BIKE: Rail Issues (4)

[Patrick Goetz]

Nawdry wrote:
> 
> Hey Patrick, I was talking about the LARGEST cities on the European 
> continent - cities like London, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Milan, Brussels, 
> Berlin, Hamburg, Moscow.  You live in little Austin, Texas.  Hello?
>

Well, we're already at population 1,000,000 and probably will grow some 
more.  As far as I can tell, cities with populations as low as 370,000 
implement Metro systems.  See, for example

    http://www.railway-technology.com/projects/val


> You also conveniently ignore the cities I cited where LRT is the primary 
> rail mode - cities like Birmingham, Manchester, Zurich, Frankfurt, 
> Cologne, Hannover, and many, many more.
> 

And you conveniently ignored my pointing out that much of the Frankfurt 
system is a subway (U-bahn) or elevated (DB) 
(http://www.urbanrail.net/eu/ffm/frankfrt.htm).  I haven't had time to 
check on the others, but bare in mind that land use in Europe is 
considerably different from land use here, in part because these cities 
predate automated transport by hundreds and even thousands of years. 
Having very dense development and established rail corridors which 
predate roads intended for cars makes a big difference, wouldn't you say?


> Jeez... what does it take?
> 

Reading what other people say more carefully, thinking about it, perhaps 
a careful examination of your motives?  Lengthy discussions with LRT 
proponents who basically are vehemently opposed to any other kind of 
rail system (subway, monorail, elevated rail, you name it) suggest that 
your primary motive is not really the establishment of a mass transit 
system which can provide an alternative to the automobile but rather 
reducing the vehicle lanes available to cars in some kind of misguided 
attempt to "kill" cars by squeezing them out of the picture. 
Unfortunately, the reality is bicyclists and pedestrians will get 
squeezed out first, at least until a very high level of density is 
achieved, and this is unlikely to happen in a bicycle and pedestrian 
unfriendly urban environment.  Actually, it's unlikely that motorists 
will let you squeeze them out, which is why you and the 19cRFS'ers have 
a perfect 25 year track record of failure to date in Austin. Your 
approach to the problem is just wrong.  A far better solution is to 
provide a system which can coexist peacefully with other modes of 
transportation and let people choose the superior alternative; always 
rail when rail runs in its own grade-separated guideway.  Then as TOD 
and rail-induced density increases, the rail becomes ever more desirable 
while private vehicles become less so, especially as more pedestrians 
and bicyclists begin to populate the landscape.  It's all about letting 
people choose what they want to do as opposed to cramming a particular 
solution down their throats before they've even had a chance to try it 
out.  It's all really quite simple, Lyndon; perhaps if you opened your 
mind a bit some enlightenment could drive out the single-minded "kill 
cars" monovision.  I hate cars, too, but am not so unrealistic as to 
expect to be able to just drive them away (no pun intended) in a 
democratic car-culture, particularly one in which the biggest lobby is 
the highway lobby.