Moderation would be the best. I have gotten a little bit of value from Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, and HN. But most of that value can be captured within a few minutes a day rather than the few hours I spend. But moderation feels harder than quitting outright. I relapsed on Reddit recently and I found it easier to just have a zero tolerance policy.
The speed yes it’s not ideal and at a minimum there should be signal priority or just remove at grade crossings entirely, but land use in LA is really really not good for transit. The built environment is designed to support automobile use and that will hopefully change through TOD.
My point is the distances regularly covered in LA would be absolutely unthinkable in Manhattan and the more urban parts of the outer boroughs, let alone Paris which is a smaller city than San Francisco. So on the one hand we need better land use to reduce distance traveled and on the other improvements to overall speed.
By contrast New York has a built environment that is absolutely fantastic for transit but cannot build enough to fully capitalize on it. Their costs are astronomical and going up.
I disagree. Look at something like the Chicago el which is a true hub and spoke system. The el needs a ring line since any trip that doesn’t start or end in the loop generally requires taking the bus which is fine but not rapid transit.
By contrast look at the Yamanote line in Tokyo for a great ring that provides tons of connections and gets tons of ridership.
I can really empathize with this. My wife fought two brain tumors and was repeatedly denied treatment to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. Can you imagine going through radiation therapy, chemo, and all kinds of different tests and having extra financial stress dumped on you?
It’s maybe worse than what you say, because there is a vicious cycle where individuals whose time is absorbed by parasocial relationships are less available to people around them. Those people may in turn become isolated and turn to… parasocial relationships.
I would love to say this cynicism is unwarranted but it’s nigh impossible to make that case. What transit America is building is either grossly overpriced compared to peer nations, the wrong type of transit, or both.
Compare Seattle Link to the Vancouver sky train for one example. Or the 2nd ave subway in New York. Or all of the transit we’ve built in the middle of literal freeways (LA, DC, SF). And why oh why are we building light rail everywhere when regional or heavy rail would be a better fit? It’s tough to be optimistic.
Frisco has been said for a long time by black San Franciscans (of which there are currently so few there is literally a movie called the last black man in San Francisco). Cringe if you want but there is history behind calling SF Frisco in certain communities.
The US housing crisis is especially acute because the thinking is so local. We don’t have enough housing units in our most economically productive cities so individual actors move to cities with a lower cost of living. Those cities then skyrocket in price and the cycle continues.
We have no coherent strategy for how to increase the number of housing on a national level. To be fair, CA has removed quite a bit of local zoning control because the housing crisis is so acute.
This does not in any way reflect the America that I live in. The many immigrant communities that have made this city their home have high expectations for their food regardless of price point leading to a great variety of inexpensive and delicious food.
The produce is amazing and there are places to get great quality produce at a reasonable price.
There are dozens of locally baked breads for sale in local grocery stores.
So what’s the point of making such a generalized assertion? America is a big country and in my America the food is fucking dank.
Psychological safety matters just as much as physical safety. If you think that you won’t see some shit on public transit I welcome you to come to LA and take the red line for a day.
Truly nearly all the public transit infrastructure we have in the US was built decades ago (close to 100% if we’re talking about heavy and commuter rail).
This is a shame because comprehensive metros would transform our cities, enable infill housing, and help abate the housing crisis that is at the root of so many issues we’re facing.