• @PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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    942 days ago

    The blind hope that somewhere in this world there is a functioning public transit system is all that keep me going some days. Let me have this

    • @rafagnious@lemmy.world
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      36 hours ago

      Honestly, the perspective of what constitutes a functioning public transit system depends a lot on what you have as a point of reference.

      I’m portuguese but I lived in Germany for 5 months during which I used exclusively public transports and bikes. Central Europeans complain a lot about Deutsche Bahn and indeed during this time I saw a few strikes, delays and suppressions. However, transports were still much more reliable and much more frequent than I’m used too so I could never really consider it problematic, although my Central European friends complained a lot.

    • @iii@mander.xyz
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      632 days ago

      Tokyo I’ve heard. For sure not Europe. Halve of the scheduled trains didn’t run today in Belgium.

      • RQG
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        512 days ago

        Switzerland is pretty good at well with trains.

        • @ahornsirup@feddit.org
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          222 days ago

          It’s a problem of reliability. If you need to be at work at 08:00 and your train is regularly late or getting cancelled, you can’t take the train to work.

          • @Fiery@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            62 days ago

            Not to mention even a small delay could mess up the timing of taking the next bus/train. For not too busy routes it could mean waiting in the cold for half an hour… If that next bus has a good delay you could be there for almost an hour. (Totally not speaking from personal experience)

            • @jqubed@lemmy.world
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              62 days ago

              When I lived in New York there was a place I’d go sometimes that required 2 trains and a bus. On the weekdays it took about 40 minutes, but on weekends with the cumulative effect of less frequent service it was typically 2 hours, or longer depending on how quickly the first train came.

      • PlzGivHugs
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        2 days ago

        Halve of the scheduled trains didn’t run today in Belgium.

        Only half were cancelled? Man, that sounds nice.

    • @fishy@lemmy.today
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      21 day ago

      I take the light rail into work from the suburbs of Seattle into downtown. Trains run every 7-8 minutes. They’re expanding it in all directions now. Only downside is that a lot of homeless ride the train because it’s cold as heck on the streets. That’s a societal problem though, not an issue with the train.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness
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      92 days ago

      Japan is the MVP here. I live there and I literally have never seen a train not arrive exactly at the scheduled time. However “public” transport is privately owned so… Uh… Yeah, tradeoffs.

      • ivanafterall ☑️
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        42 days ago

        Given that it works so well, what are the negatives due to being private? Is it expensive to ride?

        • NoneOfUrBusiness
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          92 days ago

          Is it expensive to ride?

          Yeah. It also stops running at around 11 or 12 so if you stay out late you just might find you can’t get back home.

          • @AA5B@lemmy.world
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            11 day ago

            Must pe nice. Here I was about to add that you can’t take a train to work if you might have to stay a bit late, but trains outside rush hour are one hour, then two hours apart, and stop way too early

    • @isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 days ago

      I’ve been in Vienna from time to time, and it’s pretty good, 365€/year for the pass that gets you buses, trams and subways with unlimited access and no turnstiles anywhere, you just go and enter

      Schedules follow work hours and go from a subway every 2 minutes during peak hours to one every 15mins late at night

      You have night line buses for weekdays and on Saturday night public transport doesn’t shut down

      Coverage is good, you almost always have a bus or tram line less then 5 minutes of walking

      There are bike sharing places with 20 bikes each ~1km apart and they cost 60 cents for half an hour, or e-scooters in the designed locations which are basically everywhere (but being owned by companies they cost so much more then everything else)