People Who Live In Suburbs: Classy, Icky, or Dudes?

light rail is about the only solution for cities that never got around to making their public transportation infrastructure work (or dumped their streetcars lol us)

light rail can be okay when done successfully, but it's also a great way to waste lots of $.

tbh, we probably had the genius light rail idea after someone looked at mpls, much like our "skywalks" have a surprising similarity to their "skyways."

xxp I don't think you get it. It's not the whole Eastside that's neglected, just the far eastern parts past the 205. ("Eastside" = anything east of the river; "East Portland" = past the 205, 5 miles east of the river.) The parts between the river and the 205 (the majority of Portland, really) are fine.

Anyway, the pedestrian bridge thing was just an idea floated around a couple years back that went nowhere. And I'm not sure what you're talking about with this "hub". All the transit is pretty interconnected to begin with. What they are planning on doing is building a transit-only bridge between the Rock Island and Marquam bridges that would carry the next MAX line to Milwaukee, the Eastside streetcar they are currently laying tracks for, and buses. But that won't be for some years.

Damn, do you work for the city or something? You know a hell of a lot more of about this than I do apparently. Anyway, I just got the info second hand for an annual report I designed for the tram people, but come to think of it that was about 2 years ago now. Last I heard they were going to expand the OHSU campus around the south waterfront and make it more accessible to the rest of the city, but maybe that's no longer true.

Also, there are no buses that connect directly to the tram and that is a problem for a lot of people who commute up the hill.

billion x-posts

(I sound like I hate light rail - I don't, but it's only worth it if the money can't be more efficiently spent on buses)

All I know is that light rail is EVIL EVIL EVIL bcuz the guy who owns Midway Books says so.

Oh, the skytram! I thought you meant the streetcar (which British people call a "tram". Now I have to completely go back and reread your posts cause I completely misread you.

The skyPRAM. You know, for babies.

http://rgr-static1.tangentlabs.co.uk/images/bau/97819333/9781933368559/0/0/plain/bomb-the-suburbs-graffiti-race-freight-hopping-and-the-search-for-hip-hops-moral-center.jpg

i think the big thing about this thread is that the truth is that people choose to live where they do for inherently selfish reasons, this should not be a shock for anyone. some peeps flee to the suburbs for racist or city fear or whatever motiviations, some do it for safety or school reasons (still selfish), i did it because it gave me what i wanted and was actually and ecologically better choice (and btw eco-concerns are also selfish). when i lived in the city, i did it for totally selfish reasons too (proximity to shit going on, etc.)

the thing thats getting to people about iatee's argument i think is that it seems to be built on the idea that city-dwellers are making an altruistic/moral/selfless choice, which is disingenuous.

xxpost hahaha Jon otm!

I live in NE, and never go to SW, so I just tend to forget the Skytram exists.

There's so much stigma against buses in a lot of places. Is light rail an attempt to rehabilitate people's perceptions of PT as clean and modern without fixing the real problem(s)?

And I guess you don't want to just add buses if your streets are already overloaded, poorly planned, and not working in whatever sense...although in that case shouldn't you be spending the money on fixing your roads instead?

we have one light rail line and i like it way better than bus. i just wish we had like 6 more of them.

People are reactionary, racist, and vain wherever they grow up; subdivisions don't make them so, no matter what Neil Peart might think.

I dunno if you reread what I've actually posted here, I've said basically nothing about race or culture w/r/t the suburbs. not that those things don't play a(n important!) role in the history of the suburbs, but I really have only been talking about the economic/political incentive structures + the environmental impacts - those are the things that matter to me on a personal level. I am a product of a suburb, so I don't think that suburbs make you evil.

The light rail here is a godsend, fyi.

what city are you in harbl?

baltimore

there's a lot of small bore stuff u can do to make bus experience better, like gps locators on buses keyed to subway-style "arrival in" displays at stops. make it more train-like and predictable and ridership increases (maybe)

I never ride the bus here, except for maybe like once a month. Strictly bike and MAX for me.

bus problems (breakdowns, lateness) take on a whole new meaning when you live in the frozen death hole that i call home xxposts

Ok Darin, now that I'm actually reading you correctly, they extended the streetcar down to the South Waterfront, including the Skytram station. No idea what the bus situation there is cause I never go that way.

light rail 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buses

the thing thats getting to people about iatee's argument i think is that it seems to be built on the idea that city-dwellers are making an altruistic/moral/selfless choice, which is disingenuous.

okay I should have avoided bringing this down to a personal level - I believe that the idea of the suburbs is selfish on a macroscopic human-sized level. I don't think many people think about these things when they decide where to live - 'selfish' was a poor (/troll-y) word choice. suburbs are 'inefficient to the point that they are not something that can exist on a global level, thus not something that we can act like we are 'owed' as a human on this planet'

buses suck because they are underfunded, they don't inherently suck. they can be fast and cheap and efficient.

iatee, what about rural dwellers? I'm pretty sure they use more energy than urban-dwellers, too. Should they all move to the city, too?

Is light rail an attempt to rehabilitate people's perceptions of PT as clean and modern without fixing the real problem(s)?

Laurel is pretty much otm, I think that the main reason people were so interested in light rail is that buses are mediocre, seldom available, and have a bad rap around here. They're wisely relocating our transit mall (a block downtown where all of the bus lines converge) to a new station near the revitalized nightlife area, so I'm hoping that means that we'll have a lot more bus traffic in a decade. And, you know, a bus or two that runs after 7PM in a place I want to go.

Light rail is awesome but it doesn't exactly go anywhere useful unless you build long tracks throughout the already congested city.

The light rail here goes all the way from one end of the metropolitan area to the other. It pretty much takes me 90% of anywhere I need to go.

there's a lot of small bore stuff u can do to make bus experience better, like gps locators on buses keyed to subway-style "arrival in" displays at stops. make it more train-like and predictable and ridership increases (maybe)

― goole, Wednesday, June 9, 2010 1:20 PM

these are great

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mildlydiverting/2449462/

iatee, what about rural dwellers? I'm pretty sure they use more energy than urban-dwellers, too. Should they all move to the city, too?

that, or we could continue spending billions of dollars building them their own bridges, roads and spending most of our homeland security money there.

which is, well, what we're gonna do, so,

dude that is completely insane

(lol hooray for the senate)

dude that is completely insane

i am honestly unable to respond to what you seem to be arguing here at this point because i cant even take your points seriously anymore.

fwiw most rural dwellers have pretty shitty roads and the only things that get maintained are interstates and major highways, the majority of which carry mostly semi traffic. Obviously what we need is REAL rail between rural areas.

^^^

IE Amtrak not pretending to be a for-profit entity but instead a public utility

iatee, what about rural dwellers? I'm pretty sure they use more energy than urban-dwellers, too. Should they all move to the city, too?

― fuck being hard, suburbs are complicated (The Reverend), Wednesday, June 9, 2010 3:26 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

historically this is what rural dwellers have done all on their own!

ha, well yeah

Actually, just more freight lines between areas would be huge. Imagine what would happen if we could somehow convince Wal-Mart to do most of their warehouse->store distribution via freight train.

anyway the "energy use" of rural life is sort of thrown out of whack since they are growing everybody else's food

holy christ

i am honestly unable to respond to what you seem to be arguing here at this point because i cant even take your points seriously anymore.

what is crazy about "rural americans have lifestyles that are massively subsidized by the federal government"?

we need robots to grow the food and package it for us

goole: true

lol @ afred's occasional incredulous interjections itt

i don't get these light rail opinions

urban and suburban americans have lifestyles non-starvation options that are massively subsidized by rural dudes for starters xxxpost

lol @ alfred being too left-wing for the democratic party and yet a status quo apologist w/ this stuff

also i am trying to imagine where you are going to put all these people in the city

the idea that we'd all starve to death if the government didn't subsidize certain rural areas is also pretty lol. farmers around the world loling along.

you are like the king of strawmen!