Fun fact about the original Sim City: the lead developer said that they wanted to model real cities in the game, but “we quickly realized there were way too many parking lots in the real world and that our game was going to be really boring if it was proportional in terms of parking lots.”
There was a similar issue with Cities Skylines. When they tried to put a realistic amount of parking lot space for modern US cities in, the simulation would have the cities quickly decay and collapse. It was just too much room and distance required to support the parking area. It cost too much and the travel times were too high due to the expanded city distances.
They took out the real parking and made cute little lots instead so the game would stay viable.
Of course, our real city leadership most ignores this warning and says “let’s add more parking and lanes for those ever larger vehicles!” My city’s downtown is about 30% dedicated to off street parking and there’s moves afoot to increase the number of they can knock down a few more buildings to make space.
Oh, and we declared a parking garage an official city historical site. That one’s a little on the nose.
The images on the steam page make it look graphically similar to something like rct2 and I love that. Definitely gonna have to wishlist and check it out in the future.
Are they also protesting the frieght trains that are often heavier and noisier? Or just the trains that let “poor people” get around?
Every rail in an urban area near me has signs saying not to block the track. Every crossing on a busy road has lights and crossing bars. Every low traffic crossing has warning signs and a STOP before crossing.
These signs are for drivers, drivers are trained to recognize them and they resemble all the other road signs drivers are expected to follow.
If your area is using similar signage then this is 100% on negligent drivers. If they replace that rail with a road are drivers just going to run the red or gridlock the intersection like they currently treat the rail crossing?
I wasn’t aware of any complaints about the trains for years prior to the passenger rail company joining in; it was only when trains carrying people entered the picture that the protesting began claiming that these trains are unsafe and unwanted, but the arguments I’ve seen on signs etc. aren’t related to passenger rail specifically. Perhaps the passenger rail stoked fears that the rail traffic would expand further.
Every railroad crossing is clearly marked, with multiple redundant flashing signals and moving barriers that get directly in the driver LOS. I’ve seen drivers push through the barriers to squeeze just ahead of or behind a moving train a handful of times in the past five years, but that’s about the same number of blatant red light runners I’ve seen in the same.
The more I see shit like this, the more I believe gas-guzzler NIMBYs deserve to be beaten in the mouth with a brick honestly. I’m literally medically unable to drive. If I seize up behind the wheel, which is a likelihood because my seizures have been getting worse lately, I might cause a whole-assed pileup knowing my luck; so the only way I get to travel other than spending exorbitant amounts of money on Ubers and Lyfts (which keeps me quite frequently homebound) is planes and trains. And the nearest train stations are like. 75 and 100 miles away.
Specifically because of NIMBYs kvetching about “oh wah, the noise, oh wah, it might hit my car, oh wah, not in MY backyard!” Nah fuck that I got a brick for your window if you’re getting in the way of public transit.
It wouldn’t. Nor would it be unsafe. These property value fuckers are not just obnoxious but also really stupid.
There’s a neighborhood in my city right next to a light rail station. Literally, some of the houses are less than 20m from the platform. But when the station was being built the neighborhood association specifically campaigned against having any access to the station from the neighborhood. There’s a huge concrete wall blocking it off now. So if the people living in the houses literally directly next to the station wanted to get to the station they’d have to walk (or realistically, drive) over 2km across a highway, along a major road and through busy parking lots. And then, after getting to the station, they’d have to cross back under the highway to get to the actual train platform, because it’s built on their side of the highway despite being impossible to get to from that side.
@henfredemars@buckykat Nope. Both homebuyers and apartment developers are willing to pay a premium for high quality transit access, especially rail. Unless the rail service is really inconvenient and unreliable, it would substantially raise their precious property values, should they want to sell and move further out in the exurbs because they’re afraid of people who aren’t encased in SUVs.
@henfredemars@buckykat@PedestrianError exactly. 100% would raise property values. Wherever you go, if other things are roughly equal, closer to the train station is more 💰 💵 💴
Big oil and big auto have people convinced that it isn’t true, same with new apartments. Decades and billions of dollars to convince Americans that density is for poor people (even though its the dense places where property values skyrocket) and cars are the only acceptable transit because you don’t want to share space with a poor, do you?
Does the mayor own a car dealership? For us, it is the county judge and so we have no public transit. Why would people buy from his Lexus dealership if the bus could get them where they needed to go? It’s insanity.
A quick search says while the mayor is wealthy, I couldn’t find any information on business assets. I think this comes more from a culture clash or crisis of identity that makes the train look dangerous.
Frankly if you don’t get that a train is going to come down the rails and hit you if you park there then you deserve to get eliminated from the gene pool.
100%! The arguments I heard against building the station were asinine. The logic just doesn’t follow. For example, the train is dangerous to children? Well how about the actual highway that runs next to the track? Clearly that’s not a threat or dangerous to residents in any way. As we all know, cars are perfectly safe. One little girl gets hit by the train and we ignore all the deaths of the children from auto accidents. The rail is overwhelmingly safer.
I’ve lived in this town for quite a long time and it’s a common occurrence to see cars stopped on the train tracks. While we have plenty of idiots, I can hardly blame the train if a car gets hit. It should always be the fault of the vehicle.
It infuriates me to my bones how Americans specifically think about driving vs. other modes of transportation.
$34B to repair a quarter-mile long stretch of highway? What the hey, it’s not our money (Narrator: it was, at least partially).
$10M to add bike lanes to a busy road with one of the highest crash fatality statistics in my city that’s basically a highway? REEEE NOT IN MY BACKYARD!
My stupid town hasn’t even succeeded in preventing the train from passing through. They just don’t want a station here so no one can benefit from the train. What a stupid stupid policy.
If people could take it, they might realize that cars are actually one of the worst modes of transportation ever invented by humanity. That would be unacceptable to the auto industry.
My city had Amtrak back in the 70s or something and it came back a few years ago. The common thread I see around here is “I caught an hour delay one time so never again!”
Never mind that they get held up for hours every other time they travel on the highway, that’s just part of it, I guess? Enjoy sitting there burning gas I’ll just take a nap 🤷
Even worse, those same people come home from their commute and immediately pour themselves a drink or kvetch to their partners about how bad the commute was. I mean… you cannot convince me that ANYONE likes sitting in traffic, it’s just anathema to the human mind.
Also the fact that the vast majority of our remaining rails are owned by private freight companies that get to make up silly rules like passenger trains having to pull over for ridiculously long and slow freight trains to pass them.
Yeah, passenger trains pretty much have no choice if there is a 2 mile freight train, a single track, and a short siding. The passenger train has to pull off and wait. There really need to be something like financial penalties for the rail carrier every time that happens. Something to make extremely long trains uneconomical.
One thing they’ve been working on in my neck of the woods on the Amtrak Cascades line is passenger train only track that runs in the same right-of-way. I’m not sure exactly how it works, but I assume that passenger trains run on it by default and switch to the freight rail or sidings when there is a passenger train going the other way. The Seattle-Portland leg is already congested between freight and passenger traffic. Additional track should aid on time performance for the eventual target of 13 round trips per day. They also got the line rerouted off a single track route that was a serious bottleneck.
Sure, and all of that should be tended to, but it doesn’t make massive delays an absolute or change that driving can be just as unreliable but gets this mental loophole even though people bitch about it constantly.
Absolutely. I was hearing that Switzerland has excellent on time performance, to the point where 5 minutes is considered late (and that happens infrequently). For comparison, Amtrak uses a 15 minute threshold for lateness. This accuracy, the “integrated timetable” strategy that syncs trains with other trains and transportation modes, and frequent service allow for tight transfer times.
Because those aren’t the actual arguments they respond to, just the face of the arguments. The real argument is that the car is an extension of the self. They should be able to drive anywhere, park anywhere, drive anything, without fear (Traffic deaths are unavoidable and unremarkable), judgment (I drive a Tesla, I’m saving the earth!), or undue cost (gas and maintenance. Sometimes tolls.) except for that which they’ve already internalized.
Public transport is by definition collective. The train is not an extension of you. It is a thing we all collectively benefit from. It isn’t tailored to your specific tastes. It doesn’t go 0-60 faster than Joe Nextdoor’s train. Everyone pays the same, you can’t show off how fancy your ticket is.
Some kid killed on the tracks is the fault of the train, because the driver could have been any of us. We are relatable people. The train is an unrelatable, unaccountable “us” that Americans will never, ever choose over their ideal “me.”
I appreciate the thoughtful response. I think I understand that the vehicle is connected deeply with identity, but no one’s threatening to take away their vehicles. I’m surprised that public transportation is taken so personally.
If you don’t like the train, you don’t have to take the train. But, that’s not enough. They don’t want the train to be available to me either. It’s weird. It’s taken one step further into a fuck you I’ve got mine attitude.
The train is an unrelatable, unaccountable “us” that Americans will never, ever choose over their ideal “me.”
I think, with this breakdown, you’ve skewered the dark, dessicated heart of why I cannot fucking STAND Amerikans anymore; because I’m learning from bitter, hateful experience just how little they give a fuck for people who are medically barred from the kinds of lifestyles they want. Do you know how badly I wish I could get back behind a wheel and NOT fear for taking lives because I started dissociating on the highway?
In places with good transit, you actually can show off a fancy ticket. Some rail offers first class flight type of accommodations which can include more leg/seat room, comfier seating, a meal, and other amenities.
What my mother did was start a campaign to get people to practice common sense and safety around trains. Our family doesn't blame the train at all - We instead got better crossing safety put in place and helped get more awareness that train tracks are stabilized in cities to minimize noise and that horns are directed outwards, so a train is quieter head on than you think, ie look both ways before you cross
Like, if my own family can get that, then why can't these anti train fucks?
It isn’t about logic, it is about preventing the station which prevents the denser developments that come with it and prevents people from living in those developments. These protesters mostly want to preserve (read increase) their property values while preserving the “character of the neighbourhood” (read if you don’t already live here, you don’t belong).
We need those denser deployments: we have a growing population, a homeless problem, and a lack of affordable housing. This is even ignoring the traffic issues on the nearby highways. It’s bad, but the message to me is clearly that we don’t want to solve any of these problems.
If a pedestrian is on a cross walk, the bigger mass should be required to stop to let the pedestrian cross safely.
It is the responsibility of the driver to ensure an intersection is clear before crossing it. A crosswalk is an intersection and a pedestrian is foot traffic.
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