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After spending lots of time in Prague in the Czech Republic, I could get around without using any sort of automobile. The tram stopped right in front of my hotel and the Metro got me everywhere. So, after using the amazing public transportation of Prague, it was a real slap in the face when I returned to the US. Why is it that other countries like Germany, Portugal, and the Czech Republic have such great and efficient public transportation while most cities in the US only have buses (see the disaster of public transit in Cheyenne, Wyoming for example) and many other cities have even less? Is it a financial thing, or just US officials being against public transit?
Seriously, nearly every public transit project in smaller cities have been put on hold. Remember when we were going to get high speed rail in Wisconsin? And then it gets cancelled. And at the same time, two lines on the Prague Metro get expanded/extended.
I'm surprised US officials aren't taking this into account.
I'm not sure your premise is correct.
First of all, will you people make accurate comparisons? The "grass is greener" posts from Americans almost always attempt to make the US look unfavorable via deliberately stacked and skewed comparisons. Cheyenne, Wyoming is one of the smallest cities in the US. It is amidst open wilderness, quite close to mountainous terrain. There are very few to no notable cities or even large towns nearby. Cheyenne itself is more of a town than a city. So why in the name of god are you comparing it to Prague?
Prague is the largest city in it's own nation. Prague should maybe be compared to New York City, and a handful of cities in the US around that stature, not Cheyenne, Wyoming - a town in the least populated state in the union.
Second, you're comparing tiny countries to a nation larger than the EU and nearly the size of the entire European continent, including European Russia. Maybe you need to make considerations of the size of the US (and the accordant population density) rather than comparing the US to ****in Germany or Portugal or the Czech Republic.
To answer your question, the US doesn't have "such bad public transportation", it has fairly decent public transport for a country of it's size. Most of it's major urban areas have train or bus service. Many major cities, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast, are serviced by trains into city centers. Amtrak offers a number of cross-region and cross-country routes...
First of all, will you people make accurate comparisons? The "grass is greener" posts from Americans almost always attempt to make the US look unfavorable via deliberately stacked and skewed comparisons. Cheyenne, Wyoming is one of the smallest cities in the US. It is amidst open wilderness, quite close to mountainous terrain. There are very few to no notable cities or even large towns nearby. Cheyenne itself is more of a town than a city. So why in the name of god are you comparing it to Prague?
Prague is the largest city in it's own nation. Prague should maybe be compared to New York City, and a handful of cities in the US around that stature, not Cheyenne, Wyoming - a town in the least populated state in the union.
Second, you're comparing tiny countries to a nation larger than the EU and nearly the size of the entire European continent, including European Russia. Maybe you need to make considerations of the size of the US (and the accordant population density) rather than comparing the US to ****in Germany or Portugal or the Czech Republic.
To answer your question, the US doesn't have "such bad public transportation", it has fairly decent public transport for a country of it's size. Most of it's major urban areas have train or bus service. Many major cities, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast, are serviced by trains into city centers. Amtrak offers a number of cross-region and cross-country routes...
I meant to say many major *suburbs are serviced by trains into city centers
First of all, will you people make accurate comparisons? The "grass is greener" posts from Americans almost always attempt to make the US look unfavorable via deliberately stacked and skewed comparisons. Cheyenne, Wyoming is one of the smallest cities in the US. It is amidst open wilderness, quite close to mountainous terrain. There are very few to no notable cities or even large towns nearby. Cheyenne itself is more of a town than a city. So why in the name of god are you comparing it to Prague?
Prague is the largest city in it's own nation. Prague should maybe be compared to New York City, and a handful of cities in the US around that stature, not Cheyenne, Wyoming - a town in the least populated state in the union.
Second, you're comparing tiny countries to a nation larger than the EU and nearly the size of the entire European continent, including European Russia. Maybe you need to make considerations of the size of the US (and the accordant population density) rather than comparing the US to ****in Germany or Portugal or the Czech Republic.
To answer your question, the US doesn't have "such bad public transportation", it has fairly decent public transport for a country of it's size. Most of it's major urban areas have train or bus service. Many major cities, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast, are serviced by trains into city centers. Amtrak offers a number of cross-region and cross-country routes...
If the problem is that these countries are too tiny for comparison (Czech Republic is about the size of South Carolina or Maine), then just take the more comparable EU/EEA/EFTA as a whole which overall does have far more extensive mass transit options in coverage and frequency for city, suburban, and intercity travel compared to the US.
I agree Prague does an incredible job--very good compared to any city of its metropolitan population size. For a US comparison, and using the smallest unit of "urban area" as defined by the US census, that slots around San Diego, the Twin Cities, and Tampa, and Prague obviously has far better transit than. It also does an incredible job with mass transit compared to other European areas of similar metropolitan population like West Yorkshire (Leeds), Lyon, and Turin. However, West Yorkshire, Lyon, and Turin, with West Yorkshire being the weakest of those three, have generally better mass transit systems than the aforementioned US metropolitan areas and none of them are national capitals.
It's also not just about trains--buses are the more common form of mass transit and one thing that I find in East Asia and the parts of Europe I've been to is that bus frequencies and operating hours seem to be a lot better than in most parts of the US I've been to.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 08-19-2020 at 09:13 AM..
To answer your question, the US doesn't have "such bad public transportation", it has fairly decent public transport for a country of it's size. Most of it's major urban areas have train or bus service. Many major cities, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast, are serviced by trains into city centers. Amtrak offers a number of cross-region and cross-country routes...
It really doesn't. I agree with the issues you pointed regarding the Prague comparisons, but the U.S. doesn't have even decent public transportation when looking at the whole picture.
I think it's better to look at it on the metro level since the big picture will never match up. The U.S. is physically larger than than the European Union, but it has about 1/4 the population density. Other nations and regions known for good transit are similarly problematic in terms of apples to apples comparisons (China, Japan, etc.).
But on a metro level, the U.S. generally sucks when it comes to transit. New York City is probably the only network that's competitive on a global level. But even then, I'd argue that it's as good as it should be considering the fact that NYC is one of the 3 most important cities in the world by almost every metric. But it's definitely not a top 3 metro network by every metric. Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul, Moscow, and Hong Kong are all superior by nearly every measure (inc. ridership). I'd argue London and Paris beat NYC on all metrics apart from total ridership and late night service. And that's the best of the U.S. and only the metro network. Almost all of the cities already mentioned have far more robust regional (commuter) rail networks and long distance high speed connections than NYC.
The rest of our best transit networks are barely even worthy of "honorable mentions" on a world stage. DC and Chicago would be the next best networks. They're comfortably behind the likes of nearly a dozen Chinese cities, half a dozen Japanese cities, Singapore, Stockholm, Madrid, Barcelona, Munich, Cairo, Tehran, St. Petersburg, Delhi, Toronto, Prague, Rome, Milan, etc.
The next tier, cities like Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, LA, etc. really don't compete on the world level at all. Places like Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Detroit, Miami, Phoenix, etc. are not in the discussion with their European, Asian, and even many South American peers. Public transit in small and midsize cities in the U.S. is not even close to being comparable to peers abroad.
This isn't a matter of the U.S. not being capable of building solid transit networks. They can and have. It's a matter of what the U.S. has prioritized over the past 75-100 years or so. And unlike the hyper dense regions in Europe, Asia, and South America where it isn't possible, we've prioritized the car. It makes sense. the U.S. was epicenter of the automotive industry during the 20th century and the car was touted here as the transportation solution of the future. new and rapidly growing cities in the 20th century were developed with the automobile in mind. Even in older cities, profitable private transportation companies were dumped in favor auto-friendly redevelopment (urban renewal) and transit networks were shrunk to a shell of their former selves (cities like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia used to have massive streetcar networks that no longer exist).
As traffic has risen to unsustainable levels over the past 20-30 years, cities have adapted realizing that while cars aren't going anywhere, they can't be the only/primary means of transportation in American cities. But we have a lot of catching up to do. And we'll likely never match out peers abroad who have had long head starts. Geographic and density differences likely mean that the outside of the Northeast and maybe California, we'll likely never have (nor do we need) long-distance high speed networks like China, Japan, and Europe. But even with COVID-19, I'd anticipate continued investment in better public transit in major and mid-size American metros going forward. It's hard to build new highways, it's a lot easier to build new capacity on existing transit networks and add new networks above and under ground. Mass transit will remain the most efficient way to move people.
Partially because no one wants to pay higher taxes to fund transit, and partially because since the Reagan revolution, investment in America's infrastructure by the FED who can print & borrow money indefinitely has become a cardinal sin because "zOMG BIG GUBBERMINT!!!"
Ridership is low in American cities largely because people associate mass transit with the low income, which is because mass transit is most extensive in the inner cities, where crime and poverty is the highest. If you can afford it, you're moving to the suburbs and driving your own car instead of riding the train through the crime infested hoods.
Ridership is low in American cities largely because people associate mass transit with the low income, which is because mass transit is most extensive in the inner cities, where crime and poverty is the highest. If you can afford it, you're moving to the suburbs and driving your own car instead of riding the train through the crime infested hoods.
You're trying to make a cause and effect relationship that doesn't make much sense. Crime and poverty doesn't necessarily need to be highest in the inner cities and certainly not as high as it is, but there have been various pieces of policy within the US that has made it so. Meanwhile, many high-crime areas and low-crime areas in the US have pretty abysmal mass transit. Of the top ten highest violent crime rate cities in the US, not a single one of them has a transit system that would be considered even mediocre compared to that of similarly sized metropolitan areas in other developed countries.
The more likely rationale for low ridership in American cities is that there's ample support for the alternatives (personal cars) and relatively little support for mass transit. If our transit systems are so stunted on a pound for pound basis compared to many other developed countries, then it does make a lot of sense that ridership is relatively low.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 08-21-2020 at 01:52 PM..
Driving your car usually take less time, less physical (more comfort), and cost more than subway in almost any cities (even if the city is very transit-friendly and has hundreds of stations). Naturally, it is more desirable option for people who can afford it. As country got richer, more people opted for driving. This results in increased time consumption for driving and parking, which reduces the attractiveness of driving. Thus, they balance out at some point. The most common balancing point is, driving allows you to have time and comfort advantage, while the public transit grants you have the cost advantage. Most of transit-friendly cities around the globe have employed multiple schemes to make the situation worse for driving, because otherwise public transits lose almost all of its competitiveness against driving.
1. Limited parking - increased walking time between home/starting point and garage. increased time consumption for searching empty parking spaces in front of destinations, increased walking time between parking and destinations. it also increases the cost of parking, both at your home (several hundreds or even thousands/mo, or up front $100-500k) and your destinations (usually around $3-10/hrs, or $20-100/d).
2. Limited road capacity, # of highway, # of lanes, highway accessibility (less ramps) - reduce the average driving speed between starting point and destinations.
3. High density living/commerce area with walkable streets (many traffic stops) - make the traffic situation worse.
4. High ownership cost - high annual registration fee ($300-2000/y is pretty common), high acquisition cost (20-40% tax on car is also pretty common for developed countries, and underdeveloped countries without much road infrastructures often have 100% tax on car)
5. High operating cost - heavy tax on gas/diesel, to push the retail price of gas/diesel up (often $5+/gallon), highway toll (often $10-30/d), congestion charges
Suburbs and low density urban areas with lots of free highways aren't really compatible with public transits because almost every aspects of suburb decrease the competitiveness of public transit, while increase the competitiveness of driving. You have enough parking spaces everywhere, which reduces the time consumption between origin/destination doors and car, as well as time for searching empty parking spots. And those parking spaces drastically reduces the density as well as accessibility to the stations, because it increases door to train and train to door time. Even with all that heavy penalties on driving and extensive public transit networks and high density living/commerce, drivers tend to gain 20-ish minutes on a door to vehicle and vehicle to door trip time. On suburbs, that becomes like 1+ hour. This is more than something you can make up from the slightly faster average speed of train.
You also can't just build more lines/stations to sweeten up the deal for public transit. Compare Tokyo 23 wards or Seoul to Los Angeles. Both Tokyo 23 wards and Seoul have ~300 stations for ~10 million residents in ~240 sq.mi area (as well as 10-20 million more people living around the city). To match the station accessibility (1.25 stations/sq.mi), you need ~6,060 stations for ~13 million residents in LA metro area (4,850sq.mi) or ~625 stations for ~4 million residents in the city of Los Angeles (~500 sq.mi).
# of stations / residents
- Tokyo 23 wards / Seoul - ~33k residents/station (if you count populations living nearby, 60+k residents/station)
- LA Metro - ~2.1k residents/station
- City of Los Angeles - ~6.4k residents/station
You need to spend 5-15 times more per resident basis, to achieve the similar accessibility for the subway stations of LA. Not only that, Americans are very bad at building infrastructures cheap due to many factors. Many Asian countries build subway at a price tag of $150-250m/mile and Europeans tend to spend $300-400m/mile. In the US, that's $600-1,800m/mile. Where does the money come from? It will be reflected on ticket price, which reduces the cost advantage of public transit. To balance it out, you have to pose even stronger penalties on driving, which is pretty difficult, since you already have parking spaces and highways, hence limitation on these infrastructures is out of option (also, you cannot just raze the suburbs and build high rises on urban area). You need shocking numbers, way beyond of most European cities, due to low density and high construction cost. There is an example. Although Singapore has 250-450% population density (vs city of Los Angeles or LA metro area), but they do have extreme level of penalties on driving. The acquisition cost of Honda Civic is often north of $100k, because you need to buy 10 year permits for $30-60k on top of the extremely heavy tax (100-180% ARF + import duty 20% + 7% GST). This permit not only acts as initial barrier, but also as ownership cost (since you're practically burning $3-6k/year for the permit). And the gas price is $7-8/gallon, and you should expect $10/d tolls, and more for parking.
Furthermore, high accessibility means lower average speed of train, due to many stops. Maximum achievable average speed of subway train (including stops) is around 20mph if you build 1-2 stations per square mile. Although that's slightly faster than average driving speed in rush hour, but subway riders likely to gain no time advantage here, since they gotta travel longer distances due to the relative scarcity of rail line (compare to roads). This is still okay level of speed in an 240 sq.mi area to manage the total subway trip time bearable, because people usually travel only 6-8 miles on average, and rarely travel more than 20 miles one way. That's not the case in 500 sq.mi or 4,850 sq.mi area. 20 miles is the average, and 60-70 mile trip is the upper end of spectrum. That's 1-3 hours or more, which is too much of time. You can only reduce the travel time by removing the stations. In other words, you can only choose one in low density area. Accessibility of stations or competitive travel time. This of course leads to less competitive subways.
Last edited by kantobento; 08-21-2020 at 11:59 PM..
One big word NIMBYs, those lobbyists are also blocking any meaningful road projects to untangle the road traffic system as well. The goal may not be to add more roads/lanes but redistribute traffic and reduce bottlenecks. LA should had some ring roads, underground roads, as well as metro systems that run under/over Wilshire Blvd toward the ocean a long time ago but Beverly Hills blocked it and there was the excuse of methane pockets which can be built over if they desired just as many other cities had done.
Yet they keep building more projects that add more cars on the roadway with no extra capacity to accommodate them.
What I don’t understand why doesn’t NJ build a real HSR system to compete with Amtrak between Philadelphia and NYC. I believe that would be real popular and doable compared to the phantom proposed California High speed rail system. The pricing would be competitive to the Acela Express or even the regional rail system of Amtrak and would likely lead it to quick expansion across the north East corridor soon.
Last edited by citizensadvocate; 08-22-2020 at 04:53 PM..
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