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Old Posted Jun 22, 2017, 9:40 PM
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The future of transportation is in Seoul, South Korea

The future of transportation is in Seoul, South Korea. Americans should pay attention.


June 20, 2017

By Kelly Kasulis

Read More: https://mic.com/articles/180164/tran...t-were-missing

Quote:
South Koreans have truly mastered the commute. Simply put, a typical Seoul subway station is equipped with amenities and an attention to detail unknown to most American cities. That's despite the challenge of shuffling an estimated 6.9 million passengers through its metro system every day.

- Seoul's transit has been called one of "the best public transportation systems in the world" on a number of occasions. South Korea takes pride in how its people get around: The country's Incheon International Airport has ranked as the best in the world for 12 years in a row now, for example. Here's why anyone in a major metropolis should be paying attention — especially New Yorkers, who live in a megacity somewhat similar in size.

- In many Seoul subway stations, monitors line the walls as passengers descend underground on escalators. News crawls and advertisements for new films fill the few seconds of wait time. Once inside, passengers can browse an underground bazaar: flower stands, convenience stores, jewelry kiosks, shoe bins and people in aprons cooking hot street food, such as rice rolls or spicy fish cakes. There are electronics shops selling cheap earbuds and phone chargers for those who left home in a frenzy.

- Everything seems to be engineered meticulously: Public bathrooms sell tampons, pads and baby wipes. Fare machines coach tourists through reloading their transportation cards in multiple languages. The same map is often visualized in different ways, so that even the most hopeless navigator can find their path. And once on the train, passengers are still able to get cell service and Wi-Fi, in addition to enjoying an air-conditioned climate in the summer, heated seats in the winter and a lively jingle that comes on to announce transfer stations.

- Though it's true that the U.S. has some well-regarded transit systems, like in Seattle or Washington, D.C., America is still plagued with a reputation for unpleasant — if not broken — infrastructure. --- But of course, Americans still rely on public transportation, even when it has room for improvements. The total number of passenger trips taken on U.S. transit — trains, subways and buses, for example — has increased by about 33% in the last two decades, according to the American Society of Civil Engineer's 2017 Infrastructure report card.

- Unfortunately, that uptick coincides with about a $90 billion backlog in needed maintenance and repairs, pointing to serious neglect. One cause may be that American transit tends to rely heavily on government subsidies, while passenger fares pay a much more sizable chunk of Seoul's transit. --- "The difference between the Asian systems and the American system is that some of the Asian systems can pay for themselves. But in the U.S., the cities may need a subsidy," Norman Garrick, an associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Connecticut.

- Basically, Seoul's transit costs less per ride and is used more often. The current base fare for an adult passenger is 1,250 won (about $1.10) per ride on a reusable card. That's significantly cheaper than the at least $2.25 fare in Boston or $2.75 fare in New York City, but it can add up to a lot of cash flow for Korean transportation. A 2016 report also suggests that on average a person in Seoul uses rail 0.67 times a day, compared to 0.54 in New York or 0.21 in Washington, D.C.

- "The problem with the U.S. is that the government is always quick to cut back on subsidies for transportation, because there's not a lot of appreciation for transit," Garrick said. "There's a lot of impressions in the U.S. that transit is just for poor people. ... Whereas the best performing cities, from a transit point of view — they realize that transit needs to be attractive for everybody. You have to be willing to pay for it."

- Seoul's density alone makes it more conducive to affordable, well-funded metro and bus systems. It's a city that thrives on tall apartment buildings that house hundreds (if not thousands) of people — roughly 60% of Seoul residents live in an apartment building today, compared to just 1% about 40 years ago. This means that many Koreans living in Seoul likely can access a subway or bus station with relative ease— an estimated 19,000 people live within a single city block in Jamsil, for example, which is a neighborhood in the outskirts of Seoul.

- "You can have single-family neighborhoods that can be served sufficiently by transit," Garrick said, meaning that the U.S. really can have it all. There's just one caveat — it has to make a concerted effort to do so, first. --- "The issue is the willingness [of] the government to realize that they're providing a service that is important for the sufficient functioning in the city," he said. In other words, transportation needs to be a priority — yet America's largest subway system, in New York City, remains inefficient in part because of funding issues.

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  #2  
Old Posted Jun 27, 2017, 10:06 PM
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I went to look at Seoul's transit network last April. It's pretty good, but not nearly as good as Taipei or Singapore. It suffers a bit from having several different origins, with some lines that started as suburban railway lines, others built by the city transit agency, and the newest ones (like Line 9) built and run by private operators. Overcrowding is a real problem, both on trains and at transfer points. Yes, there are mezzanine-level shopping complexes that rival regional malls in floorspace and number of merchants, but one of the reasons they have all that subsurface space to offer is that they've created uncrossable 12-lane arterials up above.

But this article is hardly a discerning look at operations or policy. It seems to be some grad student's travelogue, just brushing past the incredible difference in density between Seoul and American cities, the huge differences in politics and culture, and gushing over the coffee-in-a-cardboard-cup vending machines most of us were glad to see left behind in the 1970s.
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