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While your comment is very amusing, accessibility and congestion are pretty high up on the list of things that make a place “nice.” A deep Investment into public transit is very likely to have a positive impact on an inhabitant’s happiness.
(Incidentally, it’s ironic that you have leapt to the conclusion that one of these cities is “winning” while nothing of the sort is stated in the post, only then to take objection to people drawing such conclusions.)
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Yep, developing country is developing? Holy crap, imagine that!
Add to that, Toronto’s transit system includes light rail that pulls together a much wider geographical area, outside its subway system. It’s a pretty good system, actually
I do think there needs to be a shift in how the government invests in this country, but the answer isn’t “let’s go authoritarian”. Governments need to stop looking for big, complicated answers though and realize that production and growth comes from within, and improving mobility increases production, simple as that. You can invest in industries till the cows come home, but the optics of giving tax breaks and incentives to companies when it takes John 2 hours to drive to work is never going to be good.
improving mobility increases production
Can you restate that in a way that makes it clear that the billionaire class will be able to utilize the project to rape and pillage society and increase income inequity? Otherwise, I don’t see how anyone can support it.
I do think there needs to be a shift in how the government invests in this country, but the answer isn’t “let’s go authoritarian”.
In the end, its more about getting things done, and investing in society, rather than how strongly you can shout your opinion about transgender folk. A government that invests in society is one not focused on either enriching itself, or cutting all social spending to fund tax cuts for oligarchs. When the only acts we/society/rulers ever implement is giveaways to their sponsors, you could think about your programming that tells you your rulership is the best system of all.
Bet money America’s interstate highway system would not pass today’s Congress. And can you imagine conservatives bitching about the spend?!
For non-Americans, our interstate highways are federally funded, safe, consistently engineered and tie the country together. If interstates magically disappeared, our economy would collapse within a month.
can you imagine conservatives bitching about the spend?!
Nonsense. They wouldn’t even know that ‘spend’ isn’t a noun when you’re not on the car lot. #soFetch
Interstate highway is oil. Interstate highway is love.
There’s loads of countries and cities around the world with better public transit than Toronto.
Plenty with democratic elections and freedom of expression too.
Only one reason someone would pick China over anywhere else.
Public transport policy in Toronto is a disaster. It is a complete disappointment of a city and an ugly blight on the landscape that serves only captialism and vapid mediocrity
It’s a disaster until you compare it to most other North American cities. Like what is better? NYC and Montreal? I’m sure there are a few other cities that I can’t think of.
But its true that it has been neglected for decades. Thankfully that has changed a bit recently with 2 new lines being in construction. However the maintenance budget is continually insufficient to keep everything in good repair. Only new projects make your government look good I guess. (But we need both new projects and maintenance)
I agree that North America is appalling. I grew up in Europe, so that is my main comparison.
The two new lines would be helpful, but as someone that lived in Toronto for 15 years until very recently, I believe they were horribly mismanaged. Like most of the city is…
And still WAY ahead of a ton of similarly sized cities on the continent
its sad im over here in Dallas and im envious of Toronto.
Here in San Antonio we have zero rail so…
Talking about China’s human rights issues right away is very strange. Nobody does this if someone mentions a US project.
I wonder why
Because the US has no human rights violations?
/s
What’s up with all the China hype on Lemmy? These projects are impressive, no doubt, but their cost in terms of human rights violations are pretty high. I’m speaking generally, I don’t have the specifics with regards to this subway system. Either way it’s not really comparable to a project like this in a country like Canada imo.
What helps is that the aumomotive/gas industry lobby there isnt so effective.
Lemmy is more international than Reddit, so you’ll see more diverse perspectives
Pentagon wasted tax money on facebook bots to convince people in East Asia that the chinese covid vaccine was poison, so no one is really buying the “China human rights abuses are what allow China to succeed” idea anymore.
Especially since you can just as easily point to Japan’s infrastructure projects which achieved the same thing under US supervision post WWII, meaning said human rights violations aren’t even a supposed cost if there’s less evidence of it that of UAE literally pirating in immigrants to build their lavish towers and stadiums.
Of which the US fully supports, so this just goes back to the blame game of who is worse.
Yes, China has some shady ideas of what is considered acceptable behavior and work output from citizens, but the point is that they are using it to rapidly grow their infrastructure, unlike NA which take a decade for a single transit system to get approved all while car OEMs are pumping out dumpsterfire vehicles of whose parts are overwhelmingly made in China.
The speed and size is impressive, yes.
But I doubt the quality.
“Tofu-dreg project” (Chinese: 豆腐渣工程) is a phrase used in the Chinese-speaking world to describe a very poorly constructed building, sometimes called just “Tofu buildings”. The phrase is notably used referring to buildings that collapsed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake disaster,[1][2][3][4][5][6] and the Bangkok Audit Office skyscraper collapse initiated by aftershocks from the March 2025 Myanmar earthquake over 1000km away, which was constructed with poor construction techniques and materials
We don’t have to agree with China’s politics to appreciate that they did a positive thing. And we shouldn’t have to emulate their politics to get a thing done. We should be able to do it
Something about a street being made that leads into hades.
Some countries want to sell the image of “China is the absolute evil”, thus from this logic everything “good” must equal something very evil.
Some of those are valid, some are stupid as hell.
For the covid ones - the cost was complete lockdown, with some people’s doors being welded shut (not official government policy, but common enough to make news, as lower level authorities get some decision making power in these cases). Imagine having an emergency and your door being welded shut. And of course we later found out that even multi-dose vaccines don’t stop covid 100%, so instead of stopping the pandemic forever, nothing of value was actually achieved. Covid is the new seasonal flu. For a while we didn’t even get vaccines for Covid here in Estonia anymore, though now they’re back on the table, free if you’re in a high risk group.
Electric cars - the cost is mass government subsidies for BYD and a couple of others. BYD doesn’t make money if they sell you a car I believe, they make money from the Chinese government if they sell you a car. Even if you’re in another country. China wants their EVs to dominate the market and that’s a strategy. This is why the EU had to raise tariffs on Chinese cars. Otherwise the European auto industry would simply die.
Electric cars - the cost is mass government subsidies for BYD and a couple of others. BYD doesn’t make money if they sell you a car I believe, they make money from the Chinese government if they sell you a car. Even if you’re in another country. China wants their EVs to dominate the market and that’s a strategy. This is why the EU had to raise tariffs on Chinese cars. Otherwise the European auto industry would simply die.
Why doesn’t the EU simply also subsidize their EVs?
They’re for-profit companies and so far pretty successful without direct subsidies. EU countries usually have subsidies for purchasing EVs (regardless of manufacturer) rather than subsidizing the manufacturers directly - this leaves the consumers more choice and has a similar or maybe even better effect on EV adoption. On the climate side of things as well as public health and equal opportunities for people, transit investments would be better than outright paying BMW and Mercedes to make their EVs cheaper. China, however, doesn’t just want EV adoption on their own roads, China wants THEIR EVs specifically to dominate the world. Usually this is seen as unfair, regardless of industry, and is one of the few valid reasons for tariffs in an otherwise free global market.
The funny thing is, if the Chinese subsidize their EVs and the EU tariffs them, the tariff money could then be spent on EV subsidies - bringing all the different manufacturers to equal ground again.
yeah this makes sense to me
i guess there is a lot of ways to subsidize something. for example, if you want your local EV company to produce cheaper EVs, you could also subsidize public housing sothat rent is cheaper, sothat workers have cheaper rent and don’t need to ask for such high wages to cover the cost of living.
Lots of things, yeah. Many countries have set up energy efficiency loans too - for home renovations, or for business purposes. The idea is that you give out low interest loans so people (or companies) can achieve what they need earlier. I don’t know if anything like that is in place in Germany, France or Sweden (or Italy, I suppose they still have a bit of their car industry left), but if I was in a relevant position in one of those companies and there was a need to, say, build a battery manufacturing plant locally so that EVs could be built for cheaper and less dependence on existing battery manufacturers, I’d definitely go ask the relevant nation’s government, parliament and/or business development department, for a loan, tax break, or subsidies. Worst that could happen is they say no.
But yeah, an already successful car manufacturer getting straight on subsidies for selling cars they’re already making and selling anyway - extremely unlikely in most countries I’d think. Now if one or two of the German big 3 were on the verge of bankruptcy because of Chinese competition, that might change. Still sounds unlikely though. China’s GDP is 4x that of Germany’s, they can afford to keep subsidizing their shit for longer.
I don’t know about Canada but the USA has been pro-child factory work lately. China’s wages have been rising faster than expected so they have gone all-in on automation. So when I see people claim their stuff is cheap because of “slavery” or human rights, it reads like projection.
I’m from neither the US nor Canada, and in my case it certainly isn’t a matter of projection. I’m sure things have been getting a lot better for many people in China. However, it is still the case that China has a lot of human rights issues which are simply not as widespread in a lot of Western countries, the US included. And due to nation wide systems, such as hukou, it is very difficult for the population in poorer, rural areas to work legally in more affluent areas where the pay is higher. My understanding is that this has led to large scale “illegal migration” within the country’s borders, where workers are paid far less (sometimes not getting paid at all), work under poor conditions, and suffer abuses at the hands of their employers with little to no legal recourse due to their illegal status. China is a very inequitable society, and a lot of the misery that its less rich and powerful citizens have to deal with goes unnoticed by the rest of the world (and indeed the rest of its population), because we see stuff like this and are impressed by China’s progress. And no doubt that there’s actually been progress in a lot of areas, but the somewhat tired “at what cost?” question is still as pertinent as ever.
None of this is a defense of the US or Canada. Just saying that for the average person, China is probably a worse place to live and to work in.
!meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works
Lemmy has tankie problem.
you are the problem
Did … Did they close stations on the Eastern line in Toronto?
Yeah. Line 3 used different rolling stock than the other three lines, unusual linear induction motor powered equipment, which was reaching the end of its service life. The plan was to shut it down in November 2023 and temporarily replace it with bus service while they built a Line 2 extension to serve the neighborhoods Line 3 used to. Unfortunately, a train derailed in July 2023, which resulted in the system shutting down four months sooner than expected.
The Line 2 extension is going to take a different route to eventually arrive at Line 3’s old terminus. I think there’s plans to covert the old line 3 viaduct into a Bus Rapid Transit guideway.
If I’m not mistaken, the rolling stock (cars/trains) from the, now closed, Scarborough line is actually in use in Detroit because they used the same systems.
Wikipedia article for reference.
The Chengdu Metro is now the fourth largest metro system in the world with 630 km. To compare, London’s Unterground has about 400 km.
There is a reason why European countries stopped building wonders, while other parts of the world keep on undergoing tremendous construction efforts.
The reason is slavery.
Toronto is more bound to US economics than Chinese economics. You could make the same map for every major city and probably tell which they were more influenced by.
I guess it’s easier to undertake a massive infrastructure project if you can just tell residents to move it or else…
it’s a metro, no need to move anyone…
Metros aren’t always underground. They also need entrances to their stops above ground.
Gestures in eminent domain.
What I thought as well, but that still pays the residents fair housing market value.
This source (pages 124-128) for the Wikipedia page on eminent domain makes China and the USA both seem abysmal when it comes to reasonable compensation for seized property.
I think but an not sure that China does that too.
Probably in theory. In practice, the judiciary works for the party, the party has a stake in the construction, and there’s branches of the party that are always trying to get an advantage over each other, ethically or not. When I see a story about civil unrest in China, it’s usually due to local officials making an entire village homeless.
Careful, you might get a ban from .ml for saying that
Fuck ml. I am willing to bet the Chengdu one won’t survive the next 14 years. Or 5. But I am willing to give an half honest thumbs up to the tankies if it still stands in 2026.
Why‽ There’s no sign of this subway failing at all. Rail enthusiasts everywhere praise Asian subways.
The Chinese government is the most ethical government in the world according to people in .ml haha. Really boggles the mind
When you develop a knee-jerk reaction to phrases like “Chinese propaganda” and “Russian propaganda”, you really open yourself up to being manipulated by them.
The idea that you get to put a stake in the ground and then that plot of dirt yours forever is insane. The amount of infrastructure projects in Denmark that are put on hold indefinitely because locals are upset, not at being forced to move, but because they think they own their land and the view, is nuts.
I agree. There needs to be a middle ground. In Germany, NIMBYs opposed to wind turbines because they’re supposedly loud and ugly, as well as NIMBYs opposed to high-capacity power lines have become somewhat of a meme.
The right way to handle this is buying the land at a reasonable price (where you actually need to build on someone’s land, not buying ‘the view’).
But if they lose power for 20 minutes god save you from their wrath
NIMBYs opposed to windpower seems like a tale as old as time. Case in point, read Don Quixote, old man is so angry at wind turbines he actually tries to joust them through
That’s not the story in Don Quijote. Guy is nuts and mistakes the windmills for giants.
Isn’t that why people are so scared of modern windmills? They think they’re giants?
Let’s not forget that he was an old guy with the hots for a younger woman - Dulcinea - who he wanted to impress, hence attacking the “giants”.
There are many levels in Don Quixote de la Mancha.
I’ve heard people around me saying they make people sick. By spinning, I guess?
For the same reason as WiFi supposedly making people sick.
To be clear, what I mean by that is “its utter horse shit”.
WiFi at least does go through you. It’s harmless, even if it was four orders of magnitude more powerful it’d just cause heating, but there’s contact.
If I had to think of a reason a windmill could cause illness, I’d guess infrasound, but the the proponents seem to be think it’s something about the way they reflect sunlight. It reminds me of when people in England though the first trains were making their cows sick, it’s like real bumpkin stuff.
No, its because they are loud and make flickering shadows. Which is true if you live under them. That’s why there are regulations on how close to buildings they are allowed.
Besides other really stupid things like they explode bats because of infrasound…
I mean if they exploded bats that would be really cool and metal, lol.
The irony is even bigger in the Netherlands: our proudest most beautiful national icon: old wind power.
New wind power however it’s deemed ugly and ‘visual pollution’ even though it’s the same thing and clean energy.
Preferable to the idea that the state can come in and force your local area to bend to its will.
If your land, serving you and your family of 6, could serve a thousand people instead via infrastructure or urbanization, then yes, I think the government has the right to uproot and resettle you. Obviously, on the condition that you are compensated and helped along, which I know doesn’t happen in either country, but clinging to ideals isn’t helping solve the issue.
Because local communities should be in control of the land, not some top-down authoritarian state that comes in decides to fuck up your entire life to suit their need for economic growth.
It’s either your land or it’s someone else’s. In a place like China the government owns all the land which means it’s all owned by wealthy, ultra-powerful, ultra-connected party elites. At no point is there a situation where millions or billions of people all share land in common. There is always politics, there will always be powerful elites, there will always be people getting screwed over.
The difference with Denmark is that individual small people have a tiny bit more power than individuals in China. The fact that this results in progress being impeded is a tradeoff that brings enormous benefits for personal freedom.
Read about the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. Over a million people were forcibly displaced from their homes as a result. Many cities, towns, and villages were completely destroyed. The living conditions of the displaced deteriorated and their lives were irrevocably altered.
Read about the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. Over a million people were forcibly displaced from their homes as a result. Many cities, towns, and villages were completely destroyed.
The US did this all the time back when we actually built things.
The good old days where highway planners looked upon black communities and called them free real estate.
This is not a dunk on your comment, just historic context.
While I was more specifically referring to dam projects in the US that displaced people as a direct comparison, you’re absolutely correct. That bastard Robert Moses fucked up our cities so badly.
And the advantages of the autocratic approach only show up for slices of time. Eventually, elites will give up on development if it impedes their control. All dictatorships slide into feudal monarchy over time (see the last several thousand years).
Exactly. Sure, China gets shit done. But it comes with not giving a fuck about a lot of their own people, a lot of the time.
There is world of difference between displacing a million people and doing little to help them along, and telling a small group of farmers to fuck off or get rolled over. It’s not either / or. It’s that in the western world, we attribute too much to land ownership because it’s deeply tied to peoples personal economy and nebulous concepts like freedom. I think that’s insane. Decomodify housing and ban the trading of land as a speculative market, and I think you’ll see people give less of a shit about it.
Here in Denmark, farmers (and suburbanites pretending to be rural, let’s be real) have an immensely disproportionate amount of power to veto infrastructure projects that benefit us all for the dumbest reasons, but I can’t veto the parking lots they demand be built on my street even though it only benefits them.
Last month, some-200 farmers got off their subsidized ass to bitch and whine about how some electric poles off in the distance would, and I quote, “ruin my life”. https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/niels-bliver-nabo-til-44-meter-hoeje-elmaster-vi-faar-oedelagt-vores-livsvaerdi
Why not vote against subsidies for farmers then? I’m just as against subsidies as I am in favour of land ownership. The biggest problem I have with subsidies and high taxes and government control of property is that it politicizes these decisions and pits special interests against the common good.
Once you create a subsidy it becomes very difficult to get rid of it, politically. The farmers who benefit from it will fight tooth and nail to keep it regardless of whether or not the subsidy actually benefits society.
Why not vote against subsidies for farmers then?
What makes you think I don’t? Farmers also hold a disproportional amount of political power. My one vote isn’t going to uproot the fundamental flaws of how we choose to do democracy.
I think it’s more useful to talk about how insane the status quo is, like that land is a speculative market that effectively locks lower-class people out of living on their own terms, as it might awaken more people to the reality that we live in, and the inevitable far-worse future we’re rushing headfirst into.
At least in Europe the land used to be owned by everybody (the so-called “Commons”) and then kings decided to take it all and make it the property of the Crown which would then divy it out to favored servants of the Crown.
Modern laws around Land Ownership are just a natural extension of the laws made in the Monarchical system and which were mainly preserved and extended in the transition to Republic and later Democracy, probably as a way to try and keep the landed gentry from stopping that transition (also, having lived through a Revolution from Authoritanism to Democracy an its aftermath, it’s my impression that the powerful from the previous regime generaly get to keep most of their possessions and hence power, even some amount of political power as they use their wealth to fund parties to represent their interests under Democracy).
Is it less insane than the government owns it forever?
Also easier when you don’t need to worry you’ll be voted out for spending tax money on a massive infrastructure project.
No, they do, the big difference is that they’ll be voted out and replaced by someone else from the same party.
Because there’s only one party.
Except China respects user rights to an insane degree and there’s many images of giant infra projects going around one tiny homestead and whatnot. My guess is also Chinese typically are less game to make a big deal about new transit compared to the home owners of Canada. Where’s the Toronto excuse now?
Is that what they did? It’s a legitimate question, I’m not finding info online.
Not a fair comparison as Chengdu has multiple times the population of Toronto.
I think it’s less about the absolute dimensions than about the fact that Toronto’s metro barely grew at all.
Shrunk, even.
But the 1 line did get longer. So total capacity is probably higher overall. That being said the 1 line is already insufficient for the capacity needed downtown so I’m not sure making it longer helps that much. Maybe in a decade when the Ontario Line opens it will get the long needed relief.
This. 20 million vs. under 3 million in Toronto.
Also, the fact that it has technologically developed fast in the past decades, as compared to Canada that has developed steadily in the past century, is not really the plus OP seems to imply it is.
That said, it’s perfectly possible that public transport in Toronto leaves much to be desired - without comparing it to China.
Also, the fact that it has technologically developed fast in the past decades, as compared to Canada that has developed steadily in the past century, is not really the plus OP seems to imply it is.
Why not? What am I missing? It’s developing fast against a slow competition is not a plus? I am not a fan of china but what kind of cope is this?
That’s what federal directive and funding will do.
That’s what a single-party government, where NIMBYs and minorities have no power, can do.
I dont think that it requires a single party system to do this. Just much more coordinated public industries and infrastructure projects where public development is prioritized.
I don’t care about the post itself, but OP, in the last 24 hours you’ve made something like 80 posts. What the fuck?
Maybe they’re not just mildly infuriated.
I’m posting an absolute shit ton of content to support Lemmy.
You aren’t the first one to notice :)
o7
o7
o7
o7
So, first of all: o7, thank you for your service. Second, where the heck do you find the time?
Post while pretending to work and you’ll never work a day in your life.
- Sun Tzu
Bot, perhaps?
Nope. There are some articles I don’t find interesting/attractive that I don’t post.
Sounds like something that a real person would never do.
Obligatory that’s exactly what a bot would say comment
How many of those are pandering to China? You left a lot of context off the post, like the population numbers And the fact that China uses slave labor
I wonder how many accounts on Lemmy.world are cia-bots that keep repeating the `China uses slave labour" mantra
it’s not so much CIA posts, it’s more people brainwashed by the CIA that post this
also, my opinion on this, it’s not so much the CIA that is doing this but neoliberal organizations.
if china’s political system prevails, that would mean an end to a lot of exploitative strategies that are employed within the US today, such as companies working for the private pockets of the rich instead of for the public good
china’s obviously doing a lot right, including these jobs programs that build infrastructure. they’re a win-win for the people (wages + housing/transport), yet the only one who could possibly lose out because of it is private landlords and private transport providers (including the car makers)
You’re right! Why stop at putting suicide nets at foxcon! We could make that global!
Listen: I hate liberal capitalism as much as the next lemmy user, but lets not pretend China is some paradise of labor rights
Chengdu is the capital city of the Chinese province of Sichuan. With a population of 20,937,757 at the 2020 census.
Toronto is the most populous city in Canada and the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a population of 2,794,356 in 2021
Meanwhile Hamburg, Germany with only 1.8 Million:
Kind of misleading. That’s metro+light rail. Above ground light rail is massively cheaper to build than subways.
How is it misleading? The post says ‘public transit’ and both are.
You mean that that is all the public transport in Toronto, combined?!
Someone should let the leadership of Toronto know, they keep increasing costs with having it go underground
We have two LRT lines opening in short order. Both the eglinton crosstown and finch west. They’re also actively working to make all the Line 2 stations accessible by way of adding elevators where the designers in the 1960s saw no need for them. Believe it or not, they’re aware, but the TTC fights more than just a budget when trying to implement these things.
Besides NIMBYs, there’s the rapid expansion of the GTA to consider, which has led to either a redevelopment of land or a requirement for mass transit in places that were developed 20 years ago without consideration for it. As densification occurs, it is both more required, but more logistically complicated. The current municipal gov does genuinely seem interested in fixing this, but doing so is kind of a nightmare without the funding to buy property and redevelop entire civic centers. Add to the fact that the provincial government seems to wage its own war against changes to anything that would affect a car’s right of way and the downtown suddenly becomes this unchangeable monolith.
Then there’s the bonus factors of Bombardier, the supplier of basically every train for every LRT or Subway line in Canada, the fact that Toronto is actually a collection of smaller municipal regions with their own concerns and challenges, and that they’re also still trying to add ATC to all of Line 2 in order to replace the aging trains there. It becomes pretty clear that building out an entirely new transit system under the directive of your federal government with next to unlimited funding is probably a lot easier than reworking a 60 year old subway network that had vastly different aspirations than now.
China runs the benefit of uniform prioritization of these networks, in places that had no previous infrastructure to contend with. They aren’t currently splitting a budget between maintaining/retrofitting 60 year old subway lines, stations and cars. I’d be more interested in see if they were able to continue this kind of buildout in 30 years, or if they end up facing a lot of the same logistical challenges.
I’d be more interested in see if they were able to continue this kind of buildout in 30 years
The Beijing subway opened in 1971, when they had less than half the current population. All I can say is that it felt slow, like 2 hours to get what looked like 3-4 blocks on a map
I think I’d almost consider it the same as starting with nothing when they began the next phase of construction in 2002. The map then vs now demonstrates that, and mostly follows China’s industrial/modern expansion in urban environments in recent memory. I think it’s still difficult to comprehend what a massive shift they’ve had in urban construction since the mid-90s as they’ve become the economic center for trade and manifacturing in the last couple decades. The transit still can’t keep up with demand, even with a subway system so extensive. It’s also still a very car-centric urban environment and I imagine now faces many similar civil construction challenges as in North America. It’s a good part of why I’m curious to see how things shape up in the coming decades for them and how they overcome those challenges at a scale Canada hopefully never needs to contend with.
Still gets you places almost the same. Just have to have the foresight to leave space for it above ground.
DONT BRING NUANCE AND LOGIC TO A SENSELESS FEELINGS-BAITING POST! It doesn’t MATTER the city layout over top of it, the context of rapid and rampant industrialization in China, or something as inconsequential as number of people!
Reading past your sarcasm, you’re suggesting that it’s better to have reduced public transit options than investing into them. I’m curious to hear your reasoning to argue that.
Having 7.5x the population means having more funds available for building expensive subway lines. Having more population also necessitates more of the transit to be via subway or rail, as opposed to buses which are slower and have other issues, but way cheaper than rail or subway.
Toronto, having less population, invests less in the most expensive solution that’s best for the densest cities, but still also invests in light rail and bus networks.
I was born in a town of <10k. We had buses and nothing else. Capital city of my country has a population of ~300k - has rail and trams in addition to buses. Capital city of the country just north of us a bigger population in the metro area than our entire country - 1.6 million vs 1.3 million. They have metro lines. Slightly over half the population of Toronto, slightly over half the total length of metro lines. Toronto is also building an extra 3 lines in addition to the current 3, nearly doubling total length of lines when it’s done.
Now Chengdu vs Toronto: 7.5x the population, 9x the rail lines (by length). Is Toronto really doing so badly? I would say that the bigger you get with cities, the need for high density transport lines actually rises faster than city growth. Maybe not quadratic, but definitely not linear. n log n maybe?
No im not. You’re just seeing the issue-as-it-is as binary. I’m saying it’s bad to ignore all context to make a cheap point, even if your point is good. There are a billion ways to make a good point. Why choose a bad one.
It’s odd to me to take objection to a post making a bad point by making a sarcastic statement that was open to misinterpretation. The thread invites a discourse about building better cities and yet, in classic Lemmy fashion, it’s just about semantics.
Ugh.
Demand better discourse then. Because bad discourse don’t lead to positive change
That’s precisely what I try to bring to every thread I engage with, but it can be extremely frustrating.
China BAD?
BUT AT WHAT COST???
i don’t understand your reasoning here. are you saying that Toronto hasn’t needed more subway lines than a couple extensions in 15 years? how does the number of people affect the lines? i would think it should affect the number of trains and trips. the lines would be more about where people live and want to go, no?
Its sarcasm
i know. I was addressing the point you’re making not the literal text.
Not me
what
I didnt write the comment you answered to
NY with almost half of the population of Chengdu.
What is the required population threshold for investing into public transit? Above 3 million and below 20 million, it seems, but can you be more specific?
Why is it my job to provide policy? Can you be more specific?
