Prague Metro Plans Extension To Airport + New Line

"David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*)" wrote in message
...
Iceman wrote:

On Sep 25, 3:24 pm, Jack Campin - bogus address
wrote:
There are places where the actual end-to-end travel time for rail
is _less_ than for a POV, and that's why rail is successful in
those places.
Certainly in NYC, rail can be faster than using a car for many
people.
Outside of NYC, in the US, the car is typically much faster as shown
by
the Census data.


That's because the mass transit is terrible in most US cities (Boston,
New York, DC and Chicago are the exceptions).

Philadelphia's is pretty good too.

It is in San Fransisco too. It's just that they
chose an over engineered solution to the problem

tim

Iceman wrote:

On Sep 25, 3:24 pm, Jack Campin - bogus address

wrote:
There are places where the actual end-to-end travel time for rail
is _less_ than for a POV, and that's why rail is successful in
those places.
Certainly in NYC, rail can be faster than using a car for many people.
Outside of NYC, in the US, the car is typically much faster as shown by
the Census data.

That's because the mass transit is terrible in most US cities (Boston,
New York, DC and Chicago are the exceptions).

Most US cities are designed with the assumption that every adult will
have a car and a family will have at least two cars, and virtually
ignore the possibilities of transport without private cars. Maybe
there are one or two light rail lines, and a bus network only used by
people too poor to afford cars, but that's it.


That would describe a place like St. Louis. White middle class people
with cars might deign to ride the Metrolink light rail once in a while
as a lark, they absolutely will not even consider riding a bus, "only
poor blacks, etc." will do that.

Even in a well - "transited" place like Chicago (where I live), I've
met a number of folks here in the center city who will absolutely NOT
use public transport in any form, it's considered distinctly low -
rent...they'll ALWAYS drive or take a cab.

And with rising transit fares (bus fares here were/are due to raise to
$2.50 per leg, L fares up to $3.00 per leg) taking a car can be a
cheaper proposition if multiple people are traveling, even when gas
and parking are factored in...



It doesn't have to be that way. It's much more environmentally
friendly and energy efficient to have a city built around mass transit
and to have neighborhoods on pedestrian scale, instead of far-flung
suburbs where the places people live, work, shop, and play are far
away from each other.



Cities aren't "designed" (at least in the US) around much of anything,
let alone mass transit...they generally grow according to commercial
vagaries.


--
Best
Greg

On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:53:22 +0100, Jack Campin - bogus address
wrote:

How do you propose to build a city around mass transit? What
political authority would be needed?

You don't need authority, you just need the transit. London's
"Metroland" is the obvious example of development following the
availability of public transport. Near me, the upmarket Eskbank
suburb of Dalkeith is a smaller one - the place only came into
existence after the railway got there in the late 19th century.
Nobody forced all those doctors and lawyers to build mansions
there, it was suddenly a very appealing place to live if you
worked in Edinburgh. There are similar places on the outskirts
of Glasgow.

Metroland isn't really a city, it's a suburbia. It's more like
Cleveland's Shaker Heights. Both relied on the fact that the jobs
were downtown in the central city. Both relied on transit lines
built by private capital to promote real estate development
outside the city. And both represent a form of urban sprawl.

Metroland is a result of transit built in the latter 19th
century. Exactly what are you proposing for the 21st century? Are
you suggesting that private real estate developers should build
transit lines?

--
************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:56:57 +0100, "tim....."
wrote:


"David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*)" wrote in message
.. .
Iceman wrote:

On Sep 25, 3:24 pm, Jack Campin - bogus address
wrote:
There are places where the actual end-to-end travel time for rail
is _less_ than for a POV, and that's why rail is successful in
those places.
Certainly in NYC, rail can be faster than using a car for many
people.
Outside of NYC, in the US, the car is typically much faster as shown
by
the Census data.


That's because the mass transit is terrible in most US cities (Boston,
New York, DC and Chicago are the exceptions).

Philadelphia's is pretty good too.

It is in San Fransisco too. It's just that they
chose an over engineered solution to the problem

"in San Francisco" it's not over engineered much at all. In fact,
the Metro could use a little more engineering.



--
************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

In article , "Jack May"
wrote:

"Prior to construction, BART projected there would be 17,800 average daily
boardings to and from the airport by the year 2010. During the first year of
operation that began in 2003, there were 5,864 daily boardings, the second
year 6,675, and the third year 7,116. While there has been ridership
growth -- 14 percent after the first year and 7 percent after the second --
it's unlikely the 2010 projection will be met."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...07/08/BART.TMP

The BART people use a $1.5B figure but I think that is only local money and
deletes the Federal funds they received.


I don't go to California unless I absolutely have to.

Didn't the BART airport link wind up being a station way the hell out in
the middle of nowhere, with a link provided by a bus or something like
that?

If so, I'm not sure I would even consider that an "airport service".

Places like Atlanta, London, Chicago, etc. have the trains run right into
the airport terminal building, or into a tunnel under it. In some cases
for me that means that taking the train to the airport was the most
convenient way because it got me right to the terminal without having to
take the shuttle from the parking lot to the terminal.

If you *really* want to discourage transit ridership to the airport, do
what Miami does and make it so that transit riders take a train to some
station way out in the middle of nowhere, then take a bus (which might
sometimes agree with train schedules, but at other times leaves just as
the train is pulling into the "airport" station). Then, to get from the
bus to the terminal, you take an elevator up to an upper level, then take
an automated people mover to the terminal building, where you then take
another elevator to the top level, where there are moving sidewalks to get
you to the proper section of the terminal building, where you then use
several escalators to get to the airline counter you need.

I think they might have been able to discourage more users if you had to
row your own boat across a moat with aligators in it or something along
those lines.

Tell me, even if it were 5 minutes *faster*, if you had to go though a
mess like that would you use the system over the alternative?

--
-Glennl
e-mail hint: add 1 to quantity after gl to get 4317.

On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 15:53:32 -0700, Gregory Morrow
wrote:

Iceman wrote:

On Sep 25, 3:24 pm, Jack Campin - bogus address

wrote:
There are places where the actual end-to-end travel time for rail
is _less_ than for a POV, and that's why rail is successful in
those places.
Certainly in NYC, rail can be faster than using a car for many people.
Outside of NYC, in the US, the car is typically much faster as shown by
the Census data.

That's because the mass transit is terrible in most US cities (Boston,
New York, DC and Chicago are the exceptions).

Most US cities are designed with the assumption that every adult will
have a car and a family will have at least two cars, and virtually
ignore the possibilities of transport without private cars. Maybe
there are one or two light rail lines, and a bus network only used by
people too poor to afford cars, but that's it.


That would describe a place like St. Louis.

Much of St Louis is quite old, andwas "designed" well before
there were many cars about.

[...]

It doesn't have to be that way. It's much more environmentally
friendly and energy efficient to have a city built around mass transit
and to have neighborhoods on pedestrian scale, instead of far-flung
suburbs where the places people live, work, shop, and play are far
away from each other.

Cities aren't "designed" (at least in the US) around much of anything,
let alone mass transit...they generally grow according to commercial
vagaries.

Just like most cities everywhere.

--
************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:02:01 -0700,
) wrote:


I don't go to California unless I absolutely have to.

That's silly. Are you one of those people who think that
California consists of only the LA and Bay Area metro areas?

Didn't the BART airport link wind up being a station way the hell out in
the middle of nowhere, with a link provided by a bus or something like
that?

No. There's a station right in the airport.

If so, I'm not sure I would even consider that an "airport service".

You're welcome to drop that gratuitous comment, since its premise
is wrong. A quick check of the SFO web page would have kept you
from saying such silly things.

Places like Atlanta, London, Chicago, etc. have the trains run right into
the airport terminal building, or into a tunnel under it. In some cases
for me that means that taking the train to the airport was the most
convenient way because it got me right to the terminal without having to
take the shuttle from the parking lot to the terminal.

If you *really* want to discourage transit ridership to the airport, do
what Miami does and make it so that transit riders take a train to some
station way out in the middle of nowhere, then take a bus (which might
sometimes agree with train schedules, but at other times leaves just as
the train is pulling into the "airport" station). Then, to get from the
bus to the terminal, you take an elevator up to an upper level, then take
an automated people mover to the terminal building, where you then take
another elevator to the top level, where there are moving sidewalks to get
you to the proper section of the terminal building, where you then use
several escalators to get to the airline counter you need.

MIA's connection to local transit does indeed suck dirty
swampwater.



--
************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

wrote in message
...
Didn't the BART airport link wind up being a station way the hell out in
the middle of nowhere, with a link provided by a bus or something like
that?

If so, I'm not sure I would even consider that an "airport service".

The BART station is actually on the roof of the terminal building and/or
parking garage. Depending which airline you're flying, you may have a
quarter-mile walk or so; odds are that's the case since BART is in the
"international" terminal, which is the least likely destination for people
arriving on BART. It's quite possibly the worst in-terminal rail connection
I've ever seen. I'd rather get off at the prior station and take a cab --
which is probably cheaper too, given the surcharge for using the airport
station.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking


--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"Stephen Sprunk" wrote in message
.. .
wrote in message
...
Didn't the BART airport link wind up being a station way the hell out in
the middle of nowhere, with a link provided by a bus or something like
that?

If so, I'm not sure I would even consider that an "airport service".

The BART station is actually on the roof of the terminal building and/or
parking garage. Depending which airline you're flying, you may have a
quarter-mile walk or so; odds are that's the case since BART is in the
"international" terminal, which is the least likely destination for people
arriving on BART. It's quite possibly the worst in-terminal rail
connection I've ever seen. I'd rather get off at the prior station and
take a cab -- which is probably cheaper too, given the surcharge for
using the airport station.

What for 1 dollar seventy cents.

US taxis must be cheap, It will cost you more than
that in London just to get in one and go nowhere.

tim

On Sep 25, 6:53 pm, Gregory Morrow
wrote:
Iceman wrote:
It doesn't have to be that way. It's much more environmentally
friendly and energy efficient to have a city built around mass transit
and to have neighborhoods on pedestrian scale, instead of far-flung
suburbs where the places people live, work, shop, and play are far
away from each other.

Cities aren't "designed" (at least in the US) around much of anything,
let alone mass transit...they generally grow according to commercial
vagaries.


Maybe that was the case for cities that developed before 1900, but for
cities that have mostly grown more recently, deliberate policy choices
make them the way they are - whether dense development is allowed,
whether residential and commercial areas are allowed to be mixed,
construction of rail lines versus highways.