Now draw the rail corridors on the USA and tell me who you are taking that land from and how you're going to pay for it. And for those that refuse to sell -- how you're going to take it from them (imminent domain?) and not have the project delayed by court cases for years and years and years ...
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@feld @yogthos undoing a century of deprioritizing rail transit will be hard. Commuter rail projects *are* being built (fast trains are another story) but the cost is indeed more expensive even than in comparable European countries. https://www.constructiondive.com/news/us-rail-projects-take-longer-cost-more-than-those-in-other-countries/605599/
It's quite an instructive read: the lack of social infra like ... health insurance, pushes up the cost of labor intensive projects. And power is too decentralized meaning there's a patchwork of regulations
@jmw150 I don't understand: why do you feel compelled to claim that he is an idiot? This transportation system works pretty well in cities such as Paris (France) , Toulouse (France), Helsinki (Finland), Brussels (Belgium) for those I've been able to try ans the one in the Netherlands in quite renown too. There's nothing idiotic there. Even if it worked in only 4 big cities in China (I don't know about that).
@AugierLe42e @jmw150 @yogthos @feld add all major Austrian cities and some Austrian rural areas to that list, our public transit is amazing!
Most big cities has subway (43 already has, about 50 planned in total) and/or tramway network lines .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Rapid_transit_in_China
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Rail_map_of_PRC.svg
Map of main train stations in C…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeper_bus#Public_transport
@yogthos I would love to add High Speed Rail along specific lines so we can get people living further from large cities and reduce housing costs. Plus the reduction on both travel and freight costs would be incredible if it was built right.
"It's like the self-driving car has arrived early, and we saved you a seat."
From Toronto's "The Bus" ad linked to from this war on cars episode.
https://thewaroncars.org/2019/03/07/making-the-bus-sexy-again/
@yogthos @alienghic I want to see more concepts and actual cities not built around cars.
Probably USians really don't know what that's like. I'm sure I've seen some but don't have them archived yet. I am 
like solarpunk cities~!
Many years ago i read a book by a guy who was a computer programmer who specialized in writing code to plan containerized shipping routes, and who also liked older Europen cities.
So he tried to design cities built primarily around rail with multiple levels of redundancy to deal with failures.
I also enjoy watching some of the videos about the Netherlands.
https://www.streetfilms.org/tag/netherlands/
There's also this blog https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/
and the Netherlands itself runs a bicycle outreach program https://dutchcycling.nl/en/
which talks about some of their planning tools.
@alienghic @yogthos wow this is a whole thing! I'll have a look-and-see 
@yogthos Yes I want accessible and regular public transport. But no need to go fast.
Take time and go slow, for sake every one and every beings.
@yogthos
In France trains are great developped but when you want to take him for summer or winter holidays it's always full and with heavy price. For a familly a car is better and cheaper. We are going to replace a old car > 15 years with an electric car and he will must cheaper than every other transportation.
OCR Output (chars: 297)
@celesteh
I DON’T WANT SELF DRIVING CARS
I want boring things like public transit
that comes so regularly I don’t
need to check a schedule.
I want fast passenger rail so accessible and
easy it’s preferable to suffering airports.
I want cities that aren’t built
around cars-as-default
@yogthos
I want the night traina back!
@yogthos And safe bicycle lanes!
@yogthos less people use public transport because its slow, public transport is slow because less people use it. And the cycle continues. 😣
@yogthos based as af
@yogthos communist. (Sarcasm)
@yogthos I just want to fly everywhere. Ultimate freedom.
Or teleport. That would be nice too
@yogthos boring? you think multi-ton hunks of steel, driven on a tight schedule and powered by invisible energy are boring? What's interesting, then?
@yogthos but there are fancy new innovations! E.g. just the other day I saw a video on the youtube account of our federal railway system detailing how they now use 70% less …plant poison to keep the tracks intact by using cameras and 'AI' that detects plant growth on a special train.
Also hyperloop isn't an innovation, it's a scam.
Trains just avoid that whole issue by building sensible infrastructure. That's predictable. What you are describing is incremental improvements on that.
@clacke autonomous cars would just need careful drivers and we'd all be good. But then what's the point of an autonomous vehicle? Besides that, you're right I think.
Anyway, most trains aren't autonomous yet either, but e.g. the viennese U-Bahn can autonomously reverse itself in a station, so the driver can just exit at the front and enter at the new front without having to walk the whole length of the train. A lot of safety features are automated too, but I don't want to go into details.
@clacke also, cars make trains a lot more interesting because of the fact that they occasionally crash into each other. Have you seen what a train does to a car? Gives me goosebumps!
@yogthos One of the things I loved most about visiting Europe was the reliable and relatively safe feeling trains.
People are going to jump on me and claim that the London/Paris subs are dangerous, but I suspect they've never taken the subs in Boston or Chicago. Only BART (California Bay Area) is anywhere near as safe feeling as the Metro.
@yogthos meanwhile I don't want cities
I want better cities.
@mcv @yogthos kinda, buy that depends on what you mean by cities.
The kind of city city-fans like - walkable, dense, with tall buildings, and focus on trains and bikes as opposed to cars - doesn't have much space for factories and the trucks that bring cargo to and from them.
I live in a village by a major road. On the other side of the road there is a cluster of factories. Half of the village works there, together with ppl from other nearby villages.
@wolf480pl@mstdn.io @yogthos@mastodon.social i want villages that aren't built around cars-as-default
@wolf480pl@mstdn.io @yogthos@mastodon.social i had a trippy dream once when i was sick in which my village (population about 4000) had two tram lines
@wolf480pl@mstdn.io @yogthos@mastodon.social i previously lived two villages over (population ~700) and that place could use having more transport than one school bus a day
@yogthos so, you want to comepltely redesign cities, make them walkable/public transitable and HOPE it is done in such a way that doesn’t screw over poorer communities. Yeah, that ain’t happen
The blueprints are there, it's well-known how to do it: High-density mixed-use neighborhoods with functional public transport, pedestrian paths and bike lanes instead of another stroads, malls and parking lots wasteland.
@clacke @yogthos the problem here in America at least is that preplanned communities like that have had a high rate of failure. As in never drawing in enough population, jobs, industry etc. And, in fairness, the ones that have worked have been close to big cities and eventually merge. So you have a nice walkable etc part of the city BUT that’s almost always the more expensive part of the city.
@clacke @yogthos no, I’m saying they exist and don’t solve the problem of creating inequality amongst those who can afford to live there and those who are forced to live in less walkable etc parts of a city. And I personally am against any sort of effort to help the rich and privileged have a better life than they already do.
Meanwhile, those people need nice places to live, and that means having all sorts of amenities nearby, shops, restaurants, theaters, but also nature and places to relax. City design is largely about how to get as many as possible of those, in a way that works best for people, in the most sustainable way.
I suppose there's roughly two basic layouts that can work: having the factories in the center with the residential areas around them, which is how many 19th century cities were set up, but a more modern version of that might be your cluster of factories with several villages nearby. Another way is having people in the center with factories on the outskirts, which is what many modern cities do.
Different people have different tastes, but personally I'm a fan of small but dense cities with tons of amenities, a central train station to quickly get to other cities, and some nature just outside the city in bicycle distance, and more people seem to be realising the advantages of this setup. It's much more practical and sustainable than for example the car-centered suburban development that was popular after WW2. Less dependency on cars is good (cheaper, less polution), but having the option of using a car when you need it is still nice, of course.
But there will always be people with different tastes and needs, so variation is always going to be good. Certainly rural areas to support agriculture will always continue to be important.
