this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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not sure about environmentally friendly,friendlier sure, but a well developed public transit system and biking infrastructure beats any kind of car based infrastructure
You said the Lemmy catchphrase good job
which is?
Complements. The reason we’re stuck in this auto-dystopia (are we auto-asphyxiating? ;-) is people wanting one size fits all infrastructure. Let’s apply this more intelligently this time - recognize that some areas are more built up than others and different solutions scale differently . In general that can be a good thing, but we need interconnected services for everyone. That does include cars in many areas, although I agree a worthwhile goal for cities/town centers is that people not need a car
The reason the US is a car dependent dystopia is because they let the auto industry dismantle a shitton of public infrastructure.
Just because you build public transport infrastructure doesn't mean you can't have your car, look at switzerland, netherlands, they have good public transport/bike infrastructure and still have cars.
Having great public transportation actually makes it better for people who only want to use cars, because it takes off a lot of people from the road who now have alternative options.
Holy based someone on Lemmy not blindly advocating for public transport literally everywhere.
public transport should be literally everywhere, why shouldn't it?
It's really efficient in densely populated areas but inefficient in sparsely populated areas.
While it should be everywhere eventually , the focus should definitely be on cities first.
how is connecting smaller towns/villages to bigger placed by train inefficient?
They may have been talking about economic inefficiency, if you don’t have a busy enough route to justify the initial investment.
And in the US at least, there is a LOT of land, and huge amounts of it are sparsely populated. But that still adds up to a lot of people.
The more stops you have for a train, the slower, more expensive, and less efficient it is. They like hauling for long distances without stopping.
still more efficient than anything else...
and then usually how it works is that some trains go local and stop everywhere and others are intercity and stuff and stop at less stations etc.
"Efficient" covers a lot of things. There are often reasons to avoid what is technically the most efficient solution by some measure. For trains, their high up front cost has to be made up by low marginal cost, which typically means having a high number of passengers for each stop.
And before you say it, no, I'm not demanding they be profitable, just that they be cost effective.
Trains and good public transport are one of the most productive things economically and the best tools for rising economically for individuals, it might have a higher up front cost (which I don't think it has, I highly doubt a mile of tracks costs more than a mile of road, especially long term), but it's absolutely worth it long term.
pretty sure a lot of US towns spawned from being railroad stops or railroad adjacent, if they can make that happen, they can also revitalize the local economy, meanwhile cars are woefully inefficient and serve more as a gatekeeping device, if you need a car to function you have basically put an entry fee on society.
It does. Highway costs around $10M/mile, and rail (without tunnels) close to $120M/mile. We also don't need to build many new highways, while our aging rail infrastructure needs a lot of work just to get what we have up to snuff before we even talk about new rail.
Mostly, this comes down to things that go away with experience. Get rail projects going en mass and the problem will go away. That said, hooking up every town along the route is only going to make the initial build out worse.
mile? see that's your problem.
rail doesn't cost that much in Europe.
Yes, I'm aware. That doesn't actually address the problem.
well the good news is that while you accounted for costs going down once projects are built, you also failed to consider the difference in capacity between railroad tracks and roads and also the maintenance costs that are gonna be much higher for roads.
so even if it's more expensive upfront which it really isn't, it's so much better long term
Of course it's more expensive up front. That's trivially true when we have highways and not high speed rail.
The last miles are a huge problem in villages. Train stops and you then walk 5 miles every time? The bus needs to ride every 30 minutes to bring along 5 people that's super expensive.
Also everyone there already has a car anyways since it's basically required there.
Cities however can use public transport far more efficiently.
you do realize trains are part of the public transport and no reasonable person would think you can't take a car to the train station?
what do you think I am talking about? a bus going every 30 minutes to every house in bumfuck nowhere on the off chance they get a passenger?
Yes but then you already have the car.
And if you already have the car then that's usually far more practical than public transport.
Public transport works well in cities because it can completely eliminate the need for someone to own a car.
I also want to add that if public transit was more more common; it would EVENTUALLY spread to the rural areas just in a more limited fashion. Also, towns do build up as they age, it's not like they are static.
We need the incrementally more eco-friendly options as well. Most pickup truck driving office workers won't suddenly get a bike and change their ways, so a more eco friendly personal vehicle is probably a lot more likely to reduce emissions for that demography.
I am not sure that buying a brand new car offsets more than just using your existing car, so there is time to make those people change their ways
way overkill and not needed in most places.
I'm sorry but if maglev trains are an option I want my damn maglev train.
Anyways since we already don't have public transport we might as well not have magic magnetic levitating public transport.
Don't forget working from home. Proven by the lockdown air quality to be the most environmentally friendly option. Remember this when you're employer is asking you to "return to the office".
Says someone who lives exclusively in a city
Trains and trans are a more cost effective and environmentally friendly way to transport the masses. It can work to a surprisingly small populations as evidenced by all of the small disparate towns in Switzerland, Norway and Denmark that depend on them.
Of course no solution works everywhere but cars should never be our first option.
The US used to have robust systems of transit, but they've largely been demolished
Actually the US has plenty of robust rail connections but they're almost exclusively used for cargo.
I was referring to trolleys..
People seem to forget that there was a time before cars, where people had to rely on public transport alone.
Most people live in a city. In Australia and NZ it's around 90%, in China, Europe and Canada for sure over 50%.
I don't actually, I live in a small town, and I see american style suburbs popping up and it's fucking disgusting
Man over 90% of the population is most countries lives in a fucking city.
Helping them get off cars would be a massive improvement.