructure & Urban Planning Politics thread!

Thread Purpose
First off: those of you with an encyclopedic and slightly disturbing degree of knowledge about the British railway system, the doors will be opening on your left into the Trainchat thread. Please remember to take all your belongings with you as you exit this thread.

For everyone else who are interested in talking about the politics of cars/highways, trains/rail lines/subways (heavy and light), trams/streetcars, buses/bus lanes/trolleybuses/Bus Rapid Transit systems, bikes/bike lanes, sidewalks, ferries, airplanes/airports, and other pieces of vital infrastructure necessary for people to get where they want to go, you’re in the right place. Transit is also deeply intertwined with the ways cities, towns, and other parts of the ways we live are designed, so the politics of urban planning are also probably going to be discussed in this thread.

Discussions of transit systems and transit politics around the globe are welcome, but for the next bit I’m going to focus on what’s happening with transit in America, because that’s what I’m most familiar with.

Everything in this OP is just an intro from an amateur, not a professional, who isn’t employed and has never been employed by anyone working on transit infrastructure. Please feel free to get far nerdier if you want in the thread, and help rectify any serious errors in the OP, perhaps by posting in all caps.

American Transit Infrastructure 101
To sum up a very complicated century very quickly, America at one point had plenty of public transit infrastructure that it then ripped out and replaced almost entirely with car-friendly infrastructure. Sometimes people banded together and said “Helllll no” (usually wealthy white people, coincidentally), but usually they just got their concerns…paved over. :haw: :suicide:

While some people, i.e., anyone who’s ever watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit, love the idea that this was a grand conspiracy by General Motors, it was almost certainly a combination of factors, including that the infrastructure in question was never actually financially sound, the Great Depression happened, and all these great new roads made it super easy for white people to buy up cheap houses in suburbs that were suddenly within commuting distance, making it even easier to leave racial minorities behind in the inner city choking on whites’ economic dust.

For the past few decades, due to a complex of factors that include the environmental movement, the collective realization that basing all transit on oil-guzzling machines makes you highly vulnerable to oil-exporting countries, people living in suburbs realizing that the suburbs are poo poo when it comes to doing anything other than raising kids, and urbanization simply demanding more public transit infrastructure, among a wide variety of things, public transit is coming back in America.

Unfortunately, the past few decades also saw the American government taken over by a spectacularly successful anti-tax movement that has led to the degradation of all transit infrastructure, little by little, as it was slowly starved of the kinds of massive investment needed to keep everything in tip-top shape. Many components like bridges and highways are reaching the end of their natural planned lifespan, but just aren’t being replaced. The same holds true for public transit systems, many of which are simply unequipped to handle the kind of enormous urban audience that now depends on them to go wherever they need all day and all night.

Technology is simultaneously changing the playing field in radical ways. Uber/Lyft/Hailo/etc. are busily destroying once-solid taxi monopolies, of course, (oh God please let this thread not be entirely people shitposting about ride-sharing apps :gonk:), and the general idea of smartphone ride-hailing services may prove to be just the ticket for providing on-demand paratransit services, but even simple innovations like Google Maps can tell people exactly how to get places using public transit when it might have taken ages to build up the amount of knowledge necessary to use the system to its fullest extent.

Large sums of money are necessary to keep existing public transit systems’ cores running safely, help new public transit systems expand into actual rapid transit networks, and ensure the rest of our transit infrastructure doesn’t completely fall into pieces while people are still using it. While the rebuilding is already ongoing in many places, in others the kind of expansion of services people want and/or deem necessary is going to mean a referendum on their local ballot this November.

Developments in Public Transit Infrastructure/Urban Planning in North America
These are mostly focused on subways and light rail because I only have so much time in the day, sorry bus/BRT fiends~

Sometimes maps are linked, ideally showing where construction is ongoing. I’ll be adding more later.

Massive West Coast and Midwest Transit System Expansions
A number of cities went gaga for transit a few years ago and their grand plans are finally coming to fruition.

- Honolulu is currently building out an automated elevated rail-line that will connect it with its central airport and its western suburbs. Half the system will open in 2018, the next half in 2019, but the project experiencing the usual cost overruns that are making people loudly tsk. O’ahu, the most heavily populated Hawaiian island, is also sufficiently small that advocates are currently dreaming of the system expanding to cover the entire island, but dreaming is free.


- Denver is almost done building out a truly massive expansion of its public transit system that includes finally linking its far-out airport to its downtown. Particularly impressive because Denver is out in Midwestern Sprawl Country, but much of its expansion includes fast-moving heavy rail. The expansion includes ambitious future plans to finish a rail line from Denver to its 2nd largest city of Boulder that are shovel-ready as soon as they can get their hands on some federal cash.


- Ottawa is finally expanding its adorable little light rail, with service on its Confederation Line scheduled to open in 2018. So cute. Even more awesome-ly: Ottawans sometimes commute to work by ice-skating on the frozen river. Someone has suggested the possibility of turning this into an official skateway system.


- Los Angeles: Best known as one of the literal embodiments of Car Hell, LA finally opened the beginnings of its Metro Rail system in 1990, and the system continues to undergo relatively (for the United States) massive and rapid expansion.

An extension of the Gold Line from Azusa to Downtown was just opened a few weeks ago, and is already seeing big ridership numbers, the first train to run through downtown Santa Monica in over 50 years will be opening for business this May, a light rail connecting the Expo Line to the Green Line is under construction to open in 2019, the Blue, Gold, and Expo lines will all be linked together downtown in 2020, the Purple Line is getting extended to La Cienega to open in 2023 — it’s all coming together, and there’s more where that came from if voters renew Measure R in November.

Which, like all parts of the state of California when local taxes need to be raised, requires at least 66% voting in favor. :supaburn:


- Seattle: Another fresh young face on the block, the Seattle system just opened its Capitol Hill and University of Washington stations, with a 1.6 mile/2.6km southern extension to Angle Lake opening in September and expanding even further north to open in 2021. It still really only has a single, long North-South line, though, and expanding further into Bellevue, West Seattle, Everett, and Tacoma will voters to approve the Sound Transit 3 referendum this November.


- Salt Lake City: The TRAX system opened in 1999 just in time for the Winter Olympics. Everyone loved it so much that they’ve had the whole thing dramatically expanded with three lines, a streetcar, and commuter train up and running within thirteen years. The latest FrontLines 2015 program finished $300 million under budget and two years ahead of schedule. The desire for more TRAX has since cooled somewhat though, and it looks as though the system may need more time for the city to expand first to adequately justify further expansion.


- Portland opened its shiny new Orange Line last September, which includes the first bridge to span the Willamette River in decades. And don’t worry Portlanders — no cars allowed, just cyclists, pedestrians, and public transit.


- San Francisco: The BART system used to be the most advanced in the country when it was built. It has since been discovered that expanding your system all the way into San Jose (see next paragraph) rather than, say, ensure the core of your system is adequately maintained is a bad idea when your system relies on specialty parts that need to be custom-ordered. The system also definitely wasn’t designed for the kind of ridership that’s come from SF turning into the center of the global tech industry. Luckily, the new fiscal year beginning in July will see capital improvement projects focusing on upgrading train control systems and getting new rail cars — but there’s still a long way to go.

Construction continues on the Warm Springs/South Fremont station, to open later this year, with stations in Milpitas and Berryessa to open in 2018 and proposed stations in downtown San Jose and Santa Clara projected to open in 2025.

- Houston: The brand-new METRORail system just opened its doors with a North-South line opening in 2013 and two East-West lines opening last May. While two more shovel-ready lines were ready to go, funding evaporated and at least one has since been replaced with a BRT plan to open in 2017.


- Atlanta: Fun facts: Seattle turned down a boatload of federal funds back in the day to build a subway so that way undesirables wouldn’t be able to move around the area. All those earmarked funds have to go somewhere, though, so they went to Atlanta, where the MARTA system now struggles to wrassle the counties surrounding Atlanta into providing the system with funding.

…they finally just gave up and are defaulting to a referendum on a half-penny sales tax increase within city limits that can only fund transit projects inside city limits, :smuggo: as well as another that would expand MARTA service. Fulton County is also having a sales tax referendum, but it currently intends to put the $568 million towards everything but MARTA. :psyduck:

Honestly I’m a little out of my depth on all the local politics, but the point is that MARTA and Atlanta continue to do everything in their power to increase service and expand the system.

- California High Speed Rail: Construction is ongoing on a high speed rail line at 220mph (350km/h) between Sacramento, San Francisco, LA, and San Diego. Phase 1 is currently under construction between San Francisco and Los Angeles/Anaheim, with the system projected to be complete around 2029hahahahahahhahahahahahhahaha see ya in 2050 kids.

Also being rolled around on the planning floor: the XpressWest train from Las Vegas to Victorville will eventually connect to this system with the High Desert Corridor from Palmdale to Victorville.

Despite my cynicism and the inevitable delays and cost overruns a project on this magnitude will inevitably incur, I have to say, the long-term vision is extremely compelling, and will hopefully prevent anything like the Northeastern Corridor nightmare from ever emerging. And then we’ll link it up with Portland, and Seattle and Vancouver and Juneau and


- Texas High Speed Rail: Currently in the most basic planning stages between Dallas and Houston, and very likely to be shot dead on sight as area Texans begin to realize that some sort of infrastructure threatens to exist in their state, possibly with TAX DOLLARS or EMINENT DOMAIN?!?! :freep: (It's actually entirely privately funded, TxDOT is projecting the cost at $10 billion for what that's worth.)


- Minneapolis/St.Paul: With a fresh new East-West light-rail line open as of June 2014 connecting Minneapolis to St. Paul and now supplementing its older North-South line connecting Minneapolis to its airport and the Mall of America, the system now has major extensions planned for both lines, to open in 2020 and 2021.


East Coast Systems Are Falling Apart (And Sometimes Also Trying to Expand Simultaneously)
Old systems didn’t get maintained and/or expanded too fast. The results aren’t pretty.

- New York City: The NYC system is the most used in the continent, is on par with public transit in global international cities, and, for all its unbelievable incredibleness, still needs massive technological upgrades, the completion of the unbelievably expensive Second Av. Subway to relieve pressure on the enormously overburdened 4, 5, and 6 lines that singlehandedly serve the entire East Side of Manhattan, and the connection of the the many spoke lines that reach out into Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn.

Meanwhile, de Blasio is busy promoting a light rail system along the coast of Brooklyn to provide service that’s already made redundant by existing subway services, the new WTC PATH Transportation Hub cost $3.74 billion, and opening a single new station, 1.5 miles/2.4km of track, was proposed in 2005, started construction in 2007, and opened in September 2015 at a cost of $2.4 billion. (The system is also legendary for its NYC/State Government budgetary slapfights.)

Ugh.

The NYC system in a nutshell: it’s amazing and still uses paper tickets. :psyduck:


- Baltimore: With an North-South light rail and a East-West subway line, the Baltimore system has gotten plenty of attention as of late for Maryland’s Governor Hogan cancelling the Red Line light rail last June and, whoops, entirely forgetting to put Baltimore on its map for future transit investment, which was going to all of Maryland's highways and roads instead! Yay!!


- Boston is a total shitshow right now, expanding its weekend evening service a few years ago only to throw it away. An extension of the unbearably slow Green Line up into Somerville is also a long time coming. On the bright side, the recent re-opening of the central Government Center station has been years in the making, and its modernist glass structure allows for excellent views of the ugliest City Hall in American history.

- Toronto’s system is really overcrowded and is desperately trying to expand, various factors that include local politics and funding issues are holding up its planning process though(?).


- Washington DC: Even as the system’s Silver Line continues to extend out to Dulles Airport and beyond, the core system continues to suffer from a profound lack of maintenance caused by fundamental design flaws and a general lack of investment in that department. The system is also uniquely burdened by its lack of federal funding, instead squeezing cash out of the District of Columbia and the many counties that surround it. The fights over who provides what are legendary, and have ensured that the Metro system has almost never had the highly reliable stream of funds necessary to make all that fun maintenance work possible.

Then people started dying and things got serious.

The system has recently hired a new General Manager after literally years of interviewing people (and then almost hiring someone who then got a really good look at the system and backed out), and he seems to be actually interested in solving problems, maybe, so we’ll see. Maryland is also busy building out a light rail system to connect the U-shaped ends of the DC Red Line on its dime, but that won't be ready until 2022.


(To summon the General Manager of the system, look in a mirror in the dark in a room filled with smoke and say the words “Safety Culture” three times.)

- Amtrak Acela Express: Once at least pretending to be “high speed”, the Acela line has deteriorated so profoundly that it now runs at speeds comparable to its normal Boston-DC routes. I could write make an entire thread about the woes of Amtrak itself, forced to run highly unprofitable rural routes while its core system suffers, leaving both sides of the aisle to fling mud at the company (and each other, natch), but I’ll let you all hash out the long history of Amtrak and What Needs to Be Done in the thread. Suffice to say that the US can barely run even a conventional train line through one of the most densely populated areas on the planet, and that kind of says everything that really needs to be said.

Other North American Systems
As far as I know these systems aren’t in crisis or aren’t making really huge expansion moves. Or, to be far more honest: I just don’t really know that much about them. :eng99:

Trust me, that’s usually a very good thing. If your transit system has attracted my interest, it’s probably because it’s in crisis.

- Dallas/Ft. Worth: The DART system has had its share of success, with new lines and extensions opening to great fanfare within the past five years, but the ambitious 2010 plan that would have expanded it even further from now until 2030 has since been almost entirely scrapped.

- Vancouver has an entirely automated system that’s extremely focused on using a feeder system to bus people to stations rather than trying to coat the entire city in expensive heavy rail. Last year’s transit referendum would have allowed a major expansion of the system, but it was overwhelmingly defeated.

- Montréal’s subway is generally operational as far as I know. It plans to expand its Blue Line with five stations with federal funds.

- Mexico City’s subway has the second-largest ridership in North America, and shouldn’t be underestimated. Its shiny new Line 12 is going to be expanded to connect with Line 1, but I haven’t seen any official planning docs or timelines on that yet. Fun facts: the system uses pictograms for each station because of the low literacy rates back when it was built.

- Philadelphia: Despite the extensiveness of the SEPTA system, I don’t actually know that much about it. :sigh: They’re currently operating a major rebuilding program that includes buying new trains, opening a new commuter rail station, and various station upgrades and maintenance work.

- Chicago: The famous L! I honestly don’t know much about it, but parts of it run 24 hours a day and has more than three tracks so it’s practically a miracle as far as I’m concerned. Sorry Chicagoans, please feel free to educate me further.

- Monterrey: The ninth-largest city in Mexico apparently has quite the successful rapid transit system, with the 7th largest annual ridership in the continent. It’s a basic two-line N-S, E-W system, with a new third line stalled without federal financing for its final eight stations and still awaiting its railcars. With the infrastructure 90% complete, however, it’ll likely open some time in 2017.

- St. Louis: A simple two-line light-rail system. Also not very familiar with it.

International Developments
Projects like the UK’s High Speed 2, London’s Crossrail system, the Grand Paris Express metro expansion, Japan’s Shinkansen expansions, and China’s, well, everything, among the many, many, other systems being created, expanded, and maintained worldwide, are displays of commitments to transit infrastructure that mostly just make me insanely jealous. :sigh:

Ongoing Issues in the Transit Infrastructure & Urban Planning Community
Automation: The prospect of ending transit strikes and increasing system capacity with automated trains is enormously attractive, but requires the kind of technological upgrades that never come cheap. Automated buses and, of course, automated cars, are still works in progress, obviously.

Fiscal and Organizational Management: The drama of local politics is suddenly taken to new heights around the hundreds of millions of dollars that tend to come into play around transit infrastructure projects. The basic question of How the Hell Do We Make It All Work continues to entertain and horrify weird politics and transit wonks worldwide.

Speaking of which…

The Construction Money Mystery
When it comes to transit construction costs in the US, it takes enormous, and I mean enormous amounts of money per mile, and despite many a think-piece, no one is quite sure why. But they have lots of guesses.

And, of course:

Local Political Smackdowns/Community Outreach: Lord hath no fury like a NIMBYist or a transit guru who feels they haven’t been adequately consulted and/or allowed to run the transit system all by themselves because they are just such amazing geniuses.

Accessibility: Numerous stations on most transit systems badly need expensive upgrades to make them accessible to the disabled, and every transit system inevitably needs to take into account the need to provide paratransit services.

Everything Old Is New Again: Trams, buses, and light rail are back in fashion in a major way, with Bus Rapid Transit systems and streetcars being planned and deployed willy-nilly — often without the elements necessary to make them a success, like, say, dedicated lanes to not make them just another bus in traffic, on-station fare payment systems to reduce dwell times, etc. But who could have possibly foreseen local politicians eagerly grabbing available funds to throw at shiny public projects?! :iiam:

Weird, Fun Ideas: Gondolas! Hot air balloons!! Blimps!!! Elevators! because we’ll be living in arcologies 100 stories high!!! HYPERLOOP!!!!!!!

HYYYYYPERRRRRRRLOOOOOOOOOP

…hey, PopSci’s gotta run something on their covers.

Gentrification, Income Inequality, and Segregation: This could be its own thread, but these economic, social, and racial issues are a major part of today's urban planning and transit projects and politics. I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention that this is kind of a big deal right now, since urban planning and transit have traditionally acted as powerful tools that reshaped America into discrete, segregated pockets. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx has personally championed using "opportunity" as a metric in judging projects that are up for federal funding, but there's still a long way to go in facilitating social and economic opportunity via transit in many cities.

Media To Consume With Your Eyeballs
Open to suggestions.

Books
- I’ve heard good things about
- Zachary Schrag’s history of the DC Metro, The Great Subway Society,
- bus frequency fiend Jarrett Walker’s Human Transit: How Clear Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives, and
- Taras Grescoe’s Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile,
but I’ve been super busy and haven’t been able to read them yet. :sigh:

Movies
- Presumably they exist? :shrug:

Websites
Every city has at least one transit junkie with a website, but some are particularly notable.

Under construction. I have a lot of links, but want to do them justice.

Additional Maps/Transit Pix
Under construction.

Combed Thunderclap fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Apr 1, 2016

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Combed Thunderclap
Jan 4, 2011



Saved for future single-grade OP extension near areas of high posting density.

boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich

Combed Thunderclap posted:

While some people, i.e., anyone who’s ever watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit, love the idea that this was a grand conspiracy by General Motors, it was almost certainly a combination of factors that the infrastructure in question was never actually financially sound, the Great Depression happened, and all these great new roads made it super easy for white people to buy up cheap houses in suburbs that were suddenly within commuting distance, making it even easier to leave racial minorities behind in the inner city choking on whites’ economic dust.

thanks for leading off with this. the streetcar conspiracy drives me nuts

Combed Thunderclap posted:

- Atlanta: Fun facts: Seattle turned down a boatload of federal funds back in the day to build a subway so that way undesirables wouldn’t be able to move around the area. All those earmarked funds have to go somewhere, though, so they went to Atlanta, where the MARTA system now struggles to wrassle the counties surrounding Atlanta into providing the system with funding.

…they finally just gave up and are defaulting to a referendum on a half-penny sales tax increase within city limits that can only fund transit projects inside city limits, :smuggo: as well as another that would expand MARTA service. Fulton County is also having a sales tax referendum, but it currently intends to put the $568 million towards everything but MARTA. :psyduck:

Honestly I’m a little out of my depth on all the local politics, but the point is that MARTA and Atlanta continue to do everything in their power to increase service and expand the system.

MARTA sucks but it's not their fault - they're one of the most cost effective transit systems just from their perpetual shoestring budget

two interesting things are going on in atlanta

-the atlanta streetcar, which is really just a sponge to soak up TIGER grants as well as try to bootstrap the chicken-egg problem that is contemporary streetcars

-the beltline, which is a system of greenspace/walking trail/hiking trail/maybe mass transit eventually that is nevertheless pouring massive fuel on the fire that is the gentrification of atlanta's downtown eastside

in terms of marta, clayton county (heavily black, middle class, commuter) keeps going back and forth on it but they may join the MARTA coalition which would be nice. us locals in the know think that gwinnett county (most populous, lots of money but wide disparities, increasingly nonwhite) is prone to join up in the next ten years or so, fingers crossed

The Maroon Hawk
May 10, 2008

Thanks for this, I don't have much to contribute but I'll enjoy reading it.

I'm definitely looking forward to all the new rail lines in Denver this year and in 2018!

1337JiveTurkey
Feb 17, 2005

Popular Thug Drink posted:

thanks for leading off with this. the streetcar conspiracy drives me nuts


MARTA sucks but it's not their fault - they're one of the most cost effective transit systems just from their perpetual shoestring budget

two interesting things are going on in atlanta

-the atlanta streetcar, which is really just a sponge to soak up TIGER grants as well as try to bootstrap the chicken-egg problem that is contemporary streetcars

-the beltline, which is a system of greenspace/walking trail/hiking trail/maybe mass transit eventually that is nevertheless pouring massive fuel on the fire that is the gentrification of atlanta's downtown eastside

in terms of marta, clayton county (heavily black, middle class, commuter) keeps going back and forth on it but they may join the MARTA coalition which would be nice. us locals in the know think that gwinnett county (most populous, lots of money but wide disparities, increasingly nonwhite) is prone to join up in the next ten years or so, fingers crossed

Don't forget the goddamned HOV lanes into Cobb County rather than making some sort of rail solution up this way. I-75 is about as packed as it's going to get and an extra couple of $10 a day lanes isn't going to fix it that much.

But send a train from Barrett or Busbee Parkway and the thing's going to be permanently packed. Even if it's just students from KSU looking for bars in Midtown, it'll pay for itself because of how massively they outnumber alcoholics from Tech and State. And I've worked with some alcoholics (MBAs) from Tech and Jesus Tittyfucking Christ those guys can hold their liquor.

Combed Thunderclap
Jan 4, 2011



The Maroon Hawk posted:

Thanks for this, I don't have much to contribute but I'll enjoy reading it.

I'm definitely looking forward to all the new rail lines in Denver this year and in 2018!

You're very welcome! Also the Denver metro area is a wonderful, affordable place and I'm so happy it's about to become even more accessible for so many thousands of people! :dance:

Popular Thug Drink posted:

MARTA sucks but it's not their fault - they're one of the most cost effective transit systems just from their perpetual shoestring budget

two interesting things are going on in atlanta

I wish there was a transit system index for cost-effectiveness out there somewhere, that'd be a really interesting metric. Thanks for the local politics input.

Also I guess they're better than nothing but the amount of funding that gets poured into building HOV lanes really gets me riled up. Argh

boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich

1337JiveTurkey posted:

Don't forget the goddamned HOV lanes into Cobb County rather than making some sort of rail solution up this way.

you'll have a 'rail solution' as soon as your hick loving neighbors vote to join marta

Combed Thunderclap posted:

Also I guess they're better than nothing but the amount of funding that gets poured into building HOV lanes really gets me riled up. Argh

marta is a local, county initiative, under the purview of GRTA and the ARC. the highways though are a state-federal partnership

e: i grew up in gwinnett, and i loving hate cobb county

boner confessor fucked around with this message at 08:21 on Apr 1, 2016

1337JiveTurkey
Feb 17, 2005

edit: n/m

1337JiveTurkey fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Apr 6, 2016

hypnorotic
May 4, 2009
The DC Metro may be shutting down entire lines for months at a time to do much needed repair work.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/2016/03/30/fba8ae0a-f688-11e5-9804-537defcc3cf6_story.html

Proposition Joe
Oct 8, 2010

He was a good man

Combed Thunderclap posted:

- Boston is a total shitshow right now, expanding its weekend evening service a few years ago only to throw it away. An extension of the unbearably slow Green Line up into Somerville is also a long time coming. On the bright side, the recent re-opening of the central Government Center station has been years in the making, and its modernist glass structure allows for excellent views of the ugliest City Hall in American history.

The MBTA is in quite a sorry state right now. Last winter, the system shut down for weeks because of heavy snow which caused significant public outcry. Of course, Massachusetts had recently elected a Republican governor so instead of actual fixes the governor put in place a Fiscal Management and Control Board which has largely ignored the MBTA's existential problems, like its massive debt and state of good repair backlog. Instead, they've raise fares over LOUD objections, put certain bus routes out to bid for privatization, and cut services like late night. That last service cut was done without even doing an equity analysis to find out the negative impact on the low income riders who used the late night service and that got the FTA to lodge a complaint, but the service is still getting axed.

The MBTA could get out of this rut if the state government did things like took some of its debt, flexed some more of its federal transportation funding, and raised gas taxes and implemented tolls. However, the problem with state governments in America is that no matter if they're red or blue they bias suburban and rural regions over the urban areas through overrepresentation in state legislatures, and those folks don't give a gently caress about transit and would gleefully watch it burn even if it inevitably takes their state's economy with it.

Grand Theft Autobot
Feb 28, 2008

I'm something of a fucking idiot myself
Minneapolis-St.Paul is indeed expanding its transit system. But instead of focusing on routes that make sense, planners and politicians are sending lines to suburbs that will never use transit.

MSP already has an unused transit line to northwest suburbs.

I'll post some articles when I'm not phoneposting.

Warcabbit
Apr 26, 2008

Wedge Regret
You've neglected to mention

Austin - Richard Garriott de Cayeux is building a Personal Rapid Transit system on the median.
https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/austin-personal-rapid-transit-idea
Yes. That's Lord British.

Yes, it's happening.

TROIKA CURES GREEK
Jun 30, 2015

by R. Guyovich
Something important to keep in mind is that automated driverless cars are coming wayyyyyy faster than a lot of people think- probably under 20 years. It's going to radically change the way we think about transportation and car ownership, particularly in dense urban areas. The other thing is that most car manufactures are moving to looking at alternative buying models, including things like shared leases (up to 10 people I think) and purchases, along with a plan to massively increase the number of shared services like zipcar.

Hopefully we get more trains too (the technology to automate those already exists actually)! But any urban plan that doesn't take into account those emerging technologies is doomed to long term failure.

Ofaloaf
Feb 15, 2013

Detroit, America's automaker of days past, shuttered the last of its old streetcar system in 1956. Some of the old lines were just crudely paved over- there's a few patches of Michigan Ave where the pavement has kinda crumbled a bit and you can see rusty old rails peeking out, even.

In the '70s and '80s, the city drew up plans for a new metropolitan light rail system, paid for with a mixture of local, state and federal funding, but after Reagan was elected the federal funding disappeared and Detroit ended up with the People Mover, which basically only sees heavy use when conventions and sports games are going on and the only parking available is several blocks away. It loops around downtown and connects to no residential areas. The only reason I've ever used it was the one time I went on a high school trip to the '07 auto show, and me and some buds snuck out and took the People Mover to Greektown for a bit. On its own, the People Mover is pretty dang useless.

A few years ago, plans were finally completed for a new transit system, the M-1 Line, and by some miracle it's actually gotten funding and is actually under construction. It's partially supported with federal grants and partially with money from the local business giants, which is why Quicken Loans just managed to get the project's name changed to 'Qline' a week ago. It's only a single line, but it'll connect Midtown and the Wayne State University area- one of the bright spots in Detroit's revitalization efforts- with Downtown, so at the very least it'll probably have a lot of college students ride it on the weekends.

Ofaloaf fucked around with this message at 13:23 on Apr 1, 2016

Soy Division
Aug 12, 2004

I don't think Metrocards count as "paper tickets," they're made out of some kind of cheap plastic.

As for the L, it's doing fine. It used to be in very poor repair but they have gotten huge amounts of federal money to fix it up, turns out having the President be from Chicago helps with that. They actually just signed an order for new trains that should replace the last egregiously ancient trains in service. Service is frequent and generally reliable. It is 24 hour on some lines but crime is an issue late at night.

The main challenge now is that the North Side lines are at full capacity and a 100-year-old interlocking needs to be rebuilt to increase it. That'll probably cost a billion dollars when all is said and done and NIMBY issues are inevitable since they are talking about building a huge flyover ramp in a upper middle class white neighborhood.

As far as expansion they are working on extending the Red Line to the far South Side and also some new infill stations have been built. The system's coverage is good, turns out expanding transit instead of ripping it out in the 60s and 70s was a good move, but a circle line is definitely needed. There are plans for that but they never seem to amount to much.

Nocturtle
Mar 17, 2007

The Atlantic had a good piece recently on the NYC metro system:

Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks

The Atlantic posted:

But here’s the truly crazy thing: The only people who know exactly where that train is are on the train itself. The signal-tower operators don’t know; there’s no one in the Rail Control Center who could tell you, because the F isn’t hooked up to the Rail Control Center. Today, for the F train—along with the G, the A, B, C, D, E, J, M, N, Q, R, and Z—the best the system can say is that the train will get there when it gets there.

The NYC system is old,and maintaining the legacy systems is expensive. It's clear that modern automation could significantly reduce the complexity and cost of the system, but the implementation is where things get complicated. Do you rip out all the old interlocks and signals and implement a completely automated system (CBTC), or do you try to make more incremental changes (ATS)? Is this compatible with the organizational requirement to keep the trains running all the time?

NYC metro is at least trying to do the necessary upgrade work. Compared to what I've read about the DC metro, it could be worse.

Bozza
Mar 5, 2004

"I'm a really useful engine!"
Probably the only comparative to the NYC Subway is the London Underground. The way the upgrades there were handled was with a rolling programme of signalling and control upgrades with rolling stock upgrades taking place simultaneously. You can test the system in normal running by having the upgraded trains follow in shadow mode like a really decent soak test.

Once you've renewed all your stock you switch over to the new system and decommission the old. Pretty much entirely implemented on night and weekend closures.

PS I am the OP of the British trainchat thread so thanks for the shout out and great info on North American railways railroads and metros!

Bozza fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Apr 1, 2016

mareep
Dec 26, 2009

Gail Wynand posted:

I don't think Metrocards count as "paper tickets," they're made out of some kind of cheap plastic.

I don't have a TON of experience with public transit, growing up in the midwest kind of in the country, but I moved to NYC a few months back and the paper (super thin plastic) tickets are kind of a bummer. I'd spent enough time in SF to get used to the thick quality cards, and the tap-to-enter is SO much nicer than fishing the Metrocard out of your bag and swiping the turnstile every time. One of the biggest hassles during rush hour is everyone crowding the turnstiles and people trying to go through in both directions at the same time.

theshim
May 1, 2012

You think you can defeat ME, Ephraimcopter?!?

You couldn't even beat Assassincopter!!!
Yeah, that Atlantic article was appropriately horrifying. :gonk: It's truly amazing how well the system works with how much neglect and overuse has gone into it over many years. It's just a series of quick-fixes slapped on top of each other at this point.

The real problem is that to actually fix the fundamental issues, they'd probably have to shut down entire lines for substantial periods of time and redo huge portions from scratch, which would cripple NYC.

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug
We're desperate in Atlanta to expand MARTA, especially towards Gwinnett County where traffic inflow onto i-85N/S is intense, but Georgia has decided on Lexus style Toll lanes that are an absolute rip off (up to $12 dollars one way on a 15 mile stretch) and they are expanding these toll lanes to i-75N/S on both sides of Atlanta.

Hello Towel
Aug 9, 2010

Gail Wynand posted:

As far as expansion they are working on extending the Red Line to the far South Side and also some new infill stations have been built. The system's coverage is good, turns out expanding transit instead of ripping it out in the 60s and 70s was a good move, but a circle line is definitely needed. There are plans for that but they never seem to amount to much.

There's been a push for a connector between the blue line at Jefferson Park and the brown at Kimball. That would be a good start.

As for problems, there are also a number of stations that still have handicap accessibility issues.

kefkafloyd
Jun 8, 2006

What really knocked me out
Was her cheap sunglasses
A Good Link™: the Railroad.net forums.

Pros: there are regional sub-boards for almost all of the major US transit systems and other railways. Since it's super popular there's lots of people who keep track of news and projects.

Cons: Full of rail nerds. They're mostly good people though.

http://railroad.net/forums/

Combed Thunderclap
Jan 4, 2011



Are you a Bad Enough Dude/game designer to turn Robert Moses into an immortal machine? Prizes that include wild fame and $2k are up for grabs.

Which reminds me to add links to games to the OP, ideally without wasting a good hour or so playing the delightful Mini Metro.

As well as info on more systems, of course. I can't believe I forgot Morgantown and its legendary PRT system. :eng99:

Greatbacon
Apr 9, 2012

by Pragmatica

kefkafloyd posted:

A Good Link™: the Railroad.net forums.

Pros: there are regional sub-boards for almost all of the major US transit systems and other railways. Since it's super popular there's lots of people who keep track of news and projects.

Cons: Full of rail nerds. They're mostly good people though.

http://railroad.net/forums/

Haha, holy poo poo, it's like every conversation/lecture I've had with my father sorted by subcategory. He's a little spergy so am I :spergin:

Anyways, nice to see Denver transit getting some good vibes. I'm glad to see the metro area is finally getting serious about public transit, because the area is already starting to look like a baby LA.

Currently my only concern is that most of the rail lines just go into the suburbs, which for the most part have notoriously poor bus coverage so either you need a bike or someone to pick you up.
The unserved gap between Union Station and Glendale (the chunk southeast of the Union Station hub) is where a large part of the city lives (coincidentally, that is also where all the football players and lawyers live :rolleye:)

boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich

CommieGIR posted:

We're desperate in Atlanta to expand MARTA, especially towards Gwinnett County where traffic inflow onto i-85N/S is intense, but Georgia has decided on Lexus style Toll lanes that are an absolute rip off (up to $12 dollars one way on a 15 mile stretch) and they are expanding these toll lanes to i-75N/S on both sides of Atlanta.

the suburban counties won't get poo poo until they pay for the splost. suburban voters are terrified of "criminals" from atlanta riding the trains up to rob their houses, which is why they consistently vote down attempts to join marta and instead implement their own halfassed horrible county transit systems

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug

Popular Thug Drink posted:

the suburban counties won't get poo poo until they pay for the splost. suburban voters are terrified of "criminals" from atlanta riding the trains up to rob their houses, which is why they consistently vote down attempts to join marta and instead implement their own halfassed horrible county transit systems

:smith: Quoted for Truth. Gwinnett County is filled with wealthy families afraid of the criminals. Which is hilarious because half these degenerate fucks open carry and wear t-shirts proclaiming as much while they go pick up milk at the Kroger. You figure they'd love MARTA to extend so they can slate their blood lust.

Which is sad and hilarious, because we could benefit immensely from a MARTA rail line. As it is, you have to drive down 316 and i-85N to Doraville station to get on the train.

Lazlo Nibble
Jan 9, 2004

It was Weasleby, by God! At last I had the miserable blighter precisely where I wanted him!

The Maroon Hawk posted:

I'm definitely looking forward to all the new rail lines in Denver this year and in 2018!
Agreed—the R line is gonna shave a good 10-15 minutes each way off my commute. There wouldn't be that much to shave off if RTD bothered to set up the schedule with transfers in mind, though. (And of course, right as I'm about to post that, my transfer train shows up like five minutes early to make me look like a whiner.)

If anyone has dirt to dish on Albuquerque's proposed Central-corridor BRT line, please share, because jesus christ does that ever look like a boondoggle.

Badger of Basra
Jul 26, 2007

Warcabbit posted:

You've neglected to mention

Austin - Richard Garriott de Cayeux is building a Personal Rapid Transit system on the median.
https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/austin-personal-rapid-transit-idea
Yes. That's Lord British.

Yes, it's happening.

Of course we're getting some dumb gimmicky bullshit instead of putting more money into literally anything that makes sense.

Warcabbit
Apr 26, 2008

Wedge Regret

TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:

Something important to keep in mind is that automated driverless cars are coming wayyyyyy faster than a lot of people think- probably under 20 years. It's going to radically change the way we think about transportation and car ownership, particularly in dense urban areas. The other thing is that most car manufactures are moving to looking at alternative buying models, including things like shared leases (up to 10 people I think) and purchases, along with a plan to massively increase the number of shared services like zipcar.

Hopefully we get more trains too (the technology to automate those already exists actually)! But any urban plan that doesn't take into account those emerging technologies is doomed to long term failure.

Automated driverless cars are coming, but it won't be critical till they reach five nines of penetration or so. As long as one in a thousand cars is human piloted, you need to keep the traffic laws human-centric, and it's the poorest people who will be keeping their junkers the longest. So thirty years after they reach the 'Tesla 3' stage. (Maybe 20)

As far as alternative buying models, I'm just going to point out that the biggest problem with them is the morning commute and the evening commute. Sure, the car's sitting around 80% of the day, but that 20% is when I actually need it. As far as sharing with 10 friends - yes, I am entirely sure I can rely on 10 friends to pay a bill every month, and also I can rely on them to all keep a job in the same location for 5 years, and also not move away.

As far as 'renting out your car when you're not using it', it's... certainly an interesting concept that I would like to introduce to the tragedy of the commons, the expense of wear and tear, and smokers.

I'm not saying these ideas won't work, I'm saying our society is currently not structured to leverage them, and if you're going to try to restructure society in order to make your business model work... well, generally, that doesn't work out that well.


Bozza posted:

Probably the only comparative to the NYC Subway is the London Underground. The way the upgrades there were handled was with a rolling programme of signalling and control upgrades with rolling stock upgrades taking place simultaneously. You can test the system in normal running by having the upgraded trains follow in shadow mode like a really decent soak test.

Once you've renewed all your stock you switch over to the new system and decommission the old. Pretty much entirely implemented on night and weekend closures.

PS I am the OP of the British trainchat thread so thanks for the shout out and great info on North American railways railroads and metros!

Pleasure to meet you. The major difference between the two is the London Underground shuts down after midnight, I believe. NYC doesn't sleep.

Which does mean we're a bit hosed. That's the problem with massive infrastructure. Repairing it is killer. The only way I could see to do it would be some sort of parasitic piggyback control set that could be A/B tested and both run at once during the conversion process.

Warcabbit fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Apr 1, 2016

Quorum
Sep 24, 2014

REMIND ME AGAIN HOW THE LITTLE HORSE-SHAPED ONES MOVE?
Hailing from Richmond. Once the home of the first electric streetcar network in the country-- you can still see where the old lines ran, where suspiciously straight and wide roads run out into the early suburbs-- the city is now home to a meh-to-acceptable bus system. :smith: Though activists have been hoping for a renewal of light rail, perhaps restoring the once-iconic streetcars, nothing ever happens here on a governmental level so we're lucky to get Bus Rapid Transit. So far a single line, the Pulse, has been greenlit along the busiest length of the bus system. If it receives high ridership it'll prove to investors that hey, there's a desire for public transit here.

For fun and profit, have a look at how the streetcar lines literally just got turned into the bus lines, and the bus lines basically haven't been updated since, despite going on three quarters of a century of development! Whoo. I hate transit politics.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned Amtrak system is undergoing expansion, with environmental review underway on an extension of high-speed rail from DC (the endpoint of the Northeast high speed rail corridor) to Richmond (the beginning of the Southeast corridor). This has riled up the country bumpkins, because it would require a bypass of freight traffic around the adorable small railroad town of Ashland, whose center street the railroad bisects. As Ashland is the sole blue spot in bright-red Hanover County, home to noted shithead David Brat (you may know him as the dude who unseated Eric Cantor), this has exacerbated pre-existing town-vs-county rivalries. I don't expect Brat's sound and fury to change anything, though, as this project is the key to expanding high speed rail from Richmond east to Norfolk and south to Raleigh, and thence to the rest of the southeast.

boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich

Warcabbit posted:

Automated driverless cars are coming, but it won't be critical till they reach five nines of penetration or so. As long as one in a thousand cars is human piloted, you need to keep the traffic laws human-centric, and it's the poorest people who will be keeping their junkers the longest. So thirty years after they reach the 'Tesla 3' stage. (Maybe 20)

and not just poor people driving junkers, but car enthusiasts who will resist driverless cars as long as possible

driverless cars is a bit of a red herring, the land use/transportation mix is already oriented towards mass automobile ownership so nothing much is going to change there, at best we see incremental efficiencies in terms of traffic flow and a sharp reduction in traffic fatalities, which is nice, but there's not going to be some kind of transformative utopia the way a lot of people imagine

Warcabbit
Apr 26, 2008

Wedge Regret
Car enthusiasts can, with effort, be given the middle finger. Poor people driving six in a junker, you will starve and kill if you make their cars illegal - and they'll probably drive them anyhow.

So changing traffic laws to be streetlightless, as the latest fad of design is going, won't happen till those things are driverless.

Which should, parenthetically, be really interesting when you have a 25 year old tesla and half its sensors are gone in an inspectionless state.

Not to mention street lights are sort of important for safe crossing.


Course, I'm interested in the industrial application of autonomous vehicles. We might have American roadtrains - three trucks, one driver, in a convoy.

The transformative utopia is possible - but it's not near-term.


PS: Poked Lord British about his stuff, his site's down.

Badger of Basra
Jul 26, 2007

Also speaking of Austin and San Antonio, the rail line between them that has been in planning for years is on the ropes (even more than before) because Union Pacific broke their agreement to let them use UP right of way. http://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2016/03/potential-train-wreck-ahead-for-lone-star-rail/

Solkanar512
Dec 28, 2006

by the sex ghost

Warcabbit posted:

Car enthusiasts can, with effort, be given the middle finger. Poor people driving six in a junker, you will starve and kill if you make their cars illegal - and they'll probably drive them anyhow.

Most likely you'll see automation being required (and more easily adapted) to highly traveled and standardized roadways (freeways/highways) rather than the last mile sort of thing where driving becomes much more unpredictable. Car enthusiasts aren't your enemy here.

By the way, before we get too enamored with fully autonomous driving, remember that these things fail in the rain and are involved in twice as many accidents per mile driven in pristine conditions than the average driver in all conditions. It's going to be decades before this stuff works, let alone hits five nines level of penetration. This tech might become interesting later, but it's more important to focus on stuff that works right now - light rail, BRT and so on.

OP, thanks for the awesome thread. You'll definitely see more stuff about Sound Transit 3 from me as it becomes available.

Dr Jankenstein
Aug 6, 2009

Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers.

Combed Thunderclap posted:



As well as info on more systems, of course. I can't believe I forgot Morgantown and its legendary PRT system. :eng99:

When I was a mountaineer a decade ago the PRT was a failed piece of poo poo (the buses from towers downtown were always way more packed than the PRT.Mostly because most profs did not count "I got stuck on the 045£ as a valid excuse, and most courses downtown are humanities, which were mostly attendance required.)

I hate to see how much worse it is now.admittedly part of the problem was the whole "sole example" (because its a prototype that showed very good reasons why it never became something in production) which, when you have a then 30 year old system led to a lack of parts.

Coming from NJ, the bus system in Morgantown was amazing, but the PRT was only good if you had a fetish for being stuck in enclosed areas that reeked of stale vomit.

NJ Transit on the other hand is probably the best transit system in the country. Between PATCO, PATH, Hudson-Bergen light rail, the heavy rail into New York, the bus system....NJ Transit is probably the most dependable transit company I have ever seen, even more than the MTA. Even if PATCO and PATH are technically port authority....

Dr Jankenstein fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Apr 1, 2016

Warcabbit
Apr 26, 2008

Wedge Regret

Solkanar512 posted:

Most likely you'll see automation being required (and more easily adapted) to highly traveled and standardized roadways (freeways/highways) rather than the last mile sort of thing where driving becomes much more unpredictable. Car enthusiasts aren't your enemy here.

I _am_ a car enthusiast. My daily drive is a Focus ST. I agree as to what you're saying, I was skipping ahead to endgame, because to get utopian advances that truly treat personal vehicles as mass transit, that's where you have to look - you have to say 'this stuff won't happen till endgame' or 'this stuff won't happen without a massive change in social behavior I don't see happening, and here's why.'

Now, automation required on the freeway/highway is possible, but I'm honestly not sure you can do it in any fashion other than a HOV style special lane, because people will sue for access - and rightly so. Which means you're going to see fights like you currently have for HOV, because there isn't that much space to expand a highway and it costs a lot of money to do so.
I'm not seeing it happen for more than five years before we get nigh-full automation penetration anyhow, which means 'it'll exist some places and then be obsolete cause everyone has it.'

I'm actually really interested in how a 10+ year old autonomous vehicle will behave, especially in inspection-less states.

Anyhow, we're in agreement, excepting possibly freight, autonomous vehicles are a sideshow here for the next few decades.

Solkanar512
Dec 28, 2006

by the sex ghost

Warcabbit posted:

I _am_ a car enthusiast. My daily drive is a Focus ST. I agree as to what you're saying, I was skipping ahead to endgame, because to get utopian advances that truly treat personal vehicles as mass transit, that's where you have to look - you have to say 'this stuff won't happen till endgame' or 'this stuff won't happen without a massive change in social behavior I don't see happening, and here's why.'

Now, automation required on the freeway/highway is possible, but I'm honestly not sure you can do it in any fashion other than a HOV style special lane, because people will sue for access - and rightly so. Which means you're going to see fights like you currently have for HOV, because there isn't that much space to expand a highway and it costs a lot of money to do so.
I'm not seeing it happen for more than five years before we get nigh-full automation penetration anyhow, which means 'it'll exist some places and then be obsolete cause everyone has it.'

I'm actually really interested in how a 10+ year old autonomous vehicle will behave, especially in inspection-less states.

Anyhow, we're in agreement, excepting possibly freight, autonomous vehicles are a sideshow here for the next few decades.

:hfive: Thanks for the clarification! BRZ driver myself.

seiferguy
Jun 9, 2005

FLAWED
INTUITION



Toilet Rascal
That's an unbelievably good OP. Here in Seattle, we're all excited to be somewhat of a major city with opening the light rail between UW and Capitol Hill and planned expansions to Northgate.

The big issue with ST3 is that it will take forever to build because of the scale and the amount of time it will take to collect enough money to fund the initial parts. The completion date would probably be around when I retire, and I'm not even into my 30s yet :smith:

Combed Thunderclap
Jan 4, 2011



Warcabbit posted:

I'm actually really interested in how a 10+ year old autonomous vehicle will behave, especially in inspection-less states.

There really is just so much policy work and infrastructure work that needs to be done before automation's possible that it really will take a while.

Including the basic fact that many American roads are so bad that they're not machine readable, which I find darkly hilarious:

quote:

Volvo's North American CEO, Lex Kerssemakers, lost his cool as the automaker's semi-autonomous prototype sporadically refused to drive itself during a press event at the Los Angeles Auto Show.

"It can't find the lane markings!" Kerssemakers griped to Mayor Eric Garcetti, who was at the wheel. "You need to paint the bloody roads here!"

Shoddy infrastructure has become a roadblock to the development of self-driving cars, vexing engineers and adding time and cost. Poor markings and uneven signage on the 3 million miles of paved roads in the United States are forcing automakers to develop more sophisticated sensors and maps to compensate, industry executives say.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently called the mundane issue of faded lane markings "crazy," complaining they confused his semi-autonomous cars.

seiferguy posted:

The big issue with ST3 is that it will take forever to build because of the scale and the amount of time it will take to collect enough money to fund the initial parts. The completion date would probably be around when I retire, and I'm not even into my 30s yet :smith:

Getting the infrastructure pipeline going until you constantly have plans under construction, funded and non-funded projects ready for construction, and areas under study to become projects takes a long, long time and can easily get tripped up by different projects getting their timelines shifted really fast. The downside of the UW/Capitol Hill station openings was people waking up to the fact that it's going to be ages before there's light rail into key neighborhoods like West Seattle.

On the bright side, places like Salt Lake City had a similar wake-up call and really got things moving fast, and even places like LA eventually created an efficient conveyor belt of transit projects (that may or may not get jammed by the Measure R renewal referendum), so at least from an outsider's perspective it doesn't feel impossible that Seattle won't get its act together too eventually. :unsmith:

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Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.
Yay, transportation thread. I'm a huge fan of biking in particular, it's not the best at any one metric (not as dense as walking/transit, not as fast/good for cargo as cars), but it does represent an extremely useful and fairly inexpensive middle ground.

quote:

people living in suburbs realizing that the suburbs are poo poo when it comes to doing anything other than raising kids
I'm not sure they're even very good at that. This got discussed a bit in the child independence thread, but the fact that we have all these spread-out, car-dominant suburbs has crippled kids' independence. Kids can maybe walk or bike to a friend's house in the neighborhood, that's about it. Whereas in places with good bike infrastructure like the Netherlands, or good transit like Japan, kids who are like 8 or 10 can actually get to lots of places of interest. I think this is part of why kids/college kids sometimes seem so coddled these days. (And no, this isn't a matter of the recurring historical meme of "rawr, kids these days don't have any respect for their elders")

quote:

even simple innovations like Google Maps can tell people exactly how to get places using public transit when it might have taken ages to build up the amount of knowledge necessary to use the system to its fullest extent.
I think this doesn't get enough play. Google Maps is pretty useful for driving, but it and similar apps are a total game changer for transit, in my opinion. I mean, if you're just taking the same route over and over, for work or something, it's not a huge deal, but for any kind of novel trip it's sooooo much easier.

quote:

- Seattle: Another fresh young face on the block, the Seattle system just opened its Capitol Hill and University of Washington stations, with a 1.6 mile/2.6km southern extension to Angle Lake opening in September and expanding even further north to open in 2021. It still really only has a single, long North-South line, though, and expanding further into Bellevue, West Seattle, Everett, and Tacoma will voters to approve the Sound Transit 3 referendum this November.

Seattle also just passed the Move Seattle proposition last November, a big levy that has a grab bag of transportation improvements: road repair/maintenance, expanded sort-of-BRT routes, more sidewalks, lots more bike lanes. On the eve of the vote, the proponents were feeling pretty down, the sentiment was that people were just tired of more taxes, but then they ended up winning 58-42.

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