Why the United States spends so much but gets so little public transit

https://jacobin.com/2022/06/american-exceptionalism-off-the-rails

by jseliger • 4 years ago

35 34 4 years ago

cratermoon• 4 years ago

The opening discussion in the article about how the US takes forever to accomplish transit projects and does so few contrasted with Spain's rapid and frequent construction reminds me of the maxim "if it hurts, do it more often"[1].

The way to get better at something is to do it more often. This is a lesson software developers learned from the agile movement. Do hard things more often. Experts in every field become masters at their craft by practicing it for many thousands of repetitions over tens of thousands of hours.

Rather than trying to make success more likely by approaching difficulty with excessive caution and planning, expect that, at first, things will go wrong, but have rapid feedback to learn for the next attempt. Rather than a big bang integration at the end of a software development project, integrate daily/hourly/continuously.

The US builds automobile-centric transportation successfully at a prodigious rate. American civil engineering is really good at it because they do so much of it, all the time.

[1] https://martinfowler.com/bliki/FrequencyReducesDifficulty.ht...

fallingfrog2• 4 years ago

This is spot on. If you want to build cheap anything, you need a whole cluster of organizations in close competition, with a lot of collective muscle memory and experience, doing that thing again and again and getting better and better at it. That's how any industry develops. It's that collective experience and network effects that you want to develop. Doing things infrequently as one-off projects by a company with no competition means that each one is going to be crazy expensive.

Honestly this is something I worry about with respect to outsourcing- people seem to not understand that once an industry leaves, it's not just a matter of bringing the capital back, it's that collective human skill that is the biggest thing you lose. The generation that used to do those jobs passes away and it's gone forever.

fallingfrog2• 4 years ago

An anecdote- I visited the Netherlands a few years ago, and the difference between their public transport and ours was so stark it's almost shocking. In the Netherlands there is light rail linking every major city that runs every 20 minutes- and for more far flung locations you go to a bus stop, and there is a sign in the bus stop that tells you down to the minute how long it will be till the next bus arrives, and the routes are clearly labeled.

Upon arrival to the United States, my bus out of Boston was an hour late, and there was no indication when it would arrive, and every time a bus pulled up at the airport, the driver would get out and start yelling the destination cities over the din of the traffic, and that was how you would find the right bus. It was like going back in time 100 years.

dssagar93• 4 years ago

Looking at this I am really amazed that in India we still have better public transport. There are trains connecting every small rural area and in the cities on can reach to a destination at a cheap price under a very less amount of time.

The bus connectivity is also very amazing and you can easily reach a place very far by bus or a train.

Also, there's an app for everything in India. These apps indicate the actual locations of the bus on map via GPS and also sends out an ETA. I plan before leaving office so I can get the exact bus.

Same goes with train, we get minute by minute update.

srean5• 4 years ago

If only we could say the same about the quality of road surfaces and traffic.

Way too much corruption to afford us good roads at a good price. National state roadway construction entities run at huge 'losses' and 'debt' with the money presumably siphoned away for the benefit of the party in power.

demadog• 4 years ago

European cities were built a thousand years ago to be dense by default because that was the technology.

The US is very young and not dense, save for a few downtown clusters.

There is definitely a lot that can be done, but it really comes down to user demand. People actually prefer cars if it’s the viable option. But depends on distance, timing, distance, and goals.

We shall see how ridership shifts in Los Angeles - probably the greatest live experiment in trying to force habit change currently in progress. Anyone here have inside baseball numbers on the habit changes in LA?

skinnymuch4• 4 years ago

The US got pushed heavily into cars. Of course I prefer a car being back at my parents in the suburbs. The amount of public transit to counter act sprawling suburbia would be insane.

The US continues a lot of [indirect] subsidizing for cars as well while not funding or caring about public transit enough. HN has had many previous posts on this.

afiori2• 4 years ago

The existence of suburbs itself is a subsidy to cars, almost every suburb is a money sink of infrastructure maintenance.

Video essay for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI

afiori2• 4 years ago

American cities were dense and at a point in time the US had the most advanced public transit systems in the world.

In the wake of the collective Futurama[0] craze car companies managed to buy it and tear it down. American cities were not build for the cars, they were bulldozed[1] for the cars.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama_(New_York_World%27s_F...

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/smpr1q/1...

erentz• 4 years ago

US cities looked like European cities before we decided to change course (they just had grids instead of mazes). We tore down dense cities, built freeways, and mandated suburbia as basically the only development style permitted. We can turn it around quite easily if we wanted.

[1] is a great twitter account that shows the before and after destruction of our cities.

[2] is a great series of videos contrasting our NA development to European development. Plenty of videos demonstrating the course Netherlands was on were following US development styles there too (car dominated inner cities) in the 70s/80s but they consciously decided to change course which is why they look like they do now. So we can change course too. If we want to.

[1] https://twitter.com/SegByDesign [2] https://www.youtube.com/c/notjustbikes

anm89• 4 years ago

Jacobin is not a quality of journalism that should be getting posted on here. Breitbart wouldn't be allowed on the front page either.

They regularly call for extrajudicial confiscation of property of certain people by class. History is clear that this is equivalent to calling for extrajudicial killing of people by class (they are going to defend their property)

skinnymuch4• 4 years ago

Equivocating alt-right like Breitbart with Jacobin is a stretch. Can you link to a specific situation at Jacobin’s that you find to be too extreme to be not quality journalism and that should not allow it on HN?

The west takes from all sorts of people all the time. In and outside their borders. The world continues without the killing of people [by class].

SR2Z• 4 years ago

Jacobin is equally, if not more, stupid than Breitbart. The only advantage it has is that it's less hateful.

srean5• 4 years ago

All that may well be true [I am not familiar with Jacobin or Breitbart] but that by itself does not nullify the posted article. Smells ad hominem.

History is clear that this is equivalent to calling for extrajudicial killing of people

I dont follow. What's the equivalence.

@ncmncm @AnimalMuppet Thanks for clearing it up for me.

ncmncm6• 4 years ago

Probably just because the Jacobins got blamed for excesses of the French Revolution. But the Jacobin leadership of the time went down right behind the royals.

AnimalMuppet• 4 years ago

> History is clear that this is equivalent to calling for extrajudicial killing of people
I dont follow. What's the equivalence.

I'm not saying that anm89 was right to reject the article based on the source, but what they were saying here was, I thought, pretty clear. People who have property will often defend that property against extrajudicial taking (that is, theft). To take their property then means physical force against them. If you're going to succeed in taking it, that often will require killing them.

And, historically, the mob has gone from "take their property" to "kill them" somewhat regularly.

the_only_law• 4 years ago

Jacobin is not a quality of journalism that should be getting posted on here. Breitbart wouldn't be allowed on the front page either.

You're a bit late, infamous tabloids are front page material now.

ncmncm6• 4 years ago

In a word, corruption.

The US has fully legalized corruption, from the top, so no one at management level can be indicted for indulging in it, although they may be punished administratively for blocking it.

Now, public works projects are obliged to devote the majority of project funding to buying off gatekeepers with long-term revenue channels that, because they will dry up when the project is complete, promote delays and frequent, expensive (for us), and lucrative (for them) scope changes.

In some countries, corruption is commonly a retail affair. In the US, its privileges are more jealously held at the top. The US is now among the top five most corrupt states. In China and Russia, corruption is still technically illegal, just so that underlings may be threatened with prosecution for that if they step out of line. The US system is more streamlined; we know it suffices to fire most nuisances, reserving imprisonment for anyone exposing crime.

Those fired improperly may sue, but the government or insurance pays, so that is OK.

shrubble2• 4 years ago

It's fraud and nephew-hiring in the USA. 25 years ago in Germany there was an automated tram/light rail line with no conductor.

The train ran on its own rails, separate from roads for cars, and was run even late at night. Since it was automated, a loop run every hour late at night was possible for stragglers/night shift workers to use.

This would never happen in the USA since there is no union hiring if the tram is automated. Since hiring conductors late at night is expensive you get reduced hours. Etc etc.

omega32• 4 years ago

USA has the most lines with the highest level of automation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_train_system...

ncmncm6• 4 years ago

The USA is big. Scaled by land area covered vs. urban land not, or by population served vs. urban and not served, it looks less impressive.

shrubble2• 4 years ago

I think that list includes fully-enclosed or indoors rail such as inside an airport.

While I agree that in one sense it 'counts' , I did mean to discuss the regular sort of line that moves people past properties owned by different people, or between neighborhoods, etc.

Why the United States spends so much but gets so little public transit

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