With specific reference to Mr Musk and commuter rail, this is the opposite of reality. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44297667
Good one.
This message was not written from my hyperloop commute to Mars.
I suppose this is more a problem of sharing track than through running, but I just found it funny to see Munich public transport described so positively.
Been living in Munich for the past 9 years, with the exception of the S-Bahn, it's still very good. I've never felt the need to own a car (only the occasional rental for moving or trips to more remote areas). Anecdotally, I know colleagues and friends who also make do without one, even those with kids.
Only city I've experienced better is Singapore (where I lived for ~7 years), though people complain all the same :D
In an airport, people complained that luggage delivery was so slow after landings. Airport measured the time, agreed with passengers and increased workforce to reduce waiting times substantially, but the complaints didn't reduce.
Instead, they routed passengers through a longer path, so their luggage was waiting for them when they arrived, and nobody complained about the longer walk.
We, the humans, are interesting.
I've never formally complained about luggage arrival delays, but I have definitely noticed long walks. Some ridiculously so. I suppose I should complain, but to whom?
OTOH, you can't make things easier if the airport is really big. e.g.: Rome, New York, Amsterdam (to an extent) and Istanbul.
The London underground is indeed a redundant spiderweb. But the article focuses more on mainline trains, which are much more constrained.
The only way right through central London for these trains was north-to-south, the Snow Hill tunnel: Kings Cross -> Farringdon -> City Thameslink -> Blackfriars -> South of the river. This can only be a bottleneck.
But now there is the Elizabeth line east-to-west as well.
https://www.2.stammstrecke-muenchen.de/home.html
> To upgrade the S-Bahn system and to reduce the traffic burden on the existing core line, two new tracks will be built parallel to it between the stations of Laim in the west of the city and Leuchtenbergring in the east, covering a total of about 10 kilometres. The core of the new east-west connection is a 7-kilometre tunnel linking Munich's main station Hauptbahnhof with the eastern hub Ostbahnhof.
(Source: Projektplan / SZ.de)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trunk_line_2_(Munich_S-Bahn)#/...
> zwei Stammstrecke will make it horrible long to switch from platform 1 to platform 2, through elevators 40m up + down on each side, forcing you to go completely upwards, and then going down again
Are the connections between the faster and the slower lines going to be equally bad at all five connection points (Laim, Hbf, Marienhof or -platz, Ostbahnhof and Leuchtenbergring)?
Instead of having an hour commute to move a few miles, you could have a half hour commute to move 30 miles.
This made land ownership possible for this group of people. Low value land that was too far from work was now usable for those same jobs.
Whenever I see propositions of removing lanes from freeways, I think how that benefits only rich people and landlords. I can afford to live near my company because I'm well-off, but I know plenty of people making 40-60k/yr that have plots of land 30-60 minutes from their jobs. They would otherwise be renting apartments 1/3 of the size of their home.
I live in a suburb of Stockholm, 15km away from the city centre but it takes me only some 35 min to get to the central station on the metro, I have the option to take a 10 min bus to the nearest rail station that connects me to a different part of the city so if I need to go there I can choose the commuter train. Not only that but I do get local trains taking me to different towns southwards, also a direct connection to the airport and other towns northwards, and a connection to the long distance rail that can take me to the other coast, or south to Malmö/Copenhagen.
My suburb only exists because the metro station was built here, around the station there's a small centre with shops for daily needs, all of that was designed prior the existence of residential buildings to support the city's expansion, around the station are the higher-density buildings with apartments while I live some 5-10 min away in a townhouse; and this suburb is considered a poorer area of the Stockholm metropolitan region, not requiring a car was a must.
Traveling faster than what the human body is capable of on its own feels like time travel to me. Horse, buggy, car, whatever... like stepping into or activating a warp bubble where your consciousness arrives at a place faster than humanly possible. Similarly, having access to information or experience (different manners of vehicles) is potentially a huge advantage or major pitfall. (Perhaps why some ancient maps indicate, "here be dragons!")
Inversely, moving slow when others are traveling fast allows you to witness where those paths lead without having to go down proverbial rabbit holes.
A good public transport is a boon to the poor and even middle class. In Europe, in cities where it's available, even the rich (the top 10%-5%, not the top 0.01%) routinely take it.
Not sure how to handle this short of abolishing holidays entirely
(Not necessarily a bad idea - too many things in society already run in synch where they shouldn't; see e.g. most people working 9-5, including services all those people need, so there's e.g. no good time to go to a dentist or visit a bank without taking a day off at work.)
I've lived 40km from my office, commuting by bicycle (there was an highway and a railway available as well). I was super fit at the time. I've lived 100km from my office, taking a mix of train + bicycle. Despite being a wee bit slower than using a car, I could do something ( or sleep/nap) in the train, so that was better time spent.
Anyway you look at it, even when it is faster, using a car in an area that has decent public transport is a time that is not well spent over different modes of transportation and you don't really gain time if you think of it thorously.
It was basically free 2h40 of fitness every day.
The same is the case with public transport where available and where the city is built to support it. Which is what the poor people and rising middle class used -- especially as they didn't afford a car until the 1930s (and in places like New York not even then, though they still managed to turn from piss poor Italian, Jewish, Greek, Bulgarian, Irish, etc immigrants to middle class).
Yes, and with reference to London, one of the cities discussed, cars are now literally poisoning us.
> The most economically disadvantaged are often those worst affected by air pollution, particularly because they often live in less desirable locations, such as near busy roads. But they are conversely least likely to own a car or use them as much and therefore emit the least pollution.
https://trustforlondon.org.uk/news/london-inequalities-infec...
https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/bame-and-po...
If cars are so great all around, ever think why "near busy roads" are "less desirable locations" ?
Well unless half a million people try to commute along you during the same rush hour, with their commute ending in the wider centre of an old city which cannot absorb all the cars.
In Prague it is quite common to spend half an hour to cross the outer 25 miles of your journey and spend another half an hour in the traffic jam of the last 5 miles.
If it wasn't for the suburban trains and buses which alleviate the pressure, that last 5 miles would be one huge gridlock moving at the speed of a slow walk.
only by ignoring the externalities of traffic and highways. If everyone tries to do this, it doesn't work. Hence the need for public transit
In the long term, it's anyone's guess. My fear is it would be another Airtrain.
There's a curious European vs American distinction that the article doesn't address -- many modern, large American cities are younger than that.
Especially southern and western ones that grew up on rail lines.
There, the only thing that would be needed is the political will to fund and build new bypass, outside-the-city freight track to free up the contiguous in-city rights of way.
I mean even in NYC in 1850s, 42nd street was practically "uptown" and what we now call "uptown" was farmland. Brooklyn & Queens which are now the population centers of NYC with ~2.5M residents each had a grand total of under 200K back then. At the time Manhattan had 500K residents (2.5x BK&QNS 200K) while it has 1.7M now (1/3 the ~5M across BK&QNS now).
So the population center even within our biggest city has completely shifted from the time our railroads were built out.
We always had a good train network around here. When the shift happened though, the "hub" stations have not really moved. Today the main stations are still where the old center of town was. As a result, taking the train for me is a bit like going to the airport you're gonna have to take a 30min trip(without traffic) and 60min trip(with traffic) or a 30min metro (crowded) or a 45min (but less punctual and gets full too often) bus/suburban train to reach the station.
As I type this, the city keeps expanding on one side, so in a decade's time, there will be a new city center, closer to the airport, but further and further away from the hub station. I'll have to wait and see if they change the hub station to a more central one at that point.
#/media/File:Netzplan_S-Bahn_M%C3%BCnchen_Zweite_Stammstrecke.svg){kind=link}
1. Identify direction of expansion
2. Buy / eminent domain land
3. Build transit
4. Develop area
1842 is at 2:55 in the video.
Another major issue is the way transit authorities tend to be governed and funded in the US. They're often prone to political disagreements between cities and suburbs, or between city and state governments, or between multiple states. The two-party system doesn't exactly lead to coalition-building.
Take Philly for example: SEPTA regional rail has been through-running since the mid 80s, which is great, and the network is fairly well-aligned with population centers and employment centers. But year after year, SEPTA is consistently in a state of utter crisis, typically due to lack of funding.
Crossrail (aka Elizabeth line) was being talked about or built the whole two decades I lived there but opened after I left.
The city is very much not-flat, with significant altitude differences, a lot of already existing infrastructure under the surface (three extant lines of metro with fourth one being built, some road tunnels, parking spaces etc.), and a major river must be crossed. Plus, the rocks underneath are fractured and finicky. It isn't a nice big slab of granite, but a mixture of sediments, water and various primordial rocks. Quite hellish to put tunnels into.
This is confusing.
Subway is already a kind of train.
You mean to say that the train partly runs underground? That is pretty common. I actually can't remember any city where airport connecting train does not do the same at some point or another.
What's kinda interesting is does that train classify as metro transit that goes slightly beyond city to airport and such (making many stops all the way) or distance intercity train that happens to stop both at airport and city? Or does it change this classification? That would be actually unusual.
I suppose a subway train with rail only supply that goes overground sometimes is more dangerous because it is easier to accidentally step on a rail and rail is powered?
Anyone who lives on the outskirts of London near a big commuter station knows that pain: 15 minutes to get into the centre, and another 25 to get anywhere else.
absurdo•5h ago
It’s an okay article but there’s no real magic to it. It amounts to wordy trivia and you spend your time reading it as I have at your peril. Zero-calorie content is easily forgotten.
dkdbejwi383•5h ago