USA Politics

I would say the only city that comes close to having as sophisticated a public transit system as Europe is NYC and even then the subway system doesn't span the entire city. You can pretty much get anywhere without a car and the subway is reliable, but there are parts where you have to take the bus and the bus isn't quite as reliable. Plus there's a whole other city across the bridge that has its own (shittier and less reliable) subway system because America can't understand the merit of having a transit system that works consistently across states.
 
Mosh said:
I would say the only city that comes close to having as sophisticated a public transit system as Europe is NYC and even then the subway system doesn't span the entire city. You can pretty much get anywhere without a car and the subway is reliable, but there are parts where you have to take the bus and the bus isn't quite as reliable. Plus there's a whole other city across the bridge that has its own (shittier and less reliable) subway system because America can't understand the merit of having a transit system that works consistently across states.
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recently saw a video on how the Boston metro used to be one of the best, but has gone to shit in the last 15 years or so. So yeah, Americans in general don't value public transit, Big Auto's propaganda worked.
 
Mosh said:
I would say the only city that comes close to having as sophisticated a public transit system as Europe is NYC and even then the subway system doesn't span the entire city. You can pretty much get anywhere without a car and the subway is reliable, but there are parts where you have to take the bus and the bus isn't quite as reliable. Plus there's a whole other city across the bridge that has its own (shittier and less reliable) subway system because America can't understand the merit of having a transit system that works consistently across states.
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The bus has become more reliable since the institution of congestion pricing, apparently. That's pretty neat.
Onhell said:
recently saw a video on how the Boston metro used to be one of the best, but has gone to shit in the last 15 years or so. So yeah, Americans in general don't value public transit, Big Auto's propaganda worked.
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I know a guy who works for the Boston metro and he agrees.
 
LooseCannon said:
The bus has become more reliable since the institution of congestion pricing, apparently. That's pretty neat.
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Yea that makes sense. My biggest criticism of congestion pricing is that the New Jersey public transit is awful and if you're going to disincentivize commuting by car, NJ needs to incentivize using its transit system. I'm not sure what they're doing on that front and, again, this is a fundamental issue in America that interstate public transportation is very difficult with two different governments.

This is happening in my current home state of Oregon as well. The city of Portland wants to build a commuter rail that goes across the bridge into southern Washington (great idea). Washington (specifically, the more conservative county affected by this project) doesn't want to pay for it or close part of the bridge down for construction. Despite all of this, there are more people commuting to Portland from Washington than the other way around, and the people in Washington are going to benefit from this project far more than those in Oregon.
 
I fucking love NYC. It's the only American city I want to visit again. Partly because it's very European, as in you can walk everywhere and the public transport system works.
 
I will say, having spent a little time in Philadelphia, that I would rather take the train and walk around in it than drive a car through it. But one city is not indicative of the entire country. I live in a really rural area and the only public transportation available is small Star Transit buses. We have little towns that you can’t really get from one town to the other on foot. Biking would work if you didn’t have to cross the highway which isn’t all that safe for pedestrians. Within my town there’s a furniture store, a gas station, a church and that’s about it. You need to head up the road to get groceries of any substance. Thus practically everyone needs a car here, which kinda sucks.

We used to have a rail line that ran freight but it shut down like 7 years ago. The track has been completely removed. A simple line like that traveling next to the highway could be such a benefit to some of the people in this area but there was no money in it I guess.
 
Portland - This is where I live, and it's the other half of the Oregon vs Washington struggle I was describing above. Their public transit is pretty solid actually. It's geographically smaller than a lot of other cities so their rail system covers a lot more ground and even goes out into some suburbs.

Seattle - It's getting there definitely, but generally I wouldn't call it a city that's friendly to pedestrians or transit users.

San Francisco - Probably the next best transit city after NYC, but the tech is super outdated (I think the trains are still from the 70s). I visited without a car and used the rail system maybe once. Maybe I did SF wrong, but pretty much every place I tried to go had to be accessed via bus and there were a few spots where I had no other choice but to get a cab.

In general you'll find that the central downtown of a given American city has decent to good public transit and the further out you go the less reliable options, and for most cities you really don't have to go that far to be stranded without a car. This is true for Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco. You can visit them and stay in a central radius without a car, but if you want to go outside that main hub it's not possible. It's also very challenging to commute to and from work via public transportation (again with the exception of NYC and maybe SF).

The head scratcher with these three cities in general is that there is not a high speed rail that connects them. They are all cities in fairly close proximity and there is already quite a bit of business exchanged between them (and a lot of transplants moving back and forth between the three). You could build a rail along the Pacific Coast Highway (which is worn down and needs to be renovated anyway) and have a transit system that also connects LA, San Diego, and touches the Canadian and Mexican borders. Since the I5 is a robust highway that is much more commonly used than the PCH, a giant reconstruction project that includes a rail component could be done with very little disruption to the interstate travel that already happens in this region.
 
Mosh said:
Portland - This is where I live, and it's the other half of the Oregon vs Washington struggle I was describing above. Their public transit is pretty solid actually. It's geographically smaller than a lot of other cities so their rail system covers a lot more ground and even goes out into some suburbs.
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I thought you are from Denver. Heard the best about Portland. Good things!
 
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