• Leviathan@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Why are we still letting cars in our cities? Especially a city with such fantastic public transit, New York could set a new gold standard for walkable cities.

    • PedestrianError :vbus: :nblvt:@towns.gay
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      4 months ago

      @Leviathan @DrunkEngineer The American political class lives primarily in car-oriented suburbs and those who live in cities are so rich they can afford to use a car even where it’s woefully inefficient. Our urban policy is run by suburbanites who white flighted out of the cities last century through various state, federal, and local mechanisms (like MPOs) and even city politicians live in fear of the mythical stroad-loving suburban swing voter.

    • fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      You are the first person I’ve heard say new York has fantastic public transport.

      Like its there for sure, but the stories about it make it sound harrowing to use

      • Leviathan@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I was there for a week 3 months ago and I stayed in New Jersey, took 25 minutes to get to the port authority in Manhattan and then the subway just went everywhere quickly and efficiently, I was stunned. You can pay with a card and after a certain number of uses it becomes free and the system was pretty easy to understand compared to some European cities.

        I’ve heard horror stories, but New York (Manhattan to be precise) was fantastic up and down. People were nice too, we hit some rough looking areas and I was expecting some craziness but honestly Montreal gets rowdier and is generally angrier too.

      • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I’ve used it a lot over several trips. I found it a bit confusing at times but it seems like the type of thing you get mostly acquainted with in a week or two. I never got fully acclimated because on my first trip when I went to the most places in the city, I typically had a friend navigate. Also I had zero metro/subway experience at the point in my life I was most confused by it.

        This is the first time I’ve heard it implied to be a bad system.

      • sunzu@kbin.run
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        4 months ago

        It is a fine network but is so undermaintained, that anyone in the know has hard time calling it great

        But yeah for suburban NpC, this shit is magic