Which European city is most Americanized?

[Mr Bricks]

Bah. Cities outside of Europe tend to all look the same these days.

[eklips]

Really?

[Ecological]

Birmingham is a very small scale industrialised Detroit in many ways.

Still ... what's more American then a ridiculous road interchanges.

Birminghams spaghetti junction.

Gravelly Hill Interchange, nicknamed the Spaghetti Junction, is the 6th junction of the M6 motorway, where it joins the A38 Aston Expressway in Birmingham, UK.

The name Spaghetti Junction was coined by Roy Smith, a journalist from the Birmingham Evening Mail in the 1970s.

The areal view of the junction sure tells us why it is called the Spaghetti Junction.

Spanning an impressive 30 acres, the junction serves 18 routes and includes 4 km of slip roads. Across 6 different levels, there are 559 concrete columns, reaching up to 24.4 m in height.

The engineers had to elevate 13.5 miles of the motorway to accommodate 2 railway lines, 3 canals, and 2 rivers. It's the most complicated junction
in United Kingdom.

[SaysItAsItIs]

Originally Posted by Galro

How come so large cities in such a rich country who come up with the idea of subways in the first place, don't have subways?

The UK isn't that rich, at least not by German or Scandinavian standards. It doesn't have the money nor the resources to start drilling massive holes through the ground and laying new tracks when some would say it can barely afford to run its current infrastructure to a decent standard.

[Ecological]

Originally Posted by SaysItAsItIs

The UK isn't that rich, at least not by German or Scandinavian standards. It doesn't have the money nor the resources to start drilling massive holes through the ground and laying new tracks when some would say it can barely afford to run its current infrastructure to a decent standard.

It's not that rich?

It has plenty of money and resources. The problem is the topography, demographics and democratic issues (planning policies etc.)

Birmingham has over £3billion worth of infrastructure investment under way or due to start.

The timescale however is affected by the huge amount of planning conditions, laws public consultations etc.

[SaysItAsItIs]

Originally Posted by Ecological

It's not that rich?

It has plenty of money and resources. The problem is the topography, demographics and democratic issues (planning policies etc.)

Birmingham has over £3billion worth of infrastructure investment under way or due to start.

The timescale however is affected by the huge amount of planning conditions, laws public consultations etc.

No it isn't. It has much more debt than the Scandinavian countries, and per capita income is far lower than in Scandinavian countries or Germany.

It would be far less of a financial stretch for Sweden, Norway or Germany to build subways in every major city than it would be for the UK, particularly during this period of significant government cuts.

If you think the UK is the richest country in Europe, you're absolutely deluded. The UK is in a major reccession far worse than anything the rest of Northern European is experiencing.

I find it funny how that Norwegian views the UK as a really rich country, yet the truth is Norway is far richer than the UK and has far more money to go spending on infrastructure projects.

In fact, UK roads are a mess. A new road hasn't been built in the UK on any major scale for decades. Even many roads are absolutely full of potholes, and every now and again they get patched up, but for the most part they are very rarely fully repaved, so they are often in a continous state of disrepair and being continuously patched up.

Is that lack of money, or just completely ineffecient local governments?

[Dragoona]

Originally Posted by SaysItAsItIs

The UK isn't that rich, at least not by German or Scandinavian standards. It doesn't have the money nor the resources to start drilling massive holes through the ground and laying new tracks when some would say it can barely afford to run its current infrastructure to a decent standard.

Another ignorant dumb dumb wtf is crossrail costing £20 billion,the huge transport infrastructure projects including metrolink in manchester,New terminals at heathrow,m25 widening,new tramways,underground tube lines expansion.IDIOT

[Dragoona]

Originally Posted by SaysItAsItIs

No it isn't. It has much more debt than the Scandinavian countries, and per capita income is far lower than in Scandinavian countries or Germany.

It would be far less of a financial stretch for Sweden, Norway or Germany to build subways in every major city than it would be for the UK, particularly during this period of significant government cuts.

If you think the UK is the richest country in Europe, you're absolutely deluded. The UK is in a major reccession far worse than anything the rest of Northern European is experiencing.

I find it funny how that Norwegian views the UK as a really rich country, yet the truth is Norway is far richer than the UK and has far more money to go spending on infrastructure projects.

In fact, UK roads are a mess. A new road hasn't been built in the UK on any major scale for decades. Even many roads are absolutely full of potholes, and every now and again they get patched up, but for the most part they are very rarely fully repaved, so they are often in a continous state of disrepair and being continuously patched up.

Is that lack of money, or just completely ineffecient local governments?

what bs...norway? its too small to need a subway and is only wealthy because of oil.The UK has the 6th/7th largest economy in the world, hardly 'poor' you ignorant numpty.

[Ecological]

Originally Posted by SaysItAsItIs

No it isn't. It has much more debt than the Scandinavian countries, and per capita income is far lower than in Scandinavian countries or Germany.

It would be far less of a financial stretch for Sweden, Norway or Germany to build subways in every major city than it would be for the UK, particularly during this period of significant government cuts.

If you think the UK is the richest country in Europe, you're absolutely deluded. The UK is in a major reccession far worse than anything the rest of Northern European is experiencing.

I find it funny how that Norwegian views the UK as a really rich country, yet the truth is Norway is far richer than the UK and has far more money to go spending on infrastructure projects.

In fact, UK roads are a mess. A new road hasn't been built in the UK on any major scale for decades. Even many roads are absolutely full of potholes, and every now and again they get patched up, but for the most part they are very rarely fully repaved, so they are often in a continous state of disrepair and being continuously patched up.

Is that lack of money, or just completely ineffecient local governments?

See you've been banned again.

Anyway -

Cross Rail - £15billion
HS2 - £17billion (phase 1)

£32billion in two schemes. that doesn't even touch the roads or other metro's etc.

The problems you might see may be due to the huge amount of traffic the UK experiences. Probably drive more than any other nation.

Some stats:

On average each for every 1 kilometer of road in the UK 113 million passenger vehicle kilometers are travelled annually.

Comparisons: Germany 47 million. France 37 million, USA 36 million.

UK's roads carry more freight than any other nation per kilometer only beaten by Japan.

£350Billion will need to be invested between now and 2030 to keep up with the demand of public transport and the road network.

£47b on air
£124b on rail
£180b on road

Britain's investment is the largest in Europe in terms of infrastructure. Privately investment in infrastructure slaughters all other nations in Europe. COMBINED.

[Galro]

Originally Posted by Dragoona

what bs...norway? its too small to need a subway and is only wealthy because of oil.The UK has the 6th/7th largest economy in the world, hardly 'poor' you ignorant numpty.

You claim other are ignorant then you spout this? A: Norway got a subway system (albeit only one sadly) and we need more of it, not less. B: Norway is not only rich thanks to the oil. We are richer thanks to the oil. That's different.

[Dragoona]

Originally Posted by Galro

You claim other are ignorant then you spout this? A: Norway got a subway system (albeit only one sadly) and we need more of it, not less. B: Norway is not only rich thanks to the oil. We are richer thanks to the oil. That's different.

eh? So before you discovered the oil you were rich..were you fuck! you owe all your wealth to location not ingenuity

[joshsam]

give it up SaysItAsItIs

[Ecological]

Originally Posted by Galro

You claim other are ignorant then you spout this? A: Norway got a subway system (albeit only one sadly) and we need more of it, not less. B: Norway is not only rich thanks to the oil. We are richer thanks to the oil. That's different.

I think he was getting at being Norways main financial muscle. No country relies on one thing.

One thing people don't tend to appreciate is that the Norway and the UK are two of the top 6 most generous countries per person (Norway more so)

The UK gives £10,560,000,000.00 a year.
Norway's public give £1,510,000.000.00 a year.

The UK also gives the 3rd largest amount to Humanitarian needs alongside the EU (which they also apply to) and the US.

Norway (tiny in comparison to places like Germany, are 10th) which is quite amazing.

Norway has the highest income per capita in the world with UK 7th.

[Galro]

Originally Posted by Dragoona

eh? So before you discovered the oil you were rich..were you fuck! you owe all your wealth to location not ingenuity

We where at about the same wealth level as Sweden. And Norway was heavily industrialized prior to the oil.

Here are couple of links I found which compare the gpd of the Sweden and Norway during the 20th century.
http://www2.druid.dk/conferences/vie...hp?id=732&cf=8
http://www.nbp.pl/konferencje/radiss...antz_paper.pdf

But by all means, we can resort to trowing insults at each other instead as that seems to be your kind of "facts".

[LtBk]

Originally Posted by Jonesy55

Anything from 2 to 10 trains per hour depending on the route.

An annual pass to cover all bus, tram and train travel over all zones of those networks in Birmingham and Manchester is around £1,000 (EUR 1,200 USD 1,600) with cheaper options if you only need some zones or are under 21 or only need to travel after 0930 or only want bus and tram not train etc etc....

Thanks for the info.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Ecological

Norway has the highest income per capita in the world with UK 7th.

The IMF has Norway in 3rd behind Luxembourg and Qatar. The UK is 22nd behind Iceland, but ahead of New Zealand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...al)_per_capita

[dydyusa]

Country vs Country ! I'm surprised, it's not GB vs France

[isaidso]

I'm not sure what the stink is. Norway is one of the richest nations in the world. The IMF is a credible source.

[Jonesy55]

Originally Posted by Ecological

The problems you might see may be due to the huge amount of traffic the UK experiences. Probably drive more than any other nation.

Some stats:

On average each for every 1 kilometer of road in the UK 113 million passenger vehicle kilometers are travelled annually.

Comparisons: Germany 47 million. France 37 million, USA 36 million.

Doesn't that just mean we don't have enough roads for the population and traffic levels?

[isaidso]

Yes. It just means that other countries have built more road infrastructure in relation to demand. It doesn't mean that the British drive more.

Top 10 Nations by Length of Road Network (km)

01 United States-----6,506,204
02 China--------------3,860,800
03 India--------------3,320,410
04 Brazil-------------1,751,868
05 Japan-------------1,210,251
06 Canada-----------1,042,300
07 Russia--------------982,000
08 France--------------951,200
09 Australia------------818,356
10 Spain ---------------681,298

16 United Kingdom----394,428


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...d_network_size