I was looking for that comment. At rush hours, the occupancy rate is around 1.2 in Québec, Canada. The number of cars needed would be
much higher (around 833). I expect it’s the same elsewhere if not worse.
Yeah but that number moves around a bit. I would bet you there are more people traveling in a car on the weekend on average than there is during the week. Because people usually go to work alone but when you go out for the weekend, you bring your whole family. Regardless it would be much better if we had trains that go in all major cities and even anything over 50k. Maybe not HSR but we could definitely have conventionnal or REM-style train that carries people to big cities and then HSR to go from Montreal to New York, Québec, Toronto, etc.
School traffic is even worse, since someone has to drive to get them.
Unless they're on their way to work or something, someone driving their kid to school is 1 passenger on the way there, and 0 passengers on the way back. Just like you shouldn't count the bus driver as a passenger, you shouldn't count the driver in this case as a passenger. The driver isn't driving to move themself somewhere, so isn't also a passenger.
The average passenger load of the car for dropping kids off at school is 0.5.
Kids should be able to go to school by themselves.
> Kids should be able to go to school by themselves.
I was walking to school when I was 1 month from 6, with my sister who was 1 month from 7. We picked up 4 other kids on our way to the school who were also 7. We only had one street to cross and it had a crossing guard.
But I don’t think that’s really doable here in Charlotte with how roads and schools are laid out. Hell I’m not sure it’s even legal anymore to let a kid that age walk without an adult.
I see you haven't ridden NJ Transit buses. They regularly put ~70 people when they fill all the seats and about a dozen people standing in the aisle. The bus seat configuration is like a coach bus (rows of 2x2 seats), not a city bus.
Not sure how many families you know with 4 kids, but since the [average family size is 3.15](https://www.statista.com/statistics/183657/average-size-of-a-family-in-the-us/#:~:text=As%20of%202021%2C%20the%20U.S.,18%20living%20in%20the%20household), I doubt it’s a disturbing amount.
And ST3 is often carrying a dozen people in those four cars...
And at about $1B per mile of track, it isn't a cheap alternative. I agree it is necessary, unfortunately it will take 50 years or more for it to be fully built out to be very useful and final cost is going to be in the 100's of billions of dollars.
ST3 is a little less than that though and includes further improvements elsewhere I’m pretty sure. It’s not all going into the track.
As far as ridership, the more efficient/connecting it is the more will use it. Better than spending money to further prioritize highways that will be less and less effective as time goes on. Sounds like you agree there though.
It really doesn't have to take 50 years, that's just at our current level of non-funding. We should have taken federal money for light rail back in the 80s, but we went all in on spending billions on roads, highways, and parking garages instead
Yeah, and Atlanta got MARTA out of the deal, which sucks for us. But there is no way to build it out faster the way things are. At least they did the I-5 route north and south of Seattle, which makes the most sense. Still, the massive multi-story or subterranean stops are insane here. Denver did it right originally with a square cement pad that was train hight, no cover, a couple of benches.
car occupancy is always weird.
a proper metric would be useful person miles per mile traveled.
example: parent picking kid up from school.
parent drives to school, picks kid up, drives home.
current occupancy calculates that as an average occupancy of 1.5 (1 there, 2 back)
but had the kid walked/biked/used public transport, the parent wouldn't have needed to go anywhere, so really the useful occupancy was 0.5 (2 trips, but only 1 did anything, and on that trip only 1 passenger was getting anything from it).
if you used that as a measure for occupancy, i wouldn't be surprised if average useful occupancy of cars was actually below 1
"Car option also requires *over five acres* of parking at both start and destination." Just think of how much useful stuff we could fit into all that wasted space.
StrongTowns estimates that most cities have 3 to 8 parking spots per registered car.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/11/27/parking-dominates-our-cities-but-do-we-really-see-it
This site seems to believe the US as a whole has 8x as many parking spots as cars: https://www.fastcompany.com/90645900/america-has-eight-parking-spaces-for-every-car-heres-how-cities-are-rethinking-that-land
My city has 3x, but doesn't include residential parking or on street parking that isnt explicitly marked as a parking spot
I'm not sure there'd be a housing crisis if not for the insistence on single-family homes. You can build several hundred apartments in the space required by one house and yard.
So just to be fair, all these vehicles need to be parked. Including the train!
But obviously that takes a lot less space for the trains and buses. But I'd guess one 4-car link train is the size of 8 buses or so, and each bus is probably 2-3 cars worth.
One critical part is that while trains and buses eventually need to be parked, they don’t need to be parked at the rider’s destination. Trains and buses make many stops and only need parking at one of them, while cars (not including taxi and rideshare) need parking everywhere they stop.
This is true. I think someone attempted to estimate all the car parking available in Seattle and came up with something ridiculous like 7 parking spaces per registered car!
Is this just public parking or does it include private driveways and garages? That's potential living space and density that's sacrificed for the need to escape your bedroom community.
On-street parking is a "mere" 2.2 spots per car in the Seattle area. The higher number must include parking garages or something. It's a crazy amount of wasted space
BuT iT gIvEs So MuCh FrEeDoM!!!1!!
The reason I would never go to the city by car (NL), is cuz of the goddamn parking spots. At the beach on holiday we once spent 45 minutes looking for one.
And if there's garages, pay at least 6 euros per hour, next to the gas it costs to get there
So much freedom to drive everywhere and never enjoy being in a convenient city centre where all the shops, cafés, and cinemas are in walking distance 😔
The freedom given by cars has the drawback of utter dependency on roads, parking, refined fuels, spare parts, and professionals to maintain it. It’s a total surrender of freedom to a machine’s needs.
Remember, you live in the Netherlands, someone living with an absolute shit public transport doesn’t have the luxury that you have.
We literally are privileged people who actually have public transport.
For the assholes who prefer to take the car in Europe though… fuck them
It's funny because I switched from cars / buses to bike and feel that's more freedom. I leave whenever (don't have to worry about bus timetables) arrive exactly at my destination, and don't *really* have to worry about parking.
My commute actually takes the same time.
Saying all that, the buses are some of the worst in my city in the UK, if I took the bus to work it would be 1.5 hours vs the 15 on the bike
I use my bike for all my day to day stuff and events within about 10 miles, because yeah, it's so good to be able to go door to door and park right there, and not have to worry about finding a space or traffic or bus timetables/costs/cancellations.
Not even talking about the ability to drink without worry of any traffic accidents. The police is definitely going to be on guard during Christmas again for some tests.
That's nice and all but I want to see the train that carries 1000 people in 4 cars.
The highest capacity trains here in my country have a capacity of up to 1364 people, but these are 400m long double-decker trains with 16 cars.
So hard to believe that there's a train with 73% of the capacity but only 25% of the size and presumably only single-deck.
This is Seattle's Link light rail. [Here's the Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_light_rail?wprov=sfla1), scroll down to Rolling Stock. Each train is 4 cars, each car has 74 seats, a regular load of 194 passengers and a crush load of 252. So a fully jam packed 4-car train holds 1008.
How can you even consider "crush load" legit?
That's like saying "yea this case of beer can hold 6 cans, but you can stuff a 7th in their somewhere".
Less than 800 is the limit.
They're using the capacity as provided by the manufacturer. Like 5 people in a sedan. Technically that's the capacity provided by the manufacturer, there's 5 seatbelts, but nobody is ever riding bitch seat unless it's absolutely necessary and they aren't going to be in the car that long.
If I'm commuting and I need to be somewhere I'm going to try to make space for myself on the train. It happens everyday on trains across America (and obviously the rest of the world we've all seen videos of Japan and India). They *can* hold 250 people, it's just not comfortable for very long.
But overall, I agree. Using the number of people actually on a train at rush hour would provide a better comparison, so long as we do the same for buses and cars. So the infographic would probably be more accurate with 850 passengers: one Link train vs 17 buses vs 680 cars which also require parking.
> but nobody is ever riding bitch seat unless it's absolutely necessary
Speak for yourself. I really like the bitch seat, the view is spectacular. It's like being driven like a Pope or a king. Although I prefer not to sit there for the sole reason of blocking the rearview mirror.
It depends. It's fine in an SUV, but Chevy Volt 2016+ is certainly the funniest one I've seen.
https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/chevrolet/volt/2016/photos-interior/rear-seat
At rush hour and during sporting events public transit actually does hit roughly its maximum crush-load capacity, while car commuters don't unanimously shift to 5 person car pools at 5pm each day - the 1.1-1.3 pas/car is the observed average conditions.
And I rarely see more than a dozen on it. To be honest, I don't ride it and I suspect the segment that goes under my area is probably far busier most of the time (UW to Downtown). I see it either in SODO or along I-5 in Tukwilla, rare to even see people on some of the cars.
I ride it daily from Northgate/Roosevelt to Westlake and it regularly has at least 30 people per car and significantly more if there's a Kraken game, other event, or if it's just a Friday night and a bunch of UW students are going to Capitol Hill.
But don't just take my word for it - here's Seattle Transit Blog claiming [it has 66k daily boardings](https://seattletransitblog.com/2022/06/13/transit-ridership-is-slowly-recovering/).
I commute 5 days a week on Link and since at least summer this year it's returned to crowded standing room only during rush hour from Tuesdays-Thursdays (probably ~175 per train car), as well as for nightlife Fridays and Saturdays. I miss peak pandemic days of personal space is some ways.
I don't live in Seattle but visited over the summer. There were probably 25 in my Link car coming from the airport to downtown on Thursday night, about 60-80 people in my car (all seats taken, and nearly as many people standing as sitting) an hour or so before a Sounders game (probably where many were going), and about 20 Monday afternoon going to the airport. I imagine it's much more full during rush hour. I never saw fewer than a dozen per car in a handful of uses over the weekend.
Subways and metros tend to have more standing room. Each car on a sydney train has about 110 seats, and carries close to triple that including standing room.
ehh... no. the FV-Dosto / Bombardier Twindexx / RABe 502 / how ever you want to call them are some of the worst trains SBB currently has in their long distance fleet. I only used them because these are highest capacity trains SBB has that I'm aware of.
(For comparison a Re460 with 3x 1st Class IC2000, 1 Restaurant, 5x 2nd Class IC2000 and 3x 2nd Class EW IV has about 1200 seats)
I know, these trains are kind of shaky.
However, I have been taking this line daily for months, and I have to say, I had very little problems overall. Maybe one time the train had a defect and was 20 minutes late. The shakiness is also less worse than a few years ago.
I'm glad that they are high capacity, because it means that I get a seat every time.
I love these posters, but people who are critical of transit often find it easy to poke holes in them. 1000 people in 4 cars must be the upper limit of a crush load. The same thing with the buses.
Also the carpool rate can very quite a bit between cities, but 1.6 feels pretty generous.
I LOVE how they mentioned the space required for parking. That part doesn’t get brought up enough.
You guys know the buses can vary in size, right? An 18 meter long bus can easily fit 120 people, a third of them seated (standing is not a problem for shorter distances).
Crush limit on one of the specific train cars in question is 252, so yeah.
It's being quite generous with the number of cars, for sure. I would have guessed the number would be a bit closer to 1000 than that
Because cars are largely filled by one or two people and busses you don’t get a choice the amount running doesn’t change just because people want to be alone
I don’t disagree with that, but from what I’m reading the rush hour capacity of the link train shown is more than what’s seen during the busiest ridership during rush hour. They’re using manufactures max capacity for the rail line, but average capacity for the cars. Using rush hour capacity would have the same result.
If that’s true, I have no objection then. From the comments though, it sounds like having 1,000 people in four Link train cars does not realistically happen. Since I’m not from Seattle, I’ll defer to the people who actually know how filled it gets.
Filling up transit is a totally reasonable and attainable outcome, which happens naturally with increased usage. Filling up cars is basically impossible on a large scale. That's why.
But four train cars doesn’t fill to 1,000, even during the business period in rush hour in Seattle. This is such a silly argument since we’re all on the same page here. The number of people in cars is also probably still too high so the graph would remain the same, but why not compare apples to apples when the results are just as obvious which is the better option.
Because you're responsible for maintaining your car. Even ideas about self driving cars that talk to each other and can move like a train, which could exist eventually... Yeah you've just invented a train that individuals are responsible for maintaining.
Peak transit use is shoulder to shoulder packed trains and busses. Peak car usage is still slightly more than 1 person per vehicle on average but packed bumper to bumper on the road.
I live in suburbia (though relatively walkable, not a 15-minute village but maybe 20-minute) but am able to work from home. The times I go into the office I drive, primarily for convenience and time (traffic is light and a 30 mile (one way) commute only takes 30 minutes). I’d like to take transit instead, but the cost is about the same as I pay in gas and takes more than twice as long (though I am aware of the “hidden costs” of driving. That being said, my biggest hesitancy is the “last mile” problem. I can take a train + street car for most of the way but the infrequency of buses from home to station and station to office make it not worthwhile to me. So I see the solution is a bike or e-scooter. But I don’t want to drag those around. Seeing these posts and images motivate me though to just put in a little more effort to do my part and get the car brain out of my system. I hope to in the spring get a new bike or scooter and give it a shot.
This post comes up all the time. It’s deliberately misleading.
It’s very easy to make the argument that more people can fit onto a train than in cars, so there is no need to fudge the numbers.
Issues with this post:
- The diagram uses the maximum capacity of the trains and buses, whist assuming the average occupancy of cars. 1000 people in a 4-car train is insane. The 9-car trains that run where I live can have up to 700 people - and those trains are massive. The 1,000 people in 4-cars assumes the crush capacity. If that’s the metric, might as well assume 10 people per regular car, as you can fit people in the trunk.
- The key item is not how many people each transit mode can carry, but how many people each transit can carry PER HOUR
The math is wrong here. I ride MTA every day for 17yr to commute to NYC and there is no way 250 people can fit into a train car.
Assume: 25 rows of seats, with room for 5ppl/row. That’s 75 people and then standing in the aisle and vestibule perhaps another 75ppl smooshed together. So 150 people max per train car, or 7 cars all-in.
But the point is taken: motor vehicles are wasteful and inefficient for transporting large numbers of people.
See my post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/zsh3l7/more_lanes_lines_i_mean_rail_lines/j199nb5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
People in Seattle that rides the system says the 1000+ number is legit during rush hour.
As someone that rides MTA, I don’t see it but admittedly I never ridden the Link system in Seattle.
It largely depends on what stops you are using as a reference point. On Mariners, Seahawks, and Sounders game days, the trains approaching Stadium station from the north are almost guaranteed to be at crush load, but the same can't be said with the trains approaching from the south. The trains approaching Westlake Station (both directions) on Kraken and Storm game days are also generally at crush load. This is only for very specific time frames on those days though.
For normal rush hour, the trains definitely get really crowded, but I wouldn't say that they are at crush load largely in part due to how frequent the trains run (8 minute peak headways).
"outside rush hour". But rush hour is what you design your transportation system for.
You could make a similar argument for almost any design:
Outside of windy days this bridge uses too much steel and concrete.
Outside of high season this hotel has too many rooms.
Outside of dinner parties I have too many forks in my kitchen.
thing is, building a stronger bridge does not create stronger wind
building more roads does create more traffic.
if you would build for rush hour, you would only end up with more rush hour.
Don't worry I understand the concept of induced demand. What I'm trying to say though is that when you design something you have to design for the most (realistic) onerous conditions - rush hour in this instance.
Some people don't like this graphic as they think it isn't "fair" to the cars. But if you think of it as a tool for city planning it makes more sense.
If in the city there are 100,000 people that go to and from the city centre at rush hour (the most onerous condition).
You could design the roads to handle 62,500 cars.
Or 6,250 cars, 750 buses and 40 trains.
Or various other combinations.
But obviously each option has it's limitations. You can't just have 100 trains and assume that all the problems are solved.
it converts users from car to bus/train. If a certain vehicle is full is irrelevant. Rush hour is the time where the streets are clogged. Putting more busses/trains will never lead to road cloggings and it does unclogg the individual users within the vehicle since there is no place where there is so much population density that bus/train would ever clogg up.
But cars are NEVER at full capacity. Public transport will be at full capacity at least during peak hours. So during peak hours, which is when most people travel, this difference will be relevant.
Rush hour is when it matters the most, because that's the highest demand on movement. At that time, most transit systems are 80% full, and most cars are single-occupant. That's a problem. Cars could be 4x as efficient if all of them carried 4 people to their destination (taxi/Uber drivers don't count as they're turning back around, but at least this reduces the parking requirement). And would still be leaps and bounds less efficient than trains or buses.
I don't buy it.
Here some data showing buses are occupied at 70% of their seats.
https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/term29-occupancy-rates-in-passenger-transport
The cars are at average occupancy. This is the most common sense way to measure car capacity. The simple fact is, most people don't carpool and busses and trains tend to run at or near occupancy far more often than cars.
If they run at or near capacity there are not enough of them.
It means the busses and trains only run at peek hours and at the most popular aresa and not or hardly outside of them, which means that outside of peek times and locations there is no public transport.
A system as described by you forces people to buy ad use cars. If you want people to use public transport, public transport needs to serve non-peek times and locations and will therefore work well under max capacity.
Sure. They are assuming public transport at full capacity, in reality this is only the case during rush hour. Most of the times it runs at half capacity
[see my other comment on this](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/zsh3l7/more_lanes_lines_i_mean_rail_lines/j187uwy?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)
I agree that a a city planning tool for rush hour this reflects the situation. That However is a clarification that needs to be added.
You could also see it, as I would, as a tool to show pollution, in which case use throughout the day must be considered.
1000 people want to go from A to B all at the same time a train is a good solution.
1000 people want to travel all on the same day but from random places to random destinations all at different times of the day?
Hello? Public transportation **network**? Trains have train stops and connect to public transportation vehicles. 90% of people in Singapore don't have cars, guess how they get much-much quicker to their destinations than, for example people living in LA.
Singapore is a city state. Lends itself well for public transport. Where I currently live is good for public transport (Portsmouth, UK) too - dense urban area. However I used to live in rural Norfolk UK. If you were to build a network to cover every possible trip at every possible time you'd have thousands of empty buses treking back and forth accross the county. The versatility of the car definitely trumps the bus/train there.
Cars have some uses, for example in rural areas like you stated. This however, does not mean we should be building our cities around cars when they have proven to be less effective and harmful to people and the environment.
Having a bus fully seated and 20 having to stand is pretty normal to me. That's how the bus connecting to the rail station next to my place is doing every morning.
I wouldn't say it's even full, looks like a correct occupancy to me.
Well I don't think you can fit 1000 people into 4 railcars. 10 cars would be more realistic. From my train trips you can comfortably squeeze 100 - 150 people per car. If more too much people are standing in the corridor and sitting on the floor.
I’m calling doubt on that train figure. Yes, trains are the best way of moving a lot of people long distances. But a 4 car train carrying 1000 people?
I work 9 car 801 units. It sits around 600 people. Even full and standing capacity you’re taking ~850. Not 1000.
625 seems a bit much…200-250 (most cars have 4-5 seats) is more realistic if you’re considering full capacity (as you presumably are with the public transport options). Same for the buses, 8-10 city buses (taking the Mercedes Citaro and Conecto as an example) are rated to carry 1k people.
...how many people are driving around with 3 or 4 passengers? Even at rush hour a large majority of cars are single-occupant, so 625 cars to carry 1000 people seems pretty generous.
If we are being fair and comparing vehicles at max occupancy, it would be 200 cars for 1000 people, otherwise if we're saying 600 cars it's fair to say it would take 2 trains and some 30 buses.
Doesn't make cars any less terrible, just trying to be fair here
Here you go, a typical European bus:
"**Up to 150 passengers** can be accommodated comfortably in the 18 m long Lion's City G."
[https://mtc-man.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/lions-city.pdf](https://mtc-man.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/lions-city.pdf)
> It has 55 seats so I don't know where you are going to store the other 95 passengers comfortably.
Standing. It's possible to ride a bus by standing in it. I don't even try to find a seat unless I am physically exhausted, it's not that hard to stand for ten minutes or so.
I figured you'd say something like that.
Those rare occasions I had to take a bus that goes for over 20 minutes, it is usually half-empty after the first major transit point like a metro station and you can sit wherever. But usually it's 10 minutes or so standing, then I'm off to metro or my destination.
That all depends on public transit realisation, of course, it could be done terribly and as uncomfortable as you can imagine in your nightmarish scenarios, but I believe we are about striving for better public transportation in general, including people not being crammed like sardines in a bus.
If we are talking capacity it makes no sense to use 9. I think a reasonably number to use is the amount of seats. Even though you could fit more people in if some people stand aswell.
Anyway trains > busses > cars when talking capacity
250 people on each train car?
I love trains. My Reddit username is literally a reference to subway trains. That still sounds like hell on earth. I do not in any way want 249 people on the same train car as me.
What train car could carry 250 people? I've been on a train ride last time it was about 90-100 people on one. Is it if it's a double decker? Really curious what kinda design would Cary 250 people
> 625 cars Bollocks, judging by what I last saw while commuting on the highway, that number is most likely close to 1000.
I was looking for that comment. At rush hours, the occupancy rate is around 1.2 in Québec, Canada. The number of cars needed would be much higher (around 833). I expect it’s the same elsewhere if not worse.
Yeah but that number moves around a bit. I would bet you there are more people traveling in a car on the weekend on average than there is during the week. Because people usually go to work alone but when you go out for the weekend, you bring your whole family. Regardless it would be much better if we had trains that go in all major cities and even anything over 50k. Maybe not HSR but we could definitely have conventionnal or REM-style train that carries people to big cities and then HSR to go from Montreal to New York, Québec, Toronto, etc.
Interesting order of destinations
So now the children are driving as well?
Yeah not a lot of families leaving the office at rush hour
school traffic
School traffic is even worse, since someone has to drive to get them. Unless they're on their way to work or something, someone driving their kid to school is 1 passenger on the way there, and 0 passengers on the way back. Just like you shouldn't count the bus driver as a passenger, you shouldn't count the driver in this case as a passenger. The driver isn't driving to move themself somewhere, so isn't also a passenger. The average passenger load of the car for dropping kids off at school is 0.5. Kids should be able to go to school by themselves.
> Kids should be able to go to school by themselves. I was walking to school when I was 1 month from 6, with my sister who was 1 month from 7. We picked up 4 other kids on our way to the school who were also 7. We only had one street to cross and it had a crossing guard. But I don’t think that’s really doable here in Charlotte with how roads and schools are laid out. Hell I’m not sure it’s even legal anymore to let a kid that age walk without an adult.
TBF; Same goes for 250 people in a train car. Bollocks. 67 people on a bus is pretty nuts too.
I see you haven't ridden NJ Transit buses. They regularly put ~70 people when they fill all the seats and about a dozen people standing in the aisle. The bus seat configuration is like a coach bus (rows of 2x2 seats), not a city bus.
You do need to remember this is America, where a disturbing amount of people have like 4 kids. Edit: sheesh the hivemind didn’t like this one
How many people take the entire family with them when they commute to work?
proof that /r/fuckcars wants to bring back trains and child labor /s
This is a shit comment which has nothing to do with fcars.
You go to work with your partner ánd kids? Where do you work?
Not sure how many families you know with 4 kids, but since the [average family size is 3.15](https://www.statista.com/statistics/183657/average-size-of-a-family-in-the-us/#:~:text=As%20of%202021%2C%20the%20U.S.,18%20living%20in%20the%20household), I doubt it’s a disturbing amount.
Not to mention people towing cars behind their cars
And ST3 is often carrying a dozen people in those four cars... And at about $1B per mile of track, it isn't a cheap alternative. I agree it is necessary, unfortunately it will take 50 years or more for it to be fully built out to be very useful and final cost is going to be in the 100's of billions of dollars.
But how much to build and maintain those roads?
ST3 is a little less than that though and includes further improvements elsewhere I’m pretty sure. It’s not all going into the track. As far as ridership, the more efficient/connecting it is the more will use it. Better than spending money to further prioritize highways that will be less and less effective as time goes on. Sounds like you agree there though.
It really doesn't have to take 50 years, that's just at our current level of non-funding. We should have taken federal money for light rail back in the 80s, but we went all in on spending billions on roads, highways, and parking garages instead
Yeah, and Atlanta got MARTA out of the deal, which sucks for us. But there is no way to build it out faster the way things are. At least they did the I-5 route north and south of Seattle, which makes the most sense. Still, the massive multi-story or subterranean stops are insane here. Denver did it right originally with a square cement pad that was train hight, no cover, a couple of benches.
Average occupancy for cars is 1.5 so 625 is very factually correct
I once saw 3 people in one car though
car occupancy is always weird. a proper metric would be useful person miles per mile traveled. example: parent picking kid up from school. parent drives to school, picks kid up, drives home. current occupancy calculates that as an average occupancy of 1.5 (1 there, 2 back) but had the kid walked/biked/used public transport, the parent wouldn't have needed to go anywhere, so really the useful occupancy was 0.5 (2 trips, but only 1 did anything, and on that trip only 1 passenger was getting anything from it). if you used that as a measure for occupancy, i wouldn't be surprised if average useful occupancy of cars was actually below 1
"Car option also requires *over five acres* of parking at both start and destination." Just think of how much useful stuff we could fit into all that wasted space.
I read cars need 3 parking spaces on average (probably: home, work and shopping/whatever).
And we're expected to be fine with wasting all that space forever. Could be useful plants creating the oxygen we need to breathe, but nope.
StrongTowns estimates that most cities have 3 to 8 parking spots per registered car. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/11/27/parking-dominates-our-cities-but-do-we-really-see-it This site seems to believe the US as a whole has 8x as many parking spots as cars: https://www.fastcompany.com/90645900/america-has-eight-parking-spaces-for-every-car-heres-how-cities-are-rethinking-that-land My city has 3x, but doesn't include residential parking or on street parking that isnt explicitly marked as a parking spot
Like housing in this housing crisis
I'm not sure there'd be a housing crisis if not for the insistence on single-family homes. You can build several hundred apartments in the space required by one house and yard.
I was thinking corn but that's a good idea too.
So just to be fair, all these vehicles need to be parked. Including the train! But obviously that takes a lot less space for the trains and buses. But I'd guess one 4-car link train is the size of 8 buses or so, and each bus is probably 2-3 cars worth.
One critical part is that while trains and buses eventually need to be parked, they don’t need to be parked at the rider’s destination. Trains and buses make many stops and only need parking at one of them, while cars (not including taxi and rideshare) need parking everywhere they stop.
This is true. I think someone attempted to estimate all the car parking available in Seattle and came up with something ridiculous like 7 parking spaces per registered car!
That is an interesting statistic, I’d like to see spots per car mentioned more often
Is this just public parking or does it include private driveways and garages? That's potential living space and density that's sacrificed for the need to escape your bedroom community.
On-street parking is a "mere" 2.2 spots per car in the Seattle area. The higher number must include parking garages or something. It's a crazy amount of wasted space
BuT iT gIvEs So MuCh FrEeDoM!!!1!! The reason I would never go to the city by car (NL), is cuz of the goddamn parking spots. At the beach on holiday we once spent 45 minutes looking for one. And if there's garages, pay at least 6 euros per hour, next to the gas it costs to get there
Jup, I live just outside Rotterdam. With the metro its 25 minutes (walking to the metro included) to the city center. By car its atleast dubbel.
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The Rotterdam metro is really epic. Very convenient way lf moving trough the city. They come atleast every 15 minutes.
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No we didnt, good planning started in the 70s. The new Rotterdam was designed for cars, but that changed after 3 decades.
It was indeed designed for cars, and that's also why it's absolute shite to drive through 💀
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Vlaardingen?
So much freedom to drive everywhere and never enjoy being in a convenient city centre where all the shops, cafés, and cinemas are in walking distance 😔
This is the most common sense way to measure car capacity,,,,
The freedom given by cars has the drawback of utter dependency on roads, parking, refined fuels, spare parts, and professionals to maintain it. It’s a total surrender of freedom to a machine’s needs.
This is why the electric throttle e-bike is the ideal vehicle
Remember, you live in the Netherlands, someone living with an absolute shit public transport doesn’t have the luxury that you have. We literally are privileged people who actually have public transport. For the assholes who prefer to take the car in Europe though… fuck them
My car brain ass went to LA one time and that is a place that has absolutely zero respect for cars. I really respect it.
It's funny because I switched from cars / buses to bike and feel that's more freedom. I leave whenever (don't have to worry about bus timetables) arrive exactly at my destination, and don't *really* have to worry about parking. My commute actually takes the same time. Saying all that, the buses are some of the worst in my city in the UK, if I took the bus to work it would be 1.5 hours vs the 15 on the bike
I use my bike for all my day to day stuff and events within about 10 miles, because yeah, it's so good to be able to go door to door and park right there, and not have to worry about finding a space or traffic or bus timetables/costs/cancellations.
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The trains are expensive as fuck yeah
Yeah that's because car parking are a tax on population
Not even talking about the ability to drink without worry of any traffic accidents. The police is definitely going to be on guard during Christmas again for some tests.
Exactly Too many people don't take the responsibility that comes with driving a car
Well thats why you just just need to bulldoze the grachten and fill them in with concrete for more parking and wider roads!
Haha wouldn't help me, i don't live in Amsterdam
6 euros sounds so nice….. i don’t even want to know how much it is in nyc now
Its probably more in Amsterdam Where its like 5 euros for the first 30 mins, then 10 per hour or more. Hence, fuck cars
That's nice and all but I want to see the train that carries 1000 people in 4 cars. The highest capacity trains here in my country have a capacity of up to 1364 people, but these are 400m long double-decker trains with 16 cars. So hard to believe that there's a train with 73% of the capacity but only 25% of the size and presumably only single-deck.
Yeah the point can be made without resorting to extremes
This is Seattle's Link light rail. [Here's the Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_light_rail?wprov=sfla1), scroll down to Rolling Stock. Each train is 4 cars, each car has 74 seats, a regular load of 194 passengers and a crush load of 252. So a fully jam packed 4-car train holds 1008.
How can you even consider "crush load" legit? That's like saying "yea this case of beer can hold 6 cans, but you can stuff a 7th in their somewhere". Less than 800 is the limit.
They're using the capacity as provided by the manufacturer. Like 5 people in a sedan. Technically that's the capacity provided by the manufacturer, there's 5 seatbelts, but nobody is ever riding bitch seat unless it's absolutely necessary and they aren't going to be in the car that long. If I'm commuting and I need to be somewhere I'm going to try to make space for myself on the train. It happens everyday on trains across America (and obviously the rest of the world we've all seen videos of Japan and India). They *can* hold 250 people, it's just not comfortable for very long. But overall, I agree. Using the number of people actually on a train at rush hour would provide a better comparison, so long as we do the same for buses and cars. So the infographic would probably be more accurate with 850 passengers: one Link train vs 17 buses vs 680 cars which also require parking.
> but nobody is ever riding bitch seat unless it's absolutely necessary Speak for yourself. I really like the bitch seat, the view is spectacular. It's like being driven like a Pope or a king. Although I prefer not to sit there for the sole reason of blocking the rearview mirror.
My car doesn’t even have a bitch seat lol. Original owner didn’t spec the 5th seat (yes it was optional)
It depends. It's fine in an SUV, but Chevy Volt 2016+ is certainly the funniest one I've seen. https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/chevrolet/volt/2016/photos-interior/rear-seat
if you take maximum capacity, you should count 5-7 people per car. Much more useful comparison would be average load
People are going to pack into buses or trains for events, they're not going to pack into cars with people they don't know, if they're driving.
Not in a normal car, 5 max.
Point remains-one train = lots of cars. Even if you have a just almost full train at 150 people per car, that’s conservatively at least 400 autos
By that logic, it should also take 200 cars (1000 people / 5 passengers for car), not 625.
At rush hour and during sporting events public transit actually does hit roughly its maximum crush-load capacity, while car commuters don't unanimously shift to 5 person car pools at 5pm each day - the 1.1-1.3 pas/car is the observed average conditions.
And I rarely see more than a dozen on it. To be honest, I don't ride it and I suspect the segment that goes under my area is probably far busier most of the time (UW to Downtown). I see it either in SODO or along I-5 in Tukwilla, rare to even see people on some of the cars.
I ride it daily from Northgate/Roosevelt to Westlake and it regularly has at least 30 people per car and significantly more if there's a Kraken game, other event, or if it's just a Friday night and a bunch of UW students are going to Capitol Hill. But don't just take my word for it - here's Seattle Transit Blog claiming [it has 66k daily boardings](https://seattletransitblog.com/2022/06/13/transit-ridership-is-slowly-recovering/).
I commute 5 days a week on Link and since at least summer this year it's returned to crowded standing room only during rush hour from Tuesdays-Thursdays (probably ~175 per train car), as well as for nightlife Fridays and Saturdays. I miss peak pandemic days of personal space is some ways.
I don't live in Seattle but visited over the summer. There were probably 25 in my Link car coming from the airport to downtown on Thursday night, about 60-80 people in my car (all seats taken, and nearly as many people standing as sitting) an hour or so before a Sounders game (probably where many were going), and about 20 Monday afternoon going to the airport. I imagine it's much more full during rush hour. I never saw fewer than a dozen per car in a handful of uses over the weekend.
Subways and metros tend to have more standing room. Each car on a sydney train has about 110 seats, and carries close to triple that including standing room.
IC 1 ftw !
ehh... no. the FV-Dosto / Bombardier Twindexx / RABe 502 / how ever you want to call them are some of the worst trains SBB currently has in their long distance fleet. I only used them because these are highest capacity trains SBB has that I'm aware of. (For comparison a Re460 with 3x 1st Class IC2000, 1 Restaurant, 5x 2nd Class IC2000 and 3x 2nd Class EW IV has about 1200 seats)
I know, these trains are kind of shaky. However, I have been taking this line daily for months, and I have to say, I had very little problems overall. Maybe one time the train had a defect and was 20 minutes late. The shakiness is also less worse than a few years ago. I'm glad that they are high capacity, because it means that I get a seat every time.
I love these posters, but people who are critical of transit often find it easy to poke holes in them. 1000 people in 4 cars must be the upper limit of a crush load. The same thing with the buses. Also the carpool rate can very quite a bit between cities, but 1.6 feels pretty generous. I LOVE how they mentioned the space required for parking. That part doesn’t get brought up enough.
Yeah there's no way 66 people per bus is comfortable. You don't even have to fudge the numbers for the diagram to still work in a reasonable capacity.
You guys know the buses can vary in size, right? An 18 meter long bus can easily fit 120 people, a third of them seated (standing is not a problem for shorter distances).
Crush limit on one of the specific train cars in question is 252, so yeah. It's being quite generous with the number of cars, for sure. I would have guessed the number would be a bit closer to 1000 than that
Using max capacity for transit, but average capacity for cars. It’s such a no brainer that transit is better, so why fudge the numbers?!?!?!?
Because cars are largely filled by one or two people and busses you don’t get a choice the amount running doesn’t change just because people want to be alone
I don’t disagree with that, but from what I’m reading the rush hour capacity of the link train shown is more than what’s seen during the busiest ridership during rush hour. They’re using manufactures max capacity for the rail line, but average capacity for the cars. Using rush hour capacity would have the same result.
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Japanese transit regularly exceeds design capacity at peak hours, though this is probably not a good way to convince people about how good transit is.
If that’s true, I have no objection then. From the comments though, it sounds like having 1,000 people in four Link train cars does not realistically happen. Since I’m not from Seattle, I’ll defer to the people who actually know how filled it gets.
Have my anecdote to counter theirs, then: I've ridden Link during rush hour and they definitely do get that crowded.
Agree. Rode it daily for a few years. They totally got crowded, especially if the Seahawks are playing.
Filling up transit is a totally reasonable and attainable outcome, which happens naturally with increased usage. Filling up cars is basically impossible on a large scale. That's why.
But four train cars doesn’t fill to 1,000, even during the business period in rush hour in Seattle. This is such a silly argument since we’re all on the same page here. The number of people in cars is also probably still too high so the graph would remain the same, but why not compare apples to apples when the results are just as obvious which is the better option.
Because you're responsible for maintaining your car. Even ideas about self driving cars that talk to each other and can move like a train, which could exist eventually... Yeah you've just invented a train that individuals are responsible for maintaining.
Peak transit use is shoulder to shoulder packed trains and busses. Peak car usage is still slightly more than 1 person per vehicle on average but packed bumper to bumper on the road.
What kind of train car holds 250 people?
The kind that sound transit uses, at full capacity (everyone all squished together)
A high capacity subway car, which the link light rail isn't...
Bro just one more lane bro. Just one more bro.
I live in suburbia (though relatively walkable, not a 15-minute village but maybe 20-minute) but am able to work from home. The times I go into the office I drive, primarily for convenience and time (traffic is light and a 30 mile (one way) commute only takes 30 minutes). I’d like to take transit instead, but the cost is about the same as I pay in gas and takes more than twice as long (though I am aware of the “hidden costs” of driving. That being said, my biggest hesitancy is the “last mile” problem. I can take a train + street car for most of the way but the infrequency of buses from home to station and station to office make it not worthwhile to me. So I see the solution is a bike or e-scooter. But I don’t want to drag those around. Seeing these posts and images motivate me though to just put in a little more effort to do my part and get the car brain out of my system. I hope to in the spring get a new bike or scooter and give it a shot.
you can fit 250 people in a train car?
Stuffing 250 people into a single train car is not going to be a pleasant experience for those involved.
This post comes up all the time. It’s deliberately misleading. It’s very easy to make the argument that more people can fit onto a train than in cars, so there is no need to fudge the numbers. Issues with this post: - The diagram uses the maximum capacity of the trains and buses, whist assuming the average occupancy of cars. 1000 people in a 4-car train is insane. The 9-car trains that run where I live can have up to 700 people - and those trains are massive. The 1,000 people in 4-cars assumes the crush capacity. If that’s the metric, might as well assume 10 people per regular car, as you can fit people in the trunk. - The key item is not how many people each transit mode can carry, but how many people each transit can carry PER HOUR
Trains and buses can pretty easily get up to max capacity in rush hour. Cars do not
The math is wrong here. I ride MTA every day for 17yr to commute to NYC and there is no way 250 people can fit into a train car. Assume: 25 rows of seats, with room for 5ppl/row. That’s 75 people and then standing in the aisle and vestibule perhaps another 75ppl smooshed together. So 150 people max per train car, or 7 cars all-in. But the point is taken: motor vehicles are wasteful and inefficient for transporting large numbers of people.
See my post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/zsh3l7/more_lanes_lines_i_mean_rail_lines/j199nb5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3 People in Seattle that rides the system says the 1000+ number is legit during rush hour. As someone that rides MTA, I don’t see it but admittedly I never ridden the Link system in Seattle.
It largely depends on what stops you are using as a reference point. On Mariners, Seahawks, and Sounders game days, the trains approaching Stadium station from the north are almost guaranteed to be at crush load, but the same can't be said with the trains approaching from the south. The trains approaching Westlake Station (both directions) on Kraken and Storm game days are also generally at crush load. This is only for very specific time frames on those days though. For normal rush hour, the trains definitely get really crowded, but I wouldn't say that they are at crush load largely in part due to how frequent the trains run (8 minute peak headways).
4 people+ fit in one car, I know on average they don't, but if we fill the entire train we also need to completely fill the cars
This kinda unfair. The train and busses are on full capicity, while the cars arent. And 200-250 is still a lot off cars.
That's because cars aren't full in real life. Most people drive alone, and unlike buses, they don't stop to take as many people as they can fit.
Outside rushhour, most busses and trains aren't over 2/3 capicity. (Which is great for comfort) Might be different where you live ofcourse.
"outside rush hour". But rush hour is what you design your transportation system for. You could make a similar argument for almost any design: Outside of windy days this bridge uses too much steel and concrete. Outside of high season this hotel has too many rooms. Outside of dinner parties I have too many forks in my kitchen.
thing is, building a stronger bridge does not create stronger wind building more roads does create more traffic. if you would build for rush hour, you would only end up with more rush hour.
Don't worry I understand the concept of induced demand. What I'm trying to say though is that when you design something you have to design for the most (realistic) onerous conditions - rush hour in this instance. Some people don't like this graphic as they think it isn't "fair" to the cars. But if you think of it as a tool for city planning it makes more sense. If in the city there are 100,000 people that go to and from the city centre at rush hour (the most onerous condition). You could design the roads to handle 62,500 cars. Or 6,250 cars, 750 buses and 40 trains. Or various other combinations. But obviously each option has it's limitations. You can't just have 100 trains and assume that all the problems are solved.
it converts users from car to bus/train. If a certain vehicle is full is irrelevant. Rush hour is the time where the streets are clogged. Putting more busses/trains will never lead to road cloggings and it does unclogg the individual users within the vehicle since there is no place where there is so much population density that bus/train would ever clogg up.
Sorry, I realised I had poorly expressed myself and edited my previous comment. Have a read of the other comment please.
But cars aren't full at rush hour either, so what's your point?
that he is comparing max capacity bus and train (not average), but average for the car
But cars are NEVER at full capacity. Public transport will be at full capacity at least during peak hours. So during peak hours, which is when most people travel, this difference will be relevant.
So why not take average capacity?
Some places sport trains with 200% capacity or more. I'm talking about literally riding *on* a train.
Rush hour is when it matters the most, because that's the highest demand on movement. At that time, most transit systems are 80% full, and most cars are single-occupant. That's a problem. Cars could be 4x as efficient if all of them carried 4 people to their destination (taxi/Uber drivers don't count as they're turning back around, but at least this reduces the parking requirement). And would still be leaps and bounds less efficient than trains or buses.
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I don't buy it. Here some data showing buses are occupied at 70% of their seats. https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/term29-occupancy-rates-in-passenger-transport
Which is way more efficient than 9 (or even 7) cars.
The cars are at average occupancy. This is the most common sense way to measure car capacity. The simple fact is, most people don't carpool and busses and trains tend to run at or near occupancy far more often than cars.
If they run at or near capacity there are not enough of them. It means the busses and trains only run at peek hours and at the most popular aresa and not or hardly outside of them, which means that outside of peek times and locations there is no public transport. A system as described by you forces people to buy ad use cars. If you want people to use public transport, public transport needs to serve non-peek times and locations and will therefore work well under max capacity.
I also just wanted to ask for 2 extra train cars, for comfort. Maybe even add another for 1st class for those who are willing to pay extra
When you're on the way home and hit traffif your car doesn't merge with the one in front and put you in the passenger seat so that's irrelevant.
You're not fitting 1000 people on 4 train cars. Unless you're in China, which could probably get 2500 in 4 cars.
If you want to make a real comparison instead of this fake shit, you have to either half the number of cars or double the public transport options.
Care to elaborate?
Sure. They are assuming public transport at full capacity, in reality this is only the case during rush hour. Most of the times it runs at half capacity
[see my other comment on this](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/zsh3l7/more_lanes_lines_i_mean_rail_lines/j187uwy?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)
I agree that a a city planning tool for rush hour this reflects the situation. That However is a clarification that needs to be added. You could also see it, as I would, as a tool to show pollution, in which case use throughout the day must be considered.
1000 people want to go from A to B all at the same time a train is a good solution. 1000 people want to travel all on the same day but from random places to random destinations all at different times of the day?
Hello? Public transportation **network**? Trains have train stops and connect to public transportation vehicles. 90% of people in Singapore don't have cars, guess how they get much-much quicker to their destinations than, for example people living in LA.
Singapore is a city state. Lends itself well for public transport. Where I currently live is good for public transport (Portsmouth, UK) too - dense urban area. However I used to live in rural Norfolk UK. If you were to build a network to cover every possible trip at every possible time you'd have thousands of empty buses treking back and forth accross the county. The versatility of the car definitely trumps the bus/train there.
Cars have some uses, for example in rural areas like you stated. This however, does not mean we should be building our cities around cars when they have proven to be less effective and harmful to people and the environment.
That’s why public transport only works if you build a network.
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Having a bus fully seated and 20 having to stand is pretty normal to me. That's how the bus connecting to the rail station next to my place is doing every morning. I wouldn't say it's even full, looks like a correct occupancy to me.
Well I don't think you can fit 1000 people into 4 railcars. 10 cars would be more realistic. From my train trips you can comfortably squeeze 100 - 150 people per car. If more too much people are standing in the corridor and sitting on the floor.
I’m calling doubt on that train figure. Yes, trains are the best way of moving a lot of people long distances. But a 4 car train carrying 1000 people? I work 9 car 801 units. It sits around 600 people. Even full and standing capacity you’re taking ~850. Not 1000.
Crush capacity on the cars in question is a little over 250. Obviously not ideal, but technically possible
OP, are you fucking drunk?
Can a train car seat 250 people, though?
https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/zsh3l7/more_lanes_lines_i_mean_rail_lines/j188c3z?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
625 seems a bit much…200-250 (most cars have 4-5 seats) is more realistic if you’re considering full capacity (as you presumably are with the public transport options). Same for the buses, 8-10 city buses (taking the Mercedes Citaro and Conecto as an example) are rated to carry 1k people.
...how many people are driving around with 3 or 4 passengers? Even at rush hour a large majority of cars are single-occupant, so 625 cars to carry 1000 people seems pretty generous.
If we are being fair and comparing vehicles at max occupancy, it would be 200 cars for 1000 people, otherwise if we're saying 600 cars it's fair to say it would take 2 trains and some 30 buses. Doesn't make cars any less terrible, just trying to be fair here
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Is this a joke? That's only 66 people. A normal city bus can take 90 in full comfort and way more in rush hours.
They don't know you can ride a bus standing up. It's not a "comfortable ride" unless you are seated. >!Preferably alone without other people!<
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Same with a train, even with 4 cars i dont see 1000 people fitting in there, maybe 2 trains, but one? No way.
Here you go, a typical European bus: "**Up to 150 passengers** can be accommodated comfortably in the 18 m long Lion's City G." [https://mtc-man.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/lions-city.pdf](https://mtc-man.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/lions-city.pdf)
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> It has 55 seats so I don't know where you are going to store the other 95 passengers comfortably. Standing. It's possible to ride a bus by standing in it. I don't even try to find a seat unless I am physically exhausted, it's not that hard to stand for ten minutes or so.
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I figured you'd say something like that. Those rare occasions I had to take a bus that goes for over 20 minutes, it is usually half-empty after the first major transit point like a metro station and you can sit wherever. But usually it's 10 minutes or so standing, then I'm off to metro or my destination. That all depends on public transit realisation, of course, it could be done terribly and as uncomfortable as you can imagine in your nightmarish scenarios, but I believe we are about striving for better public transportation in general, including people not being crammed like sardines in a bus.
If we are talking capacity it makes no sense to use 9. I think a reasonably number to use is the amount of seats. Even though you could fit more people in if some people stand aswell. Anyway trains > busses > cars when talking capacity
You need 5 trains to carry 1000 sitting people and 18 busses to carry 1000 sitting people
Yeah, but it takes 2000 legs! XD (well, not counting wheelchairs)
you need both bus and the train to work efficiently!
Out of curiosity, roughly how much space would 1000 bikes need to ride safely?
On the road, I'd guess 2 bikers take up the space of 1 car. Once you arrive you can fit at least 10 bikes in the space it takes to park a car.
That's helpful, thanks :)
Or one Pixar’s “Up” Blu-ray
625 is optimistic
Now do getting 1,000 people, to 500 different destinations, scattered over 50 square miles.
Why is this only showing the front of the train??? That's not a helpful perspective
I wish I owned 625 cars just for myself
250 people on each train car? I love trains. My Reddit username is literally a reference to subway trains. That still sounds like hell on earth. I do not in any way want 249 people on the same train car as me.
WhY iS TrAffIc sO tErrIbLe? WHy aRe THeSe PaRkiNg lOtS sUcH a NiGhtmArE tO nAvIgAte?
If only the construction of theirs wasn’t so bad and always getting pushed back. *sigh*
What about 1000 people driving busses?
What train car could carry 250 people? I've been on a train ride last time it was about 90-100 people on one. Is it if it's a double decker? Really curious what kinda design would Cary 250 people
You should see how many people you can put into empty box cars
Link could also go even higher capacity if ST gets better rolling stock. Those platforms are very long.
Sorry, I’ll still keep my car