discipline posted:stop being jelly coz you never been on a train in that hellhole peninsula you call florida
Hey yo I was reading some stuff on Jax on a planning website just yesterday and in a new area the developer/city was being “socially responsible” by installing wheelchair pads at bus stops.
They refuse to build any sidewalks though, too funny.
tpaine posted:DildoMalone posted:
wowie kazowie According to Guinness World Records, the heaviest freight train on record weighed 220 million pounds and was more than 4 1/2 miles long. id hate to have to wait for that thing to go by
if it goes like 40 miles an hour you'd only have to wait for like, a tenth of an hour for it to go by...if my math is right? i can't do math right now i'm so fucking excited about trains..
dont they go slower than that though like 20mph or somethingi dont know its probably a couple days or something do i look like a train scientist
tpaine posted:the name sideWALKS is offensive to cripples, check your goddamn privilege
but siderolls is offensive to the tumblr transfat community
the toronto-montreal corridor trains are the best things in north america. choo choo
drwhat posted:the toronto-montreal corridor trains are the best things in north america. choo choo
i like VIA Rail although it can be expensive compared to the new cheap buses there are. i've still taken the trains in this corridor many dozens of times though, they are cool.
i once took a train to edmonton from toronto (48 hours) which was one of those experiences where it was objectively awful but it was still fun. like the train ran out of water so you could only wash your hands with desanitizer, you had to sit beside someone like in a normal train so it was wildly uncomfortable trying to sleep, etc.
tpaine posted:sleeping beside someone is tough but you'll only have to do it that one time
lol boom
getfiscal posted:one thing i like about toronto is the streetcar network. montreal has a political party (projet montreal) that's central platform is building a large streetcar network. the party controls my neighbourhood but there's been a big backlash against them by drivers because they did various things like close a main street for pedestrian traffic during weekends in the summer and narrowing roads and such. the municipal election is this year and there's a chance their candidate could win power.
yeah but you guys get subways with rubber wheels and we get the ttscreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
getfiscal posted:drwhat posted:the toronto-montreal corridor trains are the best things in north america. choo choo
i like VIA Rail although it can be expensive compared to the new cheap buses there are. i've still taken the trains in this corridor many dozens of times though, they are cool.
i once took a train to edmonton from toronto (48 hours) which was one of those experiences where it was objectively awful but it was still fun. like the train ran out of water so you could only wash your hands with desanitizer, you had to sit beside someone like in a normal train so it was wildly uncomfortable trying to sleep, etc.
i did edmonton-vancouver and back for xmas one year and the way back took 48 hours even though it was scheduled for 24 because via rail west of toronto is the fuckin worst, but i sat beside a pretty girl who introduced me to the concepts of restorative justice & how to spell quinoa & invited me to an nye party. i didn't go, sorry catherine
oh god i've never posted about trains before. i didn't realize. i could chat about trains all day
- the 6pm from kings cross to cambridge. my wife and i paid about 80 quid return to stand arse to loin for most of the 70 minute trip. it must have been 300% capacity. a chap in first class took pity on her, for which all the other first-classers gave her horrible glares
- the last train back from Waterloo, only about 150% capacity. some woman kept putting her feet on my wife's handbag and they got in a catfight. i calmed my wife down; the other woman spent the rest of the journey smiling and flashing her underpants at me out of a screwed up sense of gratitude
- many, many trips to see my ex where interminable line maintenance involving a very small replacement bus farting along tiny country roads turned a two hour trip into a three and a half hour nightmare
12 hours going 50 km/h through the poorest, boarded up, run down, penniless sections of upstate new york sure drove home that i was leaving the world's greatest nation though
littlegreenpills posted:donald if you post that stupid video about the jitney so help me god
Goethestein posted:in south korea people drink soju on the train like its bottled water
Cityrail at night is always fun
Additionally, it's a hybrid system not really known in britain or America at least. Services often start 30-50 miles from downtown, bringing commuters in from the far flung suburbs (and it's well utilized too, the freeways are garbage here) in express or semi-express surfaces before heading underground near the CBD and serving as a metro. They then drop off all the commuters and head way back out the other side of the metro area.
It's a bit shoddy in places and unfortunately important parts of the metro lack coverage but still utilizes approx 1 million trips every weekday which puts it above every American city bar (obviously) NYC.
And i don't give a fuck if you don't give a shit about rail transportation in Sydney because this is the RHIZZONE TRAINCHAT thread *drops mic*
in toronto there is a group fighting for free transit fares. i actually don't think it's a very good movement. there are a lot of bad arguments that float around it. like people sell it as a way to get people out of cars but i looked into the policy involved and that doesn't check out. for example, in toronto the TTC estimates that the total cost of car ownership is something like $8,000 on the low end, and that doesn't include parking (average cost $4,000 per year). but a transit pass currently costs $1,500 or so. so if you're looking at it at the margins, the person is already willing to spend $6,500 more per year to own a car. if you abolished transit fares and raised gas taxes it would only spread that out a bit more. and we've already seen gas prices go up a lot and not have a huge impact on driving.
the main issue for increasing ridership is coverage not cost. people take transit when it is frequent, reliable, quick and close to where they are and want to go. obviously coverage increases costs. but it's probably easier to convince riders to cover costs if they get more than convince drivers to do so. it also makes sense insofar as transit systems have impacts as well. if you just want to subsidize low-income people it makes much more sense to just give them money or subsidized transit passes.
and yeah i agree. I imagine Toronto is similar to Sydney in that there's heavy support for public transport (save the usual suburban reactionary heroes) and they want it to be better, not cheaper. Abolish fares would cause chaos here. In Sydney and Melbourne public transport shares declined steadily after the war before suddenly shooting way back up in the last decade and taking the idiot authorities by surprise.
Sydney's also similar to Toronto (and unlike the American cities) in that huge portions of the planned freeway network were scrapped and that taking your car to work downtown is neither an easy, cheap or straightforward process.
we got nothing like the 401 though, that shit is insane.
Toronto's streetcars seem cool, Melbourne has the biggest network in the world (Sydney's was bigger but they canned it ALL) and i don't have a problem with the complaints that they hold up traffic but they are also pretty sllooooowwww
The shit in Europe (and increasingly asia) leaves all our stuff for dead though.
Ironicwarcriminal posted:keen eyed rail phones
what the fuck is this i must be going insane
Ironicwarcriminal posted:Toronto's streetcars seem cool, Melbourne has the biggest network in the world (Sydney's was bigger but they canned it ALL) and i don't have a problem with the complaints that they hold up traffic but they are also pretty sllooooowwww
toronto has been converting some of its streetcar lines into dedicated right-of-way sections so that they don't interfere much with traffic. i lived on one of these lines for a year and a half and it was very convenient. the implementation process has been a big complaint of business though because the construction reduced shopping in the area for a while.
getfiscal posted:one reason i like projet montreal's transit plan is that it focuses on urban structure and culture. like their plan includes ideas like building hubs around transit nodes that include affordable/social housing and integrated public services. it also includes smaller things like reducing advertising in public/transit spaces. the streetcar network would be aimed directly at coverage and increasing density.
That's rad.
We're definitely building up density around transport so we're one step ahead of the real hellholes but I have never heard any mention of it in conjunction with social housing. And the ad thing, wow.
drwhat posted:i took the amtrak from new york to toronto once because i thought it would be a good idea and, spoiler, it isn't
12 hours going 50 km/h through the poorest, boarded up, run down, penniless sections of upstate new york sure drove home that i was leaving the world's greatest nation though
Haha yeah I'm sure that was rough for you
the first line opened in 1995, pretty stunning