The worst kind of train station is the one that doesn't exist.
this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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These can genuinely backfire so badly and discourage ridership and the government from ever trying trains again. Failures have hidden costs.
Or the one that closed in 1925 and is currently a coffee shop.
Still better than that other one that closed in 1919 and is now a parking lot
I live about 100m away from a city metro station and I love it. On my way to the station, I walk past:
- a wellness studio
- 3 fast food restaurants of different types
- a bakery
- a small supermarket
- a hair studio
- an ATM
- about three other businesses which always make me wonder why they exist
Now I could have this walkable neighborhood or I could walk past six lanes of high speed traffic. And up and down the street I have more destinations to visit or I could count SUVs zooming by on a freeway!
I have a 500m walk to my nearest station in a residential area, and my list of places looks very similar:
- 2 hairdressers and a barber
- 3 regular restaurants and 2 fast-food places (both Döner lol)
- 2 bakeries
- a small supermarket
- a drug store
- a pharmacy
- a bank branch
- a flower shop
- a book store
- a few other shops I've never really paid attention to and genuinely couldn't tell you what they sell
All of that is there because about half of the apartment buildings have a shop on the ground floor. It's great, and I don't even live in a fancy part of the city.
I live off of my cities dilapidated ass """Main street""" that runs parallel to the halfa-interstate-A-to-b thing (not sure what it's called, runs straight down the middle off the real interstate I-81)
4 lanes of car hell, half car lots/dive bars half empty decaying buildings. They talked about making it 2 lane w/ a center turn lane and expanded ped/bike infrastructure. Got shut down because "I-_____ is always backed up" (it never is) and the BuSiNeSsEs WiLl DiE wItHoUt 4 LanE aCcEsS (even though those same people admit they don't SHOP at any of said businesses and just use it as an interstate bypass translation: no state cops to bust them for blasting down the strip residents of the area be damned)
Bikeped infrastructure increases business visibility and boosts economic activity pretty much without fail. Ditto for eliminating off-street parking requirements and even trimming down on-street parking.
Even if it does increase congestion -- which there's really not very strong evidence it would -- it's good for those businesses & the city's ledger to do so.
So if you ever get a chance to speak in those meetings, come armed with the counterarguments. MPCs are more persuadable than many think.
I wish I had the mental fortitude, but I'm a banged up vet with fucked nerves smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt - where bumfuck conservatives too broke to live in the country can shout over you about how taking away eagle pussy is communist but you'll be arrested for firmly but politely saying "I disagree."
Just happened in the county school board, some dude in the audience stood up and shouted anti trans nonsense for 20 minutes to no consequence, then at the next meeting quiet activists holding a sign in the back row were forcibly removed, roughed up by the cops, and arrested for disturbing the peace.
It might be the worst type of train station, but at least it is a train station. As opposed to there not being one. I'd love any kind of trains near me.
Edit: I love the use of Cities Skylines in the video. I am excited for the sequel to come out this year.
2nd worst, after the non-existent
So hype, I've bought so much dlc for the first one over the years!
I'd show you the train station in my town, but the only time the train comes through is between 2-3am so I've never seen it.
I'd show you how our light rail or interurban rail lines are setup, but they were torn out 90 years ago.
I'd show you the cool little 3rd place streets we have on the street car line, but those were torn out 90 years ago too.
Would you like to see the mall on the three blocks downtown that actually have something happening? It's either that or the 6 mile long stroad we've got going for us.
Yeah, my city needs some serious work to become nice to live in again.
Sometimes I travel through a city that has them and everytime when a train zooms by I wonder why are there so many cars on the freeway.
At least in my case that kind of setup is a somewhat isolated train line with few interconnects with stations that end up too far away from places of interest to the common rider.
Considering that stations preceding or proceeding it have good catchment areas, using existing right of ways isn't the worst idea ever. As for the noise, many places put up sound barriers, that's a fairly trivial and relatively inexpensive mitigation step.
The car infrastructure should be blamed for removing catchment space, not the train for being there.
the car infratstructure should be blamed
Sure this is objectively correct, but it's a rhetorically ineffective take. Most people drive. Most people (less though!) want to continue driving.
Take the train track project as an opprtunity to re-shape the flow of a neighborhood to suit people rather than... well in many cases, highways literally divide neighborhoods. Using that same right of way is gonna have a lot more costs for a lot less benefit.
Very true, while there is more eventual value in having a station in a connected area, it also leads to more NIMBY-ism for the construction.
I'm in favour of having mid-highway stations if it means you can more easily build lines that connect the downtown/inner-city with surrounding neighbours before and after the highway section, with a lower chance of vehement opposition and delay from residents from connecting the two.
One the main lines are built, then it gives a better case for a cross-connecting LRT, subway or train-line that goes through neighbourhoods, rather than scrapping the highway idea and building one neighbourhood line on its own for 15-20 years.
My previous point mainly stemmed from the Chicago case, where the catchment area was forcibly paved over for the highway.
In defense of the Montreal rem it had to share a the highway bridge that crosses the saint Lawrence River. It's a long bridge that's high enough to let fret ships to go under so very expensive. The only reason the rem crosses the river is because the population insisted on adding rails to the bridge when they prematurely had to rebuild it (because car traffic was unexpectedly high and the bridge was not built to withstand such a load). Also the city portion connects directly to a popular metro station and a long distance passenger train station.
I'm pretty sure I've seen these kinds of stations in Essen, Germany
Sure, the train station is the problem, not the 6 car lanes