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lightly bumped a t*sla with my bag on my bike's rack today, the driver honked at me for a bit and then eventually got out, acted tough until I turned around and got back in his car lol. gently caress cars.
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Aug 30, 2022 10:59
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Xaris posted:hell yeah. hope you got to eat some currywurst at 3am in the rain pissdrunk. germans and german government are absolute pervert freaks but berlin kicks rear end. my favorite city yeah berlin is super cool. had my share of drunk off my rear end meals at the end of a night, also thanks to public transport running 24h during weekends, which is AMAZING holy gently caress. also still a lot of cultural life, cheap drinking and eating, it's truly like a different planet from what i'm used to. too bad you can see gentrification eating the city from inside. there's a metastasis of glass and steel spreading throughout. i know you can't exactly expect a city that was razed to the ground to keep its historical character intact but c'mon man
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Aug 30, 2022 13:09
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shame about Berlin being in the Failing Republic of Germany. better bundle up and get good at the navy shower.
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Aug 30, 2022 13:34
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Free (or dirt cheap) unlimited public transit is probably like the #1 easy thing people could do on a small scale to improve the world, it just has so many benefits, but so many places are so poisoned by car culture that it's not even considered a realistic option
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Aug 30, 2022 13:58
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vyelkin posted:Free (or dirt cheap) unlimited public transit is probably like the #1 easy thing people could do on a small scale to improve the world, it just has so many benefits, but so many places are so poisoned by car culture that it's not even considered a realistic option also the traditional excuse is that public services need to pay for themselves and or run a profit entirely on their own gosh cant you see how expensive it would be to connect poorsville to our downtown area? we just can't afford that right now, we are barely breaking even as it is!!!
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Aug 30, 2022 14:04
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mortons stork posted:also the traditional excuse is that public services need to pay for themselves and or run a profit entirely on their own yeah it's stupid as hell, I really hate the notion that "government should be run like a business", as if the military has ever turned a profit they are public services, they are designed to serve the public not to extract revenue from the public
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Aug 30, 2022 14:12
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Also, if transit needs to be run as a business and turn a profit then why don't roads?
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Aug 30, 2022 14:16
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it is important to me that the sewage system and the drinking water supply turn profits because ???? i made a big post about this a while ago in a different thread, but neoliberal society is obsessed with efficiency, which is measured purely in amount of money in and out, and cares not a bit for effectiveness, so we constantly try to make everything more efficient by cutting the amount of money we give it, even if that makes it far less effective at actually accomplishing its mission free public transit and big investments in transit capacity and network size is extremely effective at accomplishing prosocial goals, but it is not efficient in the neoliberal sense of the word so we don't do it
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Aug 30, 2022 14:20
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Xaris posted:tbf jun also marked off a big explosion in gas prices so uh, it's not really a great comparison. Americans will bankrupt themselves putting $10/gallon gas into their truck before they ever let themselves be seen on a train or bus
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Aug 30, 2022 14:22
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the neoliberal concept of efficiency is at this point, imo, just a fig leaf to justify policies that funnel money up to the top and starve everything and everyone, no matter how important to the broader cohesion of society ever since i read david harvey's interpretation of neoliberalism as a restoration of class power it all clicks into place with that interpretation for me. there is no reason to take measures of efficiency so loving stupid and unworkable for the pursuit of public goals unless undermining those very same goals is one of your primary purposes so you can then drive the wedge of capitalism further into the uncontaminated, as yet unmonetized preserves of social, poiltical and private life.
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Aug 30, 2022 14:26
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The hassle of paying to ride is worse than the cost. You either need to carry exact change, maintain a card balance, or fiddle with something to get on the bus. It's one of those things that isn't actually a big deal but it feels tedious enough that you might not take transit.
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Aug 30, 2022 14:27
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mortons stork posted:the neoliberal concept of efficiency is at this point, imo, just a fig leaf to justify policies that funnel money up to the top and starve everything and everyone, no matter how important to the broader cohesion of society you're not wrong, but imo most people are so steeped in the ideology that they don't conceptualize it that way. that's the functional result of the approach, but a lot of people legitimately do believe in the concept of efficiency baked into neoliberalism and either don't notice or don't care or think it's a good thing that the end result is funneling money to the top while starving everybody else
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Aug 30, 2022 14:28
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I get the impression that most cities can't fund free transit right now, so I'm fine with paying. Just make it easy. We've had free buses here for a couple of years, but the city's debating reinstating fares because they can't afford more frequent service without it.
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Aug 30, 2022 14:31
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where i live, even if public transportation were free, the layout of the city is so beyond hosed from years of horrible planning and white flight to the suburbs that it would basically take just nuking the city and starting over again to fix it. there is no more urban center anymore, everything is everywhere. one time i took a bus from downtown to my job just as an experiment to see how it would work. Dropped me off in a literal cow pasture in a rainstorm then I had to cross on foot under the freeway for a mile or so before getting to the office.
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Aug 30, 2022 14:36
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Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud posted:Americans will bankrupt themselves putting $10/gallon gas into their truck before they ever let themselves be seen on a train or bus i think its really a lot more bus hatred than trains. i hear a lot of people wishing for more light rail, more commuter rail etc, but turn their nose up at taking the bus because i guess the bus is strictly for poor people. i guess the vision is to drive to the train station or something, very stpuid.
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Aug 30, 2022 14:36
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lobster shirt posted:i think its really a lot more bus hatred than trains. i hear a lot of people wishing for more light rail, more commuter rail etc, but turn their nose up at taking the bus because i guess the bus is strictly for poor people. that's how it works with Toronto's regional rail service, most of the stations are in the middle of giant parking lots far away from anywhere you want to actually go because the expectation is that suburbanites will drive to the parking lot to get on a train to get to work in the city
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Aug 30, 2022 14:39
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mystes posted:Also, if transit needs to be run as a business and turn a profit then why don't roads? roads are essential for car companies to turn a profit. in some places, certain roads are run by private corporations and are guaranteed revenue by the government. the Turkish government guarantees an average daily toll revenue of $1.52 M for the Osmangazi Bridge for a period of 22 years under the build–operate–transfer model: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build%96operate%96transfer quote:Build–operate–transfer (BOT) or build–own–operate–transfer (BOOT) is a form of project delivery method, usually for large-scale infrastructure projects, wherein a private entity receives a concession from the public sector (or the private sector on rare occasions) to finance, design, construct, own, and operate a facility stated in the concession contract. The private entity will have the right to operate it for a set period of time. This enables the project proponent to recover its investment, operating and maintenance expenses in the project. any shortfalls are to be paid from the Turkish treasury to the operating company, which is owned by Nurol Holding. among Nurol Holding’s other companies is FNSS Defense Systems, which is owned 49% by BAE Systems Inc., the American subsidiary of BAE Systems plc. everything sucks lmao
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Aug 30, 2022 14:41
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lobster shirt posted:i think its really a lot more bus hatred than trains. i hear a lot of people wishing for more light rail, more commuter rail etc, but turn their nose up at taking the bus because i guess the bus is strictly for poor people. poor dirty people. and to take the bus, you have to sit and wait at one of those bus stops, and wouldn't you know, they just let the gross, dirty, poor homeless people just...sit there??? Ugh. As if I could ever take a bus somewhere.
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Aug 30, 2022 14:42
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lobster shirt posted:i think its really a lot more bus hatred than trains. i hear a lot of people wishing for more light rail, more commuter rail etc, but turn their nose up at taking the bus because i guess the bus is strictly for poor people. This is precisely what it is and that's SOP for the light rail line I live on. People will drive four blocks to the park and ride lot.
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Aug 30, 2022 14:45
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im going to ride the bus to t he light rail station and then ride the light rail to a basketball game this fall. its going to be fun.
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Aug 30, 2022 14:47
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this article compares the Macao Bridge to the Osmangazi Bridge https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/ekonomi/gecis-garantili-osmangazi-koprusu-yurttasin-cebini-yakiyor-1960325 according to the article (which quotes a right-wing opposition spokesman), the 55 km Macao Bridge tolls Chinese drivers $23 on average. the 2.7 km Osmangazi Bridge tolls Turkish drivers $54. so the per km toll is $0.41 for Macao and about $20 for Osmangazi. (furthermore, trucks carrying Chinese agricultural products get to pass the Macao bridge free of charge.) 🤡
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Aug 30, 2022 14:48
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mawarannahr posted:roads are essential for car companies to turn a profit. other fun examples abound in Ontario, the 407 Express Toll Route is a highway built by the provincial government in the 90s when it was short on money, and the financing method they came up with was to lease it to a private company as a toll road for 35 years in exchange for that company investing in the construction costs. After the 35 years the highway would revert to provincial ownership and become a free highway like all the others. a few years later, the conservative government of the province sold a 99-year lease on the highway for a one-time cash payment of $3 billion, which let them claim they had balanced the budget going into an election year and win a second consecutive majority government. 25 years later the highway is worth $30B and brings in $1.5B a year for its private owners with tolls so high that people are shocked every time they get a bill for driving on it another fun one is Chicago selling all the city's parking meters to one of the Gulf principalities for less money than the parking meters bring in on an annual basis
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Aug 30, 2022 14:48
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lobster shirt posted:im going to ride the bus to t he light rail station and then ride the light rail to a basketball game this fall. its going to be fun. I mean, that's not too bad with regard to hub and spoke transit systems. You're still using the transit system. As far as I'm concerned once I start my car the transit plan is ruined
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Aug 30, 2022 14:53
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Fitzy Fitz posted:I get the impression that most cities can't fund free transit right now, so I'm fine with paying. Just make it easy. We've had free buses here for a couple of years, but the city's debating reinstating fares because they can't afford more frequent service without it. The argument against free transit that I'm most sympathetic too is that most users (including the less well off) would be better served by investments in service quality and frequency. But there's certainly no reason to insist they run at a profit.
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Aug 30, 2022 14:59
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Fitzy Fitz posted:The hassle of paying to ride is worse than the cost. You either need to carry exact change, maintain a card balance, or fiddle with something to get on the bus. It's one of those things that isn't actually a big deal but it feels tedious enough that you might not take transit. it's also a huge source of slowdown for bus systems, having each rider pay one at a time on the front of the bus and all that entails - some old lady scrounging for the last nickel, some guy who has zero balance on his transit card and can't add more to it at the moment, weird disputes and bus drivers eventually throwing up their hands and letting them pass - is so goddamn slow compared to a subway train arriving at a station and exchanging a hundred people in a few seconds. edit- the mexico city brt system has ground-level stations where riders pay to enter before the bus arrives and it's noticeably faster than what we do here. of course making it free would be best, but having to go through this slow process and then driving one block further and doing it again suuuucks Electro-Boogie Jack has issued a correction as of 15:02 on Aug 30, 2022 |
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Aug 30, 2022 15:00
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Electro-Boogie Jack posted:it's also a huge source of slowdown for bus systems, having each rider pay one at a time on the front of the bus and all that entails - some old lady scrounging for the last nickel, some guy who has zero balance on his transit card and can't add more to it at the moment, weird disputes and bus drivers eventually throwing up their hands and letting them pass - is so goddamn slow compared to a subway train arriving at a station and exchanging a hundred people in a few seconds. i read recently that kansas city made transit free and not only did it boost ridership a lot and unlock the city for poor people and alleviate some strain on poor people's everyday budgets, it also made transit safer (both objectively, number of incidents went down, and subjectively, people felt safer riding) because the vast majority of safety incidents arose from people being unable to pay fares
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Aug 30, 2022 15:01
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vyelkin posted:i read recently that kansas city made transit free and not only did it boost ridership a lot and unlock the city for poor people and alleviate some strain on poor people's everyday budgets, it also made transit safer (both objectively, number of incidents went down, and subjectively, people felt safer riding) because the vast majority of safety incidents arose from people being unable to pay fares i believe it. good on kansas city
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Aug 30, 2022 15:05
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Fitzy Fitz posted:I get the impression that most cities can't fund free transit right now, so I'm fine with paying. Just make it easy. We've had free buses here for a couple of years, but the city's debating reinstating fares because they can't afford more frequent service without it. Yeah, we had free transit for a month as a pilot program this month (cool, yay!) but the network was struggling operationally even before covid since operators were underpaid, understaffed & most bus lines have like, 30 min headways at best (boo, poo poo).
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Aug 30, 2022 15:06
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vyelkin posted:other fun examples abound 
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Aug 30, 2022 15:10
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SMILLENNIALSMILLEN posted:the big blue bump and little pink slump means its not just people replacing trips they had to do by car with public transportation, people are going out more for fun. going to the park going to a show maybe an icecream at the beach or the nice car park across town with the cuter wheels to put my fingers under unfortunately it looks like it didn't actually decrease car usage at all
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Aug 30, 2022 15:13
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actionjackson posted:unfortunately it looks like it didn't actually decrease car usage at all It's probably not surprising that making rail travel way cheaper will cause more rail travel to rural tourist areas without significantly affecting car trips to rural tourist areas I'm not sure this is necessarily relevant to other types of routine trips
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Aug 30, 2022 15:19
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mystes posted:It's "per cent change in number of journeys to rural areas with a high level of tourism" well my thought would be that is rail travel to rural tourists areas was cheaper, some people that might normally drive that trip will now take rail.
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Aug 30, 2022 15:25
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Actually since it's probably summer vacation type trips it may not even be meaningful unless you compare it to other years (there's probably seasonality) But I wouldn't be surprised if people who were already planning to drive (to destinations that aren't easily rail accessible for them) will still drive and other people will be like "hey let's get on the train and somewhere" It looks like the graph is mainly trying to say "look this boosted rail travel" but all I'm saying is that I just don't think this particular graph is necessary that useful to think about how cheap transit affects car trips The real solution isn't just to make transit cheap, it's to disincentivize car ownership/use as well anyway mystes has issued a correction as of 15:35 on Aug 30, 2022 |
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Aug 30, 2022 15:32
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Old man yells at electricsquote:How am I going to keep them charged?
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Aug 30, 2022 15:52
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mystes posted:Actually since it's probably summer vacation type trips it may not even be meaningful unless you compare it to other years (there's probably seasonality) if there's one thing americans love more than driving, it's bitching about how much it costs to drive. they'll choose to drive over taking rail out of a deep seated cultural need to bitch about the cost of driving/gas
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Aug 30, 2022 15:57
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Fitzy Fitz posted:Old man yells at electrics
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Aug 30, 2022 16:00
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mystes posted:It sounds like this person might be happier if they didn't have to own and maintain a car at all i know i would be
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Aug 30, 2022 16:02
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mystes posted:It sounds like this person might be happier if they didn't have to own and maintain a car at all His entire schtick as an opinion columnist is rose tinted glasses and folksy racism. He'd probably starve without a car because he wouldn't leave his house.
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Aug 30, 2022 16:16
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Fitzy Fitz posted:His entire schtick as an opinion columnist is rose tinted glasses and folksy racism. He'd probably starve without a car because he wouldn't leave his house.
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Aug 30, 2022 16:22
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Fitzy Fitz posted:What if I am about to watch a college football game and I don’t have any electricity? I made a mental note to visit the Home Depot this week and pick up a generator. 
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Aug 30, 2022 16:23
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