• The point he makes is correct of course, but the way he does the comparison is not very honest. If he wants to compare to the maximum capacity of a tube train, he’d also have to take the maximum capacity of a car, not the average passengers.

    •  biddy   ( @biddy@feddit.nl ) 
      cake
      link
      fedilink
      1811 months ago

      No, it’s very honest.

      When you increase the number of passengers on a train(e.g. rush hour), the volume doesn’t increase. The size of the train stays fixed up until it hits capacity.

      When you increase the number of passengers on a road, they tend to still have around 1 car/person. Encouraging people to carpool just doesn’t really happen. So an “at capacity” road still has most cars with just the driver. This is one of the main reasons cars are so inefficient, people are lugging around capacity for 5 people and tons of cargo, but it never gets used even when the roads are “at capacity”.

    • This comparison is about road capacity, not car capacity.

      During rush hour there are more cars on the road, there are not more people in each car. Unlike a metro. Every car at max capacity is an unrealistic scenario, whereas a full metro certainly is not.

    • No because on a busy time of the day it’s not hard to reach maximum capacity or close to maximum capacity on a train. But if those individuals decided to drive they would not use their cars to maximum capacity. Or you can look at it the other way around. If people driving right now (therefore the average use) started to use the train, they would not use the train up to its average use. They would use it to its maximum capacity.

    • A bicycle is so much more efficient than a car!

      3 people one a bike in 2m vs 3km for cars, 1 person per car, with a 1km gap between every car !

      Fuck cars, but he’s pushing it too much in one direction to try and make a point.

    • Agreed its not very honest. Transportation is about getting places, not filling roads. Average speed of the tubetrain is more than double that of cars, even without dumping all of these extra people onto the roads. After accounting for that, you would need to quadruple the length so that it can match the passenger miles.

    •  persolb   ( @persolb@lemmy.ml ) 
      link
      fedilink
      English
      111 months ago

      Yeah. I hate these bullshit comparisons.

      That train number seems to include standees at AW2 (functionally rush hour)… vs the average car.

      He includes enough braking distance between cars for a relative high speed, but none for another other train.

      The cars don’t all need to go the same route, the train does.

      “The most painful argument is a bad one for something you believe in.”

      •  mondoman712   ( @mondoman712@lemmy.ml ) OP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        411 months ago

        At rush hour, you will see full trains and streets full of cars with only one person in each. Cars don’t fill up when it gets busy, but trains do.

        There’s breaking distance for 20mph traffic, and trains actually do run at 90 second intervals.

        You can change trains if the one you’re on doesn’t match your route, or combine it with other modes. But that isn’t what this comparison is about, it’s about the space they take up.

  •  grue   ( @grue@lemmy.ml ) 
    link
    fedilink
    1811 months ago

    Now try adding up all the square footage parking spaces take.

    For example, consider that adding a parking space to a 400 sq.ft. studio apartment — or adding two spaces to a 800 sq.ft. two-bedroom — effectively increases the total square footage by a whopping 50%. And since concrete parking decks are more expensive to build than habitable area of dwelling units, that likely represents a greater than 50% increase in costs.

    And yet people unironically defend minimum parking requirements while simultaneously removed about housing costs.