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

Yes, Naperville is fucking awful by all measures and standards. We can also throw Schaumburg in that category as well.

guys fwiw the IL Urban Planning Commission or whatever its called has recommended rail spur lines to connect the suburbs in its 2020 plan

I hope that goes through, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Yeah, somehow I don't see it ever actually happening, but it would be great if it did.

good news, we've got 20 more years to make it happen: it's the 2040 plan

We'll all have personal teleporters by that point!

Well weren't we all supposed to be "telecommuting" for our jobs by now?

To Dainger's point about travel between major transit lines, this is normal, I think? I'm in this situation all the time in Brooklyn, where the farther out you go along the subways, the farther any other subway line is from you, with no hope of transferring anywhere. A place could be just 1-2 miles east or west of you, and there'll be no transit to it without going many miles out of your way and taking at least an hour.

This is the price of doing business, imo? And exactly what buses and bikes are for.

I do part of the time! We also have a few "coworking" places in town. I'd imagine you could work from one of those in a pinch if you need real office space.

Sorry, that was an x-post about "telecommuting."

I'm curious to know more about who is telecommuting now? It seemed to be a big push about ten years ago, but now I feel like, at least in my industry (architecture), its becoming less and less common, unfortunately.

hmm. it seems like architecture is the type of thing where the technology isn't quite in place to make telecommuting a good option.

i work in i.t. and it is fairly common in my company.

On a related note about suburbs versus truly rural:

I have a coworker who, for reasons that make sense to him but not to me, lives in the middle of nowhere and commutes 70 miles (one way) to the office three days a week. He telecommutes the other two days (more in the winter as his road does not get plowed), but the communications infrastructure is such that the workplace eventually sprung for a cellular modem for him since the phone lines suck, the local point-to-point wireless internet provider sucks, and those were the most viable.

Yeah, IT and definitely programming are telecommuting-heavy. People were kind of hesitant to begin with, but we work with project teams in India and out of state so it's really not that much different if someone who is local calls into a meeting and works from home.

i telecommute. but real commuting to my job would be like a 20-30 minute combination of walking and subways

in the future we will all be bloggers

God it would save me THREE HOURS A DAY to not commute and to not have to get ready for work -- clothing, make-up, hair.

i think there's been kind of a backlash against telecommuting in corporate america, lots of 'f2f' and 'collaboration' are in vogue right now. at the same time as things are being outsourced, lol.

plus when people 'work from home' they fuck around and watch oprah. instead of surfing ilx.

This coworking thing could work pretty well, especially in spread-out areas, if it's not a silly trend.

hmm. it seems like architecture is the type of thing where the technology isn't quite in place to make telecommuting a good option.

Oh, it definitely isn't quite there yet, but it seemed to be something that some of the larger firms were working towards at one point, but they seem to have moved away from even trying. It was never going to be a 100% of the time thing, I mean architecture is so collaborative by nature. Otoh, I can easily access AutoCAD, Revit, Outlook, and pretty much everything I need to do on any given day from home, so it could make sense for a day or two a week.

goole otm

To Dainger's point about travel between major transit lines, this is normal, I think? I'm in this situation all the time in Brooklyn, where the farther out you go along the subways, the farther any other subway line is from you, with no hope of transferring anywhere. A place could be just 1-2 miles east or west of you, and there'll be no transit to it without going many miles out of your way and taking at least an hour.

This is the price of doing business, imo? And exactly what buses and bikes are for.

Yeah, I think it's p normal too. If, for instance, I wanted to get to Call All Destroyer's place I'd have to take the train into the city center and then out again and it would probably take at least 45 - 60 mins whereas I can drive to that area in 15.

lol yes i was thinking about my trip to simmons but my trip to your place is just as bad!

Yeah - I mean I could walk to Simmon's in under 10 mins from where I am at work right now but it must be a huge pain in the ass for you to get there all the time. :(

yeah for the most part i drive

there's this thing called a "bus" yanno

What y'all need is a little thing called Love Is . . . Zipcar.

No, there *would* be things called buses that would make sense, but nobody runs them past 5pm

hence my earlier use of the word "arguably"

there's this thing called a "bus" yanno

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Monday, April 25, 2011 4:33 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

i could bore you by listing bus schedules but really now

To Dainger's point about travel between major transit lines, this is normal, I think? I'm in this situation all the time in Brooklyn, where the farther out you go along the subways, the farther any other subway line is from you, with no hope of transferring anywhere. A place could be just 1-2 miles east or west of you, and there'll be no transit to it without going many miles out of your way and taking at least an hour.

This is the price of doing business, imo? And exactly what buses and bikes are for.

― Back up the lesbian canoe (Laurel), Monday, April 25, 2011 2:48 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I think this is the wrong attitude actually - I mean I <3 buses and bikes obv, but outer brooklyn could easily be served by more train lines (or streetcars!). there are lots of historical/$ reasons why it's not, but the capacity is def there. the B6 - which is only one of a handful of ring-type lines - had 14,046,274 riders in 2009 and on average 44,035 weekday riders. for comparison, baltimore's *entire heavy rail system* had 56,800 weekday riders, miami's entire heavy rail system had 60,000 weekday riders. unlike daingers's 'why is there not a train that goes directly from my front porch to my sister's front door? idgi' - there absolutely could and should be a train you should take for those trips.

Well, there's not a train because there's the perception that there's isn't enough need, or there are political things going on that make building one difficult.

I'd say a little of column A, a little of column B.

Rly? Given the amount of digging/upheaval/expense involved, I pretty much figure no new train lines will ever be dug in NYC. It just doesn't seem practical at all when there are perfectly good streets to run buses on.

yeah i was gonna say unless there are existing right-of-way type things for rail lines it doesn't really work like that!

I'm pretty sure they can take over land to build new/extend train lines, that's what they did here in Chicago recently for new stations and have kicked it around for future system expansions. Obviously way costly, but it can be done.

lets get some street cars up in this bitch

Would be so charmed by street cars but again, what's the advantage over a bus?

Yeah, I was referring more to Chicago.

NY is stuck unless some (lol) Robert Moses type is majorly influential.

charm, laurel

also they make the streets marginally more unfriendly to cars, which is a plus imo

Haha. Oh good, let's have that argument next.

charm, laurel

― ban drake (the rapper) (max), Monday, April 25, 2011 7:25 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i mean this, btw--iirc street cars that replace bus lines tend to increase ridership along those routes, afaict because street cars are more fun/cleaner/charminger

But isn't light rail already the new streetcar? And we already said itt that one of the problems with light rail is that it's an attempt to change public perceptions of public transit, ex it's new and clean and "modern"-feeling, but it's not quite USEFUL enough to tip them into favoring it?

i dont know what you mean? i mean its as "useful" as a city/a city's population is willing to make it

i mean im not going to object to putting a lot of money into MTA's bus system, believe me, my preference for street cars is marginal and in the end buses are way cheaper

anyway with gas prices at $5 my guess is that well be seeing a lot of changing attitudes toward public transpo, buses incl.

I don't buy that at all. It seems awful rich for people who live in cities that have good mass transit systems in place for 100 years to denigrate the efforts of cities that don't have that to catch up, when using heavy rail as anything more than a commuter service tied to existing rail lines isn't feasible. On top of that, when I lived in Portland, the light rail was incredibly useful, and 90% of how I got around. And streetcars serve different purposes than light rail: streetcars work best for short-distance hauls in dense areas where volume is more important than speed, whereas light rail with dedicated ROW and longer station distances can be used to connect all parts of a metropolitan area. xp

In Portland, the light rail trains leaving downtown at rush hour are packed to the point of uncomfortability. Not useful, my ass.

RELAX, REV. I love light rail. I love all trains. But it's been a total flop here as far as I can tell, although I'd be delighted to hear otherwise. I really was asking for the differences, so thank you for your informative post!

what light rail are you talking about lg? hoboken?

Also, rail infrastructure frees up buses to provide more service beyond the highest-ridership corridors.

Where is "here"?