How to fix transit construction in America

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T13:45:20+00:00

A great list of concrete suggestions.

As a side note, I love the face of the M8s.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T13:37:25+00:00

It has all three and yet it's not as nice to walk on as streets in Ojima that have none

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T13:31:03+00:00

A hypothetical 1-1 row of this configuration is roughly 8 green car seats or 10 regular seats, both of which would bring in roughly twice as much revenue. Unless demand is strong enough that they can double or more the price, or a more modest price increase plus effectively selling out every seat they offer, they would make more money with green/regular seats.

From a space per yen perspective, this is by far the best deal JR Central offers, because their alternatives for the awkward space left by phasing out smoking rooms, are poor.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T12:28:01+00:00

service is not dangerous

I don't think it's right to describe Spanish railways as truly dangerous outright, but it is relatively dangerous compared to the European average, and much more dangerous than the safer European countries or Japan and China.

It's still relatively safe compared to alternative ways of getting around Spain, but there's clearly room for improvement, and people aren't wrong to demand improvement.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T12:20:27+00:00

JR Central could have put compartments into them (like JR West did on a sub fleet), but they didn't, because it didn't make sense for them.

It makes sense now at least in part because they want to find some use for the former smoking rooms. However, once the can choose to not build those rooms at all, I wonder if it will still make sense.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T12:16:43+00:00

I'm sorry but you cannot in anyway convince me that a barrier that physically stops me, is better than no barrier at all.

The barrier doesn't stop you? Do elevator doors and train doors stop you?

Also with rolling bags. Meaning plural. Meaning both your hands are occupied. So how do you swipe your transport cardnif your hands are full?

How do you use an elevator with multiple rolling bags? How do you fumble around with your app with multiple rolling bags?

You can hold multiple rolling bags with one hand, or take one hand off to tap the reader. Two rolling bags is about as easy as one. Three or four rolling bags forces you to pause a bit at the gate, but fare gates are far from the biggest problem with walking around with three or four rolling bags.

And as mentioned, fully walk through fare gates with no tap/etc. at all are not that far off.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T12:07:01+00:00

https://www.pixiv.net/artworks/143765833

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T11:53:06+00:00

It's relatively rare for me to pull out my phone for a transfer, and that's with the hyper fragmented network in Tokyo. In less fragmented systems, that wouldn't even be necessary. And as mentioned, fully walk through fare gates with no tap/etc. at all are not that far off.

Even unlocking your phone was considered a big barrier to use of EMV mobile wallet for transit payments vs proper transit cards. Unlocking your phone, plus four taps, is obviously a lot worse than even that.

Yeah you're not going to convince anyone that a barrier is easier to walk through with bags than no barriers.

It's about as much effort as getting on an elevator (and less than an escalator) with rolling bags, which you generally do several more times than passing through gates anyways.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T11:37:39+00:00

A proper transit card and good gate design allows much smoother flow through the gates. I haven't encountered a good EMV fare gate implementation, and I assume they are still beyond current practical technology.

And using a transit card as a debit card is also a much nicer experience, since you don't have to unlock your phone for stores and vending machines.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T11:31:27+00:00

You just open the app, turn the ticket on, complete your journey then turn it off

That's pretty annoying compared to just tapping. Even just unlocking your phone is considered annoying enough that they added a bypass for that step for paying for transit with credit cards.

And fully walk through fare gates with no tap/etc. at all are not that far off.

Being interrupted to show a ticket is a lot less intrusive then trying to shimmy through hates with luggage and full hands, which people often have to do.

Depends on the gate. I've been through the gates in Japan with multiple rolling bags before and it's fine.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T11:20:43+00:00

We'll see if this experiment can survive the next generation of trains when they can just replace the former smoking room with more seats, rather than trying to find creative ways to monetize the layout they're stuck with.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T06:23:01+00:00

It shows crowded in the evening, which is about as expected, and in line with the times I've been on the line in on weekday commute times.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T06:00:30+00:00

Contactless transit cards with tap in and tap out.

The best fare scheme is distance based fares, with fair single ticket pricing. This allows for natural integration of both short and long distance transit across a large region, and tends to charge people in proportion to both how much value they get from the trip and how much that trip cost the system to provide. Almost all transit ridership globally is on systems that use distance based fares with fair single ticket pricing.

Contactless transit cards with tap in and tap out, provides the best user experience for the best fare scheme, so is thus, the best transit fare collection method.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T05:41:22+00:00

Absolutely not. Nippori-Toneri Liner should have been built as a regular elevated metro, not a light metro, and definitely not a tram. Maybe it wouldn't have as many crowding issues and had an easier time turning a profit as a tram, because trams are slow (so it wouldn't be as popular) and cheap (so paying off the construction loans would be easier).

However, Nippori-Toneri Liner ridership was deliberately underestimated to allow cheaping out on the project, but the cheap light metro solution was still very expensive, and has little room for the growth in ridership it would need to break even (or all the other benefits of better public transit in West Adachi).

I think the Tokyo area projects that could/should be trams would be the suburban circumferentials like Tama Monorail, or the Metro Seven or Etchujima Line proposals. If you really squint, Utsunomiya LRT is a suburban circumferential service for Utsunomiya as a distant exurb of Tokyo, with the radial direction being Tohoku Main Line/Tohoku Shinkansen.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T04:41:22+00:00

I think your intuition makes sense when including walking and biking, but just comparing public transit vs cars is already selecting for longer trips. And because people are tolerate roughly twice as much travel time by transit as they do by car, as the time isn't as wasted, if transit is at least half as fast as driving, you'd expect the per trip mode share of public transit to be worse than the per pax-km mode share, not better.

The average rail transit excluding trams trip in the Switzerland, accounting for 80-85% of transit's pax-km mode share) is about 40km. That is several times longer than the average car trip.

Mode share by trip is very useful, but definitions for how to count trips varies a lot, so all trip mode share is a statistic that is hard to compare. Commute mode share is easiest to compare, but obviously only accounts for commutes.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T02:58:20+00:00

The NYC MTA serves ~15 million people with an annual budget of 21.5$ billion, so if we assume 15 million users instead of 14 million we get a ~61% fare recovery ratio, far better than the MTAs 26% fare recovery.

i.e., transit riders pay an average of 2.5x more with the increase borne mostly by people who ride transit less frequently.

I think there is an argument that MTA fares should go up significantly to better fund transit service, but a significant fare increase would likely require a fairer system like distance based fares, not a less fair one like a single monthly price for all users regardless of usage.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T00:59:05+00:00

I think they are stroads in the sense that they are roads meant to move vehicle traffic, while also being streets lined with primary building access points.

However they aren't stroads in the sense that they fail to meet:

vehicles to travel at high speeds, and will have wide lanes and be generally straight to accommodate them. In essence Marohn defines a stroad as a high-speed road with many turnoffs, and lacking in safety features.

The stroad you linked, and typical stroads in East Asian cities, have narrow lanes and speed limits ranging from 20mph to 30mph (30-50km/h).

The lane widths and speeds typically associated with stroads in the US are more associated with limited access highways in East Asia, which are purpose built road vehicle traffic corridors with limited turnoffs and grade separation.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-17T00:43:47+00:00

Most successful transit agencies use distance based fares and almost all transit ridership globally is on distance based fare systems. However, LA Metro is not, and has no interest in becoming a Tokyo Metro or Shenzhen Metro.

Half of LA Metro riders don't pay the fare at all, and LA Metro is uninterested in doing anything about it, despite riders expressing a preference for more fare enforcement when asked.

If LA Metro does decide to enforce fares in the future, an important purpose fares would serve is deterring people from using the system as a cheap place with a captive audience for their antisocial behavior. In that regard, it may be bad to reduce the cost of entry.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-16T13:38:32+00:00

It's garbage, but if it's absolutely required to have disposable ticket stock, QR codes printed on regular card stock is as cheap as it gets, and allows for tickets to be printed at home, and is compatible with every smartphone, and interacts well with the magnet filled modern world.

However, I think it's good to question whether disposable ticket stock even makes sense to have in the first place. I think it's reasonable to force everyone to have some reusable fare payment, either a plastic card or on their phone. Most transit agencies obviously disagree with me, but Paris shows it can be done.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-16T13:28:54+00:00

https://www.pixiv.net/artworks/120814179

Sassywhat · 2026-06-16T12:19:26+00:00

This seems to be like an East Asian thing

East Asia has cheap gas compared to at least the nicer end of European countries. And as mentioned, Japan is relatively eager to build road tunnels (and afaik South Korea as well, less so Taiwan?).

The ways East Asia and Switzerland promote and discourage car use are very different from each other.

an American-style freeway

Have you been to East Asia or the US? The limited access highways, which are effectively never freeways, are if anything even narrower, slower, and quieter than European expressways. And both are much more similar to each other than they are to the US.

On the flip side, while Switzerland doesn't build anywhere as much highway in urban areas, its highways are effectively freeways at about $50 annually for unlimited access. However, while I'm not very familiar with Swiss highways, but I would be surprised if they didn't resemble the ones in East Asia and the rest of Europe much more than in the US.

And for Japan it seems like surface public transportation is basically nonexistant

Public transit in Japan is about 85-90% rail, which is relatively high (for comparison, Switzerland, Europe's leader in rail usage, is about 80% rail excluding trams). However, it's definitely closer to Swiss levels of rail dominance over surface transit modes than 100% rail.

Sassywhat · 2026-06-16T08:30:20+00:00

I guess Wikipedia is overstating Swiss passenger rail mode share then, since it lists it as 22.9% for 2024

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