US cities beginning in the fifties formed a secondary ring of urbanized office plazas, industrial parks, malls, and big box strips outside of the urban core.
THIS GROWTH PATTERN WAS UNIQUE TO MIDCENTURY NORTH AMERICA AND IS NOT SEEN ELSEWHERE.
The effect of it was a routing efficiency problem that makes it difficult to offer effective mass transit. In a traditional (ie, non-North American) city, radial routing tends to work very well. In North American cities, routing bifuricates into radial routes AND lots of circumference routes.
For example, Tokyo is one massive spiderweb of expressways with many independent commercial districts.
Almost all of which would fit neatly within Dallas's I-635 loop.
If you've ever been to Dallas, you know there's like two more fucking loops outside the 635. I don't think you understand just how fucking huge American cities are.
Consider this: The M25 Motorway, which encircles ALL of London, is 117 miles long. The Kansas City I-435 + I-470 + HW-291 loop, which doesn't even successfully loop the city anymore, is like 20 miles longer. It takes at least two fucking hours to drive all the way around the outskirts of Kansas City, I know it cuz I've had to do it a bunch of times.
The cars themselves are not the problem.
The problem is the growth pattern.
US cities beginning in the fifties formed a secondary ring of urbanized office plazas, industrial parks, malls, and big box strips outside of the urban core.
THIS GROWTH PATTERN WAS UNIQUE TO MIDCENTURY NORTH AMERICA AND IS NOT SEEN ELSEWHERE.
The effect of it was a routing efficiency problem that makes it difficult to offer effective mass transit. In a traditional (ie, non-North American) city, radial routing tends to work very well. In North American cities, routing bifuricates into radial routes AND lots of circumference routes.
Almost all of which would fit neatly within Dallas's I-635 loop.
If you've ever been to Dallas, you know there's like two more fucking loops outside the 635. I don't think you understand just how fucking huge American cities are.
Consider this: The M25 Motorway, which encircles ALL of London, is 117 miles long. The Kansas City I-435 + I-470 + HW-291 loop, which doesn't even successfully loop the city anymore, is like 20 miles longer. It takes at least two fucking hours to drive all the way around the outskirts of Kansas City, I know it cuz I've had to do it a bunch of times.
Yes they are.
Now, consider: In that same space, the GTA manages to fit ten million more people than the total population of Texas.
This is why mass transit doesn't work in the US.