It's not saying that the top row can support at most 100 people.

Just that if you have 100 people per hour, you need something like what's in the picture. The train tracks aren't being fully utilized in the top pic, either.

As an aside, you're forgetting that cars are ~15 feet long on average. So you've got an hour of traffic with consistently 1 car following distance, which is fairly unrealistic. Real world capacy of a lane is closer to 2k people per hour, or 4k both directions.

At 25mph, the safe distance between cars is closer to 60-70 feet. Add the length of the cars for another 15-20 feet and your throughput calculations drop by a factor of 2.5-3 already.

It gets worse once you start considering comparable velocities. Trains go way over 25mph.

Also assume that no one is turning onto or off of the road?

Theoretically the highway I can see outside my window could handle tens of thousands of passengers per hour moving at over 60mph. But for some odd reason when I look out my window on workday it's moving significantly less than 25 mph. Some days is not even moving at all.

Yeah but for long term growth is not ideal, the tracks will do a better job in long run.

No matter the math, trains move more people, faster and safely. What you should use for your argument is that it's easier and better to low capacity roads in rural areas (low population) than building trains to replace the car everywhere. Either way there is no argument against trains from city to city or a metro. Cars get out competed there.

Quick search gave this number:

Theoretical maximum saturation flow rate per lane (this will allow you to do quick calculations in your head to check reasonableness at big events): 1,900 vehicles per hour per lane

So the bottom would probably be more like 25K each way. Lightrail is only about 4-8k? Meanwhile a single subway lane each way could do more than that thing on the bottom left.

TBH, where I live, those 80km/h roads aren't as bad as you would think. Cars slow down before bends because they anticipate that a bicycle, hiker, tractor or whatever slow moving vehicle and usually pass them with decent space.

But that is only true for less frequented roads, if there is heavy oncoming traffic and save overtaking is not possible, people will still try to squeeze through and there separated bike lanes are really important.

Well except in Germany

It's so disappointing to see all this construction finally happening in your town and then there's just two tracks without even space for more. No express service, the train takes just as long as the freeway, even in rush hour, or longer if you have to transfer.

We shouldn't be building unwalkable suburbs

that's not a problem with trains it's a problem with unsustainable land use

@themeatbridge @sexy_peach Commuter driving has the same 'last mile' problem, but it's parking.

The photo doesn't include the $250 million worth of carparks for those 10,000 cars that has to exist at the other end of the highway.

The problem is the unwalkable suburb that doesn't make any sense. It never made sense either.

It's not only bad for commuting. It's a mess for groundwater, pollution of all type (noise, microplastics, air, etc.) It has an impact on the wildlife including reproduction, on plants, etc.

It's just a bad use of space? No, it's bad socially by isolating people. It creates urban traps. I will stop here otherwise I will continue on the fact it's a myth created by the capital...

surely you can bike 2 miles in the burbs? One of the upsides of suburbs being so painfully sprawly is that barely anyone lives there, so you shouldn't have a tremendous amount of traffic on those 2 miles to the train station.

And even if you'd fear for your life biking there now, it's not like you need to build bike paths along every little residential street to fix it, start with the largest most high-traffic roads and build your way down until people feel safe biking to the train station.

Or just have a parking lot/garage, or bike the last mile...

Why did it become unwalkable?

Where I live, the train station is smack in the middle of all the big employers!!

There just isn't actual service to the station....

A train ride will always be more comfortable than being stuck in traffic.