Just a proposal for north americas public transport system.

So its a fact that public transport in north america sucks big time. What you do have however, is shit loads of school buses going all over the place. Why not combine school buses with puublic transport, would make a much better service for booth the students and other people that might want to go with public transport, esp in rural areas.

perhaps, but then again there is a reason for the lack thereof. i know what you mean having used the swedish transport from Lund to Genarp with a gymnasiet student...but in the US and Canada people are too dependant on cars. once you invest in superhighways and a 20000 dollar car you are going to use it. and when that trend is entirely national its hard to reverse it. i like cars, but ive also used dependable mass transit (something boulder co does better than most US cities).

and we just passed an initiative on the front range to create a rail system linking us with denver and expanding the bus system. thats great, but itll take about 12 years and likely hit snags|

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Originally posted by St_Andrew Just a proposal for north americas public transport system. So its a fact that public transport in north america sucks big time. What you do have however, is shit loads of school buses going all over the place. Why not combine school buses with puublic transport, would make a much better service for booth the students and other people that might want to go with public transport, esp in rural areas.

Don't know if you have been to this country's school system but it wouldn't work.

Public transportation doesn't work because a vast amount of people live where there is no transportation to work and have to commute. Those that live in the bigger cities have many more options including train, subway, and bus. However what are the odds that someone living far out in rural america would be taking the same route to work as a bus nearby?

School buses here have to be separated because of age of kids and different school times and many times (at least here) the buses are FULL with kids. A bus coming at a certain time and not coming at another gives incentive for kids to make sure they catch the bus. Also parents would never want kids traveling on public transportation, especially with all the perverts out there.

I think what we do need is faster transportation. I think our metro transport such as subways work fine (transporting 8 million people a day in NYC is quite a feat for such an old system) but there are quite a few people that travel from CT to NYC and similarly around the country where they don't want to live nearby the big city. Here that is a 2.5hr train ride to NYC every morning. With a faster maglev system time could be cut to under an hour and with faster speeds that is more people that can be transferred easier.

Buses in medium sized cities are almost nonexistant. Here we have 60,000 people in our small town and a few buses that travel amongst the various malls and popular spots in town. I drive 45 minutes to work every day. There is no possibility of a bus or train going even near my work and there would have to be thousands of busses added going to routes all over the state to get it to work. The streets would become overcrowded with buses, not to mention highways.

Perhaps the best thing I can think of would be some system where every medium sized city has a terminal with a fast system like a maglev. Larger cities have more tracks running through them and smaller cities have perhaps 2 tracks. Trains make routes througout the state in each direction and more often through major cities. A hub terminal connects to different regions in larger states. If you could have a train passing in rush hour every 10-15 minutes it would alieviate many problems and could be almost like a statewide above ground high speed subway. If people don't think the public system will get them to work faster than they can drive they will never bother.

The costs would never be justified though.

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There is no public transportation system in the USA because there doesn't need to be one.

The current USA system works.

The cities are new and planned around streets and highways and there is lots of land for it (Europe has to use buses and trains as cities can't physically sustain the amount of cars in the narrow streets and small quarters).

Its a different system, is it a worse system? Depends form who's perspective you look.

The USA system:
Is it cheaper - I don't know.
Is it cleaner - I don't know (you could just as easily convert to hydrogen or electric cars just as Europe uses electric buses and trains).
Is it faster - I don't know.
Is it more convienet - I don't know (its fun to jump into a car, its not fun to jump into a car when it breaks down or needs an oil change).
Is it worse for your health - defintely.


The only real problem I see with the USA system is the last one - the health issue. You can't drink and drive (people do) and you don't need to walk to anywhere anymore (not to the bus stop, not to the store, not to the station, you drive everywhere), thats why Americans are obese. AND I HATE not being able to walk anywhere. Its ridicilous, even if you want to the system is stacked against you.

I think the USA system of non-pulic transport really developed not from any cultural or economical reason but purely from a physical constraint. In cities that are old (i.e NorthEast), you see more trains and public transport. In cities that are new (i.e West) you see only cars. The cities are spreadout, built and planned for it, think Houston or Los Angeles...

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What are you talking about? There is a public transport system in each major city within 200 miles of where I live in southern california. There was a public transportation system in Calgary when I visited last year. There is a public transportation system in Nowhere, B.C. interspersed within and connecting several small and large rural towns where I visited there. I must be going to all the good parts of North America.

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Last edited by Radagast on Nov-07-2004 at 02:36

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Originally posted by BadBadNeil Don't know if you have been to this country's school system but it wouldn't work.

well, i have been to the candian school system, and i think they are quite simiair. i see the problems people here would think of, but it works in other countries so i see no real reason why it wouldnt work here too.

quote:

Public transportation doesn't work because a vast amount of people live where there is no transportation to work and have to commute. Those that live in the bigger cities have many more options including train, subway, and bus. However what are the odds that someone living far out in rural america would be taking the same route to work as a bus nearby?

well, in sweden, and most of europe, people far out in rural areas do take public transport to their works, if it works in europe, why wouldnt it work in the US?

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School buses here have to be separated because of age of kids and different school times and many times (at least here) the buses are FULL with kids. A bus coming at a certain time and not coming at another gives incentive for kids to make sure they catch the bus. Also parents would never want kids traveling on public transportation, especially with all the perverts out there.

well again, kids (even small so) takes public transport (i think the small ones get some kind of special treatment) in sweden, so why wouldnt it work here too? or are american kids more stupid, dont think so?

quote:

I think what we do need is faster transportation. I think our metro transport such as subways work fine (transporting 8 million people a day in NYC is quite a feat for such an old system) but there are quite a few people that travel from CT to NYC and similarly around the country where they don't want to live nearby the big city. Here that is a 2.5hr train ride to NYC every morning. With a faster maglev system time could be cut to under an hour and with faster speeds that is more people that can be transferred easier.

yeah, the faster the better i guess

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Buses in medium sized cities are almost nonexistant. Here we have 60,000 people in our small town and a few buses that travel amongst the various malls and popular spots in town. I drive 45 minutes to work every day. There is no possibility of a bus or train going even near my work and there would have to be thousands of busses added going to routes all over the state to get it to work. The streets would become overcrowded with buses, not to mention highways.

thats the problem with mass trasnportation, it will not get outside everyones work... lots of people will still take the car, but i think most of the people do at least have a somewhat good possibilty to get to work quite fast with buses or similair.

quote:

Perhaps the best thing I can think of would be some system where every medium sized city has a terminal with a fast system like a maglev. Larger cities have more tracks running through them and smaller cities have perhaps 2 tracks. Trains make routes througout the state in each direction and more often through major cities. A hub terminal connects to different regions in larger states. If you could have a train passing in rush hour every 10-15 minutes it would alieviate many problems and could be almost like a statewide above ground high speed subway. If people don't think the public system will get them to work faster than they can drive they will never bother.

yeah, sounds like a good idea

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The costs would never be justified though.

thats what i hear from all the people over here, that mass transport is too expensive for the society, thats why my idea with combining school buses and public transport would be good, it wouldnt really increase the cost for the society, perhaps even the oppeosite.

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Originally posted by biznology perhaps, but then again there is a reason for the lack thereof. i know what you mean having used the swedish transport from Lund to Genarp with a gymnasiet student...but in the US and Canada people are too dependant on cars. once you invest in superhighways and a 20000 dollar car you are going to use it. and when that trend is entirely national its hard to reverse it. i like cars, but ive also used dependable mass transit (something boulder co does better than most US cities).

people here are really dependent on cars, yes. Why? cause they have no real alternative! mass transit in rural areas/small/middle sized cites are mostly for the younger people, for a person without any real income or a low income, there is a lot better thing to spend your money on than a car!

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well again, kids (even small so) takes public transport (i think the small ones get some kind of special treatment) in sweden, so why wouldnt it work here too? or are american kids more stupid, dont think so?

Ahhh well Sweden is MUCH different than US society. With a smaller population and much smaller crime rate, you don't have to worry about your children being raped or murdered as much as parents here do. Putting children on public transportation is bad not because the children are stupid but because there is too much of a risk of things that would go wrong. Also our school busses have a sign on them that pops out, stopping traffic in both directions, city busses don't have that. This is to prevent children from being run over. If children are taking a regular city bus where do they have to walk to and wouldn't there be an increased risk of being run over without traffic stopping? The amount of lawsuits would never justify the risk. As a sidenote many smaller kids here are picked up in front of their houses by the school buses, I don't think people riding city buses to work would like to ride a bus that stops every few hundred feet and in sideroads. In fact I go nuts when I am stuck behind a bus!

Here is the problem with rural transportation. How would it work?
Say there are 50 people that live on the same street. Each person drives to different jobs in different parts of the state from 15minutes to 1hour away. How do you accomodate bussing all those people to 50 different locations? Multiply this exponentially for each city and street and you can see how hard it would be to accomplish. A large majority of people don't work in the town they live in, the public bussing would work for people who live and work in the same city but often this doesn't happen.

Our systems are behind other countries because of our infrastructure. It is so much larger than countries with more modern systems such as Japan, Germany, France, etc that it would cost Trillions of dollars to complete an overhaul. Similar is true with our road quality and our power infrastructure. Countries like China who are growing now can adopt new systems but I can guarantee that in 100 years(about how old our system is) theirs will be obsolete as well and it will just cost too much to fix all at once.

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is it just me or is something missing here

Edit: oh, never mind

SUBWAYS.. THAT'S THE ANSWER

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Originally posted by LiquidX SUBWAYS.. THAT'S THE ANSWER

Hardly ... monorail is the only solution.

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Retro ...

quote:

Originally posted by occrider Hardly ... monorail is the only solution.

that is some impressive monorail man!