I read something about when the Ford model T cars came out and a family went out for a ride at 25 miles per hours. They got into an accident and one of the daughters died. Not collision with another vehicle -- owners of model T were rare. They drove into a ditch.

Think. Usain Bolt could run at 27+ miles per hour.

Imagine if more money was put into mass transit. Bullet trains, underground subways. Imagine if every city had worked out a way to transport people where anyone living in a metro area was never more than five minutes away from a stop for mass transit. Imagine a world where there were so many various train routes going from city hub to city hub, there wouldn't even be a need for highways. Imagine if one's personal or commercial goods were moved from various tram-like / light rails along with cable cars that could be connected right to a drive way to a residence. Or, if we had anything interesting, we could use robotic pickups and dropoff of large materials to the locations of our choice. Imagine a world where automobiles were rare, and mainly used in rural areas that were extremely remote or for emergency purposes only. — schopenhauer1

It has nothing to do with virtue that at 77 I have not driven a car. Poor vision has kept me out of the driver's seat and kept everyone else safer. I have always depended on either someone with a car or public transit, and I can testify to the truth that it is more or less difficult to live without a car in the United States. Less difficult IF you live along transit corridors in dense urban settings. More, and much more difficult if you live in a transit starved suburb, exurb, or rural area.

Just for example, I live 3 miles from the University of Minnesota where I have worked and where I get medical and dental care. It takes me about 50 minutes to travel that distance on a bus (with good connections). It takes about an hour to walk. It takes about 20 minutes to bike. 50 minutes is too long for the distance, but there are no direct busses to the U from where I live. If a bus is missed, automatically add 12 to 30 minutes to the time.

Minneapolis supposedly has good transit -- maybe, but compared to whom? Certainly not New York, Chicago, or Boston. Better than Boise? Better than Biloxi? Better than Baton Rouge? Almost certainly.

The Metropolitan Council (an authority created by the State of MN) runs Transit, Water, and Waste Water Treatment systems, among other things, They have also built two light rail lines of about 20 miles total. Just as good (If not better) and cheaper are the Bus Rapid Transit lines the Met Council built. A third leg of light rail running out to a western suburb has cost 2.75 BILLION so far, and they have been working on it for years.

Light Rail is about as cheap as rail systems in an urban setting can get. Tunneling is extremely high cost. Maybe elevated trains, like Chicago uses, would be cheaper than tunnels, but people hate the idea. But then a lot of people also hate buses.

Interurban trains, running from urban hub to urban hub, used to cover much of the United States. I think we have a very romantic notion of what much of that train service was like. Long distance trains in the 1950s and early 1960s reached a high standard, then they went broke. Most train service was just not splendid. Schedules could be inconvenient, waiting rooms could be dreary, train cars could be too hot, too cold, not very clean, and uncomfortable in several different ways. Riding first class was certainly better, but it might not have been quite as fine as Hollywood made it seem.

Interurban trains were not especially fast -- certainly nothing resembling bullet trains. They chugged along, maybe 70 or 80 mph. But one could get almost anywhere, and one could ship a load of coal or sofas almost anywhere. Many small towns, like <2000, had at least freight train service. Lumber, coal, and oil was delivered to towns that way -- not by truck. Back in the day (say, up to the 1960s).

IF, and it is a VERY BIG IF, we had spent as much money on rail transit and urban transit as we did on highways, we would have a gold-plated system that would be the envy of the solar system.

Suburbanization started before Henry Ford. In Boston, horse-power (and horse-oriented roads) and steam trains extended the distance that well-off people could travel between home and job in the 1880s. In time, this extension accelerated and included. Boston's first subway opened in 1901. Some of the "subway" was elevated -- and stayed that way for 80 years. Chicago started building EL trains in 1892. New York opened its first subway in 1904.

Outward-directed growth of cities at a relative low density was underway by the time cars became a feature. The US had room; a LOT of acreage and long distances. The compact manner of growth practiced in Emgland wasn't necessary here, and wasn't obviously beneficial. By the time the downsides of highly dispersed growth became manifest, it was too late to do much about it.

Another factor here is racial policy. The US practiced segregation early on. After the Civil War, it was practically mandated, if not legislatively ordained. A series of events -- WWI, the Great Depression, and WWII resulted in the American urban scene being crowded and at least some what dilapidated. New Deal Legislation, which played out in full during the Post-WWII Boom, built large swaths of new suburban communities for (more or less) middle class white people. Large tracts of urban land (neighborhoods) were written off as black slums. Downtown cores gradually emptied out -- so that by the 1990s, say, there was not as much "there" there as there used to be. Covid nailed the coffin lid shut.

Highways were built to, within, and between suburbs; highways were built between urban hubs; highways were rammed through cities; highways were built coast to coast. "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot." The kernel of Ford's and GM's drive to create new markets where no market had previously existed, reached its fulfillment during the completion of the Interstate Highway system in the 1970s.

It took time for "the automobile market" to fully transform the American society, the American economy, the American landscape, American demographics--about 60 years, 1914 to 1974, to pick a year. Did Ford and GM plan all that out? No. In general, capitalists are short-sighted. They want to see yesterday's investment pay off tomorrow. That may take a year, 5 years, 10 years, or maybe 20 at the extreme. As goals are met, as the market reaches its goals, new goals are set -- ever towards growth, new markets, new products, new transformations--whether The People jolly well like it or not. But plenty of money will be spent on getting them to like it.

It took more than Fordism to get the automobile mega ball rolling. There had to be oil, grease, and gasoline; iron ore, coal / coke, and steel producers; rubber plantations, rubber shipping, and rubber manufacture; limestone, coal, cement, and concrete--all in huge abundance. The stock market and government ran in tandem, investing and spending.

Imagine if more money was put into mass transit. Bullet trains, underground subways. Imagine if every city had worked out a way to transport people where anyone living in a metro area was never more than five minutes away from a stop for mass transit. Imagine a world where there were so many various train routes going from city hub to city hub, there wouldn't even be a need for highways. Imagine if one's personal or commercial goods were moved from various tram-like / light rails along with cable cars that could be connected right to a drive way to a residence. — schopenhauer1

Imagine all the unintended evils that would accompany such a thing. :razz:

...I don't find much rigorous argumentation in the OP. It looks like a quick attempt to think up as many problems with cars as you can, and this is then followed by a quick plug for mass transit, John Lennon-style. Most of it has nothing specifically to do with cars. Pollution? The trains you are so fond of once ran on fossil fuels, and the cars you dislike now run on electricity (and there are all sorts of problems with electric vehicles too). Taxes, banking, security, etc.? They apply to everything, not just cars. It is unprincipled to apply most of these things to cars and to nothing else. The other problem is that I see no attempt to understand the impact of cars as a whole, namely by juxtaposing the cons with the pros.

The problem with such technologies, in my opinion, is mass transit. Mass transit, whether in the form of cars or trains or airplanes, will cause the problems you are concerned with. So should we reduce the need for mass transit? Perhaps, depending on the costs associated with such a move. But this would lead to a more communal form of living, with less travel, globalization, etc.

And I think the big elephant in the room is autonomy and subsidiarity. You have conceived of mobility as tied inextricably to the State within a centralized, top-down system.

Are you aware of what you are saying here? Where do you live? — jgill

In the city, where food magically appears in the grocery store. :smile:

Imagine if more money was put into mass transit. Bullet trains, underground subways. Imagine if every city had worked out a way to transport people where anyone living in a metro area was never more than five minutes away from a stop for mass transit. Imagine a world where there were so many various train routes going from city hub to city hub, there wouldn't even be a need for highways. Imagine if one's personal or commercial goods were moved from various tram-like / light rails along with cable cars that could be connected right to a drive way to a residence. — schopenhauer1

Imagine all the unintended evils that would accompany such a thing — Leontiskos

Indeed!

Effortlessness requires a lot of infrastructure, especially if it involves retrofitting.

In the 1970s a mechanical engineering professor at the U of Minnesota proposed a network of 1 or 2 person small automated vehicles moving on very light rails throughout the city. It would pick you up at your door, or maybe the street corner, and deliver you anywhere else in the city. It was, in a number of ways, attractive. And in many ways highly impractical and expensive.

50 years later, it's much more likely that an AI supervised self-driving car will deliver door to door service for much less. Get rid of the Uber or Lyft driver and you're almost there. All we need is a self-driving system that is up to the task. So far, not so good.

You can have door to door transportation in a skyscraper IF you install elevators while you are building the tower. If you have to add elevators after the tall building is finished, elevator shafts and elevator systems become prohibitively expensive. Same thing for a city, to a large extent. One of the difficulties the met council's light rail system had was digging up all the infrastructure that was under the streets on which the light rail would run. It had to be either moved or upgraded so that it excavation wouldn't be needed in the intermediate future. Neither elevated rails nor burrowed tunnels get around all problems.

Our best bet for getting beyond the personal car and highways is global warming and an economic crash. The highways are always crumbling (at least in cold parts of the country) so without maintenance they'll be gone PDQ, what with a nastier climate.

The truth is, we missed the boat a century ago. We dismissed trains and we staked our future on autos, trucks and highways. Yes, it was a bad idea.

This sounds so much better than having my car available anytime, and easily drivable to the Walmart about three miles away. Much better to wait for the neighborhood train. — jgill

Just more frequent trains. And yes, your objection represents the common view now. Intractable. At the end of the day if Trump gets elected it’s only the fault of the electorate. If trains don’t gain traction (pun intended), it starts with the consumer.

In a perfect world, there’d be tons of train cars. Maybe there be a reservation component. Either way, it would be integrated with everything and planned into the city.

You can have door to door transportation in a skyscraper IF you install elevators while you are building the tower. If you have to add elevators after the tall building is finished, elevator shafts and elevator systems become prohibitively expensive. Same thing for a city, to a large extent. One of the difficulties the met council's light rail system had was digging up all the infrastructure that was under the streets on which the light rail would run. It had to be either moved or upgraded so that it excavation wouldn't be needed in the intermediate future. Neither elevated rails nor burrowed tunnels get around all problems. — BC

Interesting!

The truth is, we missed the boat a century ago. We dismissed trains and we staked our future on autos, trucks and highways. Yes, it was a bad idea. — BC

Yes, perhaps. But now you have me thinking of boats.

Regarding the OP, I don't think countries that were built on cars will be converted to rail systems. Any problems with cars will be addressed in a piecemeal fashion, as is naturally already taking place. Population-dense urban areas already make use of rails. It is not only a matter of addressing foreign infrastructure, but also of trying to fit a rail system to a car geography. It would be like replacing the riverboats with cruise ships in a country of streams and rivers. The automobile has created a country of streams and rivers, at least in the U.S.

At the end of the day if Trump gets elected it’s only the fault of the electorate. If trains don’t gain traction (pun intended), it starts with the consumer. — schopenhauer1

Damn. I get blamed for everything.

This sounds so much better than having my car available anytime, and easily drivable to the Walmart about three miles away. Much better to wait for the neighborhood train. — jgill

Damn. I get blamed for everything. — jgill

:lol:

Just more frequent trains... In a perfect world, there’d be tons of train cars. — schopenhauer1

The secret to a band: more cowbell. The secret to a society: more trains.

You said here:

This sounds so much better than having my car available anytime, and easily drivable to the Walmart about three miles away. Much better to wait for the neighborhood train. — jgill

Man, after a long day, I wouldn't mind just sitting and letting the local transit take me to my location with ease and not having to deal with driving. So the convenience can go either way.

Damn. I get blamed for everything. — jgill

Cars represent a kind of freedom, but it has had its consequences, which aren't great either. As @BC well-stated:

The truth is, we missed the boat a century ago. We dismissed trains and we staked our future on autos, trucks and highways. Yes, it was a bad idea. — BC

Just for example, I live 3 miles from the University of Minnesota where I have worked and where I get medical and dental care. It takes me about 50 minutes to travel that distance on a bus (with good connections). It takes about an hour to walk. It takes about 20 minutes to bike. 50 minutes is too long for the distance, but there are no direct busses to the U from where I live. If a bus is missed, automatically add 12 to 30 minutes to the time. — BC

Yes, I understand the infrequency and inefficiency of today's public transit.

I also think AI trains might be the best model, not AI cars. Imagine if roads had smaller trains that stopped at each house or what not with some conductors helping the elderly and disabled.

Taxes, banking, security, etc.? They apply to everything, not just cars. — Leontiskos

The kind of taxes, banking, and security that go to public transit, or even a private company is not the same as incurred when owning a car. Less time, stress, loans necessary when spread out across a community in the form of X (non property/car tax... from a general fund whether it be sales, house, income, or any of the other usual ones that are used for various public works). In other words, I don't mind it being taken from a progressive tax base rather than personally from my bank account. This is evil sounding to conservative politics, so go on trying to show the downsides...

And I think the big elephant in the room is autonomy and subsidiarity. You have conceived of mobility as tied inextricably to the State within a centralized, top-down system. — Leontiskos

I don't mind fees to a private company to maintain it. Besides, do you think that "public" is really just "public"? It's always been public contracted to private with public and sometimes combined with private funds. Everyone gets their cut. You can have your Ayn Randian proprietors and shareholders ripping people off or the government getting their share, I guess.

I'm trying. Hard to imagine a train track running down the road in front of my house. Would it stop at every house? Or make a reservation and the train will stop at your house. — jgill

Maybe it would only stop if there is someone waiting at the stop. And maybe you could pull a cord to alert the engineer that you want to get off at the next stop.

...It's like we're groping in the dark for the concept of a bus.

...It's like we're groping in the dark for the concept of a bus. — Leontiskos

Dynamic trains can probably do that.. I made that up. But sounds like it's possible.

The kind of taxes, banking, and security that go to public transit, or even a private company is not the same as incurred when owning a car. — schopenhauer1

Okay.

This is evil sounding to conservative politics, so go on trying to show the downsides... — schopenhauer1

You have an expensive idea you want other people to pay for? Nah, I'll just quote it and let it stand there awkwardly: :razz:

In other words, I don't mind it being taken from a progressive tax base rather than personally from my bank account. — schopenhauer1

I don't mind fees to a private company to maintain it. Besides, do you think that "public" is really just "public"? It's always been public contracted to private with public and sometimes combined with private funds. Everyone gets their cut. You can have your Ayn Randian proprietors and shareholders ripping people off or the government getting their share, I guess. — schopenhauer1

The problem isn't merely economic, although the cost of trains is certainly prohibitive to private parties. The problem is that in order to go anywhere I am at the whim of your centralized thought-child. What you have in mind is centralized, government control of the mobility of the entire nation.

The problem isn't merely economic, although the cost of trains is certainly prohibitive to private parties. The problem is that in order to go anywhere I am at the whim of your centralized thought-child. What you have in mind is centralized, government control of the mobility of the entire nation. — Leontiskos

I just think you overlook that roads are simply a hodgepodge version of the same thing.

I just think you overlook that roads are simply a hodgepodge version of the same thing. — schopenhauer1

But they're not, because roads are cheap enough to be built by private parties. Small counties can afford roads but not trains. Where I live many of the roads are dirt. My car gives me access to the entire continent. It drives on roads of all different kinds, made by all kinds of different communities and people.

The U of M mechanical Engineer scheme I mentioned fits your idea of AI "trains" (maybe one small car on a rail rather than a string of them). His was an 'on demand' system. One would call for a ride; there wouldn't be a string of cars passing every few minutes.

His system wouldn't work by itself -- it would need too large a number of cars to handle peak traffic. For peak travel times, buses and trains would move large volumes of travelers.

Lyft serves my needs fairly well. Most of the places I need to get to quickly cost about $10 each. I use Lyft maybe 2 or 3 times a month. Today I used it three times within 4 hours because I had 3 places to be and no way to get to each by bus or bike. That was an unusual situation,

The bus system operates an on-demand ride share for some parts of the city that have been underserved and have a lot of bus riders. I don't know how well it works.

What makes Boston's system good, or even the Twin Cities' system good when it is good, is enough buses on a given route to offer frequent service, and then good interconnections with rail or other buses. Covid 19 fucked things up for transit systems across the country. Just now things are getting back to normal, but not quite up to 2019 levels.

Bus Rapid Transit lines run as frequently as every 8 minutes. which gives them good connectivity with other parts of the system. Some of the lines are 10 miles long or longer.

I have had a lot of negative experiences with buses over the last 50 years -- like long waits and slow travel times, or not knowing when in hell the bus was supposed to arrive. If you didn't have a printed schedule, you were sol. That has been solved by a text system for finding out when the next bus is scheduled to arrive.

But they're not, because roads are cheap enough to be built by private parties. — Leontiskos

That is false.. depending on the country I guess. Most roads are funded by state, local, and federal taxes.

His system wouldn't work by itself -- it would need too large a number of cars to handle peak traffic. For peak travel times, buses and trains would move large volumes of travelers. — BC

Sounds like an interesting first step. It's more ideas like these that are needed. But no one is going to give up the ease of "just" (there is a lot that actually goes into "just") driving to get to their friends or family or business or recreation or whatever other private activity one desires.

What makes Boston's system good, or even the Twin Cities' system good when it is good, is enough buses on a given route to offer frequent service, and then good interconnections with rail or other buses. Covid 19 fucked things up for transit systems across the country. Just now things are getting back to normal, but not quite up to 2019 levels.

Bus Rapid Transit lines run as frequently as every 8 minutes. which gives them good connectivity with other parts of the system. Some of the lines are 10 miles long or longer.

I have had a lot of negative experiences with buses over the last 50 years -- like long waits and slow travel times, or not knowing when in hell the bus was supposed to arrive. If you didn't have a printed schedule, you were sol. That has been solved by a text system for finding out when the next bus is scheduled to arrive. — BC

I'm not keen on busses. They are better than nothing, but they seem inefficient and slow except for small connections.

That is false.. depending on the country I guess. Most roads are funded by state, local, and federal taxes. — schopenhauer1

That doesn't mean they can't be funded otherwise, or that they need to be of the quality you have in mind. Consider:

Roads always existed. Either trails for walking or leading livestock comfortably, cobblestones for carriages or other wheeled mediums, etc. — Outlander

A dirt road where I live handles pedestrians, bikers, horses, ATVs, carriages, motorcycles, cars, RV's, buses, and semi-trucks. One time I even saw a Ferrari (on the paved road, admittedly)!

And when the cheaper system of roads breaks down because society hits a depression, it is still serviceable to a large extent. The quality of the roads diminishes at that point, but the transportation system doesn't collapse as it would with a rail system.

That doesn't mean they can't be funded otherwise, or that they need to be of the quality you have in mind. Consider: — Leontiskos

Well, they are not, and that's not going away soon, anymore than my ideas are going to be adopted soon. The government finances the infrastructure for your "private" cars. That is just a fact of our times.

A dirt road where I live handles pedestrians, bikers, horses, ATVs, carriages, motorcycles, cars, RV's, and buses. One time I even saw a Ferrari (on the paved road, admittedly)!

And when the cheaper system of roads breaks down because society hits a depression, it is still serviceable to a large extent. The quality of the roads diminishes at that point, but the transportation system doesn't collapse as it would with a rail system. — Leontiskos

Well, then let me list you all the stuff from the OP that goes along with automobiles.

Well, they are not, and that's not going away soon, anymore than my ideas are going to be adopted soon. — schopenhauer1

It's really nothing like your ideas. If the government funding fails then you revert to lower quality, dirt roads, as are already common in countries without substantial government utilities. Cars run on dirt roads, don' cha know.

Well, then let me list you all the stuff from the OP that goes along with automobiles. — schopenhauer1

So we've established that the automobile system is not a centralized, top-down, government-run system like your mass transit system. We've established that the infrastructure for cars is more serviceable, more flexible, and massively cheaper than your mass transit system. But now your response is, "Oh, but look at my OP." Well I already responded to your OP. I will even remove the sentence you half-addressed by saying that other people would pay for it with a progressive tax scheme:

...I don't find much rigorous argumentation in the OP. It looks like a quick attempt to think up as many problems with cars as you can, and this is then followed by a quick plug for mass transit, John Lennon-style. Most of it has nothing specifically to do with cars. Pollution? The trains you are so fond of once ran on fossil fuels, and the cars you dislike now run on electricity (and there are all sorts of problems with electric vehicles too). [...] It is unprincipled to apply most of these things to cars and to nothing else. The other problem is that I see no attempt to understand the impact of cars as a whole, namely by juxtaposing the cons with the pros. — Leontiskos

The correct title for your OP is, "Trains are better than automobiles," but even then it is in need of proper argument.

A car-centric infrastructure is stupid and evil in cities, but maybe not for transport between cities. Put another way, public transport, especially trains, is best for cities, but cars might be best between them, depending on how far apart they are etc.

So it's not so much cars themselves which are evil but the urban planning that prioritizes them. The prime example of this evil is stroads:



(And many of them are worse than this one; this one at least has sidewalks)

It's a road where there should be a street. Where I am in Moscow there are effectively similar roads in the city centre:





They turn what could be an extremely pleasant city into a hellscape, and they're really bad at moving people about compared to trains etc. (BTW Moscow does have some great public transport but it's not enough and the car is still allowed to dominate.)

Western European cities have begun to move away from the car-centric paradigm. A good YouTube channel that covers this stuff is NotJustBikes.

(And talk about big government and liberty is really not relevant or helpful. It's worth noting that the car-centrism that began early to mid-twentieth century was partly the result of oversized influence from the borderline monopolistic car industry (partly also some misguided aspects of modernist architecture))

A good YouTube channel that covers this stuff is NotJustBikes. — Jamal

Thanks for the resource! These videos are very relevant to this topic. I found another interesting one here:

(And talk about big government and liberty is really not relevant or helpful. It's worth noting that the car-centrism that began early to mid-twentieth century was partly the result of oversized influence from the borderline monopolistic car industry (partly also some misguided aspects of modernist architecture)) — Jamal

Yes, all true. My point to another poster was that "big government" (aka government), already subsidizes automobiles with roads, bridges, and anything relating to them that is paid for by taxes and handled by government officials (who usually contract to private companies to do the building).

@Jamal here's another one from CityNerd channel:

Great stuff. Subscribed :up:

There is another angle to the question of how the invention of the automobile industry became evil.

Capitalism requires growth.

Suppose Ford sold stock and spent a few million dollars to build a car factory. He decided to make and sell just as many cars in a year as it would take to cover the cost of materials and labor, and then he would shut down -- maybe in September. In January of the next year, he'd start the factory up again and make / sell enough cars to pay off the cost of manufacture.

Everyone would get paid. What's the problem?

One major problem with this scheme is that it doesn't produce a significant profit. Another problem is that Ford's company would be static. There would be no growth. No one would invest another dime in Ford's factory if the business plan didn't call for greater production, more sales, and more profit on an on-going basis. There is a theoretical limit on how many cars could be produced and sold before the market was 100% saturated, but cars wear out, the population increases, and after over 100 years, automakers haven't yet totally saturated the market (which is the world).

At the opposite end of the economic continuum from car manufacturers are hunter-gatherers who spend no more effort on meeting their basic needs than is required. There is no accumulation of wealth, no growth in the standard of living. Tomorrow will be quite similarly to any day 5 years ago, maybe with slightly different weather.

Various peoples have lived much closer to the lifestyle of the hunter-gatherer than the way an automaker lives. Even in many sedentary agricultural societies, the goal was to raise enough food to eat, enough wood to cook with, and enough wool to stay warm with. After 100 years of settlement, the population and its lifestyles might be the same.

Once capitalism and industrialism joined forces in the 17th / 18th century, the assumption of growth was central. A firm needed to grow to attract on-going investments in order to reach new markets with new products and/or services, and to generate increased profits with which to reward investors.

If you are not trying to grow, then don't bother starting.

Capitalist industrialism didn't proceed to begin wrecking the world until the technology was capable of mass production for a large and growing population with enough resources to consume what was produced on an on-going upward-trending basis.

Continual growth is a mandate for everyone from Coco Cola to Apple computers.

Do people need more Coke? Do people need a new $1000+ phone every year? No -- clearly not, but the economy does. If Coke sales continually decline, that will be very bad news for its many investors -- plus many people require Coca Cola to function, apparently. People could eke out mediocre lives with a 3 year old phone, but that would mean catastrophe in Silicon Valley, Taiwan, and China, among other places.

So... buy a case of Coca Cola every week, and buy the latest fucking phone whether YOU want / need it or not. America is counting on you.

Imagine if every city had worked out a way to transport people where anyone living in a metro area was never more than five minutes away from a stop for mass transit. — schopenhauer1

It is easy to transport people from point A to point B efficiently for SOME combinations of A and B using mass transit. For example, from the city center to a location in the suburbs. And also from a point in the suburbs to the city center.

However, it is difficult to transport people from point A to point B efficiently for SOME combinations of A and B using mass transit. For example, from a location in the suburbs to another location in the suburbs. This could be 2 different suburbs, but could also be in the same suburb.

Even if stops for mass transit were never more than five minutes away, it is impossible and impractical to try to efficiently connect every combination of point A and point B.

The following website:
Coral Cities
shows a visual representation of city networks based on their road network. The networks look like living corals and they are very interesting and beautiful.

the concept of making city networks look like living corals. The varying patterns of urban forms are inherently dictated by their road network; a complex, seemingly organic connection of links moving people across their city. Like branches of coral they have a pattern and a function, I chose to expose this pattern and manipulate it to become something far more conceptual. However, whilst being incredibly beautiful they are derived from various geo-spatial analysis of drive-times catchments making them somewhat informative as well. — Craig Taylor