Comment on Public transit in Chengdu, China versus Toronto, Canada
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 10 months ago
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.
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 (Kipling to Kennedy) is 35km while that of Chengdu (天府机场北 to 何公路) is 93 km.
Don’t forget Chinese corner cutting. You probably have to knock 25% off of that if you want infrastructure of a level of quality and safety tolerable to Westerners.
I think it’s fair to guess China is less car-obsessed than Canada, and more serious about fighting climate change. That being said, without cheating it becomes pretty obvious we’re working with the same technology and fundamental logistics.
Don't forget Chinese corner cutting. You probably have to knock 25% off of that if you want infrastructure of a level of quality and safety tolerable to Westerners.
Is that a thing? It sounds a bit like some bullshit propaganda from here. China = bad.
I have family from out that way. It’s absolutely a thing in the third world in general, and then in China you have an enormous case of single metrics being used for success (like speed of project completion) and so becoming useless.
In the West, people would become outraged by unheated, crumbling train terminals and it would become a political issue. In China, they tend to censor negative political commentary, so the only people who’s opinion actually matter are other party officials.
I live in Toronto and was in the Chengdu metro a month ago. I didn’t do a close inspection but it was fine. Honestly probably better than Toronto. The trains had AC and the terminals that I went to were not crumbling.
I think this meme is pretty reasonable. Toronto had a great start with subways, and still has huge ridership. They also have an excellent bus network. But the funding is very tight and the city has long prioritized inefficient personal vehicles. But it is a good point that you are comparing cities that an order of magnitude apart in population. Toronto also has 2 train lines (one light rail that should be opening within a year, and one subway that is probably 10 years away from opening) which are great to see, finally showing some investment in public transit. But the rate is nowhere near what the political will in China allows and also has a huge focus on new projects rather than keeping maintenance of existing infrastructure.
In many ways this is a wakeup call. If we wanted this level of infrastructure we could have it. But we need to actually commit rather than continuously slashing budgets so that we can let the rich pay less taxes and continue to subsidize car ownership.
Wait until you see the absolute dog shit they are building in the US right now for 4x the cost in China
i think the measure is how many trains carrying industrial chemicals derail in china vs the usa
As another who has been to China a few times and has friends there: It’s a thing.
The lack of regulations (better now than even 5 years ago, but still shit (*1), the lack of pollution protection laws (*3) and the lack of care in build quality (*2) in order to drive down project costs isn’t just a thing, it’s a fact:
(1) adenservices.com/…/china-green-buildings-regulati…
Seeing that China enslaves people AND has highrises that crumble to pieces yeah, there’s definitely corner cutting
But hey, defend China all you want, bootlicker
what do you mean "knock 25% off of that" (off what?) and "without cheating it becomes pretty obvious we're working with the same technology and fundamental logistics in this map"? sorry i'm just struggling to parse this
Off of the remaining size of the Chengdu network after you correct for the other issues in OP’s representation.
Regardless of the ethnicity and mother tongue of the workers, smelting and extruding rebar, shipping it and pouring concrete around it is the same process. They can’t magically go faster over there, and the reason their labour seems cheaper on paper has to do with the West producing things they can’t (yet). If correctly presented, it would be pretty obvious it’s not apples-to-oranges like it looks in OP, I think.
I’m wondering WTF happened to Toronto line 3, though.
Can you please "correctly present" what about the classic Chinese cookie-cutter metro technology is deficient and 25% behind Western technology?
For why Chinese metro construction seems apparently faster you can watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehTy-qQVZhM; it's just like them Cape Cod suburbs in North America.
btw as mentioned below, line 3 was cut to make way for replacing it with a line 2 extension
Having moved to Toronto from NYC, transit could be much worse. NYC’s is larger to support the greater population but nearly everything about it is absolute trash tier, and it’s useless if you need to go to a borough that doesn’t start with M
bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 10 months ago
These two maps are at the same scale:
Toronto Image
Chengdu Image
Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 10 months ago
That doesn't really place the transit network.
bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 10 months ago
I don’t know what you mean by this. The yellow lines are transit lines. The red circles are stops.
Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 10 months ago
Sorry, I got confused by the regional rail lines.
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 10 months ago
and pop density?
bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 10 months ago
Chengdu Image
Toronto Image