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Thread: The State of The Car

  1. #1066
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kitdy View Post
    I mean in my ideal world, I'd probably have 3 cars in future (speak about wasteful)...

    A modern performance car, a classic one, and then a modern efficient car for most driving. The others would be used sparingly.

    Is that so bad?
    Very bad that would be an ideal situation indeed

  2. #1067
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    One could rightly argue it is wasteful to have put all the resources/emissions into making those new cars. I guess I have my limits to how ecological I will be.

    Thanks god the second largest province in Canada emits almost no GHG for primary electricity generation.

  3. #1068
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    Quote Originally Posted by NSXType-R View Post
    Here in NYC, I've been pretty annoyed at the traffic calming measures as the mayor here thinks placing bike lanes and renting out bikes is going to make people take up biking and decrease cars on the road. People drive cars because there isn't good public transportation. We're not going to pick up bikes just because they're readily available.
    That sounds strangely familiar to Barcelona... a city that is on a slope...
    Lack of charisma can be fatal.
    Visca Catalunya!

  4. #1069
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    Quote Originally Posted by NSXType-R View Post
    Here in NYC, I've been pretty annoyed at the traffic calming measures as the mayor here thinks placing bike lanes and renting out bikes is going to make people take up biking and decrease cars on the road. People drive cars because there isn't good public transportation. We're not going to pick up bikes just because they're readily available.
    NYC has bad transit?!

  5. #1070
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    It's all relative; I believe New York has the busiest subway in the developed world. However...

    I just got back from a trip to Mexico City and a few facts were laid bare; gasoline and cars are about as expensive as they are in the US in a country where people would be happy to make a quarter of what we do. There, even as world events show us the fallacy of economics' "rational consumer", the financial burden of a car is simply too much: aside from taxis and ride-shares, you rarely see single-occupant vehicles and the public transportation network, while occasionally quite dangerous, is thorough and used almost-universally. Conversely, even in a place as taxing to drive as New York, the incentive just isn't there to ride public transit above a certain salary. The subways in New York are over a century old (120?) and are certainly feeling the strain; the population is probably sixfold now what it was then. Were ridership to increase, I think money and municipal will to use it will as well.


    As an aside, I highly recommend that Americans (and others) visit Mexico. It is a beautiful and varied country with a very warm populace. A few hours in-country thoroughly refutes the toxic rhetoric coming from many Americans. Go there and educate yourselves! Also the food is phenomenal, unlike our other neighbor who thinks that "tarte au sucre" is an acceptable dish. Even in the South, they have the decency to add pecans. Sorry to get political, my trip was very impactful and I wanted to share. Here are some automotive-tinged pictures from my trip:

    1) Bimbo-branded Renault
    2) Falcon sleeping under an oak tree
    3) Big francophile collection (3 DSs, Renault 12, Peugeot 403) on Calle Berlín. I am suprised that the owner didn't park them on Calle Paris, which was a block away.
    4) Combi converted into a mobile smoker. Cue "aircooled VWs don't need to be converted to smoke" jokes...
    5-6) Gathering of modelers who make custom replicas of Mexico City microbuses. This felt a lot like Japan to me and was, at the same time, a very friendly and very Mexican event.
    Attached Images Attached Images
    "Kimi, can you improve on your [race] finish?"
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  6. #1071
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    DF pictures Part II:

    1) Nicely-kept Toyota
    2) Typical Mexican parking
    3) What the **** is a Kwid? As bad as a car named after the British currency is, would it be worse if it catered to the Japanese market were called the "Skwid"?
    4) Interesting parking job in Chapultapec Woods
    5) Valet parking at Starbucks for $1
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Last edited by f6fhellcat13; 12-29-2019 at 02:26 PM. Reason: Apologies for the flipped photos. My phone is being insubordinate
    "Kimi, can you improve on your [race] finish?"
    "No. My Finnish is fine; I am from Finland. Do you have any water?"

  7. #1072
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ferrer View Post
    That sounds strangely familiar to Barcelona... a city that is on a slope...
    I'd love to visit Europe and Spain, Barcelona would be a nice stop to go on.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kitdy View Post
    NYC has bad transit?!
    NYC has bad transit depending on where you are. The outer fringe boroughs are particularly bad. It's really Manhattan that has decent subway coverage. If you're trying to get to Queens from Brooklyn, it's actually not easy to do.

    Quote Originally Posted by f6fhellcat13 View Post
    It's all relative; I believe New York has the busiest subway in the developed world. However...
    Conversely, even in a place as taxing to drive as New York, the incentive just isn't there to ride public transit above a certain salary. The subways in New York are over a century old (120?) and are certainly feeling the strain; the population is probably sixfold now what it was then. Were ridership to increase, I think money and municipal will to use it will as well.
    The problem with the NYC subway system is multifold.
    1. NYC nearly went bankrupt in the 1970s, and the transit authority went through severe austerity measures. Thus, to save face and heat from voters, the mayor handed control of the NYC transit authority to the rest of the state who don't care about it and the governor. Thus, the authority is perpetually underfunded because who cares about NYC.
    2. Deferred maintenance from underfunding. Most of the track signals are literally from the 1940s.
    3. Poor oversight. Unions are great, but not great when you have union jobs that you can fraud for overtime.
    4. the Metropolitan Transit Authority also manages the airports and bridges but use the tolls not to upgrade/maintain their infrastructure.

    F6HellCat, one of my favorite things when I travel is spotting all the oddball cars that are there that aren't found anywhere else.

  8. #1073
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    Quote Originally Posted by f6fhellcat13 View Post
    It's all relative; I believe New York has the busiest subway in the developed world. However...
    To bring it back to Toronto – I must, as it is the centre of the (Canadian) universe – We have 2.7 million in the city, and 6 million in the greater area. NYC is 9 million and 20 million. So Toronto is around a third of NYC.

    NYC has nearly 500 stations. Toronto has 72. Sad. TO developed during the 1970s, unlike most cites in North America, which blossomed in the 50s and 60s. It's given us some weird handicaps (Brutalism, ugly architecture, insufficient transit, and highways).

    Our station map is below. It's basically 2 lines. The company I was working for was working in adding an additional light rail East-West across the city. This has been discussed since the 1950s.

    TTC Map.PNG

    More later.

    Quote Originally Posted by f6fhellcat13 View Post
    As an aside, I highly recommend that Americans (and others) visit Mexico. It is a beautiful and varied country with a very warm populace.
    You love to hear it. It's almost as if most people, the world over, are pretty agreeable and friendly to get along with? Wow.

    Quote Originally Posted by f6fhellcat13 View Post
    A few hours in-country thoroughly refutes the toxic rhetoric coming from many Americans. Go there and educate yourselves!
    A bit wild to think that this is becoming an "radical" POV.

    Quote Originally Posted by f6fhellcat13 View Post
    Also the food is phenomenal, unlike our other neighbor who thinks that "tarte au sucre" is an acceptable dish.
    Why you gotta play the Quebecoise like that?

    Quote Originally Posted by f6fhellcat13 View Post
    5) Valet parking at Starbucks for $1
    What a time to be alive, eh?

    Quote Originally Posted by NSXType-R View Post
    NYC has bad transit depending on where you are. The outer fringe boroughs are particularly bad. It's really Manhattan that has decent subway coverage. If you're trying to get to Queens from Brooklyn, it's actually not easy to do.
    I dig your comment here. Getting to Manhattan is kinda the goal of the system. I stayed in Willimasburg when I visited. It's damn close to Manhattan, and it made getting around very choice. So much to see and do in Brooklyn itself, and Manhattan far less than 30 minutes away. I wanted to hit up Brighton and Far Rockaway (next time) but it was surprisingly impractical.

    Quote Originally Posted by NSXType-R View Post
    The problem with the NYC subway system is multifold.
    1. NYC nearly went bankrupt in the 1970s, and the transit authority went through severe austerity measures. Thus, to save face and heat from voters, the mayor handed control of the NYC transit authority to the rest of the state who don't care about it and the governor. Thus, the authority is perpetually underfunded because who cares about NYC.
    2. Deferred maintenance from underfunding. Most of the track signals are literally from the 1940s.
    3. Poor oversight. Unions are great, but not great when you have union jobs that you can fraud for overtime.
    4. the Metropolitan Transit Authority also manages the airports and bridges but use the tolls not to upgrade/maintain their infrastructure.

    F6HellCat, one of my favorite things when I travel is spotting all the oddball cars that are there that aren't found anywhere else.
    I love to hear local city complaints. The grass is always greener, right? I'd kill for something like the MTA. Our coverage here is trash. There's been a bigger push since a new crown agency was formed to tackle transit problems, but uh, politics often gets involved. Expansions shoulda been done in the 50s and 60s, when labour was cheap, and the post-war boom was ongoing. Our city is kinda permanently crippled now, and our (1) major highway downtown is literalyl crumbiling.

    Bad.

    I live in Toronto proper, and were I to take transit all the way to the core, it would take between 1-1.5 hours. Using a car to drive to a station can cut this to 45 mins-1 hour. Still crazy by my standard.

  9. #1074
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    It's funny because Barcelona is 1.6M for the city, 4.8M for the urban area and we have... wait for it... 198 subway stations.

    We do have two separate networks, one maintained by the municipality the other by the regional government.

    You can fully cross Barcelona in about 45 minutes on a normal day.

    I guess the grass is really greener on this side...

    @f6fhellcat13 Nice trip. I've got a good friend that lives there and he is always telling me to go there.
    Lack of charisma can be fatal.
    Visca Catalunya!

  10. #1075
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ferrer View Post
    It's funny because Barcelona is 1.6M for the city, 4.8M for the urban area and we have... wait for it... 198 subway stations.
    Cool. Guess I will have to start learning Catalan. Need any engineers?

    How's housing prices? In Toronto, average income is 35k. Average house price is only 800k, or just 23x annual average salary. Good shit.

  11. #1076
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    The internet says it's around 18 grand and 350k for an apartment. So that makes it 19-odd years to pay off a house.

    Mind you, you can't go on holiday. Or eat.

    Plus you've got the best driving roads in the world minutes away.

    It's a win-win-win.
    Lack of charisma can be fatal.
    Visca Catalunya!

  12. #1077
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    Quote Originally Posted by f6fhellcat13 View Post
    DF pictures Part II:

    1) Nicely-kept Toyota
    The "D" on the front grille stands for Datsun, not Doyota.

    Anyways, good to hear that there's more to Mexico than drug wars.

  13. #1078
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    While we're on the subject of bad public transit.. My home county of Los Angeles (and it's associated metro area) covers nearly 5,000 square miles (1/3 the size of Catalonia), boasts a population of 13,000,000 people, and is served by this:

    Keep in mind the scale of the area that I mentioned and compare that to the network of freeways:

    You can see why cars are necessary in LA.. Fortunately cars and gas are relatively cheap, though that, I'm sure, will change.

    Also pictured is my current residence of Hartford, CT's metro:

    ... Oh wait, there is none.

    This, combined with a thoroughly-outdated set of highways and constricting bridges, is why I ride my bicycle to work whenever possible. People look at me like I have three heads when I say that I have three cars and two motorcycles, yet commute on my bike. I've been hit by cars three times now, but it is still worth it to me to ride.

    A few more pictures from my trip:

    2) Prehispanic ruins at Monte Alban
    4-6) A few snaps from Indian Country up at 10,500ft (3,200m)

    EDIT: Hahaha, keen eye, Revo! Thank you
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    "Kimi, can you improve on your [race] finish?"
    "No. My Finnish is fine; I am from Finland. Do you have any water?"

  14. #1079
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    LA has famously the best transit in North America, no? Hah. Nothing like sitting on the 405 stopped, is there?

  15. #1080
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kitdy View Post
    To bring it back to Toronto – I must, as it is the centre of the (Canadian) universe – We have 2.7 million in the city, and 6 million in the greater area. NYC is 9 million and 20 million. So Toronto is around a third of NYC.

    NYC has nearly 500 stations. Toronto has 72. Sad. TO developed during the 1970s, unlike most cites in North America, which blossomed in the 50s and 60s. It's given us some weird handicaps (Brutalism, ugly architecture, insufficient transit, and highways).

    Our station map is below. It's basically 2 lines. The company I was working for was working in adding an additional light rail East-West across the city. This has been discussed since the 1950s.

    I dig your comment here. Getting to Manhattan is kinda the goal of the system. I stayed in Willimasburg when I visited. It's damn close to Manhattan, and it made getting around very choice. So much to see and do in Brooklyn itself, and Manhattan far less than 30 minutes away. I wanted to hit up Brighton and Far Rockaway (next time) but it was surprisingly impractical.



    I love to hear local city complaints. The grass is always greener, right? I'd kill for something like the MTA. Our coverage here is trash. There's been a bigger push since a new crown agency was formed to tackle transit problems, but uh, politics often gets involved. Expansions shoulda been done in the 50s and 60s, when labour was cheap, and the post-war boom was ongoing. Our city is kinda permanently crippled now, and our (1) major highway downtown is literalyl crumbiling.

    Bad.

    I live in Toronto proper, and were I to take transit all the way to the core, it would take between 1-1.5 hours. Using a car to drive to a station can cut this to 45 mins-1 hour. Still crazy by my standard.
    Urban sprawl is definitely an issue, and you can tell I live in the outer boroughs. With the inclusion of the Long Island Rail Road and Metro North, you can get to the fringes of NYC very quickly, all within an hour or two. But you can also take the busses and trains for 2 hours and still be within NYC proper, so the transit really isn't equally distributed in NYC.

    NYC is still reeling from the austerity measures from the 70s as they deferred maintenance for almost 2 decades. In some stations, the ceiling is literally collapsing onto passengers. The NY state governor even declared a state of emergency because of the poor state of the system. I think you'd rather have an incomplete system than a system that is falling in on you. And god help you take the 4, 5, or 6 train during rush hour, it's as bad as traveling during rush hour in Tokyo. I haven't even gotten to the point that most of the subway system sits under the water table and that pumps need to be on all the time just to keep it dry. The system can't handle anything more than a heavy drizzle and tunnels flood all the time.

    https://nypost.com/2019/11/19/mta-ne...e-audit-shows/

    https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/loca...oblems/191935/

    Video of flooding in NYC, without a hurricane. When Sandy hit, the South Ferry station flooded completely. Mind you, that station is 3-4 stories underground.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_-EbJAnuP4

    I've actually been to Toronto 2-3 times, but I've never been to the city proper. I stayed at my uncle's house in Markham and Scarborough and I think that's pretty far from the city of Toronto. I've been to Montreal recently and rode it for a few stops and thought it was pleasant.

    I don't think Montreal or Toronto's transit system is built for the sheer volume of passengers per day, and that's understandable, there's a huge difference in population. I actually think the system would benefit from closing at night, at least once a week as I think the greatest cost to the system is labor costs of operating trains while people are working on tracks. All I remember from my trip to Toronto was the paranoia of staying off the private toll road, the 401 because I heard it was extremely expensive to pay if you don't have the radio tag to pay for it.

    It cost $6 billion to build the 2nd Ave subway, and it's not even complete. It's just the first of three phases and it's only been extended 2 miles.

    https://nypost.com/2019/09/16/mta-of...-6b-price-tag/

    Honestly, the most frustrating thing about the transit system here is that every few years the MTA raises fares but we get worse service out of it. I remember when it was $2.00 and now it's $2.75 and it still takes me 2 hours on a bad day to get to Manhattan. Of course I'm going to take a car if I already have one. Hence, think of the anger the average New Yorker gets when the city wants to add more City Bikes and bike lanes when what we really want is to get to where we want whenever we want to. Don't even get me started on the poor driving culture in NY though, it's far too easy to get a driver's license in NY state.
    Last edited by NSXType-R; 12-31-2019 at 06:08 PM.

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