Comment on Public transit in Chengdu, China versus Toronto, Canada
brunoqc@piefed.ca 22 hours agoDon'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.
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
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 22 hours ago
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.
kevincox@lemmy.ml 21 hours ago
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.
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 21 hours ago
Yes, like I said to someone else, I actually don’t know much about the rail system specifically. That was just an example of typical corners to cut.
The state of public transit in Canada is truly dire. Vancouver’s system seemed useable, but I haven’t personally spent enough time abroad to know if it is, or if it just is by comparison.
BakerBagel@midwest.social 21 hours ago
Wait until you see the absolute dog shit they are building in the US right now for 4x the cost in China
gurnu@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Easy to build cheaply when you use slave labor
ThirdConsul@lemmy.ml 8 hours ago
I mean…
www.walkfree.org/…/united-states/
www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/…/china/
3.3 slaves per thousand people vs 4.0 per thousand seems very similar to me.
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 21 hours ago
You have to adjust for labour cost. For reasons that have to do with certain industries not existing in the third world, it’s much higher in the West.
match@pawb.social 21 hours ago
i think the measure is how many trains carrying industrial chemicals derail in china vs the usa
DamnianWayne@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
Well considering China would never report on an accurate number, we’ll never know.