At school these days I am taking a class called, “The Geography of Toronto”, and it has proven to be super interesting.
Last lecture the prof was talking about how 20 years ago Toronto used to be a model for public transport, and people from all over would come to study the subway and streetcar system
Today, though, the system is commonly known as outdated.
Thinking about this, I have become pretty angry at how unreliable the TTC here in Toronto has become.
Just this month we got an apparently state of the art ‘next train countdown’ at one of the most heavily used stations.
In days when public transport is becoming increasingly important, how has your city (or not) adjusted for extra public transport passengers, and how happy are you with the current system?
lol, You should check Brazilian system to have a model of what you SHOULD NOT be:
You can try the subways too:
That happens everyday about 6am to 9am and 6pm to 11pm… SUCKS…
In the middle of the 21 century we are in this sh$%t! I hope our new major will try something new. We are in the middle of a election but 320 milions were invested last week in subways, so we can expect something good soon
Calgary Transport is okay. It’s usable, but it’s very slow. After going to vancouver, where the sky train comes once every two minutes, It feel pretty shitty.
The bus system in Brighton is quite good but very expensive. The bus drivers however are homicidal loons. The head of the police force recently criticised Brighton’s bus and taxi drivers for their dangerous driving and doing lovely things like accelerating at pedestrians and cyclists.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had buses and taxi’s doing stupid things while I’ve been cycling.
I think we have the highest pedetrian and cyclist traffic accident rate in the country.
When Owen was visiting from Montreal he couldn’t get over how intimidating the roads here are and was amazed that I use 125’s on my coker and haven’t been killed yet.
The UK’s rail system is a joke. An expensive joke. If I were to buy a ticket to get to Macclesfield tomorrow it would easily cost over a hundred pounds. I can fly to pretty much anywhere in Europe for less than that.
Our public transport has been privatised in the most short sighted way possible. The rail companies run on seven year contracts. As a result they do not bother investing in infrastructure. Instead they work to make as much money out of us as possible in the seven years they’re in control of their network and leave the infrastructure to crumble leading to accidents. Meanwhile the government still hands them massive subsidies and gains nothing in return.
Could those commenting on their public transport also state whether their systems are publicly owned or privatised so we can guage whether privatised or nationalised systems work more efficiently?
Hmph. All of you who have access to any subway, tram, train, streetcar, ferry, gondola, monorail, or other comprehensive public transport system should count yourselves fortunate.
Public transportation in my city is limited to a few buses. (They’re privately owned, in response to MrBoogiejuice.)
our city isn´t that big (about 32 000 people) and i´m quiet happy with it, we´re having enough busses, which drive on friday and saturday night, too, so you can go to the cinema or disko by bus, and a station for trains to come to other bigger cities…
Our City was recently awarded platinum status as far as bike friendliness goes, and our public transit is the only way I get around town pretty much. I really like it they even have a web site trimet.org where you can plan your route, see arival times for the next max train, street car, or bus, and they even have route maps up on the site. it’s a REALLY nice system and they’re constantly updating it. it’s privately owned and currently costing me $26US per month for a transit pass that can be used on any bus/streetcar/max in the city(or neighbooring cities linked to by our transit system) the web site even has the fares up if anybody bothers to look.
What REALLY pisses me off about the Toronto transit system is the separate lines that completely screw me over.
I’m in thornhill, just north of Toronto. We have a york region transit system. An 8 minute bike ride for me gets me to the closest TTC bus that will take me to finch station. The YRT buses could take me there but I’d have to pay another fare for them.
This is gonna suck balls in the winter. I don’t know if I’ll just bite the bullet and pay double (2 tickets each way, one to get to the TTC line one the rest of the way downtown to U of T) or do my best to ride my bike or unicycle (if I’m good enough and get a studded tire) during the winter to the TTC line.
Mr. Tak, I have been to St. Petersburg on more than one occasion and it may surprising for you to learn that I enjoyed the comprehensive infrastructure that that second largest city in Russia had to offer: busses, trums, trolleybusses, taxis and extensive undeground network will get you to any place you want within the city limits.
Kit, I didn’t notice any aggressive traffic drivers when I was in Brighton. I wonder whether I didn’t pay attention or I was used to idiotic Cyprus drivers. But I do remember having at least two completely loony bus drivers while I was in England. One in Brighton, one in Devon.
On the subject of public transport in my city: very poor. The only two options are buses and taxis. Buses come every hour or so and only stop at a few bus stops. There are only a few lines too, so it’s much easier to walk(unless you get a heatstroke). Buses were quite cheap last time I checked. Taxis can take you anywhere, but are definitely more expensive. If you want to go to another city, you can call a special taxi van which takes many people at the same time. It can pick you up from any place within city limits and drop you off at any place within the city of your destination. The price of that is quite cheap, around 8 or 9 euros. Now, I think the buses are public and taxis and service(intercity) taxis are privately owned, but I’m not sure.
They are always writing about poor public transport in newspapers and there are always some grand plans of improving it, but I haven’t seen any changes in the last six years. So there.
Oh, and bus stops are often used as parking spaces.
Transport: a means of conveying people or goods - for example a bus, lorry or train.
Transportation: a punishment for criminals who are transported to a distant colony and forced to do hard physical labour. Britain transported criminals to Australia dn parts of America, often for crimes like stealing a single loaf of bread.
[B]Public /B in public, openly visible to the public.
Public transportation: a right wing populist measure if ever I heard of one.
The public transport here is ok i suppose, the buses are normally driven my grumpy old men who over charge you every time, but the school bus drivers are worse… I swear only half of them have a licence they’re that terrible at driving ( we had an entire journey in second or third gear, and it took him ages to find the gears too!)
The trains are killers for fares, but if you dont pay theyre quite nice
But, being England there are people queing at every stop, delays, drivers that drive right past you so you have to walk home instead and people moaning about everything. But atleast they accept unicycles.
Los Angeles has a decent public transportation system but most people don’t use it because it takes forever to get anywhere. Our subway system has very limited stops so is virtually useless unless you are going from someplace near a stop to someplace near a stop, so buses are the main option but the buses are often completely packed and have to refuse passengers. Luckily I live 3 blocks from a subway station so anytime I’m going anywhere that is near a station I take the subway, but most of the time I drive. That’s L.A. for you though it’s car city, everything is spread out.
So it’s not great at getting you anywhere quickly but at least it’s possible to get anywhere you need to go within a huge metro area.
yeah, but you didn’t read did you… OVER CHARGED I hate it when bus drivers do that then say they didn’t when the prices are labled on the windows I know that I’m only supposed to be charged £1.80 rip off instead of £2.40 or what ever it is now.
In general, mass transit is effective (costwise and usefulness) in proportion to the population density of an area. Though somewhat dense, the Los Angeles area is huge. The sheer space makes it hard to have a really effective transit system. London and New York, on the other hand, are very dense and not so big, so it’s easy for transit to be a lot more effective (and sensible).
California in general (were I live) has been built to make it hard to do mass transit. Most places are just too spread out, so transit systems are more expensive, while still serving less people. It’s hard. I live in Sacramento, where we have buses and a light rail system. I’ve never ridden the light rail, because there are no stops near me. If there were, and corresponding stops near where I needed to go, I probably would. But the system still appears to be under-used. Recently they extended one of the lines all the way to downtown Folsom, which helped a lot of people there to not need to commute downtown. But it still does no help at all to the people in neighboring Orangevale, for instance.
Currently we have a proposition we are voting on, about a bond system for building a high speed rail system to connect California’s major cities (Prop 1). It’s a great idea. America is way, way behind Europe, for instance, in rail travel. But this is a much larger country and building the infrastructure will be really expensive. This proposal is for about ten billion dollars over 30 years, but does not include a lot of details. A system would be built section by section, initially trying to connect LA with San Francisco (I think).
That’s great. But will it help anyone get to work faster? No. Once the San Fran to Sacramento section is built it will help a bunch, but still, most of us commute within a metro area, not city to city. So I’m voting No on that one as I’d rather see the same money spent toward improving transit within each major metro area.
I know that I’m only supposed to be charged £1.80 rip off instead of £2.40 or what ever it is now.