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Comment by ilovecars2 | Hacker News Reader

> I believe that cars are not a transportation solution that scales like public transportation, for instance, does.

One thing I would like to add is that public transport is too very difficult to scale. For example, the Northern, Central and Piccadilly lines on London Underground are massively overcrowded to the extent where it’s borderline dangerous.

I don’t really know what TFL can do about it, because the lines already operates at maximum capacity. They could build more lines at £15Bn each (http://www.cityam.com/279301/gbp148bn-crossrail-project-face...), but even if money grew on trees these projects take 5-10 years to complete, by which time population has grown so much that they too are overcrowded by the time they open.

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> One thing I would like to add is that public transport is too very difficult to scale

A quick check show the Piccadilly line is doing 21 trains per hour and they have a capacity of 684 people. Around 14,000 people per hour.

That is roughly a 7 lanes of highway traffic under optimal conditions. Not even thinking about the other direction.

I think you find that it is easer to build a new underground line though central London than a 10+ lane highway.

London was recently faced with exactly that question: how to transport more people across the city efficiently without paying the astronomical sums required for either another Crossrail or an unthinkably damaging motorway.

The solution is in place now and is working. It’s the North-South and East-West Cycle Superhighways.

Any estimate of how many people these can move at peak volume? I'm curious how it compares to the Underground.

So I think the insight here is that, as with everything, it can only scale so far.

Here's a question though: is it easier to build a new underground tunnel now compared to 100(?) years ago? While previously there was a lot less existing infrastructure to have to worry about disturbing, these days we have a lot more advanced technology to make the process easier.

Chinese cities have grown tremendously large metro systems in a very short amount of time. China has 5 of the 10 longest metro systems, and 4 of them were started operating in the 90s or later. The Nanjing metro is the 6th longest in the world and was started running in 2005.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems#List

So the answer is a resounding yes, it is much easier to build metro systems than it was in the past. As long as you do so in China.

Having lived in London I am starting to wonder if really large cities aren’t going to suffer under overcrowding and increased housing prices to the point where it very painfully (maybe) self regulates?

It already does. Far more people would live in the desireable areas of London and Manhattan, among others, if the housing were available at half the current prices. The effects in the greater Metro areas are less—people trade off commute time for lower prices/more space—but people still absolutely factor in CoL when making location choices. I certainly would never consider a number of areas for that reason.

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