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Do you support the idea of building more pedestrian areas in existing U.S. cities with the goal of eventually connecting them with public transportation?
Yes i'm all for urbanizing our cities. i'm just one of those pro-urbanist who don't go telling suburbanites how to live and disrespect them because they don't live how i want them to live.
I'm asking because my hunch is that anyone who is familiar with both would know that the stereotypes about one being super dense and the other being sprawly isn't exactly true. Parts of Europe are compact, but there are small towns and rural areas here too - lots of them in fact. They have suburbs as well. They're just designed better. We can easily build similarly in the U.S., and we should. As I've said numerous times, I'm not a europhile, but one area Europe exceeds is in leaps and bounds is urban planning. We could easily transform cities like Phoenix, Kansas City, and Atlanta using similar principles that are used to build in Western Europe. Public transportation would make perfect sense in those areas and many other U.S. metros if we spent 20 years or so concentrating on the development of pedestrian areas. These are very popular in the U.S. already and are economic boons to areas fortunate to have them so why not build more?
I'm fine with that as long as it's economical.
As I said, San Diego has suburbs as far as 70 miles away where people commute to the center city. They are spread over an area more than three times the size of Rhode Island. Imagine putting in a subway system that hit all those areas and you didn't have to wait more than 15 minutes for a train between 5 am and 9 pm, or more than an hour at any other time? We are talking thousands of miles of track. It isn't going to happen.
Germany -- just to name one example -- has lots and lots of small cities surrounded by smaller hamlets within a short distance.
People live and work within a relatively small geographic area. America isn't like that.
Crossing the border from one part of California to another part three counties away can be like crossing the border from a small European country to another small European country with two additional small European countries in between -- e.g. the distance from Germany near the Luxembourg border to Luxembourg to Belgium to Holland.
What would that distance be?
About 200 miles I would guess.
Four countries within 200 miles....
Last edited by dechatelet; 08-30-2015 at 05:31 AM..
Norway is not dense at all and is quite large, so is Sweden, and mass transit works quite well there. This statement is just patently ignorant.
Oh, so there's a train or subway operating two or three times hourly 24/7 from Tromso to Stavanger? Or Alesund to Viborg? Or Lillehammer to Oslo? Or Bergen to Trondheim?
During his extensive travels in Europe, he must have not been to places like northern Sweden. I've been up there. It's basically like Alaska - forests, moose and lots of unpopulated land. The towns though still have walkable city centers, good bus systems and great bike infrastructure. Crazy, isn't it?
That's easy to do in small towns.
The U.S. is full of major metro areas covering hundreds, and in many cases thousands, of square miles.
Yes, you can have good transit in central cities. And even in small towns if enough people use it to make it economical.
I'm glad to hear that no one drives in Northern Sweden -- LOL.
Last edited by dechatelet; 08-30-2015 at 05:33 AM..
Even though Norway is not dense, Oslo is dense and that is why subway works there. If you are thinking about trains between cities , then it is important to mention it is heavily subsidized and it is still more expensive than taking the plane.
The rest of Norway is dependent on bus routes, and where I lived in the US they did have bus routes.
Oh, so there's a train or subway operating two or three times hourly 24/7 from Tromso to Stavanger? Or Alesund to Viborg? Or Lillehammer to Oslo? Or Bergen to Trondheim?
Tell me about it.
I hate being "patently ignorant."
Please continue insisting that mass transit is defined by having trains run every twenty seconds or so.
The reality is that Norway is less sense than the United States and I can easily live there without a car thanks to the infrastructure. Ditto for Sweden.
Your insistence that mass transit is defined by simply having a subway is sophomoric. It's a mass transit system and a system comprises of myriad forms of transit including busses, cycling infrastructure, trains etc.
We are not advocating putting a subway in Wyoming, but are advocating improving the transit options in American urban areas and MSA's which by and large are more dense than most Scandinavian cities save Stockholm and Copenhagen.
Congratulations are in order, however. You managed to name and misspell eight Norwegian cities. Perhaps in your studies you would note that actually Lillehammer and Oslo are quite close and while I'm not particularly sure the train runs three times an hour it is quite easy to get between the two via train.
Stop conflating urban transit systems with nation wide transit systems. Going from Tromsø to Ålesund or Stavanger is quite some distance and in a country with a very low population density it would be moronic to have trains going three times an hour given the populations of the cities you mentioned.
I would love to give up my car and simply walk or ride a bike to work. The issue of distance can be solved by working close to home. Why are some people in love with the idea of driving a car?
The U.S. is full of major metro areas covering hundreds, and in many cases thousands, of square miles.
Yes, you can have good transit in central cities. And even in small towns if enough people use it to make it economical.
I'm glad to hear that no one drives in Northern Sweden -- LOL.
People drive in northern Sweden. They also take the bus, walk and ride bikes.
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