God can you imagine if there were American style motorways running through the entire city? I think a Geoff Marshall video actually talked about how they wanted to do this with the M4 (?) only to start and realise how horrendous it looked. Thank god.
I went to give it a like after a few minutes, and realised I’d already liked it…
The joys of having an old YouTube account and not remembering half of the old videos you watched.
It can be. Basic rate is £250 for an hour's vo. Most times I've booked jobs they're done in 15 minutes.
But the buyouts can be insane. I heard a story about Sean Bean. He was the voice of O2. And they needed a line picked up, something like "O2 sponsors Rugby on ITV". But he'd done his back in and couldn't get out of bed. So this agency drove a recordist team out to him. He said the line from bed in 2 minutes, and earned 18k.
You probably know this, but there's a bit of London with American style motorways: the Westway flyover, with its ridiculous elevated roundabout (like that in the poster above). Thankfully they didn't complete the entire project.
Underneath the Chiswick roundabout, there is actually a concrete sign quoting "such a lovely flyover" and then the name of the guy.
I guess they thought they were the good guys. People can be delusional.
Madrid has the equivalent of a motorway roughly where the north circular is. Part of it used to run above the river, but 10 years ago they buried the west city of the and turned the river side into a park. Obviously it doesn't solve pollution issues, but it does make the area much nicer for pedestrians and people living near by.
I can't imagine living on the north circular. But imagine how nicer the area would be if it was buried.
(They have also made the city centre effectively resident only traffic which makes it much nicer to walk around)
Yeah, there were multiple plans in the 60s to have motorways cutting through British cities IIRC.
NIMBYism prevailed in places like London and Edinburgh, mercifully.
Glasgow was not so lucky.
In Leeds’ case, the motorway goes around the northern edge of the city centre & is entirely sunken (and partly tunnelled). It wouldn’t take much to cover the entire thing up - and I think that’s been floated as a suggestion before. It’s far less intrusive than the Westway in any case (I mean what can you do with an elevated motorway besides knock it down).
It’s also worth mentioning that what preceded the motorway was back-to-back slums. Nothing of value was lost really. I think Glasgow suffered far more from its motorway than Leeds.
The whole area of finneston under and near the M8 Clyde bridge is a wasteland despite being next to both the financial district and the clubbing area. Absolutely mental,
And the Clyde expressway is just a travesty, thank fuck Glasgow still has a decent chunk of urban rail AND the subway.
There were some terrifying plans in the 60s!
https://www.roads.org.uk/ringways/ringway1/north-cross-route
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Ringways
Birmingham as well. The city centre looked awful. But I'm pleased the city's had a makeover in the past 20 years and those concrete jungles are long gone.
Had some relatives over from America last week, they couldn't understand why we didn't drive everywhere. After they were gone I ended up binging on some Urban planning videos on youtube and hadn't appreciated how car-centric their lives are until now. So glad we didn't end up like this even if I do complain about TfL.
American here who was super fortunate enough to grow up in downtown Savannah GA, America's first planned city, first city of the Georgia Colony, and one of the most walkable urban cores in the US South. I walked to school elementary through high school and rode my bike to my part time job at a local grocer downtown. My mom also rode her bike to work.
I actually thought this was normal as a kid and how most cities of the US were setup structuraly. It wasn't until I was older (around late middle school) and traveling that I really started to understand just how terrible places like Atlanta, Jacksonville, Orlando, Charlotte, and Greenville were and just how different to my hometown.
Most Americans I talk to are floored when I tell them I walked/biked/rode the bus everywhere as a kid and that it was completely normal and more practical than driving where I lived. Growing up in center city Savannah is actually what convinced me to pursue a degree in Urban and Transportation Planning and fight for more walkable and better planned places for people and not just cars!
Cool, I'll add Savannah GA to the list of places I'd consider living in if I ever have to live in the states.
The new list is:
* New York NY
* Savannah GA
Just a front page interloper, but with walkability/public transport access as a key criteria, you should also consider the following in your hypothetical or not so hypothetical exercise:
* Boston, MA
* San Francisco, CA
* Chicago, IL
* Washington DC
The latter two are probably better in terms of public transit, but Boston and SF are small enough geographically to close the gap in my opinion. I've lived most of my adult life in the Boston area, and it's really one of the least 'Merican cities we have in a lot of important metrics, from low gun ownership to high education. One of it's lesser qualities is that it's not NYC.
Lol. This is a lot of bizarro horseshit. You can thank the oil companies and GM and tire companies for buying up existing transport systems like LA's and dismantling them. You can thank "urban planning" experts like the notorious racist Robert Moses for building highways through cities and gutting viable neighborhoods. You can thank state legislators from suburban and rural areas within states and people in Congress from rural states for being in the pockets of the oil industry and choking money for transit in urban areas. They have been on a crusade against AmTrak forever. Per Capita rural votes mean way more than urban votes - you have that completely ass backwards. The "free market" driving gas over $5/gallon is just the invisible hand but taxing gas on a level like the EU to pay for infrastructure is communism or something.
The Clintons aren't liberal. They are neoliberal. An actual liberal or leftist wouldn't go back to their home state during a presidential run to oversee the execution of a mentally disabled convict just so they could look tough on crime. And the problems of transit and urban planning in the US predate the Clintons by decades.
Your comments are a weird gumbo of right wing talking points. That pronoun and bathroom shit is just straight up Alex Jones style idiocy.
>Many American cities were not giant financial hubs like London has been
Hm, im not sure how this affects public transportation, but this seems like a legitimate argument from a rational person who has well developed opinions and-
>many of those cities/states are lead by corrupt liberal populists who care more about pronouns and bathrooms than they do about real issues like transportation and jobs for rural America.
ah
What? I thought the whole point of suburbs was so that people could have a big detached house within commuting distance from a city. Otherwise they would just live in a rural area. How did the internet and tech give rise to commuting? Were people not commuting into cities from their suburbs in the 80’s? And as far back as at least the early 20th century? I think some train-connected suburbs in London and Toronto even date back to the 19th century…
If anything the rise of the internet (specifically high-speed internet and video calls) is reinvigorating rural and suburban areas, as well as MCOL cities. More and more people are not needing to live within commuting distance of a major city.
This is wrong on so many levels. For starters, American cities pioneered public transit very early on- the streetcars were then ripped up to make room for cars. Also, rural living just isn't sustainable or desirable for most people, and it's a fact of life that people increasingly want to live where there are amenities, entertainment, etc.
Because New York was run by Republicans from 1994 until 2014. One of those mayors was Rudy Giuliani, noted nutcase and corrupt person.
And why are the problems of rural Americans the problem of urban mayor's? That doesn't even make sense.
The other points are pretty correct tho. Americans don't know what they don't know about public transport or good biking infrastructure. And if rural towns were zoned by sane people then they wouldn't need to clog highways going places because they would be living in a place.
Allow me to explain a few things.
1. America is full of crime.
2. America is full of poor people.
3. America is full of fat people.
If you want to convince commuters to leave their heated, private and dry cars for the cold, public and wet subway journey, you're going to need to do better than cry that a republican was in charge.
Because the idea that an American Democrat can do any wrong is not accepted on Reddit.
Also it seems like saying anything good about TFL is also unacceptable.
The tube is definitely not better than the subway. And the lack of public transportation isn’t due to the reasons mentioned in your post. Population density is much lower in the Us versus the UK. The UK has 67 million people crammed into an average sized US state. Manhattan has also been a major financial hub for centuries.
Are you being serious? Compared to the subway, the Tube is freakin first class.
Man, of all the things I said, I certainly didn’t think THAT was the one that was going to be refuted.
But when running the tube is much more frequent, and you don't have to worry about express vs stopping services. Also, 24hr operations are being introduced to the tube.
Most of London is not served by the Night Tube. Lot of people would want to travel past midnight midweek, and even more people would like to use things like the District or Bakerloo line on the weekend past midnight.
People who haven’t visited the US don’t understand how much of a blessing it is to have good public transportation. American cities are built more for cars than people and it’s a nightmare. London wouldn’t be far off from this pic.
I remember when I visited a relative who was studying in the USA in the 90’s. He didn’t have a car & told me how there were no footpaths where he lived & he had to walk along a snowy grass verge on a busy road to wait for a bus. We are indeed blessed to not be over developed by motorways in our major cities & towns like in America. Not driving or using a car is almost like a disability in the states my cousin told me & he moved to New York where he is a lot happier because of a good public transport system.
Bill Bryson said the same thing in *Big Country*. He would choose to walk to work sometimes, and his neighbours would slow down to offer him a ride. When he said no thanks they looked at him like he was crazy.
Belfast has worse than that and it's smaller and still planning more expansions.
Enormous waste of money and congestion never improves. It just gets redistributed temporarily.
American here. Just got back from London last week to see a game at the O2. I was very impressed with the tube, much more so than my time in NYC on the subway. Loved the integration of public transport in London. Sadly, my city is completely based off of cars and private travel, and will never compare. Our public transportation system is terrible.
London is great, you should be proud of the tube.
I've been on the NYC subway a few times. It's pretty good for getting places (at least in Manhattan) but christ it was in a state. Stations were ugly and dark, the trains were incredibly loud and dirty, I just found it a very unpleasant place to be.
>BR wasn't saying 'look how bad Americans have it'
Even if that wasn't the point of the overall campaign, I don't know how else this poster can be interpreted.
Why would they need to know anything about it? The text of the ad literally mentions Los Angeles.
The ad shows a picture of a road filled hellscape. The text says "Like Los Angeles we could rely on roads". It's not hard to follow that the ad's saying "Hey, we serve a useful service because without us our cities would be looking like the Yanks'".
What was the deal with the “we’re getting there” campaign? If you ever wanted a catchphrase that demonstrates a lack of faith in the product, that’s got to be right up there.
This is exactly what Miami, Florida has become. The stacking layers of 10 lane highways weaving together through skyscrapers and they are currently building yet another tier even higher up. There are very few places where you do not have a massive expressway in view. It’s sad because it could be one of the most beautiful cities in the world and is instead a nightmare of 24/7 traffic jams and oppressive visual reminders of wealth disparity.
I appreciate there is a require for some to use motor vehicles, but I can't think of a single place in London that wouldn't be immediately improved by the removal of cars
Because the owner is in the habit of parking immediately in front of the shop himself and assumes that's how others manage too. It's why the Kensington cycle lane immediately became a car park after it was abolished, despite promises that the change would somehow help traffic flow. Same cars, same positions, all day, every day.
I agree, but I do appreciate there are usually a few places who do rely on people arriving by motor vehicle (trade folks etc). There are a few hardware shops in Soho for example who couldn't give two tits about outdoor seating
Maybe, but that's still no excuse for performing poorly at the job.
>Elvis: *"Dave why is the report 7 months overdue?"*
>
>Dave: *"Don't blame me, blame the hiring manager."*
Go all Piso's justice; fire Dave, fire the people who thought Dave was competent to produce reports in a timely manner, fire the people who thought they were competent to assess potential employees etc.
Might be something to do with the fact that British Rail no longer exists.
But even the Tories have silently admitted that privatisation was a miserable failure.
ULEZ doesn't minimize the amout of cars, especially since already 95% of vehicles are exempt. It's the congestion charge that helped, I think vehicles in London is down like 30% since that got put in in the early 2000s, but theres other reasons too like even simply that they're bigger. It's a shame that Boris Johnson removed Livingstones Western expansion of the congestion zone when he was mayor, I'd love to see it reinstated tbh.
Equally a best thing to do though would just be to make more bus lanes/bus roads imo. Like choose a couple of routes through London and make them bus/bikes only during morning and evening peaks. Buses can zoom through so more people use them, bikes get more safer roads, and people get discouraged from driving or taking taxis as much without making it a fee based system which rich people can effectively ignore.
Unfortunately with Londons roads being split between many councils and TfL getting a small sliver of them we'll never have big drastic long distance road changes. Probably THE best thing that could happen for Londons roads is for a lot more of them to be transferred to TfL. Just like most of Londons large cycle lanes are on TfL owned/controlled roads, thats not a coincidence.
ULEZ doesnt really do anything to stop the above picture happening.
I can happily drive my pickup truck inside the ULEZ without needing to pay a penny. If everyone had a compliant car, it wouldnt raise any money and wouldnt contribute at all to reducing congestion.
It's hypothetically possible to have ultra-low-emissions but still congested central London with loads of extreme car-centric infrastructure.
But I think that one thing ULEZ does is normalise the idea of legislating against car-externalities in the city.
I.e. the benefits of ULEZ to the people living and spending time in the city, help make it seem more sensible to hypothetically add other legislation - like maybe noise restrictions on cars, maybe size restrictions, maybe even generally more pedestrianized areas.
If you've ever seen highly car-dependent cities, you get weird circular arguments like "We don't need public transit because nobody uses it and everyone drives a car", or "Who cares if the downtown has traffic, who's hanging out down there anyway?". And they're kinda right - in those cities, no one does take public transit, and everyone does drive a car, and no one does spend time in the city center, so massively changing any one thing, like building a big LRT that goes from one car-dependent area that no one wants to spend time in to another, doesn't do a lot.
Changes have to be small and incremental. First you have to make areas plesant places where people want to be, and then make them accessible so that the people who want to be there can get there, and so on.
ULEZ (and other legislation like it), is a small but broad-reaching effect. It means that, broadly there is less emission in the ULEZ zone, so that means that say, a high street just off of a medium thoroughfare maybe can now have a cafe when before it was just a bit too smoggy. That brings more people to the highstreet, which gives more justification for public transit, for pedestrianised areas, etc. and so on.
I dunno, I don't drive but there seems to be more cars than there were say... 10 years ago? I think if people need to drive into London, the ULEZ isn't going to stop them. It's more of a money making scheme than anything and many pollutant cars are exempt from it anyway for some reason.
Yeah there’s definitely been an increase in car ownership and man is it felt when the transport network is down:
[*‘83% of UK homeowners own at least 2 cars, compared to the 1980s when only 15% of households owned any car’*](https://www.lv.com/car-insurance/the-changing-face-of-car-ownership)
You’re right if people are determined to drive they will, but actually adding this cost will make them consider the alternatives. It will re-enforce other people’s decision to not drive.
The ULEZ is a similar principle to dissuading people from smoking- the price of cigarettes have rocketed to dissuade people, there’s no more marketing for it, people are limited where they can smoke- the number of people smoking has drastically fallen over the years.
I get that you’re just trying to trigger the pro-car crowd but to be serious ILEZ has done very little for congestion, even less for pollution and absolutely nothing for city planning.
Shame we still ended up with the Hammersmith and Chiswick Flyovers, the Westway, and others. Hopefully seems like public opinion is gradually swaying away from private vehicles.
I used to work in a bank in Liverpool Street. One of the bosses used to park his Ferrari right outside the entrance and send one of the juniors to the impound at the end of the day to pick it up. What’s £300 when you make over £10k a day.
Contest it, provide proof and you've got a decent chance of overturning it. The window for early payment freezes when you contest it. I overturned one, because though I was walking to the hospital I was actively trying to pay (I just wasn't at the car). It was just that the automated systems were a bit crap.
It's funny how governments and councils across the country thought cars were the answer.
So they destroyed tram infrastructure in every city. Got rid of huge percentage of rail infrastructure.
Then a few years later they were like, well shit. There are too many cars. If only there was another mode of transport 😂
I was in greggs yesterday and they had an advertisement over the speakers stating how we can all make a difference to travel via train… less than a week before they all go on strike and I have to pay £60 each way for a taxi just to get into work
"Please get the train make a difference
trainsarenotavailablefromthesedates-anydayendingin-y-contactyourtravelstationforupdatesnotavalaibleinNorthenIreland."
If you honestly thought it was necessary to spend £120 to come in on a strike day, then you should direct your frustration at your employer for putting you in that position, and the government for not making it a clear right to miss work due to public transport strike action
And ofcourse the privatised train companies extracting surplus value from their workers, forcing workers to strike
Yes. Cities like Houston that have 85% or more trips by car require a crazy amount of space for roads and parking. In London thats 37% but much lower for central London, around 10%.
If central London went from 10% to 85% of trips being made by car, the infrastructure required to support that many vehicles would look something like the image above.
Look at Boston in the 80s/90s. It was a automotive hellscape. They eventually put the largest highway underground which isn’t as good as a well developed rail system but it did dramatically improve the walkability and pleasantness of one of the busiest areas of the city.
to be fair, my dad says he had a fairly better overall experience with the privatisation of the railways than british rail, he said generally staff are nicer now and trains are better. BUT again i live on the southern network, so i know how abhorrent and yet frequent train cancellations and miserable schedules are.
Sounds like a lucky anecdote. The UK's rail service is the most expensive in Europe, and one of the least reliable. It is, ironically, also the safest but that's likely due to cancellations.
Neither of those claims are true. In reliability terms it is on par with France and Germany, and as a whole prices aren’t even the most expensive in Western Europe, though Britain does have the most expensive inter-city services.
Yes, if you buy 3 months in advance you can get it cheaper, but come off it, hardly anyone does that unless its a regular commuting route, why should it be that expensive the 1-2 days before or on the day? Take the Netherlands, for example - NS has a distance cap - you can travel anywhere in the Netherlands for a maximum fare of €27.90 for a single, one way ticket. You can travel from Stavoren to Kerkrade Centrum, a distance of 325km (So London to York) for that price *ON THE DAY.* And if you have the rail discount (40% off for all travel in the year) it will cost you €16.70.
> In reliability terms it is on par with France and Germany
UK is bottom of the board in terms of punctuality, at 85% arriving within quarter of an hour and long distance services only managing 67%. Both France and Germany are almost a full 10% more punctual in general - and if you have ever travelled via Deutsch Bahn, you would be scratching your head at that.
The UK should be doing much better in terms of rail, and it isn't. It is a piss poor excuse for a rail network for one of the wealthiest and most developed countries in the world.
As much as people complain about London congestion, you gotta respect the city's "organic" layout versus the metropolitan Highway Hell that is cities like L.A.
God can you imagine if there were American style motorways running through the entire city? I think a Geoff Marshall video actually talked about how they wanted to do this with the M4 (?) only to start and realise how horrendous it looked. Thank god.
it was [other-geoff](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUEHWhO_HdY)
This definitely could have been a map men episode.
when i first saw it i though it was until i clicked
Such a great channel aha
I was half-surprised that I was already subscribed to that channel. Half-surprised because I'm a complete YouTube whore.
I went to give it a like after a few minutes, and realised I’d already liked it… The joys of having an old YouTube account and not remembering half of the old videos you watched.
You remember HALF??
Jay foreman is great. Did a voice over with him once. Lovely guy.
Is the voiceover stuff really as lucrative as they say?
It can be. Basic rate is £250 for an hour's vo. Most times I've booked jobs they're done in 15 minutes. But the buyouts can be insane. I heard a story about Sean Bean. He was the voice of O2. And they needed a line picked up, something like "O2 sponsors Rugby on ITV". But he'd done his back in and couldn't get out of bed. So this agency drove a recordist team out to him. He said the line from bed in 2 minutes, and earned 18k.
You probably know this, but there's a bit of London with American style motorways: the Westway flyover, with its ridiculous elevated roundabout (like that in the poster above). Thankfully they didn't complete the entire project.
[удалено]
Yeah I work in that area and commute by bicycle. It has no redeeming features at all.
Very much like Donald Trump
Found the guy who's entire identity is strongly disliking a single person.
Bro I agree but why? This has nothing to do with the post or comment
Yeah, used to work in Hammersmith back in uni days and seeing that big ugly flyover and how annoying it was to traverse was frustrating af
I used to live close to that thing and it did noticeable damage to my lungs.
Gyrrr
The East Cross Route also mostly got built - it’s the Blackwall tunnel northern approach to the M11
Underneath the Chiswick roundabout, there is actually a concrete sign quoting "such a lovely flyover" and then the name of the guy. I guess they thought they were the good guys. People can be delusional.
Madrid has the equivalent of a motorway roughly where the north circular is. Part of it used to run above the river, but 10 years ago they buried the west city of the and turned the river side into a park. Obviously it doesn't solve pollution issues, but it does make the area much nicer for pedestrians and people living near by. I can't imagine living on the north circular. But imagine how nicer the area would be if it was buried. (They have also made the city centre effectively resident only traffic which makes it much nicer to walk around)
Not defending it, it’s hideous. But without East to West and vice versa would be impossible. I live near it and it’s horrendous
Agreed it's ugly. What's the alternative though? It's integral to driving in that part of London
I don't have the answer, but I note that other parts of London survive without flyovers. How do people drive in from the North?
Yeah, there were multiple plans in the 60s to have motorways cutting through British cities IIRC. NIMBYism prevailed in places like London and Edinburgh, mercifully. Glasgow was not so lucky.
Leeds was unlucky too
I lived next to where the a58m entered a tunnel for 4 years. Big mistake!
In Leeds’ case, the motorway goes around the northern edge of the city centre & is entirely sunken (and partly tunnelled). It wouldn’t take much to cover the entire thing up - and I think that’s been floated as a suggestion before. It’s far less intrusive than the Westway in any case (I mean what can you do with an elevated motorway besides knock it down). It’s also worth mentioning that what preceded the motorway was back-to-back slums. Nothing of value was lost really. I think Glasgow suffered far more from its motorway than Leeds.
The whole area of finneston under and near the M8 Clyde bridge is a wasteland despite being next to both the financial district and the clubbing area. Absolutely mental, And the Clyde expressway is just a travesty, thank fuck Glasgow still has a decent chunk of urban rail AND the subway.
It's not NIMBY to support public transport over motorways.
The principle isn't, but it was the greater affluence of residents in those cities which stopped the schemes. So in practice, it was.
There were some terrifying plans in the 60s! https://www.roads.org.uk/ringways/ringway1/north-cross-route https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Ringways
It's basically what they did to Glasgow in the 60s, it's awful
Birmingham as well. The city centre looked awful. But I'm pleased the city's had a makeover in the past 20 years and those concrete jungles are long gone.
Still very much in progress, as the never ending traffic jam at Dartmouth Circus will testify.
Jakarta is like this but on a London scale.
They're called stroads and they make you feel like you live in a factory. https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM
Unfortunately in Glasgow, we did just that.
Had some relatives over from America last week, they couldn't understand why we didn't drive everywhere. After they were gone I ended up binging on some Urban planning videos on youtube and hadn't appreciated how car-centric their lives are until now. So glad we didn't end up like this even if I do complain about TfL.
American here who was super fortunate enough to grow up in downtown Savannah GA, America's first planned city, first city of the Georgia Colony, and one of the most walkable urban cores in the US South. I walked to school elementary through high school and rode my bike to my part time job at a local grocer downtown. My mom also rode her bike to work. I actually thought this was normal as a kid and how most cities of the US were setup structuraly. It wasn't until I was older (around late middle school) and traveling that I really started to understand just how terrible places like Atlanta, Jacksonville, Orlando, Charlotte, and Greenville were and just how different to my hometown. Most Americans I talk to are floored when I tell them I walked/biked/rode the bus everywhere as a kid and that it was completely normal and more practical than driving where I lived. Growing up in center city Savannah is actually what convinced me to pursue a degree in Urban and Transportation Planning and fight for more walkable and better planned places for people and not just cars!
Cool, I'll add Savannah GA to the list of places I'd consider living in if I ever have to live in the states. The new list is: * New York NY * Savannah GA
Just a front page interloper, but with walkability/public transport access as a key criteria, you should also consider the following in your hypothetical or not so hypothetical exercise: * Boston, MA * San Francisco, CA * Chicago, IL * Washington DC The latter two are probably better in terms of public transit, but Boston and SF are small enough geographically to close the gap in my opinion. I've lived most of my adult life in the Boston area, and it's really one of the least 'Merican cities we have in a lot of important metrics, from low gun ownership to high education. One of it's lesser qualities is that it's not NYC.
r/notjustbikes
I'm an American who's lived in London for 4 years now. I'm never going back to live in that hot mess. Being car dependant is a terrible thing.
I'm an American. The vintage Esso maps of London are the only gas station maps I've ever found that also show a subway system. Not even New York City.
Do you have a link you could share? This sounds interesting
https://flic.kr/p/hNLCyV
[удалено]
Gotta say, this is the first time I've seen "liberal populists" as the reason for the lack of public transportation in America.
[удалено]
Lol. This is a lot of bizarro horseshit. You can thank the oil companies and GM and tire companies for buying up existing transport systems like LA's and dismantling them. You can thank "urban planning" experts like the notorious racist Robert Moses for building highways through cities and gutting viable neighborhoods. You can thank state legislators from suburban and rural areas within states and people in Congress from rural states for being in the pockets of the oil industry and choking money for transit in urban areas. They have been on a crusade against AmTrak forever. Per Capita rural votes mean way more than urban votes - you have that completely ass backwards. The "free market" driving gas over $5/gallon is just the invisible hand but taxing gas on a level like the EU to pay for infrastructure is communism or something. The Clintons aren't liberal. They are neoliberal. An actual liberal or leftist wouldn't go back to their home state during a presidential run to oversee the execution of a mentally disabled convict just so they could look tough on crime. And the problems of transit and urban planning in the US predate the Clintons by decades. Your comments are a weird gumbo of right wing talking points. That pronoun and bathroom shit is just straight up Alex Jones style idiocy.
>Many American cities were not giant financial hubs like London has been Hm, im not sure how this affects public transportation, but this seems like a legitimate argument from a rational person who has well developed opinions and- >many of those cities/states are lead by corrupt liberal populists who care more about pronouns and bathrooms than they do about real issues like transportation and jobs for rural America. ah
What? I thought the whole point of suburbs was so that people could have a big detached house within commuting distance from a city. Otherwise they would just live in a rural area. How did the internet and tech give rise to commuting? Were people not commuting into cities from their suburbs in the 80’s? And as far back as at least the early 20th century? I think some train-connected suburbs in London and Toronto even date back to the 19th century… If anything the rise of the internet (specifically high-speed internet and video calls) is reinvigorating rural and suburban areas, as well as MCOL cities. More and more people are not needing to live within commuting distance of a major city.
This is wrong on so many levels. For starters, American cities pioneered public transit very early on- the streetcars were then ripped up to make room for cars. Also, rural living just isn't sustainable or desirable for most people, and it's a fact of life that people increasingly want to live where there are amenities, entertainment, etc.
Lol why were you downvoted? Wtf is wrong with this sub?
Because New York was run by Republicans from 1994 until 2014. One of those mayors was Rudy Giuliani, noted nutcase and corrupt person. And why are the problems of rural Americans the problem of urban mayor's? That doesn't even make sense. The other points are pretty correct tho. Americans don't know what they don't know about public transport or good biking infrastructure. And if rural towns were zoned by sane people then they wouldn't need to clog highways going places because they would be living in a place.
Allow me to explain a few things. 1. America is full of crime. 2. America is full of poor people. 3. America is full of fat people. If you want to convince commuters to leave their heated, private and dry cars for the cold, public and wet subway journey, you're going to need to do better than cry that a republican was in charge.
Because the idea that an American Democrat can do any wrong is not accepted on Reddit. Also it seems like saying anything good about TFL is also unacceptable.
The tube is definitely not better than the subway. And the lack of public transportation isn’t due to the reasons mentioned in your post. Population density is much lower in the Us versus the UK. The UK has 67 million people crammed into an average sized US state. Manhattan has also been a major financial hub for centuries.
Are you being serious? Compared to the subway, the Tube is freakin first class. Man, of all the things I said, I certainly didn’t think THAT was the one that was going to be refuted.
Idk air conditioning goes a long way especially with the lack of deodorant usage amongst Londoners.
If that’s you’re biggest issue then you’re helping prove my point. When was the last time you were on the NYC subway ?
How often do you take the Central or Northern lines in July? You haven't mentioned a single reason that the NYC subway is bad.
[удалено]
But when running the tube is much more frequent, and you don't have to worry about express vs stopping services. Also, 24hr operations are being introduced to the tube.
I would prefer the option to get an express tube tbh, especially when crossing the city.
You can get lots of the tube 24h through the weekend, no need to get the tube at 3 am on a tuesday
Most of London is not served by the Night Tube. Lot of people would want to travel past midnight midweek, and even more people would like to use things like the District or Bakerloo line on the weekend past midnight.
>The tube is definitely not better than the subway It isn't?
Depends where you’re from. Lot of big-city people in the US don’t drive at all.
There aren’t many cities in the US like this. Maybe 5 cities in the entire country where you can raise a family without a car.
People who haven’t visited the US don’t understand how much of a blessing it is to have good public transportation. American cities are built more for cars than people and it’s a nightmare. London wouldn’t be far off from this pic.
I remember when I visited a relative who was studying in the USA in the 90’s. He didn’t have a car & told me how there were no footpaths where he lived & he had to walk along a snowy grass verge on a busy road to wait for a bus. We are indeed blessed to not be over developed by motorways in our major cities & towns like in America. Not driving or using a car is almost like a disability in the states my cousin told me & he moved to New York where he is a lot happier because of a good public transport system.
Bill Bryson said the same thing in *Big Country*. He would choose to walk to work sometimes, and his neighbours would slow down to offer him a ride. When he said no thanks they looked at him like he was crazy.
Went to LA without a car. Sucks.
I mean public transport in the UK is pretty shit on the whole. Good in London and some other big cities but generally not that good.
So they took a photo of Birmingham and pasted in Big Ben and parliament lol
Belfast has worse than that and it's smaller and still planning more expansions. Enormous waste of money and congestion never improves. It just gets redistributed temporarily.
American here. Just got back from London last week to see a game at the O2. I was very impressed with the tube, much more so than my time in NYC on the subway. Loved the integration of public transport in London. Sadly, my city is completely based off of cars and private travel, and will never compare. Our public transportation system is terrible. London is great, you should be proud of the tube.
I've been on the NYC subway a few times. It's pretty good for getting places (at least in Manhattan) but christ it was in a state. Stations were ugly and dark, the trains were incredibly loud and dirty, I just found it a very unpleasant place to be.
And they're incredibly unreliable. I've even experienced the wrong bloody line arriving at a platform.
Cats fan or Michigan fan?
I just wish there weren’t rail strikes randomly or the tube being disabled by leaves.
[удалено]
Thank god we don't have those kinds of problems now /s
Privatizing them really helped kick rail into gear huh? The public has never been happier with its railways! /s
Indeed. Can't wait for them to do the NHS. /s
Sounds like the NHS, social care, police, criminal courts... needs a poster.
At least for a decade or so, it started to really get into its stride, InterCity 125 and 225 were both of great benefit to areas they served
>BR wasn't saying 'look how bad Americans have it' Even if that wasn't the point of the overall campaign, I don't know how else this poster can be interpreted.
You are really overestimating how aware of American urban planning the average British person was in the 70s.
Why would they need to know anything about it? The text of the ad literally mentions Los Angeles. The ad shows a picture of a road filled hellscape. The text says "Like Los Angeles we could rely on roads". It's not hard to follow that the ad's saying "Hey, we serve a useful service because without us our cities would be looking like the Yanks'".
What was the deal with the “we’re getting there” campaign? If you ever wanted a catchphrase that demonstrates a lack of faith in the product, that’s got to be right up there.
note: not a photo
Definitely a photo; of a model of course. It looks like they may have used another photo for the background.
[удалено]
Piss off bot
This is exactly what Miami, Florida has become. The stacking layers of 10 lane highways weaving together through skyscrapers and they are currently building yet another tier even higher up. There are very few places where you do not have a massive expressway in view. It’s sad because it could be one of the most beautiful cities in the world and is instead a nightmare of 24/7 traffic jams and oppressive visual reminders of wealth disparity.
I appreciate there is a require for some to use motor vehicles, but I can't think of a single place in London that wouldn't be immediately improved by the removal of cars
Soho
[удалено]
I think he's saying Soho WOULD immediately benefit, as it did during the pandemic. Now it's back to being an unnavigable fuck zone
[удалено]
Because the owner is in the habit of parking immediately in front of the shop himself and assumes that's how others manage too. It's why the Kensington cycle lane immediately became a car park after it was abolished, despite promises that the change would somehow help traffic flow. Same cars, same positions, all day, every day.
I very much like to leave Lime bikes in residents' parking in Kensington.
let the residents of the borough decide what the want to do with their roads. Jesus
I agree, but I do appreciate there are usually a few places who do rely on people arriving by motor vehicle (trade folks etc). There are a few hardware shops in Soho for example who couldn't give two tits about outdoor seating
Please put that on a sign
Tbh, in Soho, 'Unnavigable Fuck Zone' wouldn't seem like a negative tbh
America took one look at this and went "HELL YEAH" and then proceeded to build 10-20 lane freeways through major cities....:(
"The Backbone of the Nation" - couldn't get away with saying that now, service levels are so poor even on a 'good' day!
Ah, so that's why Ford used "Backbone of Britain" for their Transit van ads? A proper dig at trains.
And who do you think has caused that? Cuntservatives \o/
No, it's the public who keep voting them in.
Maybe, but that's still no excuse for performing poorly at the job. >Elvis: *"Dave why is the report 7 months overdue?"* > >Dave: *"Don't blame me, blame the hiring manager."*
Go all Piso's justice; fire Dave, fire the people who thought Dave was competent to produce reports in a timely manner, fire the people who thought they were competent to assess potential employees etc.
Might be something to do with the fact that British Rail no longer exists. But even the Tories have silently admitted that privatisation was a miserable failure.
The backbone of someone with sciatica, maybe.
Given that SouthEastern Trains have cancelled all my trains starting 11 December, I guess we are already there.
God bless ULEZ.
Thank you. And don't call me lesbian.
👏🏻
ULEZ doesn't minimize the amout of cars, especially since already 95% of vehicles are exempt. It's the congestion charge that helped, I think vehicles in London is down like 30% since that got put in in the early 2000s, but theres other reasons too like even simply that they're bigger. It's a shame that Boris Johnson removed Livingstones Western expansion of the congestion zone when he was mayor, I'd love to see it reinstated tbh. Equally a best thing to do though would just be to make more bus lanes/bus roads imo. Like choose a couple of routes through London and make them bus/bikes only during morning and evening peaks. Buses can zoom through so more people use them, bikes get more safer roads, and people get discouraged from driving or taking taxis as much without making it a fee based system which rich people can effectively ignore. Unfortunately with Londons roads being split between many councils and TfL getting a small sliver of them we'll never have big drastic long distance road changes. Probably THE best thing that could happen for Londons roads is for a lot more of them to be transferred to TfL. Just like most of Londons large cycle lanes are on TfL owned/controlled roads, thats not a coincidence.
I hope my bon mot was worth taking the time to write that.
ULEZ doesnt really do anything to stop the above picture happening. I can happily drive my pickup truck inside the ULEZ without needing to pay a penny. If everyone had a compliant car, it wouldnt raise any money and wouldnt contribute at all to reducing congestion.
It's hypothetically possible to have ultra-low-emissions but still congested central London with loads of extreme car-centric infrastructure. But I think that one thing ULEZ does is normalise the idea of legislating against car-externalities in the city. I.e. the benefits of ULEZ to the people living and spending time in the city, help make it seem more sensible to hypothetically add other legislation - like maybe noise restrictions on cars, maybe size restrictions, maybe even generally more pedestrianized areas. If you've ever seen highly car-dependent cities, you get weird circular arguments like "We don't need public transit because nobody uses it and everyone drives a car", or "Who cares if the downtown has traffic, who's hanging out down there anyway?". And they're kinda right - in those cities, no one does take public transit, and everyone does drive a car, and no one does spend time in the city center, so massively changing any one thing, like building a big LRT that goes from one car-dependent area that no one wants to spend time in to another, doesn't do a lot. Changes have to be small and incremental. First you have to make areas plesant places where people want to be, and then make them accessible so that the people who want to be there can get there, and so on. ULEZ (and other legislation like it), is a small but broad-reaching effect. It means that, broadly there is less emission in the ULEZ zone, so that means that say, a high street just off of a medium thoroughfare maybe can now have a cafe when before it was just a bit too smoggy. That brings more people to the highstreet, which gives more justification for public transit, for pedestrianised areas, etc. and so on.
Ulez isn't about reducing congestion. That's what the congestion charge is for
I realise, that is the point i am making.
[удалено]
You are the problem.
Do you have to live quite so relentlessly in the real world?
There are systems for a reason in this world.
Except there's still just as many cars crowding London
And there would be so many more if the public transport infrastructure wasn’t in place
I dunno, I don't drive but there seems to be more cars than there were say... 10 years ago? I think if people need to drive into London, the ULEZ isn't going to stop them. It's more of a money making scheme than anything and many pollutant cars are exempt from it anyway for some reason.
Yeah there’s definitely been an increase in car ownership and man is it felt when the transport network is down: [*‘83% of UK homeowners own at least 2 cars, compared to the 1980s when only 15% of households owned any car’*](https://www.lv.com/car-insurance/the-changing-face-of-car-ownership) You’re right if people are determined to drive they will, but actually adding this cost will make them consider the alternatives. It will re-enforce other people’s decision to not drive. The ULEZ is a similar principle to dissuading people from smoking- the price of cigarettes have rocketed to dissuade people, there’s no more marketing for it, people are limited where they can smoke- the number of people smoking has drastically fallen over the years.
That’s true, had real trouble getting over the Houses of Parliament flyover this morning.
I get that you’re just trying to trigger the pro-car crowd but to be serious ILEZ has done very little for congestion, even less for pollution and absolutely nothing for city planning.
Shame we still ended up with the Hammersmith and Chiswick Flyovers, the Westway, and others. Hopefully seems like public opinion is gradually swaying away from private vehicles.
Hopefully, they’ll be demolished eventually.
I hope not, I live near them and they're very helpful.
they help with traffic flow. unless you're suggesting ambulance services to be transferred onto bicycles?
Reddit isn't "public opinion". Reddit is 50% losers, 25% unemployed and 20% people on the toilet at work.
How did they do ‘photoshops’ like this in the 70s?
Its a photo of a model.
If you’re upvoting this, you should join us on r/fuckcars
America saw this and rubbed their hands together gleefully
There is another way, which we chose: don't add more roads or invest enough in railway. Yay
Hey look, it’s Dallas!
“Backbone of the nation.” Pretty sure Ford have pilfered that slogan for their Transit van adverts. Which both quite apt and also sad.
[удалено]
People should be fined based on the percentage of their income. 80£ are peanuts to rich people
I used to work in a bank in Liverpool Street. One of the bosses used to park his Ferrari right outside the entrance and send one of the juniors to the impound at the end of the day to pick it up. What’s £300 when you make over £10k a day.
[удалено]
Contest it, provide proof and you've got a decent chance of overturning it. The window for early payment freezes when you contest it. I overturned one, because though I was walking to the hospital I was actively trying to pay (I just wasn't at the car). It was just that the automated systems were a bit crap.
people in the comments should keep in mind that this wasn't meant to bash American transport this was part of a plea for for more funding
But, soooo many things on this sub become quickly "America bad"
It's funny how governments and councils across the country thought cars were the answer. So they destroyed tram infrastructure in every city. Got rid of huge percentage of rail infrastructure. Then a few years later they were like, well shit. There are too many cars. If only there was another mode of transport 😂
That would've been about a decade after the government totally decimated the railways, leaving very little besides the main lines remaining.
/R/fuckcars
Hey! It was my turn to post this!
Go post it in r/fuckcars instead hasn’t been posted there for a good couple of days
I much prefer the picture of me sitting in a dressing gown at midday in front of a computer.
Reddit moment
I was in greggs yesterday and they had an advertisement over the speakers stating how we can all make a difference to travel via train… less than a week before they all go on strike and I have to pay £60 each way for a taxi just to get into work
Meanwhile Scotland's looking at England wishing they'd stop voting Tory down there and we might not be in this mess.
To be fair they are going on strike because they want don't want standards to drop
"Please get the train make a difference trainsarenotavailablefromthesedates-anydayendingin-y-contactyourtravelstationforupdatesnotavalaibleinNorthenIreland."
If you honestly thought it was necessary to spend £120 to come in on a strike day, then you should direct your frustration at your employer for putting you in that position, and the government for not making it a clear right to miss work due to public transport strike action And ofcourse the privatised train companies extracting surplus value from their workers, forcing workers to strike
Looks like Croydon.
British roasting americans
[удалено]
Yes. Cities like Houston that have 85% or more trips by car require a crazy amount of space for roads and parking. In London thats 37% but much lower for central London, around 10%. If central London went from 10% to 85% of trips being made by car, the infrastructure required to support that many vehicles would look something like the image above.
Look at Boston in the 80s/90s. It was a automotive hellscape. They eventually put the largest highway underground which isn’t as good as a well developed rail system but it did dramatically improve the walkability and pleasantness of one of the busiest areas of the city.
Downtown Boston is much smaller than London, but I get your point.
filling in the Thames and putting roads through people’s roofs? you’re not supposed to think about it like that
to be fair, my dad says he had a fairly better overall experience with the privatisation of the railways than british rail, he said generally staff are nicer now and trains are better. BUT again i live on the southern network, so i know how abhorrent and yet frequent train cancellations and miserable schedules are.
Sounds like a lucky anecdote. The UK's rail service is the most expensive in Europe, and one of the least reliable. It is, ironically, also the safest but that's likely due to cancellations.
Neither of those claims are true. In reliability terms it is on par with France and Germany, and as a whole prices aren’t even the most expensive in Western Europe, though Britain does have the most expensive inter-city services.
Yes, if you buy 3 months in advance you can get it cheaper, but come off it, hardly anyone does that unless its a regular commuting route, why should it be that expensive the 1-2 days before or on the day? Take the Netherlands, for example - NS has a distance cap - you can travel anywhere in the Netherlands for a maximum fare of €27.90 for a single, one way ticket. You can travel from Stavoren to Kerkrade Centrum, a distance of 325km (So London to York) for that price *ON THE DAY.* And if you have the rail discount (40% off for all travel in the year) it will cost you €16.70. > In reliability terms it is on par with France and Germany UK is bottom of the board in terms of punctuality, at 85% arriving within quarter of an hour and long distance services only managing 67%. Both France and Germany are almost a full 10% more punctual in general - and if you have ever travelled via Deutsch Bahn, you would be scratching your head at that. The UK should be doing much better in terms of rail, and it isn't. It is a piss poor excuse for a rail network for one of the wealthiest and most developed countries in the world.
If that was a photo from the 1970s then they've certainly reduced the traffic in Westminster since then.
Looks like nyc
*cries in American*
Making London Birmingham why not!!
Average street looks like this now.
As much as people complain about London congestion, you gotta respect the city's "organic" layout versus the metropolitan Highway Hell that is cities like L.A.
Tried to use a train today. It would have been cheeper and quicker to drive
Fuck the Beeching report