I Love Mass Transit

that chunk of Chi burbs looks humongous.

There Be Dragons there!
I never go West of Ashland, personally. Use the Blue Line and Brown Line Daily, as do all three roomies.

Over Half Of New Yorkers Use Mass Transit To Get To Work

MARCH 02ND, 2004

A new survey by the Census Bureau shows that nearly one third of Americans who take mass transit to work live in New York City.

According to the report, 1.9 million New Yorkers use public transportation to get to work, or 55 percent of the working public. Statewide, 27 percent of New Yorkers use mass transit – also the highest number in the country.

New York is the only city in which a majority of people use public transit to get to work.

The next highest city is Washington, D.C., with 37 percent, followed by Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Philadelphia.

Among the major cities with the lowest percentage of commuters are Houston and Los Angeles.

Overall, only 5 percent of the nation's workforce uses public transportation to get to work.

Chicagoans of this sort were the kind I always really hated when I lived there.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that you can't get anywhere in Houston by walking. But you can in Chicago, right?

Chicago's blocks are very long, longer than NYC blocks for instance. It's not that easy of a town to walk around in once you get out of the downtown areas.

But it's not as bad as someone from Naperville saying "I'm from Chicago"

Ur, this sounds like L.A. and Houston were at the bottom of the list to me... assuming "commuters" means "commuters who use mass transit".

Chicago still rules over L.A. and Houston. We're back to Oscar alert on the Homeland Mass Transit Rating Security Department.. phew.

they should show the la subway system. its fucking awful. and the worst slap in the face is that in one of the stations, they use cut up redline cars as fucking decoration.

most folks in la who use mass transit use the bus. and not just the la mta. theres lots of regional carries like santa monica, culver city, etc who probably take numbers off of the main la figures. assuming they do it by carrier.

...cool, eh?

That's because we can't build to the East, as most cities can, because we're blocked by the Lake. So, Chicago itself stretches 70 miles long and 40 miles wide, curving around the Lake. This doesn't even include the suburbs!

"Chicagoans of this sort were the kind I always really hated when I lived there." My NOT going beyond Ashland Avenue is no more based on hatred than people from Schaumburg who NEVER enter "The City." You go where you're friends are located. Period.

god bless BART.

And you know what I love? That connection from SFO -- AT LONG LAST.

xpost

-- dave225 (adspac...), March 4th, 2004.

If I could give out an Award, I'd be sending one out to YOU, Dave! If you're going to live in Diaperville, than be proud of it; don't tell your out of state friends you live in "Chicago" when you have to pass O'Hare to get there!

suburb kid: i am from chicago
city kid: oh, what neighborhood do you live in
buburb kid: oh, i dont actually live in the city per se, i am from naperville
city kid: you are a stupid fuck.

that being said, i know the chicago better than some of my friends who actually live in the city but dont really venture outside of their neighborhood. its sad really.

(xpost obv)

You could go here to get the number of actual riders.

http://www.ntdprogram.com/NTD/ntdhome.nsf?OpenDatabase

http://www.reed.edu/~reyn/transport.html

SEPTA

when I was in college I was drooling for the approval to San Jose. They got it, slashed it, and I moved away anyway so I dont care anymore.

Thats what San Jose gets for pretending they dont need SF. San Jose sucks.

(my usual pub quiz specialist subject, when I can't think of a better one, is "The London Underground")

It'd be much more than that. Taking a taxi from O'Hare to my old place near Division Street (not even downtown) was like $29.

Was reading about Gulangyu from that list just now

http://www.carfree.com/ has some interesting stuff about this also. Will be interesting to see if/how this kind of thinking becomes more prevalent when car usage has to reduce (not carfree places themselves but when newer towns/suburbs being to be denser again encouraging non-car journeys to save money)

Back to Metros - has anyone used Strasbourgs?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mytravelphotos/sets/72157602252579748/detail/

Sadly I dind't actually use the tram in Strasbourg but it looked pretty amazing.

Happy birthday, Laurel!!!

lol, god I REALLY must be out of it, as that is so obviously on the wrong thread. Apologies to mass transit lovers.

(I would be one, too, but sadly, Minnesota really has mass failings in this area).

happy birthday laurel!

Which smaller US cities have good mass transit or light rail systems in your view?

I have no idea but it seems an opportunity to remind everyone that Seattle's tram system is called the SLUT.

Singapores appears to be called the SMRT which is also pretty hilarious.

no-brainer that US cities have all but phased out phrase "rapid transit"

Cleveland still calls their rail system "Rapid Transit." Don't see it going away any time soon.

Which smaller US cities have good mass transit or light rail systems in your view?

Portland is pretty stellar.

well, if yr syatem has Rapid in the name it'd be too transparent to change it.

Also NYC subway announcements using term "customers" stinks -- reminds you yer paying for this dreck. Prefer "suckers."

Yeah, Cleveland's train system is part of the RTA (rapid transit authority). I take the train almost everyday and it's magical- ideally there should be at least two more lines to serve the city but obviously the US has other priorities.

RTA is actually "Regional Transit Authority," but yah, otherwise RTA is pretty good all things considered. ("Voted Best Transit System in the Country!") I take the Green Line in in the mornings and love it.

Er yeah, you're right it's Regional. haha, I get on at Shaker Square every morning.

haha, I'm the guy asleep with sunglasses on and earbuds in if you're on the train that stops there around 7:25.

And thus a friendship was born.

Fuck that. Don't wake me.

I'm a 7:45 type of guy. Your sleep is safe.

Mainly asking because interested in smaller cities (or at least more compact cities) that have good transit systems that have good coverage of residential sections as well as central districts - ie which smaller cities are best equipped for a future less car-reliant - or with commutes more easily done without cars. Also more modern towns or cities that don't follow low density models.

I have used Portland's briefly but only in the center. How well does it cover the rest of the city in your view (I shall have a look at that myself now too)

http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/japanese_dualmode.htm

Any thoughts on DMVs?

Mpls/St. Paul has light rail now and they're expanding but the line doesn't reach my mom's first-tier suburb or Uptown yet, which is...wrong. Up until the early '60s my mom says there were trams that left from 2 blocks from my house, either headed downtown or to Lake Minnetonka. She loved them and lamented their passing when in London being jealous of tubetrainbus.

this term is used a lot in transportation planning circles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit

also, los angeles' express bus system is called "rapid."

Oh hay, birthday wishes for me!

There's some more stuff on DMVs on the rolling rolling thread. They only really work if you feed several bus services in to make one train. Because of headways it is much more efficent to have long trains on railways. Then you have the problem of getting the DMVs to the rail head on schedule and not having to wait around for the rest of the consist. It has potential, though.

Anyone with any experience of Ann Arbor?

Why the interest in the bus network of Ann Arbor?

Just plotting the AMG takeover.

mass transit under Trump/Ryan?

But most of these ballot-approved transit projects are also designed to rely heavily on matching funds from the federal government, and that may run counter to the priorities of a Republican-led House, Senate, and executive office. The GOP’s 2016 platform articulates a strong stance against funding transit, noting that “we propose to phase out the federal transit program.” It’s possible that when Congress’s current authorization of transportation spending expires in 2020, conservative leaders could create a highway/transit funding formula that’s less favorable to transit. And newer funding programs that have helped drive bus and rail projects under the Obama administration, such as the DOT’s TIGER grant program, could disappear.

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2016/11/on-tuesday-night-transit-was-victorious/507077/

i posted this on "too effing hot"

one more thing: while the fact that white people don't ride the bus is not of itself a problem for the solvency of metro or for climate change (because there aren't that many white people in LA county), it is a big problem because people who don't ride the bus tend to be opposed the measures that make the bus better for people who do. check out this BULLshit, for example https://laist.com/2019/07/16/eagle_rock_metro_rapid_bus_route_noho_to_pasadena.php.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, July 19, 2019 7:40 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

let's see how that is going...

My harasser, retired process server Caroline Aguirre of Highland Park, has become obsessed with me. Tonight she declared at an @EagleRockNC meeting that I "get an attorney for slander and lying." pic.twitter.com/GyBN5uHa48

— 𝐌𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐞𝐥 (@topomodesto) August 7, 2019

when the threat of faster bus service for people who are not you breaks your brain https://t.co/KXhiCjqdtn

— sahra (@sahrasulaiman) August 7, 2019

hero

https://www.reddit.com/r/holdmycosmo/comments/coj5lt/hmc_whilst_i_tell_these_drivers_to_stay_out_of/

wait till she hears about bike lanes

There were gates in the middle of university grounds because cars weren't allowed through between prime student hours. The buses all had transducers at the bottom of the buses that would lift the gates. The amount of people that tried to tailgate through with the bus or try to drive through the gates and get their car damaged was very very satisfying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD3QlR98--A

That is amazing

oof

https://humantransit.org/2020/03/covid-19-what-if-transit-runs-out-of-money.html

then

.@Amtrak memo on grim outlook pic.twitter.com/KDh0G0v9S9

— David Shepardson (@davidshepardson) March 11, 2020

Paris isn't magic. City leadership decided to do this, they pushed through the doubt & resistance, & now they've cut cars almost in half & everyone f'ing loves Paris all over again. Any US city could decide to follow suit. https://t.co/EmXYbS0JFX

— David Roberts (@drvolts) September 23, 2021