[HN Gopher] The magic of through running
___________________________________________________________________
The magic of through running
Author : ortegaygasset
Score : 155 points
Date : 2025-06-17 08:57 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.worksinprogress.news)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.worksinprogress.news)
| absurdo wrote:
| I foresee in the near future, in addition to the archive.is link
| (which is not needed here thankfully), a summary.is link will be
| present (which is needed here unfortunately).
|
| It's an okay article but there's no real magic to it. It amounts
| to wordy trivia and you spend your time reading it as I have at
| your peril. Zero-calorie content is easily forgotten.
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| It's ok to not like trains. Just read something else instead.
| deepvibrations wrote:
| Imagine if Elon had put all that money to work on mass transit
| solutions instead of cars for each and every person, along with
| tunnels for those cars. Of course, you will never make the same
| riches, but interesting to imagine how different the impact might
| be.
| abcd_f wrote:
| No point in imagining that whatsoever. Just like imagining
| Bezos paying taxes or Trump not lying.
| lionkor wrote:
| Or like imagining people on the internet not make everything
| about American politics
| wisty wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boring_Company
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop
| jcattle wrote:
| Both of these companies contributed approximately nothing to
| the advancement of Mass Transit.
| sgerenser wrote:
| Arguably the Hyperloop was publicized specifically for the
| opposite: to stoke opposition to traditional high speed
| rail, while at the same time knowing it is completely
| impractical.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_(politics)#Contr
| oll...
| FL33TW00D wrote:
| Why rely on one man?
| presentation wrote:
| The goal is not to rely on one man, but regardless of what
| you think of him, he has proven to be very effective at
| bringing big ideas to reality.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > very effective at bringing big ideas to reality
|
| With specific reference to Mr Musk and commuter rail, this
| is the opposite of reality.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44297667
| kkkqkqkqkqlqlql wrote:
| Maybe the OP is taking about some other Musk's ideas
| brought to reality, like fascism in the US.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Ah-hahahahahaha.
|
| Good one.
|
| This message was not written from my hyperloop commute to
| Mars.
| xnorswap wrote:
| I'm surprised by the lack of mention in this article of the on-
| hold "Crossrail 2" project:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossrail_2
| RLN wrote:
| One problem I've encountered in Munich is they essentially have a
| single trunk that runs through the centre. In the case of
| problems on one line you can often find multiple other lines are
| also affected. London always seems to have a redundancy in the
| case of a line being unusable.
|
| I suppose this is more a problem of sharing track than through
| running, but I just found it funny to see Munich public transport
| described so positively.
| weiliddat wrote:
| > I just found it funny to see Munich public transport
| described so positively
|
| Been living in Munich for the past 9 years, with the exception
| of the S-Bahn, it's still very good. I've never felt the need
| to own a car (only the occasional rental for moving or trips to
| more remote areas). Anecdotally, I know colleagues and friends
| who also make do without one, even those with kids.
|
| Only city I've experienced better is Singapore (where I lived
| for ~7 years), though people complain all the same :D
| bayindirh wrote:
| I once read an anecdote:
|
| In an airport, people complained that luggage delivery was so
| slow after landings. Airport measured the time, agreed with
| passengers and increased workforce to reduce waiting times
| substantially, but the complaints didn't reduce.
|
| Instead, they routed passengers through a longer path, so
| their luggage was waiting for them when they arrived, and
| _nobody_ complained about the longer walk.
|
| We, the humans, are _interesting_.
| devilbunny wrote:
| > nobody complained about the longer walk
|
| I've never formally complained about luggage arrival
| delays, but I have definitely noticed long walks. Some
| ridiculously so. I suppose I should complain, but to whom?
| bayindirh wrote:
| Your airline, to bug them to land to a gate closer to
| luggage hall (which might cost them more), and to the
| airport operator, to don't make especially convoluted
| paths to mask other operational delays (if there are).
|
| OTOH, you can't make things easier if the airport is
| really big. e.g.: Rome, New York, Amsterdam (to an
| extent) and Istanbul.
| devilbunny wrote:
| I fly mostly out of DFW, which is just a complete
| shitshow. Atlanta is much better for luggage delivery for
| international arrivals but you still have long-ass walks
| to get to the immigration hall.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Context, though. At the end of a flight, i.e. multiple
| hours where I have to remain seated, a 2-5 minute walk
| doesn't feel long or a burden.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > London always seems to have a redundancy in the case of a
| line being unusable.
|
| The London underground is indeed a redundant spiderweb. But the
| article focuses more on mainline trains, which are much more
| constrained.
|
| The only way right through central London for these trains was
| north-to-south, the Snow Hill tunnel: Kings Cross -> Farringdon
| -> City Thameslink -> Blackfriars -> South of the river. This
| can only be a bottleneck.
|
| But now there is the Elizabeth line east-to-west as well.
| logifail wrote:
| If anyone's interested, there's a massive project in Munich to
| expand capacity, improve performance, and reduce journey times on
| the suburban lines that run through the centre:
|
| https://www.2.stammstrecke-muenchen.de/home.html
|
| > To upgrade the S-Bahn system and to reduce the traffic burden
| on the existing core line, two new tracks will be built parallel
| to it between the stations of Laim in the west of the city and
| Leuchtenbergring in the east, covering a total of about 10
| kilometres. The core of the new east-west connection is a
| 7-kilometre tunnel linking Munich's main station Hauptbahnhof
| with the eastern hub Ostbahnhof.
| ta12653421 wrote:
| jahahaha, you should have also mentioned that zwei Stammstrecke
| will make it horrible long to switch from platform 1 to
| platform 2, through elevators 40m up + down on each side,
| forcing you to go completely upwards, and then going down
| again. Apart from fire security, most people will just hate it
| :-)
|
| (Source: Projektplan / SZ.de)
| logifail wrote:
| I'd not really considered connections or which trains which
| run in which track/tunnel once it's finished(!)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trunk_line_2_(Munich_S-
| Bahn)#/...
|
| > zwei Stammstrecke will make it horrible long to switch from
| platform 1 to platform 2, through elevators 40m up + down on
| each side, forcing you to go completely upwards, and then
| going down again
|
| Are the connections between the faster and the slower lines
| going to be equally bad at all five connection points (Laim,
| Hbf, Marienhof or -platz, Ostbahnhof and Leuchtenbergring)?
| Havoc wrote:
| There is also an element of critical mass - a city needs to get
| to a stage where it is a reasonable decision to not have a car.
| resource_waste wrote:
| People have no idea how much cars benefited the lower and
| created the middle class.
|
| Instead of having an hour commute to move a few miles, you
| could have a half hour commute to move 30 miles.
|
| This made land ownership possible for this group of people. Low
| value land that was too far from work was now usable for those
| same jobs.
|
| Whenever I see propositions of removing lanes from freeways, I
| think how that benefits only rich people and landlords. I can
| afford to live near my company because I'm well-off, but I know
| plenty of people making 40-60k/yr that have plots of land 30-60
| minutes from their jobs. They would otherwise be renting
| apartments 1/3 of the size of their home.
| piva00 wrote:
| I don't see how having a decent public transportation network
| is any different.
|
| I live in a suburb of Stockholm, 15km away from the city
| centre but it takes me only some 35 min to get to the central
| station on the metro, I have the option to take a 10 min bus
| to the nearest rail station that connects me to a different
| part of the city so if I need to go there I can choose the
| commuter train. Not only that but I do get local trains
| taking me to different towns southwards, also a direct
| connection to the airport and other towns northwards, and a
| connection to the long distance rail that can take me to the
| other coast, or south to Malmo/Copenhagen.
|
| My suburb only exists because the metro station was built
| here, around the station there's a small centre with shops
| for daily needs, all of that was designed prior the existence
| of residential buildings to support the city's expansion,
| around the station are the higher-density buildings with
| apartments while I live some 5-10 min away in a townhouse;
| and this suburb is considered a poorer area of the Stockholm
| metropolitan region, not requiring a car was a must.
| squircle wrote:
| > Instead of having an hour commute to move a few miles, you
| could have a half hour commute to move 30 miles.
|
| Traveling faster than what the human body is capable of on
| its own feels like time travel to me. Horse, buggy, car,
| whatever... like stepping into or activating a warp bubble
| where your consciousness arrives at a place faster than
| humanly possible. Similarly, having access to information or
| experience (different manners of vehicles) is potentially a
| huge advantage or major pitfall. (Perhaps why some ancient
| maps indicate, "here be dragons!")
|
| Inversely, moving slow when others are traveling fast allows
| you to witness where those paths lead without having to go
| down proverbial rabbit holes.
| xnx wrote:
| This is true. The rich would like to relegate the poors to
| public transportation to keep the roads clear and keep
| undesirables out of their neighborhoods.
| coldtea wrote:
| The "that's an advantage for the rich" has an easy fix: ban
| all city traffic except commercial vehicles for delivery of
| goods, ambulances, etc.
|
| A good public transport is a boon to the poor and even
| middle class. In Europe, in cities where it's available,
| even the rich (the top 10%-5%, not the top 0.01%) routinely
| take it.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| We do need to do something about the "holiday conundrum",
| for lack of a better name. That it, there are times
| during the year, most notably around Christmas, where
| suddenly everyone in the city gets time off and wants to
| travel to visit their family out in the middle of nowhere
| - and that also includes the operators of public and
| commercial transportation networks. You have a sudden
| influx of commuters at the same time as transport service
| capacity drops to a fraction of the normal.
|
| Not sure how to handle this short of abolishing holidays
| entirely
|
| (Not necessarily a bad idea - too many things in society
| already run in synch where they shouldn't; see e.g. most
| people working 9-5, including services all those people
| need, so there's e.g. no good time to go to a dentist or
| visit a bank without taking a day off at work.)
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| I am rich and I want to be able to take public transit to
| work
| throwawayoldie wrote:
| There's a saying to the effect that a healthy society is
| not one where poor people can afford cars, but one where
| rich people take mass transit willingly.
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| Yup. And a big part of it that a lot of HNers don't seem
| to want to hear is that to get rich people to want to
| take mass transit, you need to strictly enforce against
| anti-social behavior. Treating the subway as a shelter or
| being menacing or foul-smelling should get you swiftly
| ejected.
| prmoustache wrote:
| There is no need for a car to do that.
|
| I've lived 40km from my office, commuting by bicycle (there
| was an highway and a railway available as well). I was super
| fit at the time. I've lived 100km from my office, taking a
| mix of train + bicycle. Despite being a wee bit slower than
| using a car, I could do something ( or sleep/nap) in the
| train, so that was better time spent.
|
| Anyway you look at it, even when it is faster, using a car in
| an area that has decent public transport is a time that is
| not well spent over different modes of transportation and you
| don't really gain time if you think of it thorously.
| nkrisc wrote:
| You biked 50km after 8+ hours of physical labor?
| prmoustache wrote:
| That was a typo, it was actually 40km but yes, and I
| enjoyed it.
|
| It was basically free 2h40 of fitness every day.
| nkrisc wrote:
| What kind of work did you do? I would personally not look
| forward to a 2h40m bike ride after doing physical labor
| all day. Impressive.
| piva00 wrote:
| 40km is more like a 1h20m-1h40m ride on a slightly above
| average pace (25km/h-30km/h), it shouldn't take 2h40m to
| ride 40km even on a very slow pace (15km/h).
| prmoustache wrote:
| 40km was one way. I was doing 80km a day, so around 2h40
| a day when I didn't decide to extend the ride back.
| piva00 wrote:
| I understood that, I interpreted the comment I replied to
| as: "why would you bike 2h40m _after_ a shift? ", I might
| have misunderstood that one though.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Parent says that they had an "office" job. Where do you
| get " 8+ hours of physical labor" outside of the cycling?
| coldtea wrote:
| > _This made land ownership possible for this group of
| people. Low value land that was too far from work was now
| usable for those same jobs._
|
| The same is the case with public transport where available
| and where the city is built to support it. Which is what the
| poor people and rising middle class used -- especially as
| they didn't afford a car until the 1930s (and in places like
| New York not even then, though they still managed to turn
| from piss poor Italian, Jewish, Greek, Bulgarian, Irish, etc
| immigrants to middle class).
| suddenlybananas wrote:
| You can take suburban trains in Paris to well over 50 km
| outside of the city center.
| prmoustache wrote:
| There are people taking the high speed train from places
| such as Dijon every day to go to Paris. That is a +300km
| commute in 1h40 that would take around 3h30 to 4h by car
| with no traffic jam.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > People have no idea how much cars benefited the lower and
| created the middle class.
|
| Yes, and with reference to London, one of the cities
| discussed, cars are now literally poisoning us.
|
| > The most economically disadvantaged are often those worst
| affected by air pollution, particularly because they often
| live in less desirable locations, such as near busy roads.
| But they are conversely least likely to own a car or use them
| as much and therefore emit the least pollution.
|
| https://trustforlondon.org.uk/news/london-inequalities-
| infec...
|
| https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/bame-and-
| po...
|
| If cars are so great all around, ever think why "near busy
| roads" are "less desirable locations" ?
| lm28469 wrote:
| It benefited business owners more than anything... wasting
| hours of your life in a fucking cage you probably pay a loan
| and interests on because without it you wouldn't even be
| honoured to slave your life away isn't anywhere close to
| "benefiting the lower class". Car is freedom, war is peace...
| people can't even tell how brainwashed they are by the car
| industry.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "you could have a half hour commute to move 30 miles."
|
| Well unless half a million people try to commute along you
| during the same rush hour, with their commute ending in the
| wider centre of an old city which cannot absorb all the cars.
|
| In Prague it is quite common to spend half an hour to cross
| the outer 25 miles of your journey and spend another half an
| hour in the traffic jam of the last 5 miles.
|
| If it wasn't for the suburban trains and buses which
| alleviate the pressure, that last 5 miles would be one huge
| gridlock moving at the speed of a slow walk.
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| > you could have a half hour commute to move 30 miles
|
| only by ignoring the externalities of traffic and highways.
| If everyone tries to do this, it doesn't work. Hence the need
| for public transit
| michael1999 wrote:
| Many of these cities were large before the car. Tram networks
| provided the backbone for work commuting.
| davexunit wrote:
| Here's to hoping that Andy Byford can make through running happen
| at NY Penn.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| As of right now, it would just be pork. The traffic patterns it
| would enable are very low volume.
|
| In the long term, it's anyone's guess. My fear is it would be
| another Airtrain.
| dukoid wrote:
| Why not think bigger?
| https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1hwChHpCfdV23GhvcZCun...
| ethbr1 wrote:
| >> _In Germany, Britain, America, and France, the period of
| explosive growth of railways mainly took place in the mid-to-late
| nineteenth century._
|
| There's a curious European vs American distinction that the
| article doesn't address -- many modern, large American cities are
| younger than that.
|
| Especially southern and western ones that grew up on rail lines.
|
| There, the only thing that would be needed is the political will
| to fund and build new bypass, outside-the-city freight track to
| free up the contiguous in-city rights of way.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Yes that's one of the big distinctions. Even American cities
| that existed then are drastically different and larger than
| they were back then.
|
| I mean even in NYC in 1850s, 42nd street was practically
| "uptown" and what we now call "uptown" was farmland. Brooklyn &
| Queens which are now the population centers of NYC with ~2.5M
| residents each had a grand total of under 200K back then. At
| the time Manhattan had 500K residents (2.5x BK&QNS 200K) while
| it has 1.7M now (1/3 the ~5M across BK&QNS now).
|
| So the population center even within our biggest city has
| completely shifted from the time our railroads were built out.
| porridgeraisin wrote:
| Yep this is what happened in my home city in india as well.
| Our property which my ancestors purchased for dirt cheap on
| the outskirts of the city is now smack in the center and
| valued higher. Populations have also shifted.
|
| We always had a good train network around here. When the
| shift happened though, the "hub" stations have not really
| moved. Today the main stations are still where the old center
| of town was. As a result, taking the train for me is a bit
| like going to the airport you're gonna have to take a 30min
| trip(without traffic) and 60min trip(with traffic) or a 30min
| metro (crowded) or a 45min (but less punctual and gets full
| too often) bus/suburban train to reach the station.
|
| As I type this, the city keeps expanding on one side, so in a
| decade's time, there will be a new city center, closer to the
| airport, but further and further away from the hub station.
| I'll have to wait and see if they change the hub station to a
| more central one at that point.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Transit is one place where I'll say authoritarianism and
| central planning are superior. 1. Identify
| direction of expansion 2. Buy / eminent domain land
| 3. Build transit 4. Develop area
|
| The laissez faire model of urban planning sucks, because it
| acquires necessary infrastructure _after_ the land needed
| has already increased in price.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Not just increased in price, but the area is now filled
| with NIMBYs who would benefit and yet will whinge ..
| therefore immobilizing any attempt to improve transit.
| senkora wrote:
| You may enjoy this video showing the expansion of NYC over
| time from the first Dutch settlement to the present day:
| https://youtu.be/f6U7YFPrz6Y
|
| 1842 is at 2:55 in the video.
| evanelias wrote:
| > Even American cities that existed then are drastically
| different and larger than they were back then.
|
| Another major issue is the way transit authorities tend to be
| governed and funded in the US. They're often prone to
| political disagreements between cities and suburbs, or
| between city and state governments, or between multiple
| states. The two-party system doesn't exactly lead to
| coalition-building.
|
| Take Philly for example: SEPTA regional rail has been
| through-running since the mid 80s, which is great, and the
| network is fairly well-aligned with population centers and
| employment centers. But year after year, SEPTA is
| consistently in a state of utter crisis, typically due to
| lack of funding.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I think another tension aside from the pure source of
| funding is just the whole transit philosophy differences.
|
| In the US, at least in coastal cities, we sometimes seem
| more concerned that transit be cheap than that it be good.
| Transit in NYC is so cheap as to be almost free, especially
| considering something like 50% of bus riders beat the fare.
|
| NYC subway fare is unlimited distance and about half the
| price of a London zone 1 fare. This is despite white collar
| jobs in NYC often paying 2x the equivalent London wage.
|
| So instead of funding with usage fees at all (and say
| subsidizing/discounting for those in need), we just set
| ridiculously low fares and then try to go after higher
| incomes in the region with income tax levies, which is
| obviously unpopular.
|
| Per BBC graphic / data provided by TfL for example, London
| Underground is 72% funded by fares vs 38% in NYC.
| rangestransform wrote:
| There's a weird bipartisan agreement that spans the US,
| that transit should serve as welfare for the poor
| especially, instead of being transportation for the rich
| and poor alike.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I can think of a couple of factors that lead to this
| state. One is: what is the cost of trying to collect
| those lost fares, will it even pay for itself? The same
| reason library fines are sometimes stopped, it costs more
| to collect than they will get.
|
| The other is that transportation money comes out of the
| same big bucket, it will cost too much to add lanes for
| cars, so they try to incentivize more people to take
| transit instead.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| This kind of logic is backwards to me. And I think it
| creates a slippery slope of disorder. Enforcing laws is
| not always cost efficient, but the less you enforce the
| more get broken.
|
| I see it applied to the concept of free buses in NYC
| where people argue that "when we introduced free buses,
| assaults on bus drivers went down".
|
| Personally I'd prefer not riding the bus next to a guy
| who is willing to commit assault over $2.90 (or $1.45 if
| eligible for income based discount if you make minimum
| wage.. so 6 minutes of labor income).
|
| There may be good reasons for free transit, but "we need
| to calm the violent guys down enough to get onto the bus
| peacefully" ain't it!
| codeulike wrote:
| I was a Londoner for 20 years and Thameslink (north to south
| through running discussed in the article) always felt special but
| I'd never looked into its history. To be able to get on a 'proper
| train' in Brixton and then run right through to Kentish Town or
| Luton was kindof amazing. And it was very fast, I'd try and
| incorporate it into journeys where possible. Like, if you were
| going somewhere and realised you could do it via Thameslink it
| felt like a bonus.
|
| Crossrail (aka Elizabeth line) was being talked about or built
| the whole two decades I lived there but opened after I left.
| bibelo wrote:
| I stopped reading at "termini".
| inglor_cz wrote:
| This is being discussed in Prague, but it is going to be very
| expensive.
|
| The city is very much not-flat, with significant altitude
| differences, a lot of already existing infrastructure under the
| surface (three extant lines of metro with fourth one being built,
| some road tunnels, parking spaces etc.), and a major river must
| be crossed. Plus, the rocks underneath are fractured and finicky.
| It isn't a nice big slab of granite, but a mixture of sediments,
| water and various primordial rocks. Quite hellish to put tunnels
| into.
| derr1 wrote:
| Through running in Tokyo is next level. You can catch a train
| from the airport, which then turns into a subway, then later on
| it becomes a train again.
| anileated wrote:
| > a train from the airport, which then turns into a subway,
| then later on it becomes a train again.
|
| This is confusing.
|
| Subway is already a kind of train.
|
| You mean to say that the train partly runs underground? That is
| pretty common. I actually can't remember any city where airport
| connecting train does not do the same at some point or another.
|
| What's kinda interesting is does that train classify as metro
| transit that goes slightly beyond city to airport and such
| (making many stops all the way) or distance intercity train
| that happens to stop both at airport and city? Or does it
| change this classification? That would be actually unusual.
| 4hg4ufxhy wrote:
| Typically trains are powered from above, and subways are
| powered from the rails. Perhaps this is the distinction,
| rather than running underground.
| robjan wrote:
| Really depends on the region and any pre-existing
| constraints at the time of electrification. A better
| distinction is probably rapid transit (metro, subway, the
| Tube, MTR/MRT) vs commuter rail.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Typically, trains power themselves.
| Milner08 wrote:
| Also not really true. There are trains all over the world
| that draw power from over head lines and from 3rd and 4th
| rail systems.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| I design rail systems. That is not true, except maybe in
| your city.
| anileated wrote:
| Apparently in the US there are trains that use dual rail
| and overhead power, one for subway and another for
| overground portions.
|
| I suppose a subway train with rail only supply that goes
| overground sometimes is more dangerous because it is easier
| to accidentally step on a rail and rail is powered?
| laurencerowe wrote:
| This is common in London as the suburban rail network
| there is a mix of third rail and overhead lines.
| bluGill wrote:
| Most subways have move above ground sections than
| underground. That is why the article uses the term "metro"
| not subway - it better describes something useful about the
| system. A Metro is a system that runs completely separate
| from other traffic - this forces bridges or tunnels where
| other traffic needs to cross it.
| anileated wrote:
| Yes. Subway train that goes over ground is just train.
| Metro or long distance is an actual distinction. If they
| blend in Japan then that's rare.
| dcrazy wrote:
| The difference is in the mode of service. "Trains"/"railways"
| run less-frequent service over longer distances, with
| stations often spaced further apart and certain runs that may
| skip stations. You typically schedule your trip based on the
| train's schedule. "Subway"/"metro" service is typically
| frequent enough that you can just show up and ride. Outside
| of Tokyo, the seating arrangements are usually different,
| with "trains" employing transverse seating and "subways"
| using longitudinal seating.
| anileated wrote:
| My comment said:
|
| > > What's kinda interesting is does that train classify as
| metro transit that goes slightly beyond city to airport and
| such (making many stops all the way) or distance intercity
| train that happens to stop both at airport and city? Or
| does it change this classification? That would be actually
| unusual
|
| Also, about this part:
|
| > You typically schedule your trip based on the train's
| schedule.
|
| Many counterexamples to that around East Asia (and probably
| Europe?). Trains are frequent enough that you just come
| most of the day. Apart from late hours when it is the same
| for both metro and distance trains, you have to know when
| they depart because both become rare and you can be late
| for the last one.
| dcrazy wrote:
| I'm speaking specifically about my lived experience using
| through-running services in Tokyo. Since your questions
| in this thread reveal that you lack familiarity with this
| service plan, I encourage you to visit Japan sometime and
| experience it yourself.
| anileated wrote:
| Turns out, I am intimately familiar with this service
| plan. There are metro trains with more frequent stops and
| service and there are distance trains with rarer stops
| (and yes, rarer service, the degree of which varies by
| country). What is new that I am missing?
|
| Do you defend the subway vs. train terminology? Sometimes
| distance trains run underground, sometimes metro trains
| run overground, so it seems pretty pointless to me.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| That 1943 map of proposed through-running routes for London...
|
| Anyone who lives on the outskirts of London near a big commuter
| station knows that pain: 15 minutes to get into the centre, and
| another 25 to get anywhere else.
| codeulike wrote:
| Rule of thumb in London is that it takes an hour to get
| anywhere, no matter how far it is
| immibis wrote:
| So _that 's_ why Kassel Hauptbahnhof is a terminus station, while
| the busier station is Kassel-Wilhelmshohe.
| vander_elst wrote:
| It might be nice on paper, but I think that in the Munich
| implementation there are quite some issues given that there is
| only a _single_ track connecting Pasing (basically Munich West)
| to Munich East. In the last years almost every weekend there is
| maintenance work on the tracks, which introduces issues and
| doubles the time you need to move to the center. When a track is
| suddenly blocked, and this happens ~once a quarter, _all_ the
| S-Bahn trains are blocked and you 'll need _a lot_ of patience to
| get back home. I wonder how it 'd be with a more decentralized
| system where there are 2/3 ways to reach the edges of the city
| and not a single track
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Costs of transport infra per mile:
|
| Heavy rail; 50 million
|
| Light rail: 25 million
|
| Freeway:5-10 million
|
| So why aren't they simply doing dedicated roads for transport?
|
| With AI platooning and supervised self driving, "trains" of
| busses can run along those lines, but split off and merge in from
| local service seamlessly.
|
| Commercial traffic (even through traffic) can piggyback on low
| traffic periods.
|
| In emergencies, they are additional roads for evac or supply.
|
| Roads are much more easily repaired and fail less
| catastrophically.
|
| Electrification of busses is well underway and should be simpler
| / cheaper for recharging infrastructure.
|
| Platooned "trains" of busses will conserve energy and likely
| could go 100 mph or more with proper convergent sensors
| monitoring and maintenance.
|
| Safety should be equivalent.
|
| I suspect there are political nuances where rail gets its own
| budget apart from roads, whereas dedicated roads get thrown it
| with general road funding, and then wouldn't get proper funding.
| codeulike wrote:
| Rail is expensive in the US because you've lost the skills to
| build it. In Europe its cheaper than freeways.
|
| Also in London we dont have space to build massive carparks
| everywhere so lots of people in London dont have cars.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Who said anything about cars? I guess you are validating my
| opinion that this isn't politically possible because mentally
| people immediately assume a road means free access by moms in
| minivans.
| codeulike wrote:
| Well if you said 'road' and stressed that it was not a
| public road but a road with specific rules about what could
| go on it, that would probably get the message across. Your
| chosen phrase 'dedicated road for transport' doesn't convey
| that very well. Everything is transport.
| rconti wrote:
| Is this freeway stat per lane-mile? Rail often has 2 sets of
| tracks along a corridor, or at most 4. Roads have a lot more.
|
| I'm guessing even a busy/congested freeway has a greater
| throughput per lane than transit; even with automobiles with
| only 1-2 people in it, vs a train that may have hundreds but
| pass only every few minutes at most.
|
| One problem with roads is that once you get off the freeway,
| you need _more_ roads to serve housing and businesses; and the
| size of those leaf nodes pushes businesses and houses all
| further apart from each other, necessitating MORE road trips
| and decreasing walkability.
| truculent wrote:
| > I'm guessing even a busy/congested freeway has a greater
| throughput per lane than transit
|
| Not even remotely close:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity
| Ario5 wrote:
| your unsourced numbers for roads are wrong and at best
| representative of a rural area single lane mile not a 4 lane
| highway. Here are some better numbers for different places and
| types of roads:
|
| https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/23cpr/appendixa.cfm (scroll
| down a little ways)
|
| so your reference for freeway is likely using a single lane
| number not the actual cost of a 4 lane high way which would be
| 12 - 80 million per mile.
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| Way back in the 20th century, Boston's passenger rail service
| coalesced into two mostly independent systems; a rail network
| north of the city, servicing the northern suburbs, and the same
| in the south. The southern system was the northern terminus of
| the intercity passenger railroad system to New York and beyond.
| These systems are seperated by about a mile of dense
| urbanization.
|
| There was discussion during the planning of the "Big Dig"
| infrastructure project of the 1990s to join these systems via a
| tunnel, but this was rejected due to the technical complexity,
| and more importantly, the cost, with the politicial battle around
| the project as a whole.
|
| We could have had, for example, through service between Lowell
| and Providence, or between Newburyport and Worcester. Amtrak
| could have continued the Northeast Corridor into Maine.
| m463 wrote:
| I think this stuff is too common in the united states. I think
| of bart/caltrain/amtrak/busses/etc. It seems like it was only
| recently that bart reached an airport.
|
| sort of reminds me of shipping before container ships, where
| you had to have freight forwarders to get stuff through the
| morass of trucks, trains, and ships, each with their own
| politics/unions/finances stepping in the way.
|
| The politics of different means of transportation, with
| different systems just runs into enough of these barriers to
| self-limit their own use. and we end up being a nation of cars.
| CaliforniaKarl wrote:
| > It seems like it was only recently that bart reached an
| airport.
|
| How recently is recently?
|
| BART's SFO station opened June 2003, and the OAK station
| opened November 2014.
| 2b3a51 wrote:
| Just a point: ticketing in cities.
|
| In the UK outside London, a journey via a 'metro' (suburban
| railway), a tram and a bus could well require the purchase of
| three separate tickets at a significant premium over sticking to
| one mode of transport even if less efficient. I would suggest a
| move to single tickets within urban areas. That would allow
| multimodal travel - if the tram is in and the train is delayed
| just hop on the tram.
| goda90 wrote:
| I lived in Santiago Chile over a decade ago, and took a lot of
| transit. I really liked their bip! card system that gives you
| two free or really cheap transfers within 2 hours of your first
| scan. It wasn't distance based or anything like that. Looks
| like they have peak rating now(I don't remember if they did
| back then), but it's not super expensive.
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