Is it true they don't have metro/subway systems in every major US city?

Is it true they don't have metro/subway systems in every major US city?

People rather spend time driving themselves to places instead of having someone else driving a train for you? Is this some weird poor country mentally in the US

Correct, we only have them in 12 cities. A few cities have comprehensive tram systems though that acts like a metro..

Is it true that Finland doesn’t even have any real cities worth mentioning?

Americans think public transportation is for poor people.

>someone else driving a train for you
Here subway lines are automated desu

Nope. I've actually never ridden on a bus in my life

I love automatic subway lines. When I was a kid I'd nag to m mother every time we took the D line in the Lyon metro to get to the front and act like I was the driver.

Plus it's really easy for foreigners to get to where i wanna go :3

Why? In understand why in Spain we don't had it but in USA? Why?

This, train systems can bring you anywhere anytime. Especially usefull during rushhour.

Are those all underground?

at certain parts in big cities and schiphol airport yeah but for the rest overground

Can’t even fathom living in a country this small

Two reasons. Reagan, and racism.

Back in the 70s the various administrations, both democrat and republican, all supported public transit, spurred mainly by the fact that thanks to the highways that were built, traffic was a mess, and partially the opening of BART, which at the time was the most advanced metro system in the world. The feds took pride in that, and they wanted most current systems and cities without metros to have a system with BART or better technology. BART also showed that you don't need dense development to have a metro. So, long story short, five cities built brand new metro systems between 1972 and 1984. Since 1984, two cities have built new metros. You see, Reagan was elected in 1980, and he quickly put a stop to any federal funding for metros, which most agencies relied on. He did it because 'for the price it cost to build it, you could give every rider a new car', which is a shitty reason, but that's what he said, and since Reagan is pretty much the basis of the modern day republican party, there was never any support for metros again.

The second, reason, which is why the development of metros was limited even in a time they were being supported was racism. When a metro line wanted to expand to the suburbs, a new metro system was being created, and was planning on having a BART/WMATA style service (stations a mile apart outside of the CBD, running at high speeds, people are meant to take a bus or drive to the station, which of course made sense at the time, since cities were falling apart and undesirable so most commuters lived in the suburbs) but the suburbs had a shit fit because for whatever reason they thought that the urban youth would go, take the subway, walk 3/4s of a mile+ to their house, break in, rape their white children, steal all their belongings, walk back to the metro, TVs in hand, and take it back home.

(1/5)

There are, but they’re so fucking terrible they might as well be nonexistent

Of course that's ridiculous, and it's been shown that building a metro has NEVER increased crime (the sole exceptions being Baltimore, however that was the SUBURBAN youth committing crime and using the station as a local hangout), but at the time, this was a major fear. Remember, back in the 60s/70s, people would destroy their entire communities, sell their houses for pennies on the dollar and move to a different town just because well-to-do black folk moved in.

Now, that's why we didn't build metros in the past, so why aren't we building them now? Well, the two reasons above still apply for starters. Even the Obama administration didn't support building metros, they mainly supported BRT (which for some retarded reason is seen as a 'cheaper option while providing similar capacity' which isn't true at all because outside of LA maybe two BRT systems are anything comparable to the BRT systems you see in South America and Asia). Suburbanites are still scared of minorities too, however there are larger problems at play now. First, large cities are playing catch-up, and still don't have all that much money. Remember that it was only about 20 years ago when cities started to turn themselves around, and many are only showing signs of recovery today (although many other smaller ones haven't, but that's irrelevant for this discussion). This means there's an infrastructure backlog, both with general maintenance, and with new projects, so building new metros or expanding them isn't at the top of many cities priority lists. Second, people just quite frankly don't want to fund it. Since most metro systems in the U.S. cross city and in some cases county and state lines, each jurisdiction is calling on the other one to fund it, and not their own. This is even a problem in New York City, where the city is giving them minimal funding because they believe the MTA, being a state agency, should receive most of its funding from the state.

(2/5)

it's small but at least everything is easily accesible and managed well, every highway junction has surveillance to prevent traffic jams for example

The state believes however, that the subway only runs within city lines, and the MTA mainly benefits the city, so the city should fund it. This is also a problem when funding specific capital projects or a new metro system. Everyone that would be served by it thinks it's great and wants to fund it, but everyone who isn't refuses to pay for it, which makes getting funding from the city/county/state government difficult. The third is general incompetence/corruption. This is mainly a U.S. government problem, but it especially applies to metros since they're high profile, high visibility, expensive, and usually controversial projects. Basically, if the government does it itself, it takes forever to get done because nobody knows what they're doing or are lazy, and it costs a shit-ton because government employees are well paid. If it's contracted out to a private company, it isn't much better, and can actually often times be worse. The company either wins the bid because the criteria is so specific only that company can bid (corruption) and they also take forever, overcharge, and have shitty quality that'll cost hundreds of millions to fix (of course, the government pays them extra for working longer, pays them extra for the cost overruns, and pays for the fixes, even though it was the company that broke the contract, not the government (again, corruption).

(3/5)

Or, alternatively, the bid has many bidders, most of whom are competent, and have lots of experience building successful projects. But the government gives it to the lowest bidder, who of course is incredibly shitty and has all of the same problems as above, except the problems cost even more to fix because they use shit like concrete that doesn't meet structural standards (yes this was an actual problem in an actual, billion-dollar project. And yes, the company is still allowed to bid, and recently won several). This is on top of estimated costs that without any cost overruns exceed any other project in any other part of the world (the second avenue subway extension, despite being only three miles in very hard rock, and a standard two track line with stations every half-mile is expected to cost $6 billion, and will inevitably end up costing much more). There's also the fact that in many cities, the people who use the system don't want to fund it because service is so shitty, because surprise! They don't have any money. In quite a few cases, there are actual agency problems that should be addressed before throwing money at them, but in others, it isn't justified.

(4/5)

I do want to note however, that despite all this, things are turning around when it comes to support of public transport. LA recently voted to spend $120 billion on their transit system, so that they have a modern, expansive metro network (which is a really big deal because LA was the stereotypical modern car city, with people driving for two hours to get to work even though they only live three towns away). This is just an example, as many other cities and counties have voted on spending bills, and most of them have turned out quite positively (Honolulu, for instance, is building their first metro right now). Five cities have expanded or built new stations in their metros in the past five years, and many cities that don't have metros are getting extensive tram/light rail systems. With more and more young professionals choosing to live closer to the city center, cities and counties are starting to realize that rapid transit is key to their survival and development. Most major cities nowadays have some sort of system in place. Whether it's a single tram line in the city center, or a commuter rail line that only runs three times a day, they have it, and it means they have the foundation to expand, which most are looking to do. Many cities and even some suburbs have also taken a very anti-car stance, building bike lanes, tearing down highways (or at least putting them underground) and only supporting transit-oriented development. We still have a long way to go, but give it 40-50 years and our public transport situation will look very different.

(5/5)

like a giant city

This
Countrylets

Because we use cars. Also because the us is a lot bigger than any european cunt and building nation wide hsr would be extremely expensive.

> turned out quite positively (Honolulu, for instance, is building their first metro right now)

The above ground rail being built in Honolulu is a boondoggle. It should be torn down and restarted from scratch but unfortunately too much money has been put in and the lawsuits would drag on for decades.

yeah, imagine a giant rural city

It's not as small as the map makes it look, still the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined, they only made the national rail network look like a subway map.

Good posts.

You're a couple of decades too late. These decisions were being made in the 40s.

Good assertation. What I like about the US is that things are always in constant change looking for improvement, and willing to quickly adapt. Cities that grew as completely car-reliant hellholes are turning around and reinventing themselves in a matter of decades. In LA the effort not only comprises a hundred billion dollar public rail expansion, but also a complete overhaul of zoning codes and building codes for more density and more walkability.

Around here things seem to be bogged down in bureaucracy (airport openings delayed for years because the smoke detectors are mounted a few inches off) and narrow-minded thinking (we've always done it like this so we'll continue doing it like this, and changing the regulations to allow a different approach would actually be more work than dealing with the downsides of how we're currently doing it).

Nah commie it's more like I can drive where I want, when I want, and in whatever vehicle I want

I think there was actually a minor revival of public transport and downtown public developments in the '60s or so and possibly into the '70s as the effects of suburban flight and suburban malls since the end of the war began to show and downtown businesses feared going bust, but ultimately it was a futile effort, also because of the continued economic downturn and increasingly steady foothold of Republicans in politics.

>public transport is for poor pipos! I need a car!
>get stuck in traffic for 4 hours in your shitty subaru which you are four years in debt for

y-you're memeing, right?

>and building nation wide hsr would be extremely expensive.
I forgot how poor you are

"Can" and "want" have however become "forced to" and "must" the more urban developments relied on the car. The car went from being an option (read: freedom of choice) to a necessity (read: no freedom of choice) for most Americans in the last half century. Also spread out development and car based infrastructure are a huge drain on public resources, not only funds and materials but also everyone's time. For every American there's 2.7 times as much road as for every German, yet you're expecting to maintain it with far lower taxes. It doesn't add up. It just doesn't.

Nobody's expecting you to build nationwide HSR, on such long distances flight is superior, but not even having HSR going through California and other rather densely populated states and regions where people regularly travel hours and hours by car is pretty pitiful. The only region with even remotely acceptable rail service is the northeast between DC and Boston.

>Where and when I want
>Except anywhere near a major city at rush hours
>In whatever vehicle I want
>Yeah, except a metro

Great posts, thanks.

>live in the city
>have to live next to niggers
American cities are not like European cities. It's not like France where minorities are shitting up the near suburbs.

Blacks are trapped inside urban areas and the rest of civilized society stays out. If there are white collar jobs in the city, those civilized people commute in a short distance from the suburbs (

>think
It unequivocally is when cities here are infested with blacks.

Actually wait a second, why the fuck am I even responding to a city state. You don't even understand rural vs. suburban vs. rural.

In France minorities are stuck in suburbs. Suburbs are considered shitty places here, mostly.

You portrait blacks as an unfixable problem that has to be contained and worked around, when the plain reality is that no one ever seriously attempted to integrate them. Throughout American history lots of effort went towards containment or evasion including the monster of suburbanization, and very little effort went towards integration, and all supposed integration throughout post-war times consisted of lazy money gifts and affirmative action that made them entitled without fixing any of the underlying issues, such as geographic segregation in population centers, dismantling public transport to prevent mobility, or inherently flawed local education funding because poor districts can't afford to build good schools so they remain dumb and as a result remain poor.

This is so fucking weird about the US. Why do black people live in the city while white people in the suburbs in the US?

In Europe it's the opposite, white people stay inside the city while poor black people have to commute

American banter

>Is this some weird poor country mentally in the US
That's actually a phenomenon of the exact opposite

Public transport is communism and therefore a mental disease.

We have an OK transit system with subways in Vancouver. I don't even own a car and I can get anywhere fine.

But then I know the reason we have that is because we have no black people that people are afraid of, if we did I doubt we would have one.

Because detached houses with front lawns and as many cars as adults in the household have been painted as the ideal in post-war times, and you can't have that in the city.

>Immediately gets butthurt
Tell me, does the amount of butthurt correlate with your fat burger butts?

>Vee must verk hahder to engineer zee neu verlt ohder!

(Is it that time again?)