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Post by Mighty Attack Tribble on Jan 11, 2024 2:22:22 GMT -5
And, as if the gods of public transport were ired by my earlier post, the bus I am currently travelling on has developed a mechanical fault and is limping along at a literal walking pace to the next stop where it will stop and let us wait for its replacement.
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Post by Jaws the Shark on Jan 11, 2024 8:24:24 GMT -5
Relatively speaking it's pretty good and well connected, by train I can be in central London in twenty minutes, Birmingham in probably about two hours, Oxford in just over an hour, and so on and so forth. The problem with London's rail service is that it basically all spiders out from the centre, so it's easier for me to get to central London than to places that are actually closer to where I live because it's just one train going one way as opposed to having to go into the centre and then back out again.
The bus service, although far better than proper rural areas, is pretty f***ing dire, and everything is massively overpriced.
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schma
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Post by schma on Jan 11, 2024 12:51:31 GMT -5
The public transit in my city is the reason I own a car.
I'm all for a robust transit system, it helps everyone including drivers as it removes traffic congestion among many other benefits. The problem is, too many people in power here try to treat it like a business that should be profiting rather than a service. I don't think any public transit anywhere is profitable. The benefits of it don't show up on a spreadsheet. Really though, I wish out transit was better but they never seem to get it right when they overhaul routes.
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Allie Kitsune
Crow T. Robot
Always Feelin' Foxy.
HaHa U FaLL 4 LaVa TriK
Posts: 46,162
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Post by Allie Kitsune on Jan 11, 2024 12:57:47 GMT -5
Not in a major city, so it's pretty meh.
The counties in this area have their own bus systems, but they're not the most convenient, especially after they rolled back how many times they run after 2020, and they have trouble staying solvent.
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FinalGwen
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Particularly fond of muffins.
Posts: 16,435
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Post by FinalGwen on Jan 11, 2024 13:13:10 GMT -5
I'm just outside London so have a rather amazing system nearby, but I'm on one of the far branches of it, so it's a bit more awkward around my area if one or two lines are affected by engineering/strikes etc.
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Post by Hot Noodle Truck on Jan 11, 2024 19:20:00 GMT -5
Chicago has pretty good transportation options, to the point where I don't really need a car to get around which is nice. When I lived in upper NY it was awful, very few bus routes, no trains, no subway. Despite all the negatives you hear about the area, I love it here in Chicago.
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Post by Mighty Attack Tribble on Jan 12, 2024 2:49:48 GMT -5
As someone who apparently travelled almost 12,000 miles by rail last year the trains are generally pretty good (the strikes that have been ongoing for the last 15 months notwithstanding). Plot twist:
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Post by simplydurhamcalling on Jan 12, 2024 4:08:54 GMT -5
As someone who apparently travelled almost 12,000 miles by rail last year the trains are generally pretty good (the strikes that have been ongoing for the last 15 months notwithstanding). Plot twist: It will be different at your end but the trains in the North have been a disaster post-pandemic, just Google Transpennine Express news 🤣 The real fun of our privatised system is that when your train is cancelled you should be able to use other operators without further charge, however this operator has been refusing to compensate the other operators picking up the slack so they are now making you buy a brand new ticket at an inflated cost on the day. Buses are still too unreliable and more and more infrequent, there was also a capped single ticket fee of £2 introduced which sounds great, however the operators simply moved all single tickets to £2 including the shortest journeys which would previously have been much cheaper.
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Post by Mighty Attack Tribble on Jan 12, 2024 4:58:39 GMT -5
The real fun of our privatised system is that when your train is cancelled you should be able to use other operators without further charge, however this operator has been refusing to compensate the other operators picking up the slack so they are now making you buy a brand new ticket at an inflated cost on the day. Buses are still too unreliable and more and more infrequent, there was also a capped single ticket fee of £2 introduced which sounds great, however the operators simply moved all single tickets to £2 including the shortest journeys which would previously have been much cheaper. Yeah, I've got a couple of friends up north and both of them wound up buying cars as they were a) more reliable, and b) working out cheaper over the course of the year. Fortunately the £2 single bus fares aren't so cynically handled here. A £1.20 fare before the scheme is still £1.20 now, which is actually quite surprising considering Stagecoach's less-than-sterling reputation.
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Post by Cvslfc123 on Jan 12, 2024 7:28:50 GMT -5
I live in North West London so have the tube and a lot of buses. My nearest tube station has two different train lines running through it meaning I can be in Central London in 30 minutes. Like all Londoners I complain about the service of public transport until I go somewhere in the country where public transport is non existent.
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Post by Hobby Drifter on Jan 12, 2024 8:01:44 GMT -5
I live in Tokyo, so I’d argue that the public transportation is some of the best in the world.
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Nr1Humanoid
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Posts: 5,511
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Post by Nr1Humanoid on Jan 12, 2024 13:04:57 GMT -5
It is excellent. The city is only 6 square miles and has both a university and a police academy so until 4pm the buses goes every 10 minutes and every 20 otherwise. Individual prizes are expensive but weekly and monthly is very affordable. The buses are of the highest quality and all electric. They thankfully have seatbelts.
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Post by Wolf Hawkfield no1 NZ poster on Jan 13, 2024 2:16:32 GMT -5
Its f***ing shit.
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Post by AwamoriRock on Jan 13, 2024 3:37:58 GMT -5
I live in Japan—it’s excellent and super reliable, almost cannot imagine not having it as a guy from LA
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Post by doomish on Jan 13, 2024 9:01:52 GMT -5
I live out in the sticks in the American south. Public transportation/Uber/Lyft/etc. does not exist in any form.
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Post by HMARK Center on Jan 13, 2024 12:03:26 GMT -5
On the New Jersey side directly across from Manhattan, here, and it's...well, ok, it's good, but we're in America, so it's limited on how good it can be, given the poor choices we've made as a country since at least the 1940s and our insistence on car dependency.
I'm in Jersey City, NJ, and live a decent walk away from downtown, but I can also just walk a few blocks down the street from my place to a light rail station, hop the tram, and get either to Hoboken train station or Jersey City's downtown pretty quickly - the Hoboken train station connects to NJ Transit, which runs to various suburbs outside the Hudson county nodes, and both it and downtown Jersey City offer fairly quick jaunts to the PATH trains, run by the NY/NJ Port Authority, which run 24 hours a day and connect Newark, Jersey City, and Hoboken with stops in Manhattan up to 33rd street (right by the big Macy's where the Thanksgiving parade happens).
Additionally, I live directly across the street from two different NJ Transit bus stops, one going each way. The bus system is alright, but only if you're traveling in the fairly immediate area; I'll ride a bus to the Port Authority bus terminal and transfer to the 7 line to get out to Queens for Mets games (or once a year for Dynamite Grand Slam), and I can take a bus going the other way to get to Journal Square, which'll let me ride directly to Newark's Penn Station (no, not the NYC one) if I'm going to Devils games.
There's also Citibike around town, a service where you can rent a bike that has some pedal-generated power in it that allows it to travel pretty damn fast; it's not a lot of fun riding it on the busy street where my place is, but it's definitely a nice choice for getting around the area. The city has tried expanding its bike lanes in recent years, but I'd argue hasn't done nearly enough to make it all the way serviceable, but at least the option is there.
There are definitely problems, though: both of my jobs are outside of where I live, and both in suburbs. Both have train lines that run near them, but those lines aren't quick and accessible to me, at least not enough that it makes sense for me to give up my car. To put it one way, my weekend job is about a 20 minute car ride from my home, but if I tried to get there via a combination of trains and buses it'd take me 40-80 minutes to arrive, depending on what's available on what day, and I work early as hell on Sunday so there might be next to nothing running. My main job during the week, similar story: sure, I could get a train to Newark and ride a bus from there, but the trip would be a minimum of 75 minutes, more likely closer to 100 - meantime, in my car it's 25 minutes in light traffic, rarely more than 45 if it's bad. It's asinine for a place as densely populated as this to not have better options to reach places that, as the crow flies, are 5-10 miles away.
Other problem: while the PATH trains and NJ Transit buses run 24 hours, holy hell does service slow down fairly early in the evening, like around 10pm or so, so getting home from a Devils game is a longer proposition than getting to one. Hell, the NJ Transit trains stop running at a certain point, so if you're too late in NYC or something one night, depending on where you live you could essentially be stranded. Even the famed NYC metro system becomes a drag like that; using that Mets reference above, getting back from a game that, god forbid, ends after 10pm can be brutal...or, shit, again, going to Dynamite Grand Slam and wanting to see Rampage means staying til after midnight, at which point you'll be waiting for aaaaaages. It was a bit easier when I was living in downtown Jersey City, but moving a neighborhood away has definitely lengthened a lot of the waits and transfers.
Basically, I get to live in probably the most densely populated area of the country, within a city itself, directly connected with the country's largest city...and I still feel like I can't really go without my car on a regular basis. Sucks. So it's better than most of the rest of the country, I'm sure, given that America is a wasteland when it comes to public transit, but damn could it still be much better.
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schma
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Post by schma on Jan 13, 2024 12:46:10 GMT -5
On the New Jersey side directly across from Manhattan, here, and it's...well, ok, it's good, but we're in America, so it's limited on how good it can be, given the poor choices we've made as a country since at least the 1940s and our insistence on car dependency. I'm in Jersey City, NJ, and live a decent walk away from downtown, but I can also just walk a few blocks down the street from my place to a light rail station, hop the tram, and get either to Hoboken train station or Jersey City's downtown pretty quickly - the Hoboken train station connects to NJ Transit, which runs to various suburbs outside the Hudson county nodes, and both it and downtown Jersey City offer fairly quick jaunts to the PATH trains, run by the NY/NJ Port Authority, which run 24 hours a day and connect Newark, Jersey City, and Hoboken with stops in Manhattan up to 33rd street (right by the big Macy's where the Thanksgiving parade happens). Additionally, I live directly across the street from two different NJ Transit bus stops, one going each way. The bus system is alright, but only if you're traveling in the fairly immediate area; I'll ride a bus to the Port Authority bus terminal and transfer to the 7 line to get out to Queens for Mets games (or once a year for Dynamite Grand Slam), and I can take a bus going the other way to get to Journal Square, which'll let me ride directly to Newark's Penn Station (no, not the NYC one) if I'm going to Devils games. There's also Citibike around town, a service where you can rent a bike that has some pedal-generated power in it that allows it to travel pretty damn fast; it's not a lot of fun riding it on the busy street where my place is, but it's definitely a nice choice for getting around the area. The city has tried expanding its bike lanes in recent years, but I'd argue hasn't done nearly enough to make it all the way serviceable, but at least the option is there. There are definitely problems, though: both of my jobs are outside of where I live, and both in suburbs. Both have train lines that run near them, but those lines aren't quick and accessible to me, at least not enough that it makes sense for me to give up my car. To put it one way, my weekend job is about a 20 minute car ride from my home, but if I tried to get there via a combination of trains and buses it'd take me 40-80 minutes to arrive, depending on what's available on what day, and I work early as hell on Sunday so there might be next to nothing running. My main job during the week, similar story: sure, I could get a train to Newark and ride a bus from there, but the trip would be a minimum of 75 minutes, more likely closer to 100 - meantime, in my car it's 25 minutes in light traffic, rarely more than 45 if it's bad. It's asinine for a place as densely populated as this to not have better options to reach places that, as the crow flies, are 5-10 miles away. Other problem: while the PATH trains and NJ Transit buses run 24 hours, holy hell does service slow down fairly early in the evening, like around 10pm or so, so getting home from a Devils game is a longer proposition than getting to one. Hell, the NJ Transit trains stop running at a certain point, so if you're too late in NYC or something one night, depending on where you live you could essentially be stranded. Even the famed NYC metro system becomes a drag like that; using that Mets reference above, getting back from a game that, god forbid, ends after 10pm can be brutal...or, shit, again, going to Dynamite Grand Slam and wanting to see Rampage means staying til after midnight, at which point you'll be waiting for aaaaaages. It was a bit easier when I was living in downtown Jersey City, but moving a neighborhood away has definitely lengthened a lot of the waits and transfers. Basically, I get to live in probably the most densely populated area of the country, within a city itself, directly connected with the country's largest city...and I still feel like I can't really go without my car on a regular basis. Sucks. So it's better than most of the rest of the country, I'm sure, given that America is a wasteland when it comes to public transit, but damn could it still be much better. This is the big thing for me the difference between bus and car times. The amount of time for me to get to work on transit used to be 60 minutes, then they changed the routes and now it's closer to 90 minutes because they added a transfer and buses only run every 30 minutes. At the same time it takes me just under 10 minutes in the car. 15 if the traffic is bad. The first time I got a ride home my internal monologue asked "are you f***ing kidding me?"
Even going to the mall is roughly a 5 minute drive. By bus I have to go downtown then transfer so it's at least 30 minutes. Also, our bus system stops at midnight during the week and 6pm on Sundays and holidays. That means that working night shift, I would have no way to get to work on Sunday night.
Not only that, our city has two bus hubs, downtown and the university (with a half hub at the mall). Great if you're a student. Terrible if you're in the north end trying to get in the south end or vice versa because it means multiple transfers in a system with buses only running every 30 minutes and poorly designed for transfers.
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Post by Cyno on Jan 13, 2024 12:56:41 GMT -5
On the New Jersey side directly across from Manhattan, here, and it's...well, ok, it's good, but we're in America, so it's limited on how good it can be, given the poor choices we've made as a country since at least the 1940s and our insistence on car dependency. I'm in Jersey City, NJ, and live a decent walk away from downtown, but I can also just walk a few blocks down the street from my place to a light rail station, hop the tram, and get either to Hoboken train station or Jersey City's downtown pretty quickly - the Hoboken train station connects to NJ Transit, which runs to various suburbs outside the Hudson county nodes, and both it and downtown Jersey City offer fairly quick jaunts to the PATH trains, run by the NY/NJ Port Authority, which run 24 hours a day and connect Newark, Jersey City, and Hoboken with stops in Manhattan up to 33rd street (right by the big Macy's where the Thanksgiving parade happens). Additionally, I live directly across the street from two different NJ Transit bus stops, one going each way. The bus system is alright, but only if you're traveling in the fairly immediate area; I'll ride a bus to the Port Authority bus terminal and transfer to the 7 line to get out to Queens for Mets games (or once a year for Dynamite Grand Slam), and I can take a bus going the other way to get to Journal Square, which'll let me ride directly to Newark's Penn Station (no, not the NYC one) if I'm going to Devils games. There's also Citibike around town, a service where you can rent a bike that has some pedal-generated power in it that allows it to travel pretty damn fast; it's not a lot of fun riding it on the busy street where my place is, but it's definitely a nice choice for getting around the area. The city has tried expanding its bike lanes in recent years, but I'd argue hasn't done nearly enough to make it all the way serviceable, but at least the option is there. There are definitely problems, though: both of my jobs are outside of where I live, and both in suburbs. Both have train lines that run near them, but those lines aren't quick and accessible to me, at least not enough that it makes sense for me to give up my car. To put it one way, my weekend job is about a 20 minute car ride from my home, but if I tried to get there via a combination of trains and buses it'd take me 40-80 minutes to arrive, depending on what's available on what day, and I work early as hell on Sunday so there might be next to nothing running. My main job during the week, similar story: sure, I could get a train to Newark and ride a bus from there, but the trip would be a minimum of 75 minutes, more likely closer to 100 - meantime, in my car it's 25 minutes in light traffic, rarely more than 45 if it's bad. It's asinine for a place as densely populated as this to not have better options to reach places that, as the crow flies, are 5-10 miles away. Other problem: while the PATH trains and NJ Transit buses run 24 hours, holy hell does service slow down fairly early in the evening, like around 10pm or so, so getting home from a Devils game is a longer proposition than getting to one. Hell, the NJ Transit trains stop running at a certain point, so if you're too late in NYC or something one night, depending on where you live you could essentially be stranded. Even the famed NYC metro system becomes a drag like that; using that Mets reference above, getting back from a game that, god forbid, ends after 10pm can be brutal...or, shit, again, going to Dynamite Grand Slam and wanting to see Rampage means staying til after midnight, at which point you'll be waiting for aaaaaages. It was a bit easier when I was living in downtown Jersey City, but moving a neighborhood away has definitely lengthened a lot of the waits and transfers. Basically, I get to live in probably the most densely populated area of the country, within a city itself, directly connected with the country's largest city...and I still feel like I can't really go without my car on a regular basis. Sucks. So it's better than most of the rest of the country, I'm sure, given that America is a wasteland when it comes to public transit, but damn could it still be much better. Yeah, that's easily the worst part about NJ Transit: the amount of trains and busses running just nosedive later at night and on the weekends. I get it's mostly because NJT, busses especially, is used primarily for commuting. Still sucks for anyone relying on public transportation, though.
And it still amazes me how the subway system of the "City That Never Sleeps" just... goes to sleep though lol. Wonder if that's the same for other world cities with great public subway/train systems like Tokyo or if it's a uniquely American thing.
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Soultastic
El Dandy
Only an idiot can be completely happy.
Posts: 7,865
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Post by Soultastic on Jan 13, 2024 13:49:29 GMT -5
Hellishly disorganized and insecure as f***.
You do get to places relatively fast tho, since most buses just show up whenever.
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