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frank theriault wrote:
The two large Canadian cities that I've spent considerable time in, Toronto and Montreal, both have excellent transit systems. I understand that other Canadian cities have good transit systems as well.
Maybe it's something of the national psyche or something. Government has always supported transit up here (until the recent Ontario Conservative Government, but they were in the pocket of the auto companies anyway).
Clean, fast, convenient, good frequency (even at night), safe. I see suits in them at rush hour, and well-to-do shoppers on the weekends.
Maybe Canada has more of a European mindset when it comes to these sorts of things. Or, maybe GM didn't figure we were a big enough market to make it worth buying up all our transit systems and then shutting them down, in the 40's and 50's (as Tom alluded to). Or, maybe by then, we had already made transit public, so they couldn't.
BTW, IIRC, GM was actually sued under the Anti-Combines law, and were found guilty. They were fined $4000.
cheers, frank
"The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
From: graywolf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Public Transit (was Speed Cameras) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 21:54:51 -0500
I did say 1950 right, before the infamous GM/ESSO rape of street railway systems. When in Detroit the wait for a street car at 2 am was 15-20 minutes, and durning rush hour was a 3-5 minutes. Saying that the existing slow, inconvenient, run down system will not be used by anyone who has a choice is stating the obvious. Make it cheaper, more convenient, and more comfortable than driving and the only reason to use private transport in the city is to show how wealthy you are.
As it is no one is going to use public transportion if they don't have to except a few weirdos who are trying to prove something. People are not going to move into the slums if they have a choice either.
Of course it is not worth talking about because the powers that be are never going to do anything more than maybe a showpiece which will ignor the part about "cheaper, more convenient, and more comfortable" and thus prove that it won't work.
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[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
How before we get all nostalgic for the old days...
I was writing a thesis modeling public transportation in the late '60's.
No matter what I did, I couldn't get the modeled demand for public transit up.
Then, the rude facts intruded.
In Chicago and most major cities in the USA, the only patrons of public transit were the very poor. Those too poor to own a car! Oh, some 100,000 suburbanites took the AM trains into the central business district, but the bus and the 'el were dead.
Being a poor college student who's Sunbeam Alpine didn't like the cold weather, I also used public transit from time to time. You could (and can) still make it from one side of Chicago to the other in 1.5 hours but it's the transportation system of last resort. A car is always faster by 2X to 4X and much more convenient. The people I rode with on my off hour rides were those without the income to own a car.
The most hilarious memory I have of transit in the '70's was watching a Dutch matron pedal up to a shop in her mink coat. The friends we were visiting in the Netherlands pointed out that car ownership was not all that wide spread and that many Dutch didn't know how to drive, much less own a car.
You need a population density of 5,000 people per square mile to support even a 'light' rail system. We don't build cities in the US like that anymore. People choose less density and more square footage for their home plots. The car is the great invention that enables this.
Regards, Bob S.
Mike Wilson writes:
graywolf wrote:
In 1950 almost any decent sized city had a great public transport system,
now
only a handful do.
That would be cities in the USA, right? You could go and live in Russia
or many central European countries, who all have excellent public
transport systems. When they are not cheesing off their ethnic
minorities. Switzerland has a superb integrated tranport system.
I, on the other hand, cannot get from one end of England to the other in
less than 12 hours at the moment.
-- graywolf http://graywolfphoto.com
"You might as well accept people as they are, you are not going to be able to change them anyway."
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-- graywolf http://graywolfphoto.com
"You might as well accept people as they are, you are not going to be able to change them anyway."
