this post was submitted on 09 May 2024
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Just going to leave this one here:
I don't really like including pedestrians in there. Like sure, you can fit a bunch of people in a small area, but another point you shouldn't ignore is the throughput over time, and pedestrians are by their nature rather slow. Obviously if you're looking at shopping in a street lined by shops left and right, then that street becomes tailor-made for pedestrian traffic (and nothing else except perhaps bicycles). But public transport is much better suited for travelling any further distances, and that should be the main focus when deciding to ditch cars.
Sure! Both speed and distance matters a lot for throughput. The advantage of pedestrian traffic is that designing for it reduces the distance people have to travel and that it combines very well in conjunction with public transport, unlike cars. Also, the speed of mixed traffic is inverse correlated to the number of vehicles, hence is a special case in this regard where throughput may decrease as the volume per lane increases. The overall point however is that a single train can substitute a staggering amount of private vehicles (and who doesn't love leaning back, listening to music and reading the news while commuting?).
The units are passengers per hour. If they didn't account for speed, pedestrians would theoretically be one of the highest, since you can pack people together fairly tightly and still have them walk.
That reminds me of how shipping hard drives full of data is technically faster than downloading over the internet. Technically true, but almost always a poor choice in practice.
I wonder what the people/hour max is on something like a stadium entrance or hallway? I bet it's insanely high. Definitely some safety concerns though with crushing or trampling
That’s why pedestrians are in there
If you design your cities well people live near the places which people want to visit, and pedestrian speed is fine
Lots of cities are well designed, though most that were so designed in the US got modified after cars became important
That may be true for smaller cities, but in bigger cities it becomes impossible, because there just isn't enough space to house all the people near areas of interest. Cars don't factor in there at all. Give me a subway for the major areas, and perhaps a tram or bus system so you don't need that many subway stations in the residential areas, and you can have car-free city centers.
What is suburban rail, and how is it different from light rail?
I don't know what they call it where you are from but here light rail is trams. Similar to San Francisco cable cars.
I guess everything I've been calling light rail fits into the suburban rail category. Multiple cities I've lived in are adding in "light rail" tracks between major centers
Suburban rail is heavier than trams, the London tube is suburban rail, as are Sydney trains
A step heavier. For the London example, think more like the Overground, the Purple Train or Thameslink. Or the many railways radiating out.
For other examples, think systems like the LIRR in NYC, the RER in Paris or the S-bahn in most major German cities. (though the Berlin one functions more as a metro that's just legally a train)
Re: legally a train
Metros and anything lighter are governed by different laws than trains. So German U-bahn is legally a tram, governed by the BOStrab, while S-bahn is legally a train, governed by the EBO
Passenger per hour going where? If everyone is going from A to B, ok. But people need to go allover the place.
For me a 10min car ride is a 1.15h bus ride....
Good sign that your city invests too less/wrong in public transport.
Public transport is shit where I live. If I want to go and visit my grandma, it's a 20 minute drive, 15 on a good traffic day.
If I want to use public transport, its a 45 minute walk to the nearest train station, then a 30 minute train journey, then a 40 minute walk to grandma's.
Yeah, this is a really, really, really big problem with designing society for cars. Tons of people live in suburbia, with no mixed zoning, where they're a 2 hour walk from their nearest church, a 4 hour walk if they want a coffee; and so like you say, driving becomes their only option. It's the only thing they can do, realistically. And if they ever lose their car somehow, uh, say hello to poverty. Good luck getting a job at that coffee shop 4 hours away.
In situations where someone who lives very far from a city is visiting someone else very far, cars probably still make some sense. In the OP picture example, though, that is a prime candidate for transit refactoring. The presence of cars there is actually hurting them.
If cars were banned then the bus lines would be a lot better to compensate
But maybe you take a 10 minute train followed by a 5 minute bus in the utopia example
Well, no one is saying cars are worse for all purposes. If you want to take your family and dogs to a cabin in the mountains while also shopping for food along the way, it is probably going to be your best bet. Still, that is not what is pictured in the post. These are commuters that are probably moving from work to home (or vice versa), where cars really are the worst of most options. If the bus takes longer, it is probably an issue of allocation of funds for a shorter route and exclusive lanes for it.
My town does buses better than that, but peak hour buses get stuck in traffic
So times when it's a 20 minute drive, it's 30 or 40 minutes by bus, when the same drive is 45 minutes in slow traffic, the bus is not a lot worse, at 1 hr
Anyway the better solution has busses only as a last mile solution, with trunks covered by rail
I don't really understand, how can the bus be so much worse? I assume it's on the same lanes as the cars? Is it that busses are forced to drive significantly slower than cars, or are you including the time to+from the bus station perhaps?
The bus must stop at other stops, wait at an interchange for passengers, then drive in the same lanes as cars (though there are limited lanes on some major roads)
There are no dedicated lanes on the route in my example, though it also is an express bus which doesn't stop at the interchange between where I live and the town centre. Also it is speed limited slower than the rest of traffic on the main road of the route