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In advanced countries the public transport isn’t a problem, only the USA is 50 years behind.
Railway map EU vs USA
Downvoting because this doesn’t really have anything to do with science. Also because it isn’t funny. I support the message, though
The connection to science isn’t explicit, but there’s definitely an implicit connection. There’s the engineering it would take to design efficient rail systems and modern locomotives, there’s the calculation of relative emissions cost compared to reliance on automobiles, and all the science on the impacts of those emissions, the calculated benefit of converting infrastructure to rail-based, etc.
It doesn’t out and say it, but anyone with the basic knowledge should be able to draw the connection.
Science != Engineering
It’s not equal to engineering, but it’s certainly involved in it.
That’s like saying x ≠ x²+3x+b
Of course it’s not equal to it (unless x and b both equal zero)
Yeah but have you considered auto makers profits??? Didn’t think so. /s
This is already the case in many places where it’s possible. It would be a huge waste of resources though, in places that are thinly populated.
The thing is, with public planning, zoning laws etc. you can make it possible. People generally move to where the jobs are, and that tends to be cities. It’s basically why Spain’s population is so concentrated in the cities, much more so than in other similarly-sized european countries. In the US, zoning laws were a huge part of how it became so car-reliant, too.
That’s weird. I thought it was everyone driving their own cars all the time that was a huge waste of resources.
With work hours being what they are, you don’t have set times where everyone needs to be at work or go home at the same time. It rural areas, having public transport so often that “you don’t need to check a schedule” would mean empty busses and trails most of the time.
For me, I can tell that I have lived in a city where this was the case. It was great! But where I live now, this isn’t possible. The narrative now is, that people should move into towns, to make this more effective. There is a very fine balance between effectiveness though, and industrialization of living conditions.
Do you know how many cities are out there that have completely useless public transit? I don’t think anyone’s suggesting we build a train out to every farmer’s front door so they can get into town without a car.
There’s plenty of areas where additional bus routes and train lines would be a huge benefit, but the entire budget is being spent on car infrastructure.
(Like the Premier of Ontario who wants to build a tunnel for cars under Toronto instead of finishing the light rail projects that have been under construction for over a decade)I mean, you are correct that building an entire rail line to a single farm to take the farmer’s kids to school would be extremely inefficient. We need farms, and farmers, and those farmers need to be able to get around, and the way for them to get around is personal automobiles.
But the argument “farmers need cars so we still need cars” is not really an argument in favor of auto-intensive infrastructure. It is a edge case, and we should design cities around the needs of the average person and make allowances for edge cases, not the other way around.
The meme is specifically about cities, so when you said “thinly populated,” that should have been about thinly populated areas of cities.
If you’re actually talking about rural areas and not cities, then you’d want to start with buses. Speaking of living in places with good public transit, I used to live in Japan, and I was surprised by how much buses get used in rural areas. They can get pretty full.
You can get almost anywhere by train in Japan. And anywhere you can’t get by train, you can get by bus. It’s lovely.
Efficient planning could overcome that. A central hub with lines going to every other major hub nearby would be enough to connect all the cities. Then each route can run “express” services that only stop at major stations along the way, and “local” services, which stop at every small station. That way people can travel faster between hubs, while stilling giving access to less populated areas.
A few transcontinental lines for high-speed trains, and some major north-south routes as well, make public transit a viable optipn for long-distance travel.
Each city having its own metro system would make intracity public transit a viable option, reducing the need for cars and therefore reducing traffic congestion, simultaneously making it possible to make neighborhoods more walkable. A few spoke-shaped lines to reach out to surrounding suburbs, and loop-shaped lines to connect the outskirts without having to tranfer at the central hub.
Then all you need is a few well-planned bus routes to connect suburban areas to nearby stations. The only ones this leaves out are rural areas, who would still depend on cars, but that’s a much smaller portion of the population. Eliminating the need for a car in urban and suburban areas would go a long way towards reducing congestion and pollution.
Lots of places already have good public transportation systems, because they were built around the premise of using trains as a main mode of transport. Suburbs are built around train stations. Mixed-use zoning allows for as many residences as possible to be constructed within walking distance of a train station. And since there’s less need for parking lots, they can be built more densely to avoid wasting space.
The car lobby in the USA did a lot of damage, and now it would be costly to convert the infrastructure. But long term, it would be a worthwhile investment.
90% of the US has none of that. Nothing walkable. No trains. No buses. No sidewalks. I’ve lived in places with transportation pretty decent, but the only option where I live currently is cars. We are generations away from what you’re describing. Making cars more expensive isn’t accelerating the development of alternatives, it’s only making people suffer and more and more angry.
Very real
I already have public transit that comes so regularly I don’t need to check a schedule and fast passenger rail so accessible and easy it’s preferable to suffering airports and the city where I live was built centuries before cars were even invented. Is this post maybe about the US?
Meh. I hate trains, busses and trams. Always full of people… I would not give up a car for that, and I only drive like 3000km a year split over two cars.
Americans deserve the loneliness epidemic
I’m neither the one nor the other.
And the last time I used the aforementioned here it was a horrible nightmare of never being on schedule and costing a lot more than just driving myself. Even if I would take the “fun” car.
![[meme] choochoo](https://quokk.au/static/media/posts/8L/4e/8L4eFCNmnx9NzyK.webp){kind=link}