american here. has any other country fuck over their /n/ as bad as us?

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>>1004302
China is trying hard to catch up, but as long as they continue to build high speed rail they will never achieve American levels of 'freedom'

>>1004305
China even had plenty of cyclists but they wanted to imitate Americans.

>>1004314
Some days ago I read that government wanted the citizens to use bikes because the pollution is getting really bad on the cities. If you imitate murican way of life only bad things will happen to you.

>>1004302
The rest of the Anglosphere is almost as bad. Canada is pretty much on the same level as the US, and Australia and New Zealand follow closely, with the exception of trams in Melbourne. But transport in all those countries relies on cars for the most part.
Central/Eastern Europe seems to be /n/ heaven.

>>1004372
You better believe if Europeans had more space and fewer regulations they'd be building superhighways and suburban sprawl just like NA and Aus

>>1004302

I've lived in LA and spent a month in Dehli

For absolute wasted potential, LA takes the cake. But Dehli and other 3rd world cities are more of a nightmare

We seriously fucked up. Any city built after the automobile boom is a terrible place to live.

There should be another word for them. They aren't cities. Cities are places where you can walk to the grocery store, and you live on a single-lane street.

LA is not a city. It's an extremely dense nightmare suburb surrounding a tiny downtown area that nobody in their right mind wants to be in

>>1004406
I don't know anyone other than hillbillies and people from LA who considers LA to be a city

>>1004394
True. But the various forms of socialism and, to a lesser extent, social market economics also played their part. There still exist a few towns below the 50 000 people mark in Eastern Germany which have their own tram system.
Berlin is a very interesting case because of the separation with the Berlin Wall from 1961 to 1989 (and even longer politically). While the West decommissioned all its trams by 1967 and partially boycotted the commuter rail (S-Bahn) while building an extensive metro network (U-Bahn), the east relied heavily upon trams, metro and commuter rail and had comparatively little car traffic. Nowadays they're extending the tram network back into the western half of the city.

In terms of North America, I've found that NYC, Chicago, Montreal, Washington D.C., Boston, Toronto, Bay Area and SF, Philly, Vancouver, Calgary and Portland have robust public transport networks, and i'd rank them loosely in the order that i listed them.

North America went full car after ww2. The usage of public transport in cities peaked in ww2 because all of the economic activity. The deathkneel was the destruction of the urban tram networks. The trams were perfect stoppers for urban sprawl. Cities were only able to expand through the trolley network, or satellite cities existed with the use of interurban or commuter rail. Gen X and Y moving back into the urban cores of america and reclaiming the ghettos is the best thing to happen in a long time, soon inner city neighbourhoods will be populated by educated whites that dont have a desire to drive a car and want good urban transport options.

>>1004451
How do we fix it?

>>1004471
>how
Nothing will change until cars are replaced by something more practical (self-driving hovercraft?) or cars become impractical (gasoline priced at $10/gallon).

>>1004471
look up calgary C-train

its a model for north american cities with dense urban cores and lots of sprawling low density housing

>>1004406
>walk to the grocery store
>single lane street
Sounds like where I live in LA

There are lots of denser places in LA, its just that its also majority suburb.

Its worse in SF bay area, where the only tiny thing thats remotely like city is parts of SF proper.

>>1004482
Are you actually trying to say the geography of the bay area is worse than the LA basin and the valley?

SF is an aesthetic city with muni and rapid transit connection to its relevant suburbs and satellite cities, the worst of which is separated by a body of water,

Meanwhile LA is a soulless downtown that looks like it could be in the midwest punctuated by a few rich suburbs and expanses of lawless murderous rampage in the south central area. the veritable poster child of the crack epidemic, which is in a location that should theoretically be prime real estate

>>1004451
the cities you listed may have the best transport networks in america, but they are shit compared to everywhere else. the trains are always late, and the technology hasn't been updated since the 80s.

>>1004477
I live here. I love the c-train. Calgary is a car city to be sure but damn if it doesn't have a good rail and bike path system.

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>>1004302
In Spain we've fucked up our /n/ although in a somewhat different way than burgerland. The HSR system is actually oversized and is still being expanded, this is probably the single largest non-financial drag on the spanish economy.
Our conventional passenger rail service is rather shitty, not on Amtrak level, but close. There's a few corridors with dense traffic, and for the rest many lines have just very few trains, sometimes just one or two a day. About half the network is electrified.
The larger cities have suburban rail and urban tram or subways or similar, although coverage is generally poor, or, in the case of Madrid, again the network is oversized and very inefficient and has low demand for its size and the size of the city, while highways are full to the brim.
The spanish highway network is the largest in Europe despite being one of the most scarcely populated countries, and most of it is toll-free, again a huge drag on a very weak economy that has to sustain a welfare state with an aged population.
Car ownership per capita is one of the highest in Europe, even ahead of Germany. Barcelona is the third most contaminated city in Europe. Madrid is pretty bad as well.

>tl;dr the problem in Spain is not lack of investment, but an excessive and inefficient investment, and also general inefficiency
>transportation itself is often not bad itself (rather the opposite), but the problem is the drag it generates on the struggling economy

>>1004302
Oh for fuck's sake.. I live in California, I know precisely, exactly where your pic is, and it's JUST BEFORE the goddamned Bay Bridge, and looks like morning commute. Not a fair pic in the least to use to represent auto traffic in the U.S., not at all. Many of these people driving in this pic work in San Francisco, which is literally one of the most expensive places on the planet to live, or work somewhere on the peninsula, and they all live in Vallejo, Benecia, Fairfield, Vacaville, Dixon, Davis, or as far east as West Sacramento, where it costs literally a fraction of what it costs to live in the City. Housing prices up and down US101 are higher than in the Sacramento Valley, as they are in the San Ramon Valley (Concord, Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek, Alamo, Danville, San Ramon, even Dublin). Living in the San Jose area is almost as expensive as living in the City, and since the urban planning wasn't done very well in Silicon Valley, the traffic problems there are more about the bad planning than the number of residents with cars. Likely, OP, you don't even live in California, so you're completely ignorant of all these (and more) variables involved in the traffic situation.

More below because of 2000 character limit..

>>1004529
Continued from above.

There's also this, which you anti-car people, in your myopic view of the subject, don't recognize: People don't WANT to be stuffed into public transit like sardines in a can. They never have, thousands of years before the automobile was even invented, and they never will, either. Among other reasons, not having your own personal transportation of one sort or another has always been viewed as a sign of poverty; only poor people are walking. Riding a bike is better, but it still makes you look like you're poor, even if you bike costs $5000 and you're wearing $500 worth of kit. Used to be you'd own a horse. More than one if you were better off. Horses and wagon, if you were doing even better. Horses, wagon, and *carriage*, if you were really well off, and a *covered* carriage, well-appointed inside, if you were rich. Poor people *walked*. Before the automobile were trains, yes, but even then: Poor people ('commoners') were packed in like sardines in a can in the cars, and rich people had private staterooms, and how well appointed they were depended on how rich you were (and therefore how much you could spend); but the common element there was YOU HAD PERSONAL SPACE for yourself, and whoever else you cared to have with you in your *private* space. This custom persists today and always will persist; money == privacy and convenience.

Part 3 below.

>>1004533
Continued from above..

Fast-forward to the 20th century: Automobiles are mass-produced. The middle-class can afford to either buy them for cash (new or used), or easily get financing and make payments. The very human need for privacy is served well by this. As the century progresses into the 21st, automobiles are equipped better and better, more luxurious, without raising the cost too much. They're comfortable, quiet, private, and offer many amenities. Now, you expect people to give that up, to jam themselves shoulder-to-shoulder into loud, uncomfortable, smelly buses and trains? LOL, no. Not going to happen. If people can afford privacy and convenience, they'll go for it every single time. Also, remember that a large part of that 'convenience' is being able to go from point-to-point, all in one shot, rather than having to put up with a set route, stopping in places you don't want to stop at, perhaps having to change conveyances one or more times along the way, then maybe having to *walk* (maybe in the rain or snow, maybe in a not-so-safe area, maybe with *kids* or *valuables* along with you) to get to your final destination. Why would anyone WANT to do that? They wouldn't, they don't, and they won't.

So, to conclude: Personal transportation is here to stay. Public transit is, and always will be, for the so-called 'lower classes', people who can't afford their own. Wishing to remove personal transportation options is just wishing technology and society to revert to hundreds, if not thousands, or years into the past; nobody really wants that!

The only thing that would make personal transportation vehicles obsolete would be cheap, ubiquitos teleportation booths; walk in, dial your destination, arrive anywhere on the planet you want in seconds, walk no more than a few minutes to your ultimate destination. Since that's not happening anytime soon, get used to there being automobiles. ;-)

>>1004529
>it's unfair because we utterly failed in urban planning.
No

>>1004554
Not 'no'.

The entire San Francisco Bay Area is not only a major seaport, it's also home of military bases, has been for a long, long time now, and population density in such places, even more so than urban centers that aren't seaports, is always going to be high. The Bay Bridge into Oakland and the Golden Gate Bridge are choke-points and nothing is going to get around that. You want 'better urban planning'? Go invent a time machine and go back about 150 years. Good luck trying to convince anyone back then that you should more sparsely develop the San Francisco area, you'd just get scoffed at and mocked, then ignored.

>>1004557
More like build functioning cities with enough affordable housing so people who work in the cities don't have to live hours from their work just to afford a house. If people have to live hours from their work because there isn't affordable housing closer it's proof that urban planning has failed.

>>1004533
that doesn't mean shit you fucking retard

people used to think lobster was garbage poor people food and now they love it shut the fuck up

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>>1004529
>>1004533
>>1004536
>Wahhh if I don't drive my $3k honda shitbox people will think I'm poor!!!!!
This world would be such a better place if America would just get nuked. Pls Kim, finish the job.

Also,
>B-b-but r-real murigans don't want to be squashed like sardines and be around other people!!
lmfao is that why dense urban places like NYC and SF and essentially any neighborhood or urban setting serviced by quality transit and is walkable/bikable is BY FAR the most desirable places in the country to live?

>just get a car and drive, bro

>>1004557
Not that guy, but San Fran has made a few missteps in urban planning, especially with regards to BART and residential zoning practices.

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>>1004590
Communist detected.

I live in Melbourne and it's honestly pretty decent here, other cities are as bad as American cities but we didn't fuck up that hard in Melbourne at least.

>>1004563
Not seeing the whole picture.

>>1004582
>>1004590
Unintelligent, not even worth commenting on.

>>1004678
'Golden Rule' applies. Big business and people with money tend to drive the political decisions regarding such things; before you indict city planners you'd better indict our entire political system and how it's influenced by money instead of what makes the most sense for everyone, or even what the citizens want.

>>1004689
>shit I can't refute any of his arguments
>I know I'll call him communist, that'll surely help

>>1004697
It doesn't matter whose reason it is SF has fucked up their urban planning. It's done and they're not doing anything to fix it.

Bolivia and that one tiny cliff road seem worse than anything we've built, including that road in Death Valley.

>>1004451

Good post

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>>1004529

>traffic problems...are more about the bad planning

This entire thread may be about bad planning and everybody else knows it, but you've still found a way to be a condescending cunt about pointing it out. Good job, genius.

>>1004533
>>1004536

>People don't WANT...

Prisoner's dilemma. People acting rationally on an individual level resulting in irrational, sub-optimal solutions at the macro level.

>sardines in a can
>shoulder-to-shoulder
>loud, uncomfortable, smelly

These are only issues when your public transit blows. Once again, you're pointing out the obvious point of the entire thread and acting like a cunt about it.

>not-so-safe area

Somebody already pointed out ITT that the young are reclaiming urban zones. Cars are NOT a solution to urban crime and violence.

>put up with a set route, stopping in places you don't want to stop at, perhaps having to change conveyances one or more times along the way

Even with our current shit public transportation systems, it is STILL faster and more convenient for a lot of people to "put up" with all of that than sit bumper-to-bumper like a gullible asshole. These "problems" are largely imaginary, and so is your idyllic vision of what driving in a well-populated area is actually like.

>then maybe having to *walk*

Stop being fat, you worthless piece of shit.

>>1004406
>It's an extremely dense nightmare suburb surrounding a tiny downtown area that nobody in their right mind wants to be in
Yeah that's what a city is.

>>1004536
>>1004533
>>1004529
>its an american thinks public transport is for the poor episode

PLEASE, you don't add anything to the conversation, you're just the resident stockholm syndrome cager that thinks living in the burbs and commuting to work is the only way of life for a person of the first world.

>>1004698
They can't do anything about it without damaging their economy, which by the way there are entire countries who don't have the size of economy that San Francisco has. You all in this thread think you're smarter than everyone else but your perspective is limited and you won't allow yourselves to admit that, you'd rather just stick to your ignorant guns and smug sense of false superiority. There are much greater minds than yours who consider these problems every single day and haven't come up with better solutions, you need to accept that you're not smarter than they are and that you can't offer anything better either.

>>1004760
You're an angry piece of shit faggot who likely can't even AFFORD a car or any kind of personal transportation at all other than some ancient rusted-out tenspeed from a thrift store, and if you weren't a skeezy, useless, parasitic NEET, sponging off your parents as you sit in your dirty, smelly room 24/7 shitposting on 4chan, instead of going out and getting a job of ANY kind like any actually responsible 25 year old like you should, maybe you'd be able to afford your own transportation. Then maybe one of those girls you lust after would actually take you seriously rather than just get that smirk on her face, turn and walk away in disgust that the useless fat faggot who keeps bothering her actually thought he had a snowballs' chance in hell of getting a date with her -- as if a skeezy, parasitic NEET, still living at home with mommy and daddy, could offer her anything better than McDonalds and a quick grope at her doorstep.

..oh, I'm sorry, are you all offended now that I made an entire set of (perhaps) totally unfair assumptions about you, Anon? Fair's fair, you just made a whole shitload of assumptions about ME, so ironically you're an even bigger piece of shit than you're assuming *I* am. You're also completely and totally wrong about the original subject, have no idea what you're talking about, and need to just STFU, faggot.

>>1004689
Based lad driving through that protest. Those scum have no right to block streets like that, should be a felony imo.

>>1004829
Public Transit has ALWAYS been for the poor, EVERYWHERE on the planet, and NOTHING you say or do will change that. It's human nature. Stop acting like an idiot child. You want me to leave because I disagree with you, not because I am in any way shape or form 'wrong'. You and everyone else in this thread just wants to perpetuate your fantasy world of no cars and nothing you're saying or doing in this thread can survive anyone disagreeing with you and asserting any sort of logic or actual facts, therefore you completely and totally reject any sort of differing viewpoint. Furthermore you actually believe that you're smarter and wiser than people who have spent decades and decades pondering these issues, who by the way haven't come up with any better solutions than we currently have, because the problem isn't this one-and-done issue you make it sound like, it's complex and wide-reaching, but you can't or won't see that -- more likely won't, because again you're clinging to your fantasy world that doesn't stand up to reality in the least. You're all just 4chan faggots, talking out of your asses, nobody will listen to you anyway, YOU ARE NOT SOLVING ANY PROBLEMS HERE YOU ARE JUST MENTALLY MASTURBATING. Be sure to enjoy your pseudo-intellectual circle-jerk. The rest of us will be out here in the real world dealing with real things not fantasies suitable only for anime.

>>1004848
>Public Transit has ALWAYS been for the poor, EVERYWHERE on the planet
>EVERYWHERE on the planet
Are you sure about that? Disregarding the first class train cars of railways that business/executive types use in Europe and Asia?

Not everywhere is like America where mostly the poor use transit. Even in the larger cities here you'll see yuppies and gentrifyers taking subways and trams.

Now I'm not like the others with delusions of banning all cars, I understand the importance of the automobile. But it's a ridiculous assumption to make that only the poor use transit all around the world. You sound like someone who hasn't been outside of the US.

Come back with data collected from all the countries on the planet with income levels of the people who use public transit, and tell me if they are all poor.

>>1004848
>Public Transit has ALWAYS been for the poor
I used to live in a low lying near swamp area on long island that was within walking distance of a train station. The houses were all mainly multi-family homes with shared driveways. Now the properties are worth millions because wealthy and up and coming upper middle class people realize living near a train station is insanely important. Good public transit is for everyone and now educated people see that commuting into cities is aids and would rather take a comfy train ride.

>>1004357
Being like murican is anti-revolutionary but the commies in China got suckered by the internally combusting jew like everyone else, I guess.

>>1004862
The LIRR is the best commuter rail service in the entire country. It runs 24/7 ffs

>>1004477
They have something similar in Jersey City. A tram-like system that connects Hoboken to Exchange Place.

>>1004533
>People don't WANT to be stuffed into public transit like sardines in a can.
>>1004536
>Public transit is, and always will be, for the so-called 'lower classes'

>amerifat doesn't know Tokyo
The transit system is so effectively awesome that everyone uses it. Yes, even well-off businessmen use it. Like others said in the thread, those problems only exist if you have shit-tier systems.
I'm not mad though, I know many americans are transit-illiterate, and it's not their fault :^)

>>1004848
>Public Transit has ALWAYS been for the poor
Nope, a century ago in the US people of all classes who lived in cities and suburbs rode streetcars because they were the most convenient form of transport. The very poor still walked because they couldn't afford the fare, and wealthy people could afford private carriages and cars - but streetcars were used by everyone inbetween, from white-collar professionals to factory laborers.

>>1004848
>what is NYC
I could go on, but honestly just kys

>>1005509
the ultra rich take taxis in NYC, expect for billionaires that want to stunt

>>1005469
Transit revolution in 'murrica when?
>considering a new job
>50 miles one way
>takes just under an hour to drive there on a good day
>takes an hour and a half -2 hours to drive there during traffic
>estimate 3 hours of my day would be spent in traffic.
>15 hours of my week would be spent in traffic
>60 hours a month would be spent in traffic
>roughly 720 hours a year spent in traffic
yeah, naw KI don;t think I'll take that job.

>>1004302
Probably with the USA is everything is so fucking spread out. Most people live 20-50 miles from where they work, and those aren't realistic distances for a bicycle commute (and if you think it is, you're retarded, I'm sorry.)

>>1005533
Why not move?

>>1005534
>Most people live 20-50 miles from where they work

How many of them chose that so they could have a lawn or stay away from brown people?

>>1005534
i live 8 miles from the third biggest CBD in my country, and i live 4 minutes walking from the commuter train station that takes 12 minutes to get there. its also a 20 minute bike ride. there are more than enough jobs there.

>>1005538
Because I have an apartment lease here for 8 more months and breaking a lease is fucking expensive and I like where I live.
Fort Worth>DallASS

>>1004471
Ban cars. It's the only way. We are destined for collapse if we don't finally end the internal combustion kike

>>1004529
>sure i'm ruining the earth, and contributing to the total destruction of urban centers, BUT IF I USE PUBLIC TRANSPORT OR CYCLE LIKE A REASONABLE HUMAN BEING I'LL LOOK LIKE A POOR PERSON!!1!!!

fuck americans you are fucking subhuman pieces of scum what the actual FUCK is wrong with your pathetic joke of a country, you fucking idiots think that driving some beat up piece of shit old toyota is a "status symbol", and think that living in a cookie cutter suburban shithouse is the dream we should all aspire to. I hope the chinks, gooks and ruskies get their shit together and fucking end your pathetic nation, you are nothing but a blight on this world.

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>>1004305
There's always that one asshole.
Always.

>>1005756
fucking this

>>1004848
>Public Transit has ALWAYS been for the poor, EVERYWHERE on the planet, and NOTHING you say or do will change that
Amerifat burgerlord detected.