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[–] 117 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I guess it’s easier to undertake a massive infrastructure project if you can just tell residents to move it or else…

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  • [–] 87 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    The idea that you get to put a stake in the ground and then that plot of dirt yours forever is insane. The amount of infrastructure projects in Denmark that are put on hold indefinitely because locals are upset, not at being forced to move, but because they think they own their land and the view, is nuts.

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  • [–] 60 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    I agree. There needs to be a middle ground. In Germany, NIMBYs opposed to wind turbines because they’re supposedly loud and ugly, as well as NIMBYs opposed to high-capacity power lines have become somewhat of a meme.

    The right way to handle this is buying the land at a reasonable price (where you actually need to build on someone’s land, not buying ‘the view’).

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    It’s either your land or it’s someone else’s. In a place like China the government owns all the land which means it’s all owned by wealthy, ultra-powerful, ultra-connected party elites. At no point is there a situation where millions or billions of people all share land in common. There is always politics, there will always be powerful elites, there will always be people getting screwed over.

    The difference with Denmark is that individual small people have a tiny bit more power than individuals in China. The fact that this results in progress being impeded is a tradeoff that brings enormous benefits for personal freedom.

    Read about the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. Over a million people were forcibly displaced from their homes as a result. Many cities, towns, and villages were completely destroyed. The living conditions of the displaced deteriorated and their lives were irrevocably altered.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    There is world of difference between displacing a million people and doing little to help them along, and telling a small group of farmers to fuck off or get rolled over. It's not either / or. It's that in the western world, we attribute too much to land ownership because it's deeply tied to peoples personal economy and nebulous concepts like freedom. I think that's insane. Decomodify housing and ban the trading of land as a speculative market, and I think you'll see people give less of a shit about it.

    Here in Denmark, farmers (and suburbanites pretending to be rural, let's be real) have an immensely disproportionate amount of power to veto infrastructure projects that benefit us all for the dumbest reasons, but I can't veto the parking lots they demand be built on my street even though it only benefits them.

    Last month, some-200 farmers got off their subsidized ass to bitch and whine about how some electric poles off in the distance would, and I quote, "ruin my life". https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/niels-bliver-nabo-til-44-meter-hoeje-elmaster-vi-faar-oedelagt-vores-livsvaerdi

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    [–] 86 points 1 year ago (40 children)

    All jokes aside, things like this are why China is beating us. I am absolutely not a fan of the Chinese government, but the simple fact is they get shit done.

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  • [–] 45 points 1 year ago (20 children)

    It helps that in China you can’t own land. All the land is owned by the government. You only have “use rights” and for a limited time (something like 80 years - I forget the exact number). So when it comes time to build infrastructure the government just tells you to gtfo.

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  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago

    No just any shit, shit that helps everyday people living in their country.

    I'm just thinking of the major cities in my U.S. state where the public transit map, before and after, looks like Chengdu in 2010. So as unfortunate as the circumstances are in Toronto, they can be even worse.

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    [–] 71 points 1 year ago* (6 children)

    Chengdu is the capital city of the Chinese province of Sichuan. With a population of 20,937,757 at the 2020 census.

    Toronto is the most populous city in Canada and the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a population of 2,794,356 in 2021

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    DONT BRING NUANCE AND LOGIC TO A SENSELESS FEELINGS-BAITING POST! It doesn’t MATTER the city layout over top of it, the context of rapid and rampant industrialization in China, or something as inconsequential as number of people!

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    i don't understand your reasoning here. are you saying that Toronto hasn't needed more subway lines than a couple extensions in 15 years? how does the number of people affect the lines? i would think it should affect the number of trains and trips. the lines would be more about where people live and want to go, no?

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    [–] 60 points 1 year ago (11 children)

    I don't care about the post itself, but OP, in the last 24 hours you've made something like 80 posts. What the fuck?

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    [–] 59 points 1 year ago (25 children)

    Population: Chengdu over 20 million vs. under 3 million in Toronto.

    The maps above also seem to be differently scaled.

    Also, the fact that it has technologically developed fast in the past decades, as compared to Canada that has developed steadily in the past century, is not really the gotcha OP seems to imply it is.

    That said, it's perfectly possible that public transport in Toronto leaves much to be desired - without comparing it to Chengdu.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago

    Not to undermine your point on the demand, but note that Chengdu's population has grown <7 million since phase 1 of Line 1 (the 18.5km middle quarter of the navy purple line; for reference the green Toronto line is 26.2km) was opened, while the decades that preceded this saw the city having similar population growth rates to Toronto.

    The maps above also seem to be differently scaled.

    The Toronto map is ~2x more-a-zoomied-in, judging by the distances between the farthest stations. In 2024, looking at the track maps, the driving distance between the farthest stations (Vaghan Met. to Victoria Park) is 36km while that of Chengdu (天府机场北 to 何公路) is 93 km.

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    [–] 44 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    as someone who lives in Toronto I mean....you really don't need an extensive subway network here. We have a lot of buses and several lines of street cars (trollys, trains on the road, whatever you call them where you live).

    So what's being shown here is ONLY the subway network. it doesn't show the vast street car lines would would make it look A LOT like the China photo.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

    mean....you really don't need an extensive subway network here

    Found the 905'er

    The streetcar network is a complete shitshow. Multiple streetcars bunched up, with hundreds of people inside, being blocked by a few SUV drivers and parked cars on the side of the street.

    Its faster to bike or walk in most cases.

    Same for the buses. There's a reason the bus lines here have nicknames like "the sufferin' dufferin"

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    [–] 29 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Public transport policy in Toronto is a disaster. It is a complete disappointment of a city and an ugly blight on the landscape that serves only captialism and vapid mediocrity

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    [–] 28 points 1 year ago (11 children)

    What's up with all the China hype on Lemmy? These projects are impressive, no doubt, but their cost in terms of human rights violations are pretty high. I'm speaking generally, I don't have the specifics with regards to this subway system. Either way it's not really comparable to a project like this in a country like Canada imo.

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    [–] 26 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    lol, as if it's all magic?

    Does the sinkhole caused by slapdash construction feature on the map?

    https://www.reuters.com/world/china/subway-under-construction-collapses-chinas-chengdu-creating-sinkhole-2024-06-21/

    How about the shed where 4 people died during construction?

    https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202109/11/WS613ba6e7a310efa1bd66ebdc.html

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago

    We have had industrial accidents and deaths as well... We may have better safety standards but going from no subway system to a massive full city system more robust than Western countries in a fraction of the time is pretty remarkable.

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    [+] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)
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    [–] 18 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Did ... Did they close stations on the Eastern line in Toronto?

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Yeah. Line 3 used different rolling stock than the other three lines, unusual linear induction motor powered equipment, which was reaching the end of its service life. The plan was to shut it down in November 2023 and temporarily replace it with bus service while they built a Line 2 extension to serve the neighborhoods Line 3 used to. Unfortunately, a train derailed in July 2023, which resulted in the system shutting down four months sooner than expected.

    The Line 2 extension is going to take a different route to eventually arrive at Line 3’s old terminus. I think there’s plans to covert the old line 3 viaduct into a Bus Rapid Transit guideway.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Orange vs Apple! Who will win!

    That being said I do wish every country would have a better public infrastructure.

    Just out of curiosity if you do have recent research in economy on the impact of subway, tram, bus, bike lanes, etc on both productivity AND happiness, please do share. I'm already convinced but I'd love to learn more on how and why.

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