- cross-posted to:
- fuckcars@lemmy.world
- fuck_cars@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- fuckcars@lemmy.world
- fuck_cars@lemmy.ml
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When I lived in Germany for a while, my wife and I took a train across the country one winter to Munich for the Christmas markets. We stayed in a hostel and walked the streets, enjoying the various stalls. I’d never heard of Glüwein before (hot, mulled, spiced red wine), but it was fantastic! It was an amazing experience and we didn’t have to worry about parking lots or figuring out public transportation. Everything was within walking distance and we ended up touring all of Munich on foot.
I wish the US would get off its ass and get some high speed trains set up. We just need to keep oil and auto dealers out of the discussion because they keep shutting it down. Like Musk’s “Hyperloop” project, which he proposed to stop legislation from approving high speed trains, but then intentionally did nothing with, so we just don’t develop trains to replace his Tesla cars.
High speed trains should actually not be the primary focus of the US when it commes to public transport, city/suburban systems are more important.
Don’t get me wrong, the US absolutely needs high speed rail, but without a well functioning local public transport system at both ends you end up with something that conceptually is more like an airport than a european train station.
Without local public transport, travelers still need to go by car to and from the endpoints, just like a lot of airports, this means that stations will require a lot of expensive parking, that is essentially wasted space.
Now, the US will probably allways be car dependant to a higher degree than Europe, this is due to how cities have been built, unchecked urban sprawl with little mixed use zones with few central spots makes it hard to build good metro and bus lines, where do you put the stations, where will people connect?
I won’t pretend to have the answers, I absolutely don’t, but I know that regardless of how public transport is established in new and existing neighbourhoods there will be angry people, but lets just make sure that the happy people outnumber them
100% without local city restructuring with mixed zoning and suburban redevelopment for proper land use, high speed rail developments will result on those stupid “middle of nowhere” train stations that are just railways from giant parking lot to giant parking lot. Completely undermining the whole point of rail that is being able to drop you off right in the middle of dense cities, which airports can’t due to the logistics of flight.
Sometimes to get to work I drive one mile, park (expensively) and then take the train 8 miles, then walk a mile, carrying all the shit I need for work, including my dinner, laptop, change of clothes and 3 40z water bottles. Usually I just drive.
You can say a lot about Stockholm, but one thing it does have is excellent public transport, fully integrated with the suburbs.
In my municipality we have a local train line and several bus lines that can take me into the city, during rush hour busses depart every 5-10 min or so from my closest bus stop, bus lanes along the highway work well and it usually takes me an hour to get to the office, 40 min during summer, this is to cover about 30km.
it usually takes me an hour to get to the office, 40 min during summer, this is to cover about 30km.
The problem here in Portland is I have between an 11 and 13 mile commute to the office downtown. 18 to 20 km.
To use the bus or light rail to and from work, figure out how long it would take to drive, then add on an extra hour in the morning and an hour and a half at night.
I might pay $20 a day to park, but I get back 2.5 hours a day in time. My time is worth far more than $8/hr.
Helsinki area is kind of like that as well. The times can get very long if you have to take a few routes while straight travel can be very fast. Coverage is pretty great.
Agree if by “local public transport” you mean “put things next to each other, without 18 400-car parking lots separating them”
To make public transport successful you need mixed use zoning, small community centers where you can connect from longer routes to more local routes, meeting places with a few shops/cafés/restaurants, parking will be needed as well, but not insane surface lots, but a garage with 2-3 levels should be fine.
Right - public transit needs to be usable in the place you’re traveling to if you’re going to take a train. This is why a lot of people would rather drive from, say San Francisco to Los Angeles. Suppose you were to take a train instead. Then… great?! what would you do next? You wouldn’t have anywhere to go, so you’ll need a car anyway. You’d either have to rent one or just skip the train and do the drive instead.
Probably a lot easier and feasible in my opinion to build the local public transit first, and then focus on the regional/national transit system.
If you’re going from LA to SF you’re fine. You’d take the Coast Starlight to SJ, then you’d transfer to Cal Train, and that drops you off at the Transbay Terminal in SF which gives you easy access to BART or Muni and all of the streetcar and bus lines. Owning a car in SF is more trouble than it’s worth for a lot of people. I never owned one when I lived there.
Granted, SF is one of only a handful of US cities where this is true.
Heading south to LA would probably be a much bigger problem though.
I see what you’re saying, but the advantage of intercity rail, not necessarily high-speed, but rail that goes from one city to another at commuter speeds, that is definitely worth having where I live. I’m in Terre Haute, IN. There isn’t a ton of work here. A lot of people here make the 80-90 minute drive to either Indianapolis or Bloomington to their jobs. There is already a bus line here if people need that and, yes, it could go to more places, but Indiana used to have a robust rail network that linked the entire state and doing something like that today would have a lot of advantages. Not just the job issue, but both Indianapolis and Bloomington are desirable destinations for things like restaurants and shows and people from all over the state drive to them (and a few other small cities) very regularly because of that.
The way I see it, a lot more CO2 emissions would be reduced with intercity rail in this state and the public bus transportation in various Indiana cities is already decent.
Sorry, I think you missunderstand me, I didn’t mean that the US should abandon any existing rail project, but that the local public transport system if often forgotten in the talk about HSR
I’m not talking about existing rail projects either. I’m essentially agreeing with you that HSR is a distraction, but I’m also saying that intracity rail that is not HSR can be more important than public transportation inside a city, so it depends on where you are in the U.S. on which should be focused.
Dude I’m traveling to Texas in a few months and I didn’t realize how close Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, and Austin are. It’s like a triangle, 2.5 to 3.5 hours between either city. Waco and San Antonio sit on the line between Austin and DFW.
These cities are linked by a rather nice highway system from what I remember last time I was in TX, but to the best of my knowledge, there’s no high-speed rail, only rail that’s slower than driving most the time.
Why? Texas should be embarrassed. Especially with Houston being so close to Galveston, which is a pretty damn good port.
High speed trains for city to city transit wouldn’t allow for markets like this. You need suburb to city core transit for that…
Oh, wait:
This reminds me of that AskHistorian thread of someone asking where people parked their chariots when Roman citizens went to the coliseum.
Heh. Their palanquin or litter would drop them off and go sit in an alley or street somewhere, probably. Like how carriages in later centuries would.
Palanquins were used only by noble families, if even. Less than 1% of the population and even less than that of the amount of people who would assist to the coliseum were carried there. Almost everyone just walked.
i’d be very surprised if some people with carts didn’t set up an impromptu bus service for events
Well?
Where did they?
Iirc, chariots where only used to transport people and goods between towns and cities, being pretty rare inside cities if not completely forbidden.
so… they park them at city limits? it’s a good question
Trick question. They didn’t, the chauffeur did it for them.
New Yorkers get it but that’s about it.
I think Chicago is the only other US city that comes close, their transit is fantastic!
And they’ve got Christkindlmarket.
San Francisco always gets left out of these as well, but transit there rocks
Portland is pretty decent too. Not as good as SF, but you can reasonably get around the entire area on public transportation.
SF is easily as well-served by public transit as Chicago. It’s the 2nd densest city in the US, behind NYC. Between Muni, the streetcars and busses and BART, there’s always an easy way to get anywhere in The City. You can even jump on a cable car if that’s your thing.
I knew what a flea market was long before I moved to NY.
They’re talking about not having to drive everywhere, not flea markets
Citation needed.
Reading comprehension needed
Nah I understood it fine.
For what? I was just trying to explain the joke lol
Lol if you have to explain the joke there is no joke lol
If only you need the joke explained, you’ve doubled the number of jokes in the thread
Don’t.
Sometimes people have little difficulties understanding jokes and need a little help.
And sometimes the joke isn’t funny.
No, that’s the point. With good public transit people wouldn’t need Citations.
They probably assumed this is like a theme park or something and not an actual city that people actually live in year round. Cities having nice, people friendly places away from cars? Who’s ever heard of that?
they dont park cars. They crush them and build new ones when they want to go somewhere
Completely off topic, but can anyone pinpoint this Christmas market? Looks hella cozy, but I don’t recognize the buildings around it.
I’d say that’s the Striezelmarkt in Dresden (Germany’s oldest Christmas market over 580 years old) but the big ones kinda all look like that.
By the way that’s what they have to say about the posts topic on their website: “best accessibility: local public transport, on foot and by bike”
I believe that is Dresden.
Is that Munich? I’m getting strong Viktualienmarkt vibes.
I would say it’s Dresden.
Definitetly it’s the Altmarkt
Image Transcription: Twitter Post
gaut, @0xgaut
the American mind cannot comprehend this
[A screenshot of a Facebook post with reply, transcribed below]
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Christmas market in Germany 🇩🇪
I want to know how they deal with parking? They probably have huge parking garages 🤷♀️
Image Transcription: Twitter Post
That’s enough information, thanks.
deleted by creator
Well this guy’s apparently never been to Germany, they do in fact have a lot of parking garages and street parking in cities. Is straight up lying how you’re going to convince people to build public transit?
Of course there is some parking, but there is no need for a dedicated car park for this market. Many of these people will have come on foot or by public transport, that isn’t a lie at all. Public transport in Germany isn’t exactly a model to follow imo (I was surprised, I expected it to be down to an art tbh), but like most of Europe the cities are walkable and at least have some form of public transport system.
I was surprised, I expected it to be down to an art tbh
The Nazis were so fucking good at propaganda. People still believe the “Germans are so efficient and good at everything” today, it’s wild
The American hate is pretty stupid really… especially from people who can’t imagine how large a place they’re trying to disparage.
Edit: fuck you lame motherfuckers… Pile it on. What I said is true.
Envy breeds contempt, simple as that
“You can’t criticize us because our country is bigger than yours”
What?
I didn’t say anything about criticism.
I said hate.
And it’s fucking stupid because it fails to recognize that the US isn’t the stereotypical monolith that the haters envision.
It’s a very diverse place with lots of variety in what there is to experience.
We have a bunch of Christmas markets in the US. They get pretty packed. There are parking garages near them since their downtown in major cities (DC, Baltimore, Philly).
deleted by creator
Garages are better than lots. Especially garages under buildings. No Americans have been tricked into anything. None of us have a say in how our cities were designed. That was mostly auto makers at the turn of the century.
Enough with the facts my feelings are all that is real
Where are your facts? Because it’s awfully hilarious you say that feelings are all that is real, when really feelings are all that is real to you.
“It feels like we have parking so this is fine”.
Here are some actual facts: Europe has larger stadiums that hold more people and don’t have giant parking lots 12x the size of the area they serve.
Parking lots are stupid, and big parking lot cities in the US are stupid. Enough with your feelings
We have a pretty sweet stadium in downtown Portland. It only holds like 22k give or take, but there’s no parking lots and light rail service is basically across the street, so we get a real old-world vibe there. Plus the Timbers Army is probably the biggest and most well-organized supporters group in anglophone North America. A Timbers match is definitely worth the price of admission if you ever get a chance to visit. Preferably on a rainy weeknight if you want the real Pacific Northwest experience.
Tell me where I said
"t feels like we have parking so this is fine”.
Or you can admit you do not care or know what “” means. We both know what you will do.
The comment you are supporting is saying that dummy.
And yeah I paraphrased in quotes, this isnt a fucking article and I’m not a journalist.
What’s funny is that’s all you found as a rebuttal and you’re still here talking about your feelings, not facts.
No.
Christmas markets in the US are barely more than a themed Farmer’s market.
How are European ones different?
For one they are much larger in size, which is the whole argument here. They do civil engineering and public transport better.
They have much more tradition. Having been to many on both continents, the ones in the Americas are much more of a money grab than a celebration.
In Europe it’s a bunch of people standing by stalls eating their favorite seasonal/traditional food listening to music and chilling around with family, not buying local goods/stuff. That’s for tourists.
In the Americas it’s long lines of people, moving them through and out of the market after they purchased outrageously priced common food items slapped with some sort of german/chistmas/winter spin to it. Minimal decoration and theme to call it a Christmas market.
I’m not European btw
For one, Christmas markets in countries that traditionally do them are significantly larger. The largest ones in the US would be a mid size one in Berlin.
Tbf Berlin is likely to be the largest one, right?
There are like 50 in Berlin alone.
Oh no the horror! I won’t be able to get vegetables that look funny for more money than a supermarket.
Wasn’t aware that flea markets were not a thing anymore.
they’re referring to USA’s obsession with cars and parking lots, not the concept of markets
Pretty sure the captioned picture made it clear what they were communicating
the only question in the image is about the size of the parking lots. There’s nothing questioning the concept of markets. You’re clearly a troll 🤷♂️
No.
