this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
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Depending on your definition, this actually is not peak performance.
Subways are.
Obviously, the tunnels are absurdly expensive, but nothing moves as many people as quickly around a city as a subway.
They're also extremely reliable, meaning people are even more likely to actually use them, and their above-ground footprint is essentially zero.
Subways are for mobility (moving large numbers of people rapidly); trams are for access (getting you close to your destination). They complement each other and a well-designed city would have both.
STOP I can only get so erect
You're going to make me write a cute green-urbania fiction of my self-insert walking around a beautiful city with parks everywhere and using the sub-rails to go far distances and then get on cute retro san francisco style over land trams to make my way to walk-only brick roads and then walk to some book store, the corners piled high with books, with books stacked outside the store under a cloth awning, owned by a wise old man of unclear nationality who spends his days reading the books he sells, who knows me well enough to offer a glass of tea.
😩
I have to disagree. Accessibility of underground transport is abhorrent. Changing from underground to aboveground buses and trains is also shit. The space use of public transport in comparison to car infrastructure is completely negligible. If anything put all the cars underground as they are ugly and stinky. This picture also give you happy chemical because it is green and is not another dead, sealed asphalt hellscape.
I quite like underground transport, the stations can be absolutely stunning.
wym accessability is abhorrent?
Its literally underground. Anyone that has a wheelchair, old people, blind people etc are not gonna enjoy using it. Elevators are often out of order and even if not its a hurdle.
Maybe in your city...
Ramps, escalators, tiles, and seating. There is nothing inherently not accessible about subways, we just choose not to make them accessible. When I was in Japan, there didn't seem to be any issue preventing wheelchair users, old people, or blind people from using the train system. Escalators can be used by people in wheel chairs and old people (and presumably blind people too, but I'm not sure.) There were tactile tiles in the floor to guide the blind, and there was plenty of seating specifically dedicated to old people, disabled people, and pregnant people. There were also wheelchair accessible cars on every train. As far as I could tell, it seemed just as accessible and easy to use for them as anyone else. (Also elevators were only usually kept open for the people who needed them)
You sound like a concern troll. By this logic houses with more than 1 floor are by definition not accessible
But... They are literally not. My family never had the ability to move to any house they want because everything needs to be accessible on the ground floor.
What should I conclude of your personal experience, if it conflicts with what I hear from the disabled people in my life?
Maybe the fact that the disabled people in your life are lucky enough to be able to enough or be in positions where they can still function well?
Fuck, we can't live in a house with proper door thresholds if we want the person in my life to have any semblance of independence.
Please, don't assume your experiences are universal.
But I like watching things outside the trams.
Skytrains my dude, similar footprint, same tech, and I assume it costs significantly less, and is able to dip underground when there absolutely ISNT the footprint for it above ground
Monorail!
While monorails are cool, skytrains are literally just trains and thus insanely hard to beat for cost vs efficiency
Monorail!
The ring came off my pudding can.
Bleh
Would sky trains be as reliable? I assume subways are more reliable partially due to not being exposed to the elements.
At the end of the day, they're still just trains, and while Vancouver's trains DO seem to be somewhat bafflingly effected by severe weather, for the most part things keep running like normal as it still is only somewhat
If San Francisco informs, light rail streetcars are a gateway to underground subways. It gets the city in the habit of getting on a railcar to go places while the greater infrastructure (the tunnels) are built.
MUNI is mixed undeground and street. BART is over and under and being extended to this day.
Tunnels also don't take away space from people. This nice looking tramway could be a nice promenade for people instead.
Without trees. And with asphalt. Basically another asphalt field.
Asphalt field? Your comment makes zero sense.
Have you never seen a promenade with trees, greenery, benches, ... ? You know a place where it's nice for people to spend time instead of space taken up by yet another vehicle?
Yeah, I guess it depende of definition. For example there is also extra costs with lighting and ventilation for example for subways.
Living in a big city there's nothing more reliable than a subway. Driving you might always get stuck in traffic. But if you take the Metro your travel time is guaranteed to be as predicted.
True. 45-50 minutes on metro or 35-100 minutes on car.
Totally agreed, but the image looks so nice with the grass, subways don't have that
Grass is kind meh. Trees are better.
But the grass looks so nice to sit on!
You and grass will burn without trees.
Fair. What if I bring sunscreen AND trees? And a small chair? Maybe two?
Completely agree, however I think this is decent intermediary between the larger investment into subways, especially depending on geology
Also if you really want you can put trams underground.
Trams are, as you've noticed, a different usecase - subways are for getting you from A to B quickly, and trams are for getting you to the subway stop/straight to your destination on a shorter trip. One prioritises speed and throughput, the other - access and ease of use. Both should be used together to form a good transportation network, with buses and trains going to more remote/less dense areas.
This is all a very abstract discussion. In Munich we have all - light suburban rail, a subway, a tram system and a bus system.
It's not either or, but a very specific discussion which system is best for a specific use case given the existing city where you put things in.
We have parts where the trams sharing space with buses or even cars, that's where the tram network is just kind of a higher capacity bus.
Other parts has dedicated spaces for the tram rails, they are connected to traffic signs so trams are nearly as fast as the subway.
Currently the city seems to build more trams as the subway network is at a capacity limit - and they can't increase it without huge investments.
There's a new subway line planned, as well as construction for a second light rail tunnel crossing the city underway - but those are hugely expensive, long term projects.
Sometimes they build a tram first, because it's a lot cheaper to plan and implement and then replace it by aubway 15 years later.
And yes whe also have a tram line which uses a corridor of a former train line, so it looks like the picture. Whenever I go there I love that place, trams and buses available but no through traffic by cars (You can still go there by cars, but no through traffic as the whole area is a cul de sac)
Positioning of the doors?
Trams generally gave more doors than trains, resulting in less seating
The problem is moving people to tunnels