Talk:Urban rail transit

Latest comment: 3 years ago by 84.250.167.86 in topic "T-bane"?

With separate long articles on Rapid transit and light rail, there is no need for this one as well. It should be merged with the general public transit article. --Anonymous, 05:00 June 11 (UTC).


Reflects a pretty European look at things. Stateside, I see things separated into 'Heavy Rail', 'Commuter Rail', 'Light Rail', and 'Streetcar'. The distinction of 'grade separated' as the distinction for 'rapid' is nowhere observed. Theblindsage (talk) 23:27, 31 July 2013 (UTC)Reply


The section on transit economics was not acceptable. It only included a single reference, and it was to the scholarly journal of a libertarian think tank with the article written by a fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute. I think that this would be an acceptable reference if it was amongst several references that included more diverse opinions and more mainstream opinions, but standing by itself it presents an outside the mainstream viewpoint that is not countered by more popular thought. I am deleting it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.184.178.71 (talk) 15:54, 9 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

Anon relies on unknown and uncited courses for his personal beliefs. That is not an acceptable reason by Wiki's NPOV rules to delete sourced text. The complaint that there are other viewpoints is solved by ADDING those viewpoints. Rjensen (talk) 16:07, 9 August 2013 (UTC)Reply
The article probably should be deleted due to factual errors in the article. Early on, one of the sources in the article ridiculously states that less than 1 million Americans use public rail transit to commute to work. When the actual weekday ridership on just the NYC subway is 5.4 million people. This kind of major factual error calls into question the integrity of the article and is a reason that probably justifies deletion of the source.Lance Friedman (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:05, 9 August 2013 (UTC)Reply
Commuters only represent a fraction of the total ridership. But less than 1 million seems unlikely nationwide.--Howchou (talk) 19:13, 9 August 2013 (UTC)Reply
You need to support deleting that transport economics section that has this encyclopedia declaring urban rail transport to be a confirmed failure based on a single libertarian source. Libertarianism, which I have nothing against, is not a mainstream political or economic philosophy. Only a single digit percentage of academic economists believe in libertarian/austrian economics. There have to be more sources. Besides the issue of sourcing, the sentence is written very misleadingly if you actually go to the source and investigate the data that the libertarian study is making its claims off of.

"They also, say some American economists claim that, contrary to popular belief, rail transit has failed to improve the environment, serve the poor, or reduce highway congestion in the United States. They also say economists are somewhat more optimistic about rail transit's impact on economic development."

That makes it sound as though rail transit is failing, right? All those people using trains rather than cars doesn't help the environment? How can that be? Well, according to the source, there isn't much environmental savings because (1) most rail travelers are former bus travelers and (2) induced demand for auto transport means that not as many auto trips are saved as there are former auto commuters who switch to rail. Both of them have key words: "most" and "as many". At least SOME rail commuters are former auto commuters, and at least SOME AMOUNT of auto trips are saved because the availability of rail shifts the auto demand curve. Never mind that at different points, the source contradicts itself on the point of most rail commuters being former bus commuters by complaining that rail transport also fails to serve the poor by only offering service at places where rich people live, so that it can replace car travel, at the expense of the quality of bus routes in areas where poorer people live. Such is the nature of a libertarian economics essay, it can only make its points by twisting the words of its references. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.184.178.71 (talk) 16:42, 11 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

"T-bane"? edit

Would this "T-bane" be a reference to Stockholm's Tunnelbanan, T-banan for short? If indefinite forms can be used, drop the trailing "n".. -- 84.250.167.86 (talk) 20:22, 31 August 2020 (UTC)Reply