The point he makes is correct of course, but the way he does the comparison is not very honest. If he wants to compare to the maximum capacity of a tube train, he'd also have to take the maximum capacity of a car, not the average passengers.
this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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But this is what happens. Every rush hour the roads are packed with cars, mostly just with one person in them, while the trains are actually full.
During rush hour you definitely won't have a distance of 10 meters between each car though.
If they're moving there should be, and if not it doesn't seem fair to me to compare transport to a car park.
If the cars are moving at over 5m/s then there will be for minimum safe followong distance.
If they are moving under that, you don't have a transport system that is more capable than a brisk walk.
5 m/s is 18kph or ~11mph.
40kph safe stopping distance is 26 meters dry, 30 meters wet. I can't even find data below 40 kph, but 10m would be reaction time alone (no bake time)
The average speed in London is 8 mph overall, taking traffic into account.
Average speed yes, but I doubt anyone is doing 8mph.
It's likely they drive closer to 20 mph (needing a larger safe distance) then stop at lights (needing no safe distance, but probably 3-5m if you have the driving school of thought to be able to have an exit at all times). Then there is all the space occupied by the intersections themselves. These would further space out cars, bringing the average length of X cars higher.
These are all guesses based on my local knowledge, I have been to London in close to a decade, and I did not drive there.
Generally guidance for "safe" following distance is to be able to stop before you hit a car that is also stopping with the assumption that the car ahead is stopping at the same rate. So 2 seconds of headway between cars (roughly reaction time alone). Obviously this does not give enough time if the car ahead has a head on collision or similar (but the third car will collide at lower speed and the fourth might stop).
Most traffic is a little closer together than this (hence the prevalence of pile ups), but there is also uneven speed and gaps at traffic lights and similar
You’re making good points and all but I keep reading your username as SchrodingerShat
It's a superposition
True. The usual traffic congestion has 2 - 3 meters.
Sure, but only because they aren’t moving. It should be about the distance traveled in a couple seconds. Less then that and you get a lot of wrecks, so brand new problems.
have you seen the trains at rush hour? they are usually filled with 200% capacity.
Are the tube trains always so dirty? I visited last year and that was my impression. Not the dirtiest I've seen but, yeah.
Not meaning to criticise or anything, where I'm from we barely have functional buses, nevermind having a metro.
It definitely depends on the country you're visiting. The tube trains (and stations) in Paris are generally pretty gross but when I was in Copenhagen recently I was surprised by how clean everything was over there.
Oh, I know. Meant the London tube. It was definitely cleaner than New York and Washington, Paris too. But, idk, I guess I expected it to be cleaner.
National Rail was amazing, otoh. Loved the countryside. Seats were a bit cramped.
The UK is falling apart because of 13 years of Tory rule delivering us austerity, Brexit, corruption and mismanagement. Things are starting to look worn down from underinvestment.
That was my guess. Shame, really. Most people I met were lovely, and the cities themselves seemed nice enough to walk around (London less so, too big and spread apart for that). Hope amounts to nothing, but I goddamn hope y'all kick them tories out sooner rather than later. Recent headlines from the UK kinda worry me.
The dirty/worn out trains are old, but also ate getting replaced... The circle, district and metropolitan lines have fairly nice trains and the trains on the victoria and jubilee are just fine... The bakerloo having 50 year old worn out trains is a problem well over 13 years old, and the fact that their replacements were organised under tory leadership is directly at odds with what you're saying but I take it you'll give all the credit to the Labour PM when the new trains do arrive?
I'm not in favour of the tories or austerity any more than the next guy, but misrepresentation like this is just gonna make it worse as nobody takes note when they do anything actually good, so they go elsewhere to win votes
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No it is fair. Metros are actually completely filled many times per day. Cars almost never are.
No, it's very honest.
When you increase the number of passengers on a train(e.g. rush hour), the volume doesn't increase. The size of the train stays fixed up until it hits capacity.
When you increase the number of passengers on a road, they tend to still have around 1 car/person. Encouraging people to carpool just doesn't really happen. So an "at capacity" road still has most cars with just the driver. This is one of the main reasons cars are so inefficient, people are lugging around capacity for 5 people and tons of cargo, but it never gets used even when the roads are "at capacity".
The comparison is completely honest. It is dishonest to pretend that trains aren’t generally full and a line up of cars ever are.
Trains are generally at their fullest when cars are at their emptiest, during commuter hours. Tube trains are near empty (maybe 10-15% of capacity) for most of the day and night, whereas those who do drive at those times are likely groups of workmen or otherwise groups of people going to the same place
Trains are generally at their fullest when cars are at their emptiest, during commuter hours.
If that's true, then we are obviously comparing like-for-like: busy train commute time, busy car commute time. Which makes it a completely fair and representative comparison. "This isn't fair because what about when no one is commuting?" is a weird complaint.
That said, I'm skeptical that for most of the day trains are "near empty" and that for most of the day cars are "likely full of groups of workmen". Do you have a source for that?
If I were to say "at 3am, almost all grocery stores are empty, yet almost all houses are occupied, so look how much land is being wasted by grocery stores" would that be fair and representative, or picking and choosing a time to suit what I'm trying to say?
Even if we do pick and choose in favour of cars, the train is still probably more space efficient even with only around 30-50 people on board so why put yourself in a position where you can be rightfully called out as misrepresentating the data?
For the last part, have you been to London? Outside of 7:30-9:30 and 16:30-20:00 you're pretty much guaranteed a seat anywhere on the network - when you consider that 27% of the capacity of a piccadilly line train is seating, I would call a train that's 10-25% full near empty in the same way that a car with 1 person in would be near empty... And if you look at the streets of London during the day, it's all taxis and vans, generally the taxis are a mix of families and people alone, leaning towards families as it makes more sense financially to get one the more of you there are, and the vans generally have groups of people who are using them for work
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I was under the impression that the tube is consistently pretty damn close to maximum capacity at peak times. Is that wrong?
Furthermore, 10 meters is a little high given it would be tight traffic
No because on a busy time of the day it's not hard to reach maximum capacity or close to maximum capacity on a train. But if those individuals decided to drive they would not use their cars to maximum capacity. Or you can look at it the other way around. If people driving right now (therefore the average use) started to use the train, they would not use the train up to its average use. They would use it to its maximum capacity.
A bicycle is so much more efficient than a car!
3 people one a bike in 2m vs 3km for cars, 1 person per car, with a 1km gap between every car !
Fuck cars, but he's pushing it too much in one direction to try and make a point.
That's not an honest comparison. A full tube train is very common. A road of cars all being full is not. That's simply ridiculous.
haha yeah with a 10meter gap between cars....
And also a realistic distance between cars. You think cars in London leave 10m gaps? More like 1m 🤣
Eh I'm not so sure I agree with that. Competent subway systems in rush hour tend to be completely full whereas cars in rush hour typically only have a single person inside. So I do believe it's an apples-to-apples comparison in the ways that actually matter.
Agreed its not very honest. Transportation is about getting places, not filling roads. Average speed of the tubetrain is more than double that of cars, even without dumping all of these extra people onto the roads. After accounting for that, you would need to quadruple the length so that it can match the passenger miles.
Totally agree. It's still almost 2 miles of cars, but that isn't nearly as impactful as saying 7.2 miles
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Now try adding up all the square footage parking spaces take.
For example, consider that adding a parking space to a 400 sq.ft. studio apartment — or adding two spaces to a 800 sq.ft. two-bedroom — effectively increases the total square footage by a whopping 50%. And since concrete parking decks are more expensive to build than habitable area of dwelling units, that likely represents a greater than 50% increase in costs.
And yet people unironically defend minimum parking requirements while simultaneously removed about housing costs.
Wait, 10 meters between cars ?? In traffic ?
Not unreasonable for slow-ish city traffic. Should be more for highway speeds, sure, but he compares it to the tube and overlays the distance on London.
Sounds like it would be fun to be a tube train. At least for a little while.
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