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this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2024
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For a small segment of the trip. The problem with public transportation is that all these people are going to different locations and a bus being more efficient for 50% of the travel doesn't really help you for the other 50%
The problem is not with public transportation, the problem is that the area surrounding this highway was designed so that more cars and more lanes were the only possible solution.
Cars create problems that only cars can solve.
Edit: and to add more context: those 50 different locations are all separated by massive mandatory parking lots which make them miles apart from each other when they could likely all be contained in the same building in front of a single bus stop.
As someone who has lived alone for eight years using only public transport in an area with excellent public transport, I can tell you that you are both right and wrong.
You are right in that if there is just one bus line, then it would only serve a small subset of people in this photo.
But if you only make one bus line then the public transport system is doomed to fail.
A good public transport system will have multiple lines converging to the same interchange, and in the opposite direction it will have multiple lines departing the same interchange, following the same route and branching off when needed, this way you have added capacity and redundancy at the start of the line, and it gets reduced as the need is reduced.
Then add lines that are circles in higher density areas, this means that no matter the direction all passengers can get on all departures, you csn also quickly add capacity by adding busses that goes in alternating directions.
All of this means that travellers can define their own route along different bus, train, tram, metro and ferry lines.
Public transport is not ment to be point to point, it builds a framework where people decide what parts the want to use.
Oh sorry, 20 buses to cover all the sectors these people are going to then.
Unless there's another bus for the other 50% of the travel. The point of a public transportation system is to be just that - a system. To get from anywhere to anywhere else.
Where I live this will cause what would be a 15 minute car ride into 1.5 hours of hopping on different busses and then walking 1/2 mile to your destination on either end. I don't have a problem with effective public transportation but outside of major population centers like Manhattan, I haven't seen one that really works all that well here in the US.
It wouldn't be a 15 minutes car ride once the traffic jams start. The point of public transport is not to completely replace cars, but to provide an alternative for people. A good public transport system will cover most destinations so people won't have to worry like you do about reaching your destination. By doing so, it will reduce cars on the road which will also benefit the people who do need to drive to where they want to go.
Well, that's the thing you could have it if you invested all the money that currently goes into highways. The amount of money is always limited (everybody hates taxes for a reason), so building large quantities of both is impossible.
Roads are always going to cost more in the end, but they're easier to build incrementally. Boiling the frog situation.
Even if policy of your local government changes (which is at least a little up to you) you will still have to suffer the current situation and keep driving for a while before a better system is built. But that's no reason to throw good money after the bad.
So what?
Living in a city with actually good public transit, it is used to achieve exactly that. To get any one passenger from any one point within the metropolitan area, to any other. To work for everyone, even though every single person is starting from a different point, and going to a different destination.
It doesn't matter where you're going or from where. There is a public transit stop nearby at both ends.
The fuck do you mean "a small segment of the trip"? I share this city with a stupid number of other humans, only a small number of which I go to work with every day, yet a significant portion of of the entire city population travels to work, entertainment and shopping, using the exact same transit network.
Your trip may overlap with a varying number of entirely different individuals along each segment of the route, and at each end it might just be you walking a few dozen meters... But come on! The fact that it adds up is beyond obvious!
Your argument is only valid for mass transit, that isn't actually mass transit.
And as density goes up (read less roads and carparks), the overlaps INCREASE and the whole thing gets more efficient.
There is a train station in Tokyo, that serves the same number of people every day, as there are citizens in my entire country.
Can you even imagine what a highway interchange that could serve 5 million people within 24 hours would look like? No, because it's a physical impossibility.
The only reason the number can get so high, is because transit systems consolidate travellers even when they aren't going to the same places.
That's why frequency is one of the most important factors for public transportation.
And good coverage.
They're all up there. I'd probably go with
Safety Frequency Availability (operating hours) Coverage Cost
You know, buses.. They make more than one stop.
95% of Londoners are 400m or less from a bus stop. The bus service suits everyone for any journey. And then we have trains and the tube. There's never a need for a car no matter where and when you go.
London wasn't developed after the automobile. Houston's metroplex covers a much larger area with a much smaller population, which makes London's solutions much less practical.
The closest bus stop to someone in Alvin or Bellville may be 20 miles away, and they'll have to change busses 7 times to get where they're going.
And to put numbers to your points, London’s population density is 14,600 people per square mile, while urban Houston is only 3,340.
And if you want to talk about the broader metropolitan area, then London goes down to 3,900 people/sq. mi., which is close to Houston’s urban area. However, if we look at Houston’s equivalent to that the density drops to 862/sq mi.
Also, London’s metro is 3,236 square miles. Houston’s is 10,062.
Anyone who compares these as equivalent is disingenuous or ignorant (not necessarily maliciously so, but likely just unaware or oblivious to the massive sprawl that Texas cities have).
That's cool that Londoners all live so close to each other and have a city built around public transportation. Unfortunately as someone who lives in Texas a car really us practically mandatory. Our Urban sprawl is large and it's not something that can or will be easily fixed even over multiple lifetimes. To give an idea of what it is like over here, the nearest grocery store is a little over 3 miles (~5 km) away from where I live. There is no bus route within a 2 mile (~3km) area of me that provides transportation to that area.
The public transportation we do have is lacking in availability, accessibility, and coverage. and while there are ongoing efforts to update it. These uodates primarily apply to the inner parts of the large cities and rarely cover the urban living areas where people actually live at. And these living areas are frequently very far away from where public transportation is available.
The main problem is that Texas cities are just too expansive in size for public transportation to currently be effective. This isn't even factoring in how long commutes would take to be for some people even if they where somehow magically available tomorrow.
For example, many of my co-workers on my overnight shift live far enough away that communiting to work in a car during the dead of night on an empty highway road where they drive 75+ mph ( 120+kph) still takes them an hour or more to arrive to work daily. This is consider a common and rven somewhat normal commute time and distance in Texas. If they had to take public transportation they would be looking at an over 2+ hour commute everyday. So that is not really a viable option for them.
Im really happy that Europeans have more dense cities and don't have to deal with the same problems we have. But it honestly gets tiring hearing everyone say public transportation be the solution for everything in Texas. Yes it would very much help and efforts are being made. But due to how Texas cities where laid out and planned with urban sprawl multiple decades ago before even my grandfather was able to give input. We can no longer have public transportation be a viable option for a large segment of the people who live here.
What Texas needs is both public transport AND better highway road planning, for example more exits and on ramps, more alternative routes to free up congestion on major feeder arteries. Not more lanes on the same congested routes, off ramps, feeders, etc.
Sorry for the rant, I just fucking hate the traffic here and it's causes have become my mini soapbox of annoyance
Well, I understand that. But the change should start somewhere and somehow, right? I can only provide you with examples how the public transport works elsewhere, but you'll have to do some ground work yourself, like advocating for public transport, voting for more responsible government, etc. Or... Make America Great Britain Again!