Public Transportation is the most overrated solution to overcrowding

"No, I don't thank you for the fish at all" (notindetroit) 02/24/2015 at 17:37 • Filed to: public transportation

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Actually, I should say, transportation period. We talk about the need to move people, but the problem isn't how to move those people, it's moving people period . People itself (well, ourselves) don't really require much space or energy - we sit there, in front of our cubicles or TVs staring at energy-efficient LED screens all day. All those global warming, energy consumption, land and resource issues can be traced down to how we have to move from being in front of our TVs to in our work cubicles. All the land to build the highways, all the land to build rail and bus networks, all the energy spent on moving cars and trains. None of that would be necessary if we co-located work and living space.

So, what I'm saying is, we should think of solutions where people can live within a 5-minute walk of their work (or work from home) instead of transportation-related infrastructure solutions. This would require an entirely new type of infrastructure, however (like a complete rebuild of nearly every metropolitan area).

Also, I lied. Killing off the world's population is the most overrated solution to the population problem.

For Sweden > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/24/2015 at 17:37

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The trick is killing off the others.

davedave1111 > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/24/2015 at 17:44

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Do elevators count as public transport? Because the simplest solution to all this would be mega-high-rise blocks of apartments. Whether you mix commercial and residential in the same building, or split them into neighbouring buildings, everyone's one elevator-ride down, a short walk across, and one elevator ride up - at most - from where they want to get to.

Even if you spread mega-blocks out with big parks/gardens around them, it's still pretty helpful because at root it's not transporting people that's the problem, but collecting and dispersing them. If everyone's start and end points are the stations, it's much more efficient to have transport between them than when you have to try and collect everyone from all round a bunch of suburbs.

That aside, there's an awful lot more we could be doing in our current cities in the way of commuter transport, whether that's individual or collective transport. A lot of it depends on situations, though. A city like London would probably benefit from making more use of the third dimension, building things like chairlifts and skypaths for bikes. Other places, space isn't at as much of a premium and those make less sense, but then other, ground-level options become more appropriate.

JDMatt > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/24/2015 at 17:50

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While I love my job, I'm glad I live 30 minutes away. If I lived any closer my boss wouldn't have a problem calling me at 8AM to come in to help solve an emergency.

uofime > davedave1111 02/24/2015 at 17:51

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you're for getting a few key points:

1. large tall buildings are really expensive and energy intensive to create

2. those buildings still need to be fed resources, food being the biggest issue transportation wise. an interesting (maybe true ) thing I've heard is that if trains/cars stopped it would take 2 days for NYC to starve

itschrome > For Sweden 02/24/2015 at 17:54

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HEAR, HEAR! MASSIVE GLOBAL DEPOPULATION IS A MUST FOR PEACEFUL SUSTAINABLE HUMAN EXISTENCE AS PER THE CALL OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER AND HERALDED BY THE ILLUMINATE FORCE FEED THE GMO FOODS AND POISON THE WATER MANKIND IS A DISEASE AND ONLY THE STRONG ARE WORTHY TO SURVIVE IT AS THE POPULATION GROWS AND GLOBAL SOCIETY IS INFILTRATED BY PROPHETS OF FALSE COMMUNITY TOLERANCE AND ACCEPTANCE OF IGNORANCE GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE AND OVER BREEDING IS WEAKENING OUR SYSTEMS DECREASE THE SURPLUS POPULATION TO A STRIPPED MINIMUM OF THE WORTHY FEW WHO WILL USHER IN A NEW AGE OF PEACE AND PROSPERITY

davedave1111 > uofime 02/24/2015 at 17:58

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I'm not forgetting them just because I didn't mention them. The context was transportation. Obviously we don't have the tech for real mega-blocks yet. But we're well capable of building big high-rise, where that's appropriate.

The same applies for food and supply distribution as for people: it's cheap and easy to deliver to a central point, but distributing it to individual homes and business is normally the hard part. After all, you wouldn't build mega-towers without putting in access for big trucks or cargo trains or some such. And it's much cheaper to supply water or electricity to units in a single building than to put wires and pipes into a whole suburb.

It's hardly some panacea, though, and there are a whole host of downsides we've barely touched on, but as a solution to transportation problems concentration of delivery sites is a good way to go.

For Sweden > davedave1111 02/24/2015 at 17:59

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Do you even earthquake?

itschrome > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/24/2015 at 17:59

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Personally I wish more companies, including the one i currently work for would allow for work from home days during the week. Not every day but a few days a week people should be allowed to work from home. this would save people money on gas, lighten the load on our crammed and crumbling road ways. Studies have also shown increased productivity and moral from those who are allowed to work from home. lets be honest 90% of the bullshit office jobs we do can be done from the comfort of our own home. the idea of needing to be in the office to be productive is out dated and makes little to no sense.

I have held jobs working in IT that allowed me to work from home some days a week if i wasn't needed in the office. Turns out one can take calls, do emails and even do remote support just fine from home and it was great to have a break from the office every so often and still be productive.

uofime > davedave1111 02/24/2015 at 18:05

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the other problem is what happens on the weekends, when everyone wants to leave at once? I guess if it is really really big it could have a rail that takes people to garage centers dispersed away from the mega city, still might be a shit show

Your boy, BJR > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/24/2015 at 18:12

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I demand you replathe every S sound in thith potht with a "th"

davedave1111 > uofime 02/24/2015 at 18:17

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It really depends on how you've got it set up, but there's a good chance that most things people would do at the weekends wouldn't require them to leave the normal transport system or even to go far from their home. Of course that's not everyone, but it would be easy enough to handle a small proportion of the population.

davedave1111 > For Sweden 02/24/2015 at 18:22

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Earthquake-resistant buildings are a solved problem, and since we're not looking at the cost factor here, we can ignore that for now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipei_10…

http://earthquaketrack.com/tw-03-taipei/r…

nermal > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/24/2015 at 18:23

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There are two issues here. One is transportation in general, the other is public transportation.

Re: Working from home. I do that the majority of the time, and it's awesome. I never wear pants. Sometimes I need to put a shirt on if I have to be in front of a webcam, but not usually. Easily I get twice as much actual work done as I did when I had an office job, and I screw off a majority of the time. That said, I do still need to make a few in-person appearances here and there, at most once a week. The cost savings for me personally are huuuuuuge. Plus I then appreciate the motoring experience more when I actually do drive somewhere.

Re: Public transportation. I despise it, and usually avoid it at all costs. I work my ass off to be able to afford my own personal transportation, as such I use it so I don't have to find myself sitting next to some dirty bum. Also, in my area there are some shopping centers that have bus service to them, and some that don't. The overall quality level of the ones that don't have bus service is significantly higher. Overall, bus service is a NIMBY with developers and retailers it seems as a result.

Besides that, it's good to get out. Go take a random road trip, experience freedom and stuff. I couldn't stand never leaving a "compound".

For Sweden > davedave1111 02/24/2015 at 18:23

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Man, I wish I lived in a world where ignoring cost was possible.

davedave1111 > For Sweden 02/24/2015 at 18:34

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It's perfectly possible, indeed normal, when discussing hypotheticals, theories, and Platonic ideals in the most general terms.

Given that we don't even have the technology to build the mega-towers I'm talking about, I'd have thought you'd realise that cost isn't really a subject worthy of discussion in this context.

uofime > davedave1111 02/25/2015 at 09:57

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The reason I brought that up is that it is already a problem, that small proportion is large enough. Specifically, I live in the Chicago area and on sunday nights I80/94 W coming from indiana and ultimately Michigan (the W shore of the lake is a popular place for Chicagoan's second homes) is consistently congested especially if the weather was good that weekend.

Going denser would mean the majority of people would have to give up cars. Many would say public transportation is the answer but for all the people above it really wouldn't work well, because they're trying to get away from the dense area and they're only doing if for 2/7 days.

Ultimately I think a lot of people do no like being crammed in that tight, we like a little personal space.

davedave1111 > uofime 02/25/2015 at 13:29

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"The reason I brought that up is that it is already a problem, that small proportion is large enough."

You're comparing apples and sheep there. What happens now in some place that's not at all like what we're talking about is not relevant to what happens somewhere designed with a) centralisation in mind and b) excellent transport links.

"Going denser would mean the majority of people would have to give up cars."

Yes, that's the whole point of what we're talking about here. Although 'have to' isn't really the right term. 'Gladly' would be more appropriate.

uofime > davedave1111 02/25/2015 at 14:17

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I don't think people would choose to live on top of each other if they have the option. they will down right thoroughly inconvenience themselves to avoid it as evidenced by the commuting problem you're hoping to solve.

It may be something that people are forced into eventually, but it isn't that they want.

davedave1111 > uofime 02/25/2015 at 16:47

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You could equally argue that the presence of large, dense cities shows that some people do choose to live that way.

There's no one-size-fits-all answer, but there are certainly benefits to living in a high-density area. For some people those are more important than others, of course, and so the benefits of living in a less dense suburb may outweigh them.

A lot of it's a bit hard to pin down, though, given the vast difference between good and bad high-rises and suburbs. Somewhere like the Barbican Estate in London is very densely populated, but a really nice place to live - and we've learnt a lot since that was built half a century ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbican_…

uofime > davedave1111 02/25/2015 at 17:34

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I never knew about that, interesting.

I think urban development and planning is a very interesting topic, fantastically complex.

Seems like a semi productive use of my time while inching along in traffic, thinking about how all this could be avoided.

I think education is one of the big reasons people commute. A lot of people do indeed like living in the city especially when they're young. However when they have kids and most people don't want small kids in the city, then when its time to go to school they don't want to send their kids to the inner city schools. So they move to the suburbs. However they still have their job in the city, they have some seniority there, nice wage, good benefits and they don't want to leave. What you're left with is the commuter.

davedave1111 > uofime 02/25/2015 at 17:55

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"they don't want to send their kids to the inner city schools"

That's true, but really has nothing to do with planning. Just fix the schools :)

I think it's also down to other factors, though. A lot of it's just cultural. We're used to the idea of moving out to the suburbs for more space and so the kids have a garden, that kind of thing. People from parts of Europe where living in apartment blocks is the norm will look at us like we're crazy, wondering why anyone with kids would so much as think about moving so far from the shops, schools, doctors, playgrounds, other kids, babysitting neighbours, and so-on.

A lot of it must come down to the quality of the housing, either way. What I find intriguing is the amount of space high-rise frees up compared to suburbs. You could put a bunch of blocks together, and have a very compact city, but you could also space them out, each one in its own large park. A nice flat in a nice block in the middle of a big park, or a house on tight plot in a sprawling suburb?

uofime > davedave1111 02/26/2015 at 10:36

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Education, another example of trying to throw money at a problem instead of thinking.

I'm not saying that kids is the only reason that people move to the suburbs, there are definitely others. Cities can be really over stimulating and as people get older they don't want to deal with the constant stress. Also in general you get a lot more for your money in suburbs, and we all know more=better /s

Personally, I've lived in a town, without a car and walked/bused to most everything, I've lived on a farm in the middle of agricultural fields, where there was not public transport and the nearest house was a half mile away, and now I live in an apt complex in a suburb, I can walk to some things, but I mostly drive and public transport is around, but not very useful.

They all have their upsides and downsides, costs and benefits. The biggest benefit of where I live now, and the whole reason I live there is that it is a mile from where I work. The fact is I agree with you and am an advocate for reducing time spend in transport.

GhostZ > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/26/2015 at 18:50

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No, killing off the world's population is the most underrated solution to the population problem.