I'm a fan of the seat right behind the rear exit door, on the right-hand side. The extra height is nice for looking out the window

Sprawl and car-dependency isn’t just a problem in America. Canadians and Aussies living in the suburbs have to deal with these problems too.

But those countries are still trying when it comes to transit. When looking at rail and bus coverage in the suburbs, Canadian and Australian metropolitan areas do a lot better than comparable (in terms of population) American metropolitan areas.

I’m not saying that Canada and Australia are good at transit since they still have a lot of work to do to fix car-dependency. But the fact that America cannot catch up to Canadian and Australia shows how abysmal transit really is in America. Why is that?

Addendum: I’m asking about getting around within the same metropolitan area, not inter-city rail. Although Amtrak dwarfs any inter-city rail in Canada and Australia, most people aren’t commuting between cities.

i mean latest high speed rail so not too far back in time

How do you accomplish this task? Here's the public documents for reference. https://www.commbuys.com/bso/external/bidDetail.sdo?docId=BD-24-1206-MBTA-MBTA-99853&external=true&parentUrl=close

We don't currently know who would be interested in undertaking this project but look at this from the pov of a real world company that specializes in this. For reference, the keolis north American branch currently runs the system & they were just given a 1 year extension to summer 2027 so the mbta can figure this contract bid out with breathing room.

Talking about whether light rail systems can be converted to metro got me thinking:

The “old gaurd” of american metros NYC, Boston, Philly, and Chicago, 1) all started out as streetcars running on the street, 2) they gradually began to build tunnels and viaducts to grade seperate the streetcars so that they’d have easier movement, 3) then they started linking together the streetcars into longer consists because they no longer had to worry about size interfering with the road, 4) they finally grade seperated the system at all points 5) as the streetcar train fleets got old they introduced new fleets of trains that were purpose built for the system they had. 6) Various other cities in the country built systems from the ground up modeled after the systems as they are now

And then after the metro hype died down cities started building lightrail. And its to early to tell but it seems like the new lightrail systems are following that same set of steps that the old gaurd of metros did. Portland is on step 2, San Diego and Seattle seem to be between steps 3 and 4.

This may just be human pattern-seeking-brain behavior but it really seems like cities are unintentionally repeating the evolution of the metro.

I ran into an issue with an idea to use local transit (buses) during a city event. During a 4th of July fireworks/holiday parade/etc, numerous people drive personal cars to a park, and after the event the roads are overwhelmed with people leaving. The idea was to use the city's buses to get people out of the area quicker and reduce the excess parking problems, but city officials dismissed it because it would "compete with private options" and thus put federal funding at risk. Specifically because these would involve routes dedicated to that day/event was the issue.

Does any one have an example of a city doing this effectively? I'd like to reach out to a regional planner, and discover how they solved this problem. Thanks in advance.

https://cityhallwatch.wordpress.com/2024/05/02/mlas-40-trolley-buses-parked-despite-shortage/

I have created a rider survey for our transit org, but am struggling to figure out what would be the best way to get this out to the people as many of our riders are against cell phone/internet use, but also worried that leaving these at stops and the main transit station would not be as effective either. Anyone do a successful survey and have some tips and pointers? Thanks in advance!

Does it really matter if it is common or civil? France and Spain (civil) build high speed rail pretty inexpensivly But usa and Uk have horribly expensive HSR

would hs2 be cheaper if it was just built on viaducts and less tunnels?

i do not mean maglev trains, just conventional high speed rail.

what is driving up cost when the speed for hsr increases from lets say 320km/ to 360km/h, is it more expensive tracks or is it more advanced train sets?

i know it may be a stupid question but i am not an expert on high speed rail.