<story><title>Open Letter to a Car-Addicted City (2014)</title><url>http://www.planetizen.com/node/72068/open-letter-car-addicted-city</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dexwiz</author><text>Because trains are dirty in the US.&lt;p&gt;Go to Vienna, ride a train, and then go to San Francisco, and ride BART. Its night and day. Vienna had clean trains with a smooth ride. BART seems to always be dirty, and the cars screech like banshees.&lt;p&gt;Its a vicious cycle. No one wants to fund trains, so they fall into disrepair. The then get a bad rap about being in disrepair, so no one wants to fund them. If you want a real villain, blame the oil companies that bought up local trains and dismantled them in the first half of the century.</text></item><item><author>brianwawok</author><text>My parents would say the trains are dirty and shake their head.&lt;p&gt;So hard to get people in the US to like public transit :(</text></item><item><author>m_mueller</author><text>This is the dilemma in a car society - whenever you ask people what they want, it&amp;#x27;s more roads and parking spaces. People can&amp;#x27;t even imagine how a good public transit can improve their lifes, including that of the remaining road users.&lt;p&gt;I think the solution is just for everyone to visit a place with a good public transit network and live there for a few months - in the US I can only think of New York. Exchange student programs should be mandated anyways, to mend the cultural gaps within the nation.</text></item><item><author>bgirard</author><text>I recall in ~2009 my university (UWaterloo) had a referendum to increase tuition by $50&amp;#x2F;term (now $80&amp;#x2F;term) to increase city bus routes to the university and provide free service to students using your student card. I voted against it because I could easily carpool and was against another mandatory fee.&lt;p&gt;The vote was fairly controversial and passed by a narrow margin. But since the service was improved to every 15 minutes and I was already paying for it I started using the service and shortly stopped driving to school altogether.&lt;p&gt;By the time I graduated I really loved the system since it really improved my commute and really regretted voting against it. I just checked and now the approval is at 94% for the UPass.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>yoloswagins</author><text>Placing the onus of the death of public transit in the US on the General Motors streetcar conspiracy fails to look at other economic aspects of the end of streetcars.&lt;p&gt;* Streetcar companies were the loss leaders for real estate developers.&lt;p&gt;* The Great Depression and WW2 caused deferred maintenance that undercapitalized transit companies could not afford after the real estate had been sold.&lt;p&gt;* Municipalities regulated fares, with voters regularly voting down measures to increase fares. At the time, transit agencies had to generate revenue almost entirely from fares.&lt;p&gt;* Transit companies had to pay recurring franchise fees for each mile of track, while bus companies didn&amp;#x27;t pay such a fee.&lt;p&gt;* With the increase in auto traffic slowing down streetcars, busses had more maneuverability in heavier auto traffic.</text></comment>
<story><title>Open Letter to a Car-Addicted City (2014)</title><url>http://www.planetizen.com/node/72068/open-letter-car-addicted-city</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dexwiz</author><text>Because trains are dirty in the US.&lt;p&gt;Go to Vienna, ride a train, and then go to San Francisco, and ride BART. Its night and day. Vienna had clean trains with a smooth ride. BART seems to always be dirty, and the cars screech like banshees.&lt;p&gt;Its a vicious cycle. No one wants to fund trains, so they fall into disrepair. The then get a bad rap about being in disrepair, so no one wants to fund them. If you want a real villain, blame the oil companies that bought up local trains and dismantled them in the first half of the century.</text></item><item><author>brianwawok</author><text>My parents would say the trains are dirty and shake their head.&lt;p&gt;So hard to get people in the US to like public transit :(</text></item><item><author>m_mueller</author><text>This is the dilemma in a car society - whenever you ask people what they want, it&amp;#x27;s more roads and parking spaces. People can&amp;#x27;t even imagine how a good public transit can improve their lifes, including that of the remaining road users.&lt;p&gt;I think the solution is just for everyone to visit a place with a good public transit network and live there for a few months - in the US I can only think of New York. Exchange student programs should be mandated anyways, to mend the cultural gaps within the nation.</text></item><item><author>bgirard</author><text>I recall in ~2009 my university (UWaterloo) had a referendum to increase tuition by $50&amp;#x2F;term (now $80&amp;#x2F;term) to increase city bus routes to the university and provide free service to students using your student card. I voted against it because I could easily carpool and was against another mandatory fee.&lt;p&gt;The vote was fairly controversial and passed by a narrow margin. But since the service was improved to every 15 minutes and I was already paying for it I started using the service and shortly stopped driving to school altogether.&lt;p&gt;By the time I graduated I really loved the system since it really improved my commute and really regretted voting against it. I just checked and now the approval is at 94% for the UPass.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nradov</author><text>The new tapered wheels on BART cars are supposed to be only half as noisy.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bart.gov&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;news20160831&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bart.gov&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;news20160831&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>