How much does the median American ride public transportation each year?
March 31, 2023 1:49 AM Subscribe
How to save America's public transit systems from a doom spiral - "The only realistic way for transit officials to garner public support for the funding they desperately need is to demonstrate an ability to replace car trips, not just serve economically disadvantaged people who lack other means to get around their city. Otherwise, they forfeit the pro-transit arguments that resonate most with the public: curtailing congestion, reducing auto emissions, and boosting economic growth. And to replace cars, transit agencies must offer fast, frequent, and reliable trips. This should be the core mission of any functional public transportation system..."
The biggest US transit agencies must be allowed to simply focus on delivering high-quality service. There is no Plan B... To avoid a downward spiral of falling revenue, curtailed service, and lower ridership, transit agencies will need to convince governments and voters to give them more money. To do that, they need to focus on transit’s competitiveness with driving — and not be distracted by other priorities...also btw...
Taylor, the UCLA professor, agreed. “When framed as a social service, transit hasn’t done well securing funding,” he said. “But when it’s framed as an environmental benefit or as getting people off the road, that can work.”
Jeffrey Tumlin, the leader of San Francisco’s transit system, is already building his case for aid around the beneficial effects of replacing car trips. “Part of the argument is about climate,” he said. “Here in California, transportation is 47 percent of emissions, and of that, 72 percent is private cars and trucks. Transit is absolutely essential.”
Compared to climate change, transit’s ability to mitigate congestion and strengthen downtowns seems even easier to grasp. But the credibility of both appeals rests on transit’s ability to reduce driving. And that requires providing trips that are reliable and rapid, with the next bus or train only a few minutes away.
- @Qagggy: "COUNTDOWN OF THE TOP 30 PEDESTRIAN ZONES (that I have visited recently)."
- @Noahpinion: "Imagine if America was willing to build more than one (1) dense walkable mixed-use city."[1]
- @stan_okl: "Kinda funny how we look at transit maps like these like they're pictures of flying cars when any other OECD nation would absolutely have something like this running in a metro area whose GDP is over $500 billion."
This is of interest to me. And if there is a villain to this story it's Robert Moses. I'm finishing Robert Caro's massive bio of Moses and it's clear that the guy had it in for public transport in a big way. He had the opportunity & the money to build a real rapid transport system and he just punted because he didn't care about people. Mostly black and latino people, and definitely not poor people, but in the end everybody. Did you know he built the overpasses on the Long Island Expressway low, so that buses wouldn't fit under them?
Moses was only in NYC, but he influenced the whole country.
Here's a summary.
posted by chavenet at 4:03 AM on March 31, 2023 [22 favorites]
Moses was only in NYC, but he influenced the whole country.
Here's a summary.
posted by chavenet at 4:03 AM on March 31, 2023 [22 favorites]
Absolutely right. It doesn't really matter if the bus or train stops essentially take me door-to-door - if I have to wait for an hour to get on it, I'm taking the car.
Also in Japan (where I am right now), there's a tiered system. Buses have train stations as route hubs, so you can always go to a train station. Trains hop from bus hub to bus hub, and to the airport. Plus there's retail around the train stations so they become destinations in themselves. Seems like in the US, train stations are in the worst most inaccessible parts of town with nothing around. I almost need a car to get to the train, and then I wouldn't always be comfortable leaving my car at the station.
posted by ctmf at 4:15 AM on March 31, 2023 [29 favorites]
Also in Japan (where I am right now), there's a tiered system. Buses have train stations as route hubs, so you can always go to a train station. Trains hop from bus hub to bus hub, and to the airport. Plus there's retail around the train stations so they become destinations in themselves. Seems like in the US, train stations are in the worst most inaccessible parts of town with nothing around. I almost need a car to get to the train, and then I wouldn't always be comfortable leaving my car at the station.
posted by ctmf at 4:15 AM on March 31, 2023 [29 favorites]
Every time I come back from Japan I hate having to drive a car again. But I pretty much have to.
posted by ctmf at 4:16 AM on March 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by ctmf at 4:16 AM on March 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'd love public transportation that worked. But my city is terrible for it. So very often the options are non-existent, include walking several miles, or getting a car ride to cover gaps.
And on top of that, the bus often takes 3-10 times as long as driving. Everything in Houston is at minimum thirty minutes away from anything else. Yeah....
posted by Jacen at 4:27 AM on March 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
And on top of that, the bus often takes 3-10 times as long as driving. Everything in Houston is at minimum thirty minutes away from anything else. Yeah....
posted by Jacen at 4:27 AM on March 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
I live in an Inner Boston suburb and I commute to work by bus every day, a single route that stops two blocks from my house and ends three blocks from my job. It leaves every half an hour and takes about 40 minutes door to door. DiscourseMarker mostly works from home and when she does go downtown to the office she takes the light rail that just opened (finally!) two blocks from our house as well. The MBTA desperately needs, and is maybe starting to get, greater resources, improved leadership, and political oversight that actually gives a shit about its success. But we have a car that we almost never have to drive and it is fucking great.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:35 AM on March 31, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:35 AM on March 31, 2023 [13 favorites]
I can drive to the grocery store in 10 minutes, and get enough groceries that I don't have to go back for a week.
If I take public transit, it requires 38 minutes of walking to get to a 19 minute bus ride, and there's no way I'm carrying a week's worth of groceries like that.
posted by Foosnark at 4:39 AM on March 31, 2023 [6 favorites]
If I take public transit, it requires 38 minutes of walking to get to a 19 minute bus ride, and there's no way I'm carrying a week's worth of groceries like that.
posted by Foosnark at 4:39 AM on March 31, 2023 [6 favorites]
when i lived in the city... multiple times per day. now that i'm in the suburbs... never. there is none. ironically, i moved out here to buy a house because i was priced out of housing in Medium Sized City.
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 4:43 AM on March 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 4:43 AM on March 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
I loved living in Brooklyn and not needing to own a car. Of course they've jacked up the price of a subway ride substantially since then. But now I live in a town with a few bus routes that run once per hour, unless they haven't been able to hire enough drivers (common), and then it's even less. A ride is only a dollar, but there's been some political pressure to make it free. It's still pretty worthless if you can't get a ride or if switching routes to get across town takes multiple hours.
posted by rikschell at 4:46 AM on March 31, 2023
posted by rikschell at 4:46 AM on March 31, 2023
I ride the L every day. The CTA has gotten a lot worse since the pandemic. There are people smoking on half the cars. I’d gladly pay more for less smoking/more security. And more people would use the L if they pulled it together.
posted by marimeko at 5:00 AM on March 31, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by marimeko at 5:00 AM on March 31, 2023 [5 favorites]
Yeah, my commute takes 30 to an hour by car, or 1:45 by subway, bus, and walk. If I moved near my work, I would have to move to a completely unwalkable area, as in you're walking 45 minutes along heavy traffic roads to get to anyplace that sells food. It would be cheaper, though--and public transport often jacks up the price of rent and property that anyone who wants to use it to save money no longer can do so.
posted by kingdead at 5:03 AM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by kingdead at 5:03 AM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
The "COUNTDOWN OF THE TOP 30 PEDESTRIAN ZONES" is interesting. There are a lot of Dutch towns but also great to see Ghent and Antwerp and Brussels mentioned. He actually ranks Brussels at #2 and rightly points out that Brussels has long looked like any American city - with high rises and lots of highways. But they've been stripping out the car lanes and creating huge pedestrian zones and it is an amazing place to visit now. Paris too is rapidly transforming and here in Amsterdam it seems like a car road is destroyed on a weekly basis.
One of the more interesting developments here in Europe is the resurgence of sleeper trains. That means of course you can travel for longer distances. We took one last year from Amsterdam to Prague (we 'won' it in an online auction and paid a criminally low 20 euros each way!). But there are new ones arriving and everyone is excited about them.
posted by vacapinta at 5:09 AM on March 31, 2023 [9 favorites]
One of the more interesting developments here in Europe is the resurgence of sleeper trains. That means of course you can travel for longer distances. We took one last year from Amsterdam to Prague (we 'won' it in an online auction and paid a criminally low 20 euros each way!). But there are new ones arriving and everyone is excited about them.
posted by vacapinta at 5:09 AM on March 31, 2023 [9 favorites]
The problem with public transport is that it's like EV incentives - it's politically unpopular to spend taxpayer money on the top 5% richest people in the country, that's basically a regressive tax.
By definition public transport is only somewhat viable in areas with sufficient density of residents and jobs and retail - which is where rich people live. In Melbourne, Australia, metro fare recovery is only about 20% per year (so, I paid $1800 per year for an annual public transport ticket... other taxpayers chipped in for the remaining $7200, thank you very much). Regional fare recovery is even lower. And our own stats show that the biggest users of public transport are the top 20% of richest residents.
I moved to a poorer more remote area where housing costs about 1/2 as much but with virtually no public transport options. I now drive two cars. Last week I drove 100km for lunch. Twice. (and on the other hand, my house is not only net zero carbon, but I generate 50% more electricity than I consume). But now that I'm shouldering all the costs of my own transport, why would someone like me vote for billions in spending for public transport options (rail) that have no chance of reaching my town at all?
Of course, then we're getting into the weeds of "whose money is it anyway" - metro areas could argue they are the most economically productive and thus deserve the majority of the funding, but there are some extraordinarily productive regional areas with virtually no government spending and services - think regional mining / oil production towns. And then you get remote areas with virtually zero productivity but extremely high government spending to sustain hospital / school services.
posted by xdvesper at 5:31 AM on March 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
By definition public transport is only somewhat viable in areas with sufficient density of residents and jobs and retail - which is where rich people live. In Melbourne, Australia, metro fare recovery is only about 20% per year (so, I paid $1800 per year for an annual public transport ticket... other taxpayers chipped in for the remaining $7200, thank you very much). Regional fare recovery is even lower. And our own stats show that the biggest users of public transport are the top 20% of richest residents.
I moved to a poorer more remote area where housing costs about 1/2 as much but with virtually no public transport options. I now drive two cars. Last week I drove 100km for lunch. Twice. (and on the other hand, my house is not only net zero carbon, but I generate 50% more electricity than I consume). But now that I'm shouldering all the costs of my own transport, why would someone like me vote for billions in spending for public transport options (rail) that have no chance of reaching my town at all?
Of course, then we're getting into the weeds of "whose money is it anyway" - metro areas could argue they are the most economically productive and thus deserve the majority of the funding, but there are some extraordinarily productive regional areas with virtually no government spending and services - think regional mining / oil production towns. And then you get remote areas with virtually zero productivity but extremely high government spending to sustain hospital / school services.
posted by xdvesper at 5:31 AM on March 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
I don't know if public transit "should" be free, but I do know that between my house and the house across the street are 4 paved lanes of road, 2 for travel and 2 for parking. How much does each house pay for the city to install a "free" parking lot for each residence?
One thing I know, thanks to Strong Towns, all households contribute to the road building fund based on assessed property value, which is higher towards city centers, but the free parking lots are based on frontage, which is greater farther from the city center. So, city center residents (with 1-2 parking lot spaces) pay for the construction of further out residents (with 5-6 parking lot spaces).
posted by rebent at 5:33 AM on March 31, 2023 [15 favorites]
One thing I know, thanks to Strong Towns, all households contribute to the road building fund based on assessed property value, which is higher towards city centers, but the free parking lots are based on frontage, which is greater farther from the city center. So, city center residents (with 1-2 parking lot spaces) pay for the construction of further out residents (with 5-6 parking lot spaces).
posted by rebent at 5:33 AM on March 31, 2023 [15 favorites]
A problem for transit here is that the funding is very visible and you pay per ride, but the funding and subsidies for private cars are hidden and baked into all kinds of things, and you don't pay a fare to drive your car each way on a trip. We'd save a lot by massively funding more transit and removing car subsidies, but that is (obviously) much easier to say than to do. Getting more cars off the roads also means it becomes safer for bicyclists and pedestrians.
I fairly recently moved from a large metro area with public transit that was quite good for the US. It was nothing like the best cases in Europe or Japan, but it was amazing compared to the smaller city I now live in, where the buses might run every hour or so, and there is a driver shortage so fairly frequently there will be a two-hour wait instead of "just" a one-hour wait. It would require subsidies, but the quality of life here would go up so much if there were buses running every 15 minutes (and running late enough that you could get home from dinner). Where I was living before, the main route buses ran on very frequent schedules and ran late at night. So as long as you were going along one of those routes, you could easily take the bus for an evening out, say, without needing to plan your schedule around the bus. It was more convenient than driving, because you didn't have to think about parking and you could have a few drinks with dinner with no concern. I miss that.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:58 AM on March 31, 2023 [10 favorites]
I fairly recently moved from a large metro area with public transit that was quite good for the US. It was nothing like the best cases in Europe or Japan, but it was amazing compared to the smaller city I now live in, where the buses might run every hour or so, and there is a driver shortage so fairly frequently there will be a two-hour wait instead of "just" a one-hour wait. It would require subsidies, but the quality of life here would go up so much if there were buses running every 15 minutes (and running late enough that you could get home from dinner). Where I was living before, the main route buses ran on very frequent schedules and ran late at night. So as long as you were going along one of those routes, you could easily take the bus for an evening out, say, without needing to plan your schedule around the bus. It was more convenient than driving, because you didn't have to think about parking and you could have a few drinks with dinner with no concern. I miss that.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:58 AM on March 31, 2023 [10 favorites]
but there are some extraordinarily productive regional areas with virtually no government spending and services - think regional mining / oil production towns
I've got good news for you about how much money the government spends to subsidize mining and oil production!
posted by Jon_Evil at 6:07 AM on March 31, 2023 [22 favorites]
I've got good news for you about how much money the government spends to subsidize mining and oil production!
posted by Jon_Evil at 6:07 AM on March 31, 2023 [22 favorites]
My city's transit system is only back up to a little over 50% of the ridership that it had before Covid and unless they dramatically re-design the routes, I doubt that it will regain more. The issue is that the system was largely designed to ferry office workers from their homes in the outer neighborhoods and suburbs into the CBD in the morning and out in the afternoon. Now that half of the workers Downtown are working from home on any given day, the ridership has crashed and probably won't be coming back.
I feel like they need to reprioritize the system to make it more of a way to get from neighborhood to neighborhood and not just a way to get to Downtown.
posted by octothorpe at 6:08 AM on March 31, 2023 [9 favorites]
I feel like they need to reprioritize the system to make it more of a way to get from neighborhood to neighborhood and not just a way to get to Downtown.
posted by octothorpe at 6:08 AM on March 31, 2023 [9 favorites]
The notion that public transit benefits mostly the richest people - it might be true in Australia, I don't know, but in the US, definitely not. I started writing this post while waiting for the only taxi in my economically struggling micropolitan town. (Not large, but sprawly and dangerous; you don't want to walk even half a mile if it means crossing a 4-lane 45-mph highway with no crosswalks or pedestrian signals.) No one relies on public transit if they can possibly avoid it; everyone who can afford a car has one, and so do most people who can't really afford one; but there are still enough poor people, disabled people, and people with suspended licenses to make bus service a necessity.
But bus service is so bad that it's unimaginable that a person might choose to ride the bus when there are any other options available. I see people walking these incredibly dangerous streets because they have no alternative. And as long as bus service is seen as something that only benefits poor people, disabled people, and people who've gotten DUIs, it's going to be seen as right and natural for bus service to provide only the bare minimum. Those are the people who have already been written off as undeserving. "We should fund bus service to a level where you might actually choose to take the bus rather than driving, even if you own a car" is... I can imagine it happening if gas suddenly gets 300%, 400% more expensive, but only if someone convinces the Republicans to stay home when they're voting on it.
posted by Jeanne at 6:10 AM on March 31, 2023 [12 favorites]
But bus service is so bad that it's unimaginable that a person might choose to ride the bus when there are any other options available. I see people walking these incredibly dangerous streets because they have no alternative. And as long as bus service is seen as something that only benefits poor people, disabled people, and people who've gotten DUIs, it's going to be seen as right and natural for bus service to provide only the bare minimum. Those are the people who have already been written off as undeserving. "We should fund bus service to a level where you might actually choose to take the bus rather than driving, even if you own a car" is... I can imagine it happening if gas suddenly gets 300%, 400% more expensive, but only if someone convinces the Republicans to stay home when they're voting on it.
posted by Jeanne at 6:10 AM on March 31, 2023 [12 favorites]
When I lived in Canberra, Australia I used to catch the bus to work.
1. A 10 minute car ride took 45 minutes; or 1 hour; or 1 hour 30 minutes by bus;
2. (Almost every morning) wait in the cold at the bus shelter while someone smokes in my face, nowhere to get away from smoke unless I wanted to get rained on;
3. (Every morning) bus pulls away from the kerb so fast I almost fall over, and wrench my hands/wrists/lower back painfully so that they will hurt for days;
4. (Every morning) No seats on bus, so I have to stand, further aggravating my chronic pain, and being shoved into by people's bodies and people's back packs;
5. Regularly told aggressively to "Smile!" by random men in their 40s/50s/60s/70s at the bus interchange as I was literally just stepping off the bus;
6. Wait at the bus interchange for 15 minutes in the cold for the second bus;
7. No seats on the second bus. Either have to stand up the whole way (more pain, both now and for the next 7 days) or repeatedly and politely demand that the slender elderly man manspreading over two priority seats close his legs so that I can sit down. He ignores me, telling me that I look too young to need a priority seat. I have to LITERALLY SIT ON HIM in order to get him to move his leg from taking up two seats at once and then he yells angrily at me for sitting on him even tho I made 5 polite requests for him to move his leg before I gave up and very slowly lowered my bottom towards the seat.
8. On the bus ride home, the bus driver makes nasty passive aggressive remarks about me yawning as I board the bus;
9. One time, someone stole my bag on the bus;
10. One time, an elderly woman yelled at me for not being able to punch my ticket into the machine as fast as she wanted (the ticket machine was faulty), and then the ticket machine jammed up and she yelled at me about that, and then she PHYSICALLY ASSAULTED ME by deliberately shoving her elbows and shoulder between my shoulder blades with considerable force as she barged past me down the aisle. (It was definitely deliberate, she stopped and turned around to make an aggressive remark immediately after she had done it);
11. Another time, the automatic toilets at the bus station interchange malfunctioned and trapped me inside at 6pm on a Friday and I had to call emergency services.
I am a big supporter of better-funded public transport to reduce carbon emissions.
But if we want people to use public transport, we have to make it less hellish to use.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:15 AM on March 31, 2023 [25 favorites]
1. A 10 minute car ride took 45 minutes; or 1 hour; or 1 hour 30 minutes by bus;
2. (Almost every morning) wait in the cold at the bus shelter while someone smokes in my face, nowhere to get away from smoke unless I wanted to get rained on;
3. (Every morning) bus pulls away from the kerb so fast I almost fall over, and wrench my hands/wrists/lower back painfully so that they will hurt for days;
4. (Every morning) No seats on bus, so I have to stand, further aggravating my chronic pain, and being shoved into by people's bodies and people's back packs;
5. Regularly told aggressively to "Smile!" by random men in their 40s/50s/60s/70s at the bus interchange as I was literally just stepping off the bus;
6. Wait at the bus interchange for 15 minutes in the cold for the second bus;
7. No seats on the second bus. Either have to stand up the whole way (more pain, both now and for the next 7 days) or repeatedly and politely demand that the slender elderly man manspreading over two priority seats close his legs so that I can sit down. He ignores me, telling me that I look too young to need a priority seat. I have to LITERALLY SIT ON HIM in order to get him to move his leg from taking up two seats at once and then he yells angrily at me for sitting on him even tho I made 5 polite requests for him to move his leg before I gave up and very slowly lowered my bottom towards the seat.
8. On the bus ride home, the bus driver makes nasty passive aggressive remarks about me yawning as I board the bus;
9. One time, someone stole my bag on the bus;
10. One time, an elderly woman yelled at me for not being able to punch my ticket into the machine as fast as she wanted (the ticket machine was faulty), and then the ticket machine jammed up and she yelled at me about that, and then she PHYSICALLY ASSAULTED ME by deliberately shoving her elbows and shoulder between my shoulder blades with considerable force as she barged past me down the aisle. (It was definitely deliberate, she stopped and turned around to make an aggressive remark immediately after she had done it);
11. Another time, the automatic toilets at the bus station interchange malfunctioned and trapped me inside at 6pm on a Friday and I had to call emergency services.
I am a big supporter of better-funded public transport to reduce carbon emissions.
But if we want people to use public transport, we have to make it less hellish to use.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:15 AM on March 31, 2023 [25 favorites]
Oh, I forgot the other regular occurrence "bus driver is running late, so he doesn't stop even though you are standing at the bus stop clearly visibly signalling him to stop, instead he makes eye contact with you as he drives on by"
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:16 AM on March 31, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:16 AM on March 31, 2023 [6 favorites]
I would love to see a study into what percentage of people avoiding the bus/train is women avoiding the bus/train because of sexual harassment.
A friend of mine was trapped for 30 min on a crowded bus with a man who
a) told her he was HIV positive;
b) then asked her to date him;
c) then told her that she couldn't say no to dating him, because that would be discrimination against him for being HIV positive.
I was trapped on a crowded bus for 30 min with a man who was clearly either mentally ill or on alcohol/drugs or both doing a massive antisemitic "Jewish people control everything" conspiracy theory rant at me the whole time (and this was in 1996 when those were quite rare in Australia)
Experiences like these, when they happen again and again and again, really put women off buses and trains.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:21 AM on March 31, 2023 [15 favorites]
A friend of mine was trapped for 30 min on a crowded bus with a man who
a) told her he was HIV positive;
b) then asked her to date him;
c) then told her that she couldn't say no to dating him, because that would be discrimination against him for being HIV positive.
I was trapped on a crowded bus for 30 min with a man who was clearly either mentally ill or on alcohol/drugs or both doing a massive antisemitic "Jewish people control everything" conspiracy theory rant at me the whole time (and this was in 1996 when those were quite rare in Australia)
Experiences like these, when they happen again and again and again, really put women off buses and trains.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:21 AM on March 31, 2023 [15 favorites]
It was more convenient than driving, because you didn't have to think about parking and you could have a few drinks with dinner with no concern. I miss that.
I think this is part of what America is missing. Our development is so car-centered that even with improved public transit, it will often be more convenient to take the car.
I've always lived in college towns, which tend to have busy bus lines with frequent service along the routes leading from student-heavy areas to the campus. Students take the bus to campus all the time! There isn't a problem with ridership on these specific routes. No one wants to deal with trying to park on campus.
These same students will drive to the grocery store unless they just don't have a car. Even if it's on the same busy route, it's just slightly more convenient to take the car. You don't have to fuss with a grocery cart, you don't have to worry about missing the bus and having to wait outside in the cold for 10 minutes. What makes this possible is the massive fucking parking lots surrounding the grocery store.
I think this is a big hump to get over. Public transport either has to be so fantastically good that it beats the convenience of using a car, which most of us have anyway, or using a car has to be made more inconvenient.
I'm all for working toward both, and believe we can do so without disenfranchising people, but "making car travel inconvenient" is a hard sell.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:26 AM on March 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
I think this is part of what America is missing. Our development is so car-centered that even with improved public transit, it will often be more convenient to take the car.
I've always lived in college towns, which tend to have busy bus lines with frequent service along the routes leading from student-heavy areas to the campus. Students take the bus to campus all the time! There isn't a problem with ridership on these specific routes. No one wants to deal with trying to park on campus.
These same students will drive to the grocery store unless they just don't have a car. Even if it's on the same busy route, it's just slightly more convenient to take the car. You don't have to fuss with a grocery cart, you don't have to worry about missing the bus and having to wait outside in the cold for 10 minutes. What makes this possible is the massive fucking parking lots surrounding the grocery store.
I think this is a big hump to get over. Public transport either has to be so fantastically good that it beats the convenience of using a car, which most of us have anyway, or using a car has to be made more inconvenient.
I'm all for working toward both, and believe we can do so without disenfranchising people, but "making car travel inconvenient" is a hard sell.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:26 AM on March 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
Here in the Lehigh Valley our bus system (LANTA) celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, and in the local newspaper article about it, everyone--from the riders to the managers to our politicians--talked about how LANTA was the option of last resort. The goal in taking the bus was to save up enough to be able to afford a car.
And it's frustrating because it doesn't cost *that* much money to improve transit, in the grand scheme of things. The single biggest thing you can do is increase frequency: once you're running buses in the every-twelve-minutes or less range, passengers stop needing a schedule and can just show up for a bus. And once you get down to ten minutes or less you start to get competitive with driving for convenience's sake (as long as you're going roughly along the path of the transit; getting pathing right is the second biggest thing you can do).
As one of my supervisors in my bus driving days said of a route that only ran once an hour: "That's not a bus, that's a taxi service."
posted by thecaddy at 6:29 AM on March 31, 2023 [8 favorites]
And it's frustrating because it doesn't cost *that* much money to improve transit, in the grand scheme of things. The single biggest thing you can do is increase frequency: once you're running buses in the every-twelve-minutes or less range, passengers stop needing a schedule and can just show up for a bus. And once you get down to ten minutes or less you start to get competitive with driving for convenience's sake (as long as you're going roughly along the path of the transit; getting pathing right is the second biggest thing you can do).
As one of my supervisors in my bus driving days said of a route that only ran once an hour: "That's not a bus, that's a taxi service."
posted by thecaddy at 6:29 AM on March 31, 2023 [8 favorites]
Listen, we can't support mass transportation because it would solve too many problems and save too much money. And if we pushed for even more radical expansion of mass transportation it would solve even more problems and save even more money.
We have to be realistic and accept that hour-long car commutes on unsustainable highways while contributing to climate change and oil wars is the unnecessary way forward for America.
posted by AlSweigart at 6:31 AM on March 31, 2023 [19 favorites]
We have to be realistic and accept that hour-long car commutes on unsustainable highways while contributing to climate change and oil wars is the unnecessary way forward for America.
posted by AlSweigart at 6:31 AM on March 31, 2023 [19 favorites]
The single biggest thing you can do is increase frequency
Yes, if you're waiting for a bus in very hot or very cold weather, frequency can be a genuinely significant health issue - especially for elderly people, chronically ill people, and Disabled people, all of whom are statistically more likely to be using the bus.
Also if buses are frequent, and the bus is very crowded, you can just wait for the next bus. You can't do that if buses are every 45 minutes or every hour.
Also, if buses are frequent, you can choose not to get on the bus if you see a problem passenger who has harassed you in the past. You can't do that if buses are every 45 minutes or every hour.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:34 AM on March 31, 2023 [15 favorites]
Yes, if you're waiting for a bus in very hot or very cold weather, frequency can be a genuinely significant health issue - especially for elderly people, chronically ill people, and Disabled people, all of whom are statistically more likely to be using the bus.
Also if buses are frequent, and the bus is very crowded, you can just wait for the next bus. You can't do that if buses are every 45 minutes or every hour.
Also, if buses are frequent, you can choose not to get on the bus if you see a problem passenger who has harassed you in the past. You can't do that if buses are every 45 minutes or every hour.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:34 AM on March 31, 2023 [15 favorites]
The problem with public transport is that it's like EV incentives - it's politically unpopular to spend taxpayer money on the top 5% richest people in the country, that's basically a regressive tax
The poorer someone is, the more likely they are to die from heatstroke due to no aircon/can't afford to run aircon
or to die from a fire or a flood caused by climate change.
If public transport and EV incentives reduce carbon emissions, and that leads to less heatwaves, and less climate driven natural disasters, that benefits the poorest people the most.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:36 AM on March 31, 2023
The poorer someone is, the more likely they are to die from heatstroke due to no aircon/can't afford to run aircon
or to die from a fire or a flood caused by climate change.
If public transport and EV incentives reduce carbon emissions, and that leads to less heatwaves, and less climate driven natural disasters, that benefits the poorest people the most.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:36 AM on March 31, 2023
I ride public transport in the city of San Antonio exactly zero hours per year.
I wanted to.
First I lived in a place where I'd have needed to walk, no exaggeration, 1.5 miles to get to a bus stop. Then from there it'd take an hour and a half on the bus to make a trip I could make in about 20 minutes in my car.
Today I live about half a mile from a bus stop and my 20 minute car commute would take an hour by bus and would drop me off 1 mile from work.
So. Yeah. I don't take the bus.
posted by sotonohito at 6:37 AM on March 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
I wanted to.
First I lived in a place where I'd have needed to walk, no exaggeration, 1.5 miles to get to a bus stop. Then from there it'd take an hour and a half on the bus to make a trip I could make in about 20 minutes in my car.
Today I live about half a mile from a bus stop and my 20 minute car commute would take an hour by bus and would drop me off 1 mile from work.
So. Yeah. I don't take the bus.
posted by sotonohito at 6:37 AM on March 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
Foosnark: If I take public transit, it requires 38 minutes of walking to get to a 19 minute bus ride, and there's no way I'm carrying a week's worth of groceries like that.
Kutsuwamushi:These same students will drive to the grocery store unless they just don't have a car. Even if it's on the same busy route, it's just slightly more convenient to take the car. You don't have to fuss with a grocery cart, you don't have to worry about missing the bus and having to wait outside in the cold for 10 minutes. What makes this possible is the massive fucking parking lots surrounding the grocery store.
The third biggest thing, and easily the most challenging, is trying to redirect the built environment of American and small suburbs back towards density. When I lived in the city I was within a ten minute walk of five grocery stores, six bakeries, three butchers and countless bodegas; it was 15 minutes to the good cheese shop and I could knock that out by getting off the subway a stop early. We rarely shopped for more than two or three days at a time.
This is, of course, the whole idea behind the 15-minute city. And we already know that tons of people are losing their minds over that idea; getting to a point where we're building more densely (and less huge swatches of single-family residential without amenities or civic life) is going to take a major shift in perspective that I can't necessarily see coming.
posted by thecaddy at 6:38 AM on March 31, 2023 [12 favorites]
Kutsuwamushi:These same students will drive to the grocery store unless they just don't have a car. Even if it's on the same busy route, it's just slightly more convenient to take the car. You don't have to fuss with a grocery cart, you don't have to worry about missing the bus and having to wait outside in the cold for 10 minutes. What makes this possible is the massive fucking parking lots surrounding the grocery store.
The third biggest thing, and easily the most challenging, is trying to redirect the built environment of American and small suburbs back towards density. When I lived in the city I was within a ten minute walk of five grocery stores, six bakeries, three butchers and countless bodegas; it was 15 minutes to the good cheese shop and I could knock that out by getting off the subway a stop early. We rarely shopped for more than two or three days at a time.
This is, of course, the whole idea behind the 15-minute city. And we already know that tons of people are losing their minds over that idea; getting to a point where we're building more densely (and less huge swatches of single-family residential without amenities or civic life) is going to take a major shift in perspective that I can't necessarily see coming.
posted by thecaddy at 6:38 AM on March 31, 2023 [12 favorites]
I drive very little, my car gets about 3,000 miles on it a year but the one thing I do need it for is going to the supermarket. There's one terrible supermarket a mile away but the only way to get to an even half-way decent store is to drive. And I live right in the middle of the city.
posted by octothorpe at 6:51 AM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 6:51 AM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
In the before times, I took the bus, because while driving was faster, it wasn't that much faster, and if I'm going to sit in traffic for over an hour, I'd rather have someone else drive. (I had to drive to the local Park'n'Ride, but that was relatively quick.) Now I live within walking distance to a bus stop, but all my transit cards have expired. Also, they're in the process of moving us, so even if I went into work, I wouldn't have a place to sit until late Summer.
Sigh.
posted by Spike Glee at 7:01 AM on March 31, 2023
Sigh.
posted by Spike Glee at 7:01 AM on March 31, 2023
Most of the time that we lived in Austin, my husband commuted to work on the bus on the regular. It came to the corner across the main road from our house and stopped at the parking lot in front of his office complex. He was a grad student at UT, which got him the city's most expensive bus pass (all it costs is UT tuition), so it was free and the walk back home was short enough that he often chose to walk it when the weather permitted. Not long after he graduated, he started working full-time from home.
We've been in Dallas for four and a half years, he's still at home, and we never use public transit here. On the other hand since neither of us works out of the home, we're at least not commuting and can manage with one car. But yeah, I would not try to live in the DFW Metroplex without a car, trying to rely on the Dallas transit system.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 7:05 AM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
We've been in Dallas for four and a half years, he's still at home, and we never use public transit here. On the other hand since neither of us works out of the home, we're at least not commuting and can manage with one car. But yeah, I would not try to live in the DFW Metroplex without a car, trying to rely on the Dallas transit system.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 7:05 AM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
My adolescence was, to a pretty huge degree, shaped by growing up in a place with functional public transit. I was able to be independent from a young age in ways that I don't think would have been possible if someone had needed to drive me everywhere. I think that on some level I am the person I am because of public transit, in the same way that I am the person I am because of public libraries. But I very rarely use public transit where I currently live. I live about two miles from work, and I walk a lot more often than I take the bus. It's about a half-mile walk to the closest bus stop, and then I have to cross a big street that doesn't have a stoplight or crosswalk anywhere nearby. There's no bus shelter, so you have to wait out in the cold and the rain. The bus comes every half-hour during peak times, every hour during non-peak times, and not at all on Sundays. If I'm running late, then it's quicker to walk than to wait for the next bus. I got a bus pass when I moved here, but I gave it up because I never used it. I drive pretty often, even though it's a hassle to find street parking at work.
(By contrast, I use the public library constantly as an adult. But I either walk or drive there.)
The basic problem with public transit is that people won't use it unless it's convenient and frequent, but it's hard to justify the kind of investment that would allow it to be convenient and frequent until people are using it. And I agree with the article that we need to frame it as an environmental benefit, but that's so incredibly politicized that I feel like my state government might ban public transit if it were framed in that way. And we don't have enough traffic here to justify it in terms of getting cars off the road. Maybe if they talked about parking, but people don't seem to mind the endless, ugly parking lots and structures as much as I think they should.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:12 AM on March 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
(By contrast, I use the public library constantly as an adult. But I either walk or drive there.)
The basic problem with public transit is that people won't use it unless it's convenient and frequent, but it's hard to justify the kind of investment that would allow it to be convenient and frequent until people are using it. And I agree with the article that we need to frame it as an environmental benefit, but that's so incredibly politicized that I feel like my state government might ban public transit if it were framed in that way. And we don't have enough traffic here to justify it in terms of getting cars off the road. Maybe if they talked about parking, but people don't seem to mind the endless, ugly parking lots and structures as much as I think they should.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:12 AM on March 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
I live in one of the "good" transit areas and still having a car is an important practicality. I use it as little as possible, often taking the 'T' for the right reasons but also due to the utter pain in finding parking (and I'm real clever about the best spots). But once there is a car the marginal cost for a quick run is much less than cost of transit so that is a confounding factor.
Significant new transit lines will continue to be rare for nimyish reasons, even the billionaire we love to hate that gets things done tried to make new subways, and all arguments about the tech it was quashed by land rights.
With some giant malls failing due to online, perhaps we could design some intentional walkable communities (venice in the midwest?) that would have the density with livability that makes sense for transit hubs?
posted by sammyo at 7:14 AM on March 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
Significant new transit lines will continue to be rare for nimyish reasons, even the billionaire we love to hate that gets things done tried to make new subways, and all arguments about the tech it was quashed by land rights.
With some giant malls failing due to online, perhaps we could design some intentional walkable communities (venice in the midwest?) that would have the density with livability that makes sense for transit hubs?
posted by sammyo at 7:14 AM on March 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
I live in Nashville, and public transportation is pretty grim here, at least in the areas where I have lived. I work for a large hospital system, and they run a shuttle bus service, so I use that pretty regularly, and it's great for getting around to various parts of the city, but you have to be an employee to use it. It's dumb that we have to pay for this thing because the city's infrastructure is so lacking.
I used to live in Halifax, Nova Scotia where everybody complains about the Metro Transit service, which fair enough, it kind of low-key sucks, but compared to Nashville it's a paradise. I didn't need to own a car there and here my household of 4 adults owns 3 cars.
The whole thing is just so, so dumb.
posted by joannemerriam at 7:21 AM on March 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
I used to live in Halifax, Nova Scotia where everybody complains about the Metro Transit service, which fair enough, it kind of low-key sucks, but compared to Nashville it's a paradise. I didn't need to own a car there and here my household of 4 adults owns 3 cars.
The whole thing is just so, so dumb.
posted by joannemerriam at 7:21 AM on March 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
The problem with public transport is that it's like EV incentives - it's politically unpopular to spend taxpayer money on the top 5% richest people in the country, that's basically a regressive tax.
By definition public transport is only somewhat viable in areas with sufficient density of residents and jobs and retail - which is where rich people live.
This is a strange take. Right now, in the USA, city real estate is out of control - but in my city, for example, the majority of residents are renters. There are a lot of rich people in the city, and there is a lot of inequality, which means that there are a lot of poor people. The thing about transit and other public services are that they benefit most those with the least resources for other options.
Transit is politically unpopular in the USA because in our country we don't really like the government spending money (unless it's to bail out a bank or fund a decade or two of war). Because of a manufactured culture war between those rich urban elites, and the real america in their pickup trucks. But this doesn't mean that transit benefits the rich or is a regressive tax.
I estimate that I spend about $1.2k/year on transit fares. This is equivalent to about 300 gallons of gas at $4/gal, which is 7500 miles at 25 mpg. The average American drives closer to 15,000 miles per year, so spends about twice as much on gas alone before getting into the cost of a vehicle and maintenance.
Which is the better deal? And who needs it?
posted by entropone at 7:44 AM on March 31, 2023 [11 favorites]
By definition public transport is only somewhat viable in areas with sufficient density of residents and jobs and retail - which is where rich people live.
This is a strange take. Right now, in the USA, city real estate is out of control - but in my city, for example, the majority of residents are renters. There are a lot of rich people in the city, and there is a lot of inequality, which means that there are a lot of poor people. The thing about transit and other public services are that they benefit most those with the least resources for other options.
Transit is politically unpopular in the USA because in our country we don't really like the government spending money (unless it's to bail out a bank or fund a decade or two of war). Because of a manufactured culture war between those rich urban elites, and the real america in their pickup trucks. But this doesn't mean that transit benefits the rich or is a regressive tax.
I estimate that I spend about $1.2k/year on transit fares. This is equivalent to about 300 gallons of gas at $4/gal, which is 7500 miles at 25 mpg. The average American drives closer to 15,000 miles per year, so spends about twice as much on gas alone before getting into the cost of a vehicle and maintenance.
Which is the better deal? And who needs it?
posted by entropone at 7:44 AM on March 31, 2023 [11 favorites]
I ride the L every day. The CTA has gotten a lot worse since the pandemic. There are people smoking on half the cars. I’d gladly pay more for less smoking/more security. And more people would use the L if they pulled it together.
Also a near-daily CTA user, can confirm, and the bus situation is even worse than the trains. The sad thing is that right before the pandemic there was an article saying that by almost all metrics (except for number of stations, I think), the CTA was actually pulling ahead of the MTA. Now granted this was in part because the MTA was in spectacular freefall. But it was also because the CTA was running trains and buses on schedule, reliably, and upgrading the oldest stations, and upgrading the oldest trains, and just in most respects working to become a plausible way to move about the city. SO CLOSE.
Now almost none of the 24 hour lines run 24 hours anymore, and the regular lines stop service really early. The trains on the weekend don't even bother giving arrival times on the tracker, it's just an estimate of approximately how often trains run, in theory.
By definition public transport is only somewhat viable in areas with sufficient density of residents and jobs and retail - which is where rich people live.
I feel like you're missing the "public" part of that. As long as the goal is for the system to turn a profit, then ok, sure. But public goods aren't supposed to be run exclusively for a profit.
Also I obviously can't speak to cities in a nation where I've never been but I can guarantee you that "cities are only rich people" is...demonstrably false in every city I have been to.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:55 AM on March 31, 2023 [8 favorites]
Also a near-daily CTA user, can confirm, and the bus situation is even worse than the trains. The sad thing is that right before the pandemic there was an article saying that by almost all metrics (except for number of stations, I think), the CTA was actually pulling ahead of the MTA. Now granted this was in part because the MTA was in spectacular freefall. But it was also because the CTA was running trains and buses on schedule, reliably, and upgrading the oldest stations, and upgrading the oldest trains, and just in most respects working to become a plausible way to move about the city. SO CLOSE.
Now almost none of the 24 hour lines run 24 hours anymore, and the regular lines stop service really early. The trains on the weekend don't even bother giving arrival times on the tracker, it's just an estimate of approximately how often trains run, in theory.
By definition public transport is only somewhat viable in areas with sufficient density of residents and jobs and retail - which is where rich people live.
I feel like you're missing the "public" part of that. As long as the goal is for the system to turn a profit, then ok, sure. But public goods aren't supposed to be run exclusively for a profit.
Also I obviously can't speak to cities in a nation where I've never been but I can guarantee you that "cities are only rich people" is...demonstrably false in every city I have been to.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:55 AM on March 31, 2023 [8 favorites]
Americans are generally blind to how much we spend making cars a viable option. We spend so much to artificially prop up drivers that transit always looks like a less viable option except in rare cases like dense cities. Drivers get free street parking, free roads and they don't pay anything to offset the pollution they spew. Most folks don't realize that use related taxes like vehicle excise tax and gas taxes don't cover all these costs. If we just charged market rent for every residential street parking space in Boston, we'd have enough to pay off the debt that's crippling our public transit system.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 7:57 AM on March 31, 2023 [17 favorites]
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 7:57 AM on March 31, 2023 [17 favorites]
Yeah induced demand is a term I seriously dislike (one does not induce latent demand that is frustrated, one unleashes it), but since it's the current term of art in planning, I'll use it.
Induced demand can work for things we WANT to do, not just as a boogeyman to prevent things we don't want. If subways, trams, and buses went everywhere and the surface modes had just enough protected infrastructure to make any travel by transit faster and easier than cars, you induce in incredible demand for transit usage.
In places where the latent demand for roads is simply impossible to satisfy, one more lane just makes things worse.
But the latent demand isn't specifically for roads. The demand is always for getting somewhere quickly, inexpensively, and conveniently. I don't see why it's not considered axiomatic that fast, inexpensive, and convenient transit means more people using transit, and the same number of people not sitting in a car.
posted by tclark at 8:07 AM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
Induced demand can work for things we WANT to do, not just as a boogeyman to prevent things we don't want. If subways, trams, and buses went everywhere and the surface modes had just enough protected infrastructure to make any travel by transit faster and easier than cars, you induce in incredible demand for transit usage.
In places where the latent demand for roads is simply impossible to satisfy, one more lane just makes things worse.
But the latent demand isn't specifically for roads. The demand is always for getting somewhere quickly, inexpensively, and conveniently. I don't see why it's not considered axiomatic that fast, inexpensive, and convenient transit means more people using transit, and the same number of people not sitting in a car.
posted by tclark at 8:07 AM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
Philadelphia has really good transit through Center City but SEPTA has let both the BSL and MFL fall into complete disrepair from an antisocial behavior standpoint. People shooting up in cars, smoking, etc. Even our most dedicated urbanists are shaking their heads. It is a combination of, like, making the trains safe and clean and also increasing frequency across the board. We do have a "reimagining regional rail" initiative which will hopefully start to leverage our really impressive rail network to service everyone and not just (the dwindling number of) commuters.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:14 AM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:14 AM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
Philadelphia has really good transit through Center City but SEPTA has let both the BSL and MFL fall into complete disrepair from an antisocial behavior standpoint.
Unfortunately I think that this winds up being a symptom of a stacked set of crises: an addiction epidemic plus a housing crisis plus a lack of decent health care and a general a dearth services available, and trends in cities that chip away at public spaces and services. Remaining public spaces wind up taking on populations of people who need help and a place to go and a place to be. Parks, libraries, and just about any other public space or resource also see this too.
posted by entropone at 8:22 AM on March 31, 2023 [7 favorites]
Unfortunately I think that this winds up being a symptom of a stacked set of crises: an addiction epidemic plus a housing crisis plus a lack of decent health care and a general a dearth services available, and trends in cities that chip away at public spaces and services. Remaining public spaces wind up taking on populations of people who need help and a place to go and a place to be. Parks, libraries, and just about any other public space or resource also see this too.
posted by entropone at 8:22 AM on March 31, 2023 [7 favorites]
It is helpful, in this context, to recognize that much of modern urban planning has effectively been an automotive and petroleum industry subsidy, and is working as intended. It's weird seeing people talk about how "transit only makes sense in dense urban areas" when the United States' densest cities are still absolutely chock-full of cheap parking and huge parking lots.
Toronto's no different, of course; this city has a very robust, well-funded full-employment and socialized housing program, provided your'e a car. If you're a human, particularly a poor human, you're screwed.
posted by mhoye at 8:30 AM on March 31, 2023 [7 favorites]
Toronto's no different, of course; this city has a very robust, well-funded full-employment and socialized housing program, provided your'e a car. If you're a human, particularly a poor human, you're screwed.
posted by mhoye at 8:30 AM on March 31, 2023 [7 favorites]
Unfortunately I think that this winds up being a symptom of a stacked set of crises:
There is also a portion of the (white, in particular) population primed to accept narratives of urban chaos and decay at any time, and to treat visible poverty as inherent evidence of crime.
As a heavy user of transit (I've never even owned a car), even pre-pandemic I would end up having an encounter with an aggressive mentally ill person (as distinguished from a merely visibly poor or distressed person) on transit probably once or twice a month. My use is down somewhat since the beginning of 2020, though it's still nearly daily, and, yes, I think the incidence of such encounters is up. I don't want to downplay them. Even though it's worse to be the mentally ill person than whoever they are harassing, those encounters are unpleasant and sometimes truly frightening. No one should have to experience them.
Yet...it's so dispiriting to see how people are always ready to eat that narrative right up. As if "urban" chaos was always lurking, waiting for the slightest relaxation of social control to take us straight to dystopia.
posted by praemunire at 8:43 AM on March 31, 2023 [11 favorites]
There is also a portion of the (white, in particular) population primed to accept narratives of urban chaos and decay at any time, and to treat visible poverty as inherent evidence of crime.
As a heavy user of transit (I've never even owned a car), even pre-pandemic I would end up having an encounter with an aggressive mentally ill person (as distinguished from a merely visibly poor or distressed person) on transit probably once or twice a month. My use is down somewhat since the beginning of 2020, though it's still nearly daily, and, yes, I think the incidence of such encounters is up. I don't want to downplay them. Even though it's worse to be the mentally ill person than whoever they are harassing, those encounters are unpleasant and sometimes truly frightening. No one should have to experience them.
Yet...it's so dispiriting to see how people are always ready to eat that narrative right up. As if "urban" chaos was always lurking, waiting for the slightest relaxation of social control to take us straight to dystopia.
posted by praemunire at 8:43 AM on March 31, 2023 [11 favorites]
> Drivers get free street parking, free roads and they don't pay anything to offset the pollution they spew.
They also don't pay anywhere near the cost of all the bodily harm and killings they cause. If drivers like the one who ran over my friend and left her with a lifetime of reduced use of her leg and pain had to pay for her medical bills, there'd be fewer people driving.
posted by threementholsandafuneral at 8:44 AM on March 31, 2023 [6 favorites]
They also don't pay anywhere near the cost of all the bodily harm and killings they cause. If drivers like the one who ran over my friend and left her with a lifetime of reduced use of her leg and pain had to pay for her medical bills, there'd be fewer people driving.
posted by threementholsandafuneral at 8:44 AM on March 31, 2023 [6 favorites]
Here's a fun note from Toronto city council today: Our city council has voted to make the fines for fare evasion proportionally comparable to fines for parking tickets.
Presently, "The fine for fare evasion on the Toronto Transit Commission is $195 ($235 once the other fees are added) and can rise over $400. The offence represents a loss of $3.25."
So, basically between 7500% and 12,000% the cost of the presumptive loss.
For parking, the numbers are, ballpark, 300% to 500%, depending.
So, yeah, if you ever wanted to see how we use transit policy to deliberately and structurally punish the poor for having the temerity to be poor there you are.
posted by mhoye at 8:45 AM on March 31, 2023 [10 favorites]
Presently, "The fine for fare evasion on the Toronto Transit Commission is $195 ($235 once the other fees are added) and can rise over $400. The offence represents a loss of $3.25."
So, basically between 7500% and 12,000% the cost of the presumptive loss.
For parking, the numbers are, ballpark, 300% to 500%, depending.
So, yeah, if you ever wanted to see how we use transit policy to deliberately and structurally punish the poor for having the temerity to be poor there you are.
posted by mhoye at 8:45 AM on March 31, 2023 [10 favorites]
If you actually mean the median American - probably zero? In other words, I’m saying less than half of Americans use public transit in a given year.
posted by madcaptenor at 8:47 AM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by madcaptenor at 8:47 AM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
mhoye - that's a nice step that Toronto's taking.
Here in NYC, people are arrested for fare evasion and thrown into our notoriously awful jail, Rikers Island, which has refused to make changes mandated by oversight entities, where they can be held for years at a time until their trial if they can't afford a few hundred or thousand dollars in bail.
posted by entropone at 8:58 AM on March 31, 2023
Here in NYC, people are arrested for fare evasion and thrown into our notoriously awful jail, Rikers Island, which has refused to make changes mandated by oversight entities, where they can be held for years at a time until their trial if they can't afford a few hundred or thousand dollars in bail.
posted by entropone at 8:58 AM on March 31, 2023
The issue is that the system was largely designed to ferry office workers from their homes in the outer neighborhoods and suburbs into the CBD in the morning and out in the afternoon.
Yes, this. The poor design of most transit systems means the only thing that's going to help ridership is large corporations giving up on telework (it's slowly happening, so wait 2 years and see the articles about transit transformation), but that shouldn't be looked at as a positive for transit systems. Or if there is a horrible recession and people ride transit more.
The systems (fine, outside NYC) need serious, fundamental redesigns. 'improving service' on existing lines is a waste of money for the most part.
The same is actually true of highways systems - highway and local road usage in most cities is stable to falling (though there are some streets and some highways where it is increasing - a fairly small % overall), so there is no latent demand that adding lanes is meeting. But nobody cares if road systems don't meet transportation projections, because they are held to extremely different standards.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:02 AM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yes, this. The poor design of most transit systems means the only thing that's going to help ridership is large corporations giving up on telework (it's slowly happening, so wait 2 years and see the articles about transit transformation), but that shouldn't be looked at as a positive for transit systems. Or if there is a horrible recession and people ride transit more.
The systems (fine, outside NYC) need serious, fundamental redesigns. 'improving service' on existing lines is a waste of money for the most part.
The same is actually true of highways systems - highway and local road usage in most cities is stable to falling (though there are some streets and some highways where it is increasing - a fairly small % overall), so there is no latent demand that adding lanes is meeting. But nobody cares if road systems don't meet transportation projections, because they are held to extremely different standards.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:02 AM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
As a heavy user of transit (I've never even owned a car), even pre-pandemic I would end up having an encounter with an aggressive mentally ill person (as distinguished from a merely visibly poor or distressed person) on transit probably once or twice a month. My use is down somewhat since the beginning of 2020, though it's still nearly daily, and, yes, I think the incidence of such encounters is up. I don't want to downplay them. Even though it's worse to be the mentally ill person than whoever they are harassing, those encounters are unpleasant and sometimes truly frightening. No one should have to experience them.
I've used a power wheelchair since 2010, and let me tell you, using a wheelchair in public draws troubled/aggressive/hostile/frightening strangers towards you like one of those giant electric magnets that lift up cars towards the crushing machines in scrap yards.
If there is a troubled passenger, or a hostile passenger on the train station or in the train or on the bus, they make a beeline straight for wheelchair users. :(
I once had my mobility equipment and my body physically (not sexually) assaulted by a man on the train who was clearly some combination of severely intellectually disabled and/or severely mentally ill
and the train guards reaction was basically (I'm paraphrasing but this was the essence of it)
"*sigh* Yeah, this guy is notorious to train station guards for doing mild assaults on people and/or their mobility equipment all the time but they are never bad enough for the Police to press charges, and he has no way to get from A to B without the train... so we basically just let him constantly do mild physical assaults on people and their mobility equipment and hope it never escalates"
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:41 AM on March 31, 2023 [10 favorites]
I've used a power wheelchair since 2010, and let me tell you, using a wheelchair in public draws troubled/aggressive/hostile/frightening strangers towards you like one of those giant electric magnets that lift up cars towards the crushing machines in scrap yards.
If there is a troubled passenger, or a hostile passenger on the train station or in the train or on the bus, they make a beeline straight for wheelchair users. :(
I once had my mobility equipment and my body physically (not sexually) assaulted by a man on the train who was clearly some combination of severely intellectually disabled and/or severely mentally ill
and the train guards reaction was basically (I'm paraphrasing but this was the essence of it)
"*sigh* Yeah, this guy is notorious to train station guards for doing mild assaults on people and/or their mobility equipment all the time but they are never bad enough for the Police to press charges, and he has no way to get from A to B without the train... so we basically just let him constantly do mild physical assaults on people and their mobility equipment and hope it never escalates"
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:41 AM on March 31, 2023 [10 favorites]
There's no public transit that services the largest employer in my city, the one I work for. That matters less now that most people continue to work from home instead of going into the office, but it's still a hurdle to overcome. I live in the city, but on a residential street. There is a bus stop a few blocks away, but it doesn't go in a direction that's useful to me. The biggest public transportation move in my city lately has been a BRT line that runs up and down exactly one street. Many restaurants and other merchants lost curbside parking in order to make room for that dedicated bus line, painted red in an attempt to remind other drivers it's not for them. It continues to cost nothing to ride that bus, but it really only makes sense if you're already on that street and need to get to a different address on the same street. And there are no commuter parking lots in case you're coming from outside the city and would like to hop on the bus to ride further downtown.
posted by emelenjr at 9:45 AM on March 31, 2023
posted by emelenjr at 9:45 AM on March 31, 2023
Americans are generally blind to how much we spend making cars a viable option.
Look at this bullshit. These cats are spending literally thousands of dollars per MONTH for their cars. And that's after discounts they get for working at dealerships.
If we could get every middle- and upper-class car-owning family to pay $500/month that went toward public transportation, imagine how much better public transportation would be...
posted by nushustu at 10:40 AM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
Look at this bullshit. These cats are spending literally thousands of dollars per MONTH for their cars. And that's after discounts they get for working at dealerships.
If we could get every middle- and upper-class car-owning family to pay $500/month that went toward public transportation, imagine how much better public transportation would be...
posted by nushustu at 10:40 AM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
I use public transit all the time in my Northeastern/Mid-Atlantic city and I just sold my car. A lot of white people won’t use public transit in my city and tell me they are scared to. I am often the only white person on the bus. But the buses are plenty busy, full of kids going to school, people going to work, and older people like me running errands and going to appointments. Yeah it’s a little inconvient and often delayed but I get there just as fast by bus. It astonishes me how wedded people are to their cars in the city. People will literally drive a quarter of a mile.
But then I grew up walking a mile a day to school and a mile back and I’m not scared of other human beings on the street.
posted by Peach at 11:15 AM on March 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
But then I grew up walking a mile a day to school and a mile back and I’m not scared of other human beings on the street.
posted by Peach at 11:15 AM on March 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
If you actually mean the median American - probably zero? In other words, I’m saying less than half of Americans use public transit in a given year.
posted by madcaptenor at 11:47 on March 31 [1 favorite +] [!]
Yes it is zero according to the expert in the article, which makes sense because if you aren't in a big city public transit really isn't viable, and a lot of times it isn't even if you are in one.
My city's transit system, the TTC in Toronto, is currently in a death spiral. As of either tomorrow or Monday fares are going to go up and service will be reduced to deal with its budgetary problems because of reduced ridership during and post-covid. We've also had a series of much publicized violent incidents on the system including seemingly random killings. Our city, Province, and federal government have all recently released their budgets and none of them have stepped in with additional funding to help things so it will be at least a year of things getting worse. And I'm part of the problem because when the pandemic started I stopped taking the bus and started riding my bike or sometimes driving. I have gone back to taking the bus now but I only do it when I don't want to ride my bike, usually for weather related reasons, so from a daily rider I've become an occasional one.
Plus there's retail around the train stations so they become destinations in themselves. Seems like in the US, train stations are in the worst most inaccessible parts of town with nothing around.
The lack of development at the subway stations here in Toronto frustrates me too as it does seem like a wasted opportunity. In the past part of it was probably due to our token based fare system where once you left the station proper you'd have to pay to come back in, but now that we have timed transfers there's no reason not to develop above the stations to include more retail offerings. Even where there is development my impression is that maybe the city/system got a one-time payment for the land above the station that's being developed but whatever's built isn't theirs and they aren't collecting any rent on it. I think it would be useful for city politicians to spend a week or two in a city like Nagoya, Hiroshima, or Fukuoka (Tokyo and Osaka are too big and important so it is easy to treat them as exceptions) to see how transit, and transportation in general, work there so they get a better idea of what is actually possible.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:24 AM on March 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by madcaptenor at 11:47 on March 31 [1 favorite +] [!]
Yes it is zero according to the expert in the article, which makes sense because if you aren't in a big city public transit really isn't viable, and a lot of times it isn't even if you are in one.
My city's transit system, the TTC in Toronto, is currently in a death spiral. As of either tomorrow or Monday fares are going to go up and service will be reduced to deal with its budgetary problems because of reduced ridership during and post-covid. We've also had a series of much publicized violent incidents on the system including seemingly random killings. Our city, Province, and federal government have all recently released their budgets and none of them have stepped in with additional funding to help things so it will be at least a year of things getting worse. And I'm part of the problem because when the pandemic started I stopped taking the bus and started riding my bike or sometimes driving. I have gone back to taking the bus now but I only do it when I don't want to ride my bike, usually for weather related reasons, so from a daily rider I've become an occasional one.
Plus there's retail around the train stations so they become destinations in themselves. Seems like in the US, train stations are in the worst most inaccessible parts of town with nothing around.
The lack of development at the subway stations here in Toronto frustrates me too as it does seem like a wasted opportunity. In the past part of it was probably due to our token based fare system where once you left the station proper you'd have to pay to come back in, but now that we have timed transfers there's no reason not to develop above the stations to include more retail offerings. Even where there is development my impression is that maybe the city/system got a one-time payment for the land above the station that's being developed but whatever's built isn't theirs and they aren't collecting any rent on it. I think it would be useful for city politicians to spend a week or two in a city like Nagoya, Hiroshima, or Fukuoka (Tokyo and Osaka are too big and important so it is easy to treat them as exceptions) to see how transit, and transportation in general, work there so they get a better idea of what is actually possible.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:24 AM on March 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
There are NIMBYs opposing any kind of housing development on the literal empty parking lots of our failing local public transit systems. It's clear that even if they lived near public transit, they'd never use it, and can't imagine anyone "of the right nature" doing so either.
posted by meowzilla at 11:46 AM on March 31, 2023
posted by meowzilla at 11:46 AM on March 31, 2023
It's a bit sad to read all the transit horror stories. I watch Not Just Bikes Youtube channel, where the creator discusses the built infrastructure that leads to the pedestrian and bike unfriendly cities in the US and Canada,, then compares this to city design based on walkable infrastructure.
I live in one of the few US cities where the transit seems to work well and I make my way through most weeks by bike or bus with perhaps one to two car trips per week.
When I ride a bus to work on a cold day I can't help but think that this is supposed to be how it works for everyone. That's a long ways away in the US by any measure.
It's not by chance I live here, the transit and bike system was one of my criteria. When I eventually move returning to a car-centric life would be awful, so either I stay where I am or maybe go ex-pat to a country with a healthier infrastucture for daily living.
posted by diode at 12:04 PM on March 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
I live in one of the few US cities where the transit seems to work well and I make my way through most weeks by bike or bus with perhaps one to two car trips per week.
When I ride a bus to work on a cold day I can't help but think that this is supposed to be how it works for everyone. That's a long ways away in the US by any measure.
It's not by chance I live here, the transit and bike system was one of my criteria. When I eventually move returning to a car-centric life would be awful, so either I stay where I am or maybe go ex-pat to a country with a healthier infrastucture for daily living.
posted by diode at 12:04 PM on March 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
As with many things in the America, the root problem with transit is that we have let it become incredibly expensive.
There is basically no new rail project that fairly pencils; any that are approved are the result of raw capture of the political process by construction and rolling stock vendors.
Operating and MRO costs for legacy transit systems are out-of-control high - outside the densest of areas it would probably make more sense to close them all and give low income people get a tax credit for their Uber bills to the extent they exceed what the old transit fare would have been.
posted by MattD at 12:25 PM on March 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
There is basically no new rail project that fairly pencils; any that are approved are the result of raw capture of the political process by construction and rolling stock vendors.
Operating and MRO costs for legacy transit systems are out-of-control high - outside the densest of areas it would probably make more sense to close them all and give low income people get a tax credit for their Uber bills to the extent they exceed what the old transit fare would have been.
posted by MattD at 12:25 PM on March 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
That's a terrible idea. It's 'public' transit. Roads don't pencil, assistive housing doesn't pencil, libraries, parks, the Post Office, and public schools don't pencil.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:13 PM on March 31, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:13 PM on March 31, 2023 [8 favorites]
any that are approved are the result of raw capture of the political process by construction and rolling stock vendors.
And 'rolling stock vendors'? No. Just no. Are there even any US vendors of light & heavy rail cars? My city has to import theirs from Japan.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:18 PM on March 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
And 'rolling stock vendors'? No. Just no. Are there even any US vendors of light & heavy rail cars? My city has to import theirs from Japan.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:18 PM on March 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
The big reason that Europe has great infrastructure and America has terrible infra is taxes: in Europe taxes are used to build these things. In America, taxes are too low thanks to the Reagan era, and there’s a huge amount of military spending that takes precedence over making train tracks. While some European countries are more right-wing in view, the idea of removing public transport is generally a no-go, and funding public transport is seen as a vote winner.
On a personal note, it wasn’t until my forties that I realised the reason so many American movies and to shows have a shot of the hero, on a bus, looking sad, is that this is supposed to be the nadir for the character. The low ebb, before they build their life back up. My euro reading of this scene was always: they are catching the bus. Because in Europe that’s a normal thing to do.
posted by The River Ivel at 3:28 PM on March 31, 2023 [8 favorites]
On a personal note, it wasn’t until my forties that I realised the reason so many American movies and to shows have a shot of the hero, on a bus, looking sad, is that this is supposed to be the nadir for the character. The low ebb, before they build their life back up. My euro reading of this scene was always: they are catching the bus. Because in Europe that’s a normal thing to do.
posted by The River Ivel at 3:28 PM on March 31, 2023 [8 favorites]
Suburban NC in a wealthy town with good green policies and a prominent bus system. Just checked the ride from my kids’ high school to my house (there’s no school bus, long story). It’s a 15 minute drive each way plus maybe 10 minutes in the fume-spewing pickup line.
One way trip for them to ride a city bus home: 1h 23m with 2 bus changes.
It’s the way suburban America is built. I haven’t been on a bus in 10 years sadly.
posted by caviar2d2 at 3:44 PM on March 31, 2023
One way trip for them to ride a city bus home: 1h 23m with 2 bus changes.
It’s the way suburban America is built. I haven’t been on a bus in 10 years sadly.
posted by caviar2d2 at 3:44 PM on March 31, 2023
I've used a power wheelchair since 2010, and let me tell you, using a wheelchair in public draws troubled/aggressive/hostile/frightening strangers towards you like one of those giant electric magnets that lift up cars towards the crushing machines in scrap yards.
I believe you. Some of them do fixate on anyone or anything that seems unusual or "weird."
posted by praemunire at 3:46 PM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
I believe you. Some of them do fixate on anyone or anything that seems unusual or "weird."
posted by praemunire at 3:46 PM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
I ride public transport in the city of San Antonio exactly zero hours per year.
Here in the suburbs of Houston I'd have to drive 17 minutes to get to a bus stop that would get me downtown in two hours or so. Or I could just drive downtown in 35 minutes. It's ridiculous.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 4:01 PM on March 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
Here in the suburbs of Houston I'd have to drive 17 minutes to get to a bus stop that would get me downtown in two hours or so. Or I could just drive downtown in 35 minutes. It's ridiculous.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 4:01 PM on March 31, 2023 [4 favorites]
If we just charged market rent for every residential street parking space
Yes, and tolled the roads, and required everyone to prove they have a place at home to park their car before allowing them to register one. Works in Japan. Public transit isn't free, but it's a lot closer to the cost of using a car because using a car isn't cheap either.
posted by ctmf at 7:07 PM on March 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
Yes, and tolled the roads, and required everyone to prove they have a place at home to park their car before allowing them to register one. Works in Japan. Public transit isn't free, but it's a lot closer to the cost of using a car because using a car isn't cheap either.
posted by ctmf at 7:07 PM on March 31, 2023 [3 favorites]
Here in Japan, not even a "major" city, I usually go grocery shopping at a store that's geographically not the closest one near me. I live a two-minute walk from a train station and the grocery store is a two-minute walk from the next station down, 5 minutes train ride. Since the train comes every 15 minutes or so and only costs a little over a dollar for that trip, it's almost the same as walking to the store "closer" to me. And certainly quicker than walking to a car, driving, finding parking (that would cost money), and then the return trip. It's so easy I can go get two grocery bags every few days instead of doing a more-infrequent Costco expedition with a moving van.
If it was harder, say, same train but less than hourly service, costs a lot, and miserable experience, well then you better believe I'd do it less frequently and then I'd be carrying too much to make the train practical.
posted by ctmf at 7:22 PM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
If it was harder, say, same train but less than hourly service, costs a lot, and miserable experience, well then you better believe I'd do it less frequently and then I'd be carrying too much to make the train practical.
posted by ctmf at 7:22 PM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
I don't understand this use of "pencil": "Roads don't pencil, assistive housing doesn't pencil, libraries, parks, the Post Office, and public schools don't pencil."
posted by NotLost at 8:48 PM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by NotLost at 8:48 PM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
Or this: "There is basically no new rail project that fairly pencils; any that are approved are the result of raw capture of the political process by construction and rolling stock vendors. "
posted by NotLost at 8:48 PM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by NotLost at 8:48 PM on March 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
The usual phrase is “it doesn’t pencil out,” meaning roughly that “the numbers don’t work out” or “the financial analysis doesn’t work out.” Related to the idea of “penciling out” a budget.
posted by mbrubeck at 9:13 PM on March 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by mbrubeck at 9:13 PM on March 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
I think the point is "penciling out" is a very vague and ill defined concept when used in the context of public goods, which are not generally expected to turn a profit.
posted by Zalzidrax at 12:57 AM on April 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Zalzidrax at 12:57 AM on April 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
I think the point is "penciling out" is a very vague and ill defined concept when used in the context of public goods, which are not generally expected to turn a profit.
It's not permission to spend anything they like based on zero substantiation. Even in public health - given X amount of healthcare staff and Y amount of taxes raised, how best do you distribute resources for maximum societal benefit? Spending $15 mil on an experimental treatment with a 3% chance of extending the life of an already bedridden 75 year old cancer patient by an additional 2 years certainly "doesn't pencil", while spending $50 on a vaccination of a 1 year old which has a 20% of preventing them from falling seriously ill or dying would absolutely pencil.
The link I provided earlier provides such a framework - taking into account all social benefits of additional trips (reduction in road congestion, pollution, road trauma) and comparing it against the social costs (crowding of public transport preventing higher priority users from making trips, cost of building additional infrastructure) which allows us to arrive at an optimal price level. There can be such a thing as trips being priced too low, just as trips can be priced too high. For example in Melbourne CBD, there is the argument that making public transport free has the impact of substituting walking a few blocks with a free tram ride, making congestion even worse than it already is and making it harder for users which legitimate trip needs (10+ blocks) to use public transport. I certainly know that is the case for myself, personally - why would I turn down a free tram ride if it helps me get to my destination a tiny bit faster?
posted by xdvesper at 5:03 AM on April 1, 2023
It's not permission to spend anything they like based on zero substantiation. Even in public health - given X amount of healthcare staff and Y amount of taxes raised, how best do you distribute resources for maximum societal benefit? Spending $15 mil on an experimental treatment with a 3% chance of extending the life of an already bedridden 75 year old cancer patient by an additional 2 years certainly "doesn't pencil", while spending $50 on a vaccination of a 1 year old which has a 20% of preventing them from falling seriously ill or dying would absolutely pencil.
The link I provided earlier provides such a framework - taking into account all social benefits of additional trips (reduction in road congestion, pollution, road trauma) and comparing it against the social costs (crowding of public transport preventing higher priority users from making trips, cost of building additional infrastructure) which allows us to arrive at an optimal price level. There can be such a thing as trips being priced too low, just as trips can be priced too high. For example in Melbourne CBD, there is the argument that making public transport free has the impact of substituting walking a few blocks with a free tram ride, making congestion even worse than it already is and making it harder for users which legitimate trip needs (10+ blocks) to use public transport. I certainly know that is the case for myself, personally - why would I turn down a free tram ride if it helps me get to my destination a tiny bit faster?
posted by xdvesper at 5:03 AM on April 1, 2023
It is about a strategy supported by local and national governments. Local neighbourhood travel has to connect the wider city, region, long distance travel without having to walk for 20 mins from station to station. And it’s not just people agreeing that transit should exist and be funded. It also means zoning, how much parking, if any, should be offered, provisioning of parking spaces for car sharing services and such. If your local policy is to be car unfriendly (one way systems, no parking, prioritising bus lanes and trams and trains when modelling traffic flows) and invest in transit that is one thing. But to remove the need for people to travel long distances to access services and retailers is also necessary. You have to foster development of mixed use structures that ensure people can get their groceries and access other services where they live and on their commute to work on transit etc.
posted by koahiatamadl at 5:22 AM on April 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by koahiatamadl at 5:22 AM on April 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
@RankingRoyals: "Cities with the Best Public Transport. Considering the volume of traffic, network density and infrastructure quality, Hong Kong has been named as the city with the best public transport services."*
These maps provide graphic evidence of how parking lots 'eat' U.S. cities - "Parking lots are about one-fifth of all land in U.S. city centers, making them 'easy to get to, but not worth arriving at.'"
posted by kliuless at 7:41 AM on April 1, 2023
These maps provide graphic evidence of how parking lots 'eat' U.S. cities - "Parking lots are about one-fifth of all land in U.S. city centers, making them 'easy to get to, but not worth arriving at.'"
posted by kliuless at 7:41 AM on April 1, 2023
I think Budd was the last wholly American rolling stock builder, until they got acquired by Bombardier.
But many foreign vendors build their cars in the US due to Buy American requirements in funding bills. Siemens builds the SC-44 Charger and its passenger cars in California.
posted by hwyengr at 9:29 AM on April 1, 2023
But many foreign vendors build their cars in the US due to Buy American requirements in funding bills. Siemens builds the SC-44 Charger and its passenger cars in California.
posted by hwyengr at 9:29 AM on April 1, 2023
which allows us to arrive at an optimal price level
I know sometimes "neoliberalism" is used so generally as to become meaningless, but, phew, this is the pure stuff.
posted by praemunire at 12:05 PM on April 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
I know sometimes "neoliberalism" is used so generally as to become meaningless, but, phew, this is the pure stuff.
posted by praemunire at 12:05 PM on April 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
it's politically unpopular to spend taxpayer money on the top 5% richest people in the country, that's basically a regressive tax
Is it, though? I mean, there's a political party that has pretty much made that their platform for the last 30 years and they seem to do okay.
Just lean into it harder.
I bet you could probably increase farebox recovery by like 50% if you put First Class cars on the subway. They won't get you there any faster, but they'll make you feel better than everyone else along the way.
Imagine if all the money that people spend on needless luxury shit in their cars in order to impress their friends was spent on public transportation by way of making people pay kilobucks and megabucks for increasingly arcane grades of MetroCard so they get to experience dumb shit like free coffee or carpeted floors in one car per train?
(In DC, the benefit would be that you get to use a special escalator at the deep stations that runs at twice-normal speed and a trained sharpshooter in a sniper's nest at the top will put a bullet in the head of anyone who stands on the left side for more than ten seconds. It would probably turn WMATA into a profit center.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:55 PM on April 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
Is it, though? I mean, there's a political party that has pretty much made that their platform for the last 30 years and they seem to do okay.
Just lean into it harder.
I bet you could probably increase farebox recovery by like 50% if you put First Class cars on the subway. They won't get you there any faster, but they'll make you feel better than everyone else along the way.
Imagine if all the money that people spend on needless luxury shit in their cars in order to impress their friends was spent on public transportation by way of making people pay kilobucks and megabucks for increasingly arcane grades of MetroCard so they get to experience dumb shit like free coffee or carpeted floors in one car per train?
(In DC, the benefit would be that you get to use a special escalator at the deep stations that runs at twice-normal speed and a trained sharpshooter in a sniper's nest at the top will put a bullet in the head of anyone who stands on the left side for more than ten seconds. It would probably turn WMATA into a profit center.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:55 PM on April 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
i'm surprised by the graphic in the article , which shows total passengers carried per week .
It's now at 140 million and before the pandemic about 200 million per week.
That seems very low.
That's from a population of 330 million.
Toronto has population of 3 million and Toronto transit carries 10 million passengers per week.
posted by yyz at 7:40 AM on April 2, 2023
It's now at 140 million and before the pandemic about 200 million per week.
That seems very low.
That's from a population of 330 million.
Toronto has population of 3 million and Toronto transit carries 10 million passengers per week.
posted by yyz at 7:40 AM on April 2, 2023
Just for the record, I'm not one of those "urban decay" people, and I love Philadelphia and will never move unless life forces me to. Our issues with the MFL (aka the El) are real and well-documented and notably not present on any of our other forms of transit. One station was actually shut down due to the issues that particular line is facing. It is absolutely a combination of the opioid crisis (centered in Kensington, along the MFL route), poverty and our police department (and SEPTA) basically not doing their jobs because, among other reasons, they hate our DA, Larry Krasner. Very localized and specific, and very real.
Now, what are the chances of getting stabbed or robbed or whatever while riding the MFL? Extremely low. Even though we had a shooting on the MFL just yesterday, that kind of incident is an extreme outlier. But perception is reality, and the fact that SEPTA has let the MFL get to this point is having a generally deleterious impact on the city's overall morale and can negatively influence policy going forward.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:35 AM on April 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Now, what are the chances of getting stabbed or robbed or whatever while riding the MFL? Extremely low. Even though we had a shooting on the MFL just yesterday, that kind of incident is an extreme outlier. But perception is reality, and the fact that SEPTA has let the MFL get to this point is having a generally deleterious impact on the city's overall morale and can negatively influence policy going forward.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:35 AM on April 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
And, also, I don't think the cops should be locking up addicts or smokers or fare-jumpers, in case that is how my comment came across.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:38 AM on April 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:38 AM on April 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yeah another Philadelphian here. I take the bus, the subway-surface lines, and the regional rail lines everywhere, but the subways don't feel right lately. I was on the BSL after a Phillies game when someone flashed a knife. It's so funny when I visit Manhattan that the subways feel entirely different (perhaps because there are so many lines you can get everywhere, unlike the Philly situation.
posted by Peach at 2:35 PM on April 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Peach at 2:35 PM on April 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Class matters.
In the USA public transport is widely viewed as the lower class option. You take public transport if you're too poor for a car. Since it's seen as being for the lower classes it's dirty, ill maintained, and crime is tolerated.
In Japan public transport is widely viewed as something everyone uses. The person next to you might be a manager at a corporation, maybe even someone in senior management. Since it's seen as being for everyone it's clean, well maintained, runs on time, and people with knives are escorted away with extreme rapidity.
Not that I'm praising the way Japan deals with its homeless population, which is at least as bad as the way America does.
posted by sotonohito at 3:51 PM on April 2, 2023
In the USA public transport is widely viewed as the lower class option. You take public transport if you're too poor for a car. Since it's seen as being for the lower classes it's dirty, ill maintained, and crime is tolerated.
In Japan public transport is widely viewed as something everyone uses. The person next to you might be a manager at a corporation, maybe even someone in senior management. Since it's seen as being for everyone it's clean, well maintained, runs on time, and people with knives are escorted away with extreme rapidity.
Not that I'm praising the way Japan deals with its homeless population, which is at least as bad as the way America does.
posted by sotonohito at 3:51 PM on April 2, 2023
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I am amazed at how significantly public transportation has structured my life. I grew up in the rural south, so I am definitely that typical American Professor Taylor is referring to (although I did take a heavily subsidized school bus to and from school every day for my entire K-12 life... thanks to federal desegregation funding). I moved to France as an exchange student when I was 18 and was introduced to the world of getting around without a car. It was among the most amazing periods of discovery in my life. I managed to stay in the South for abotu two years after that experience before I jumped ship to DC, then Los Angeles, then San Francisco, and now London. I haven't owned a car since I was 23, so that will be twenty years ago in a few months. Even in LA I managed to get around by bike and bus (and, eventually, the Expo Line when it finally made it out to the west side). For a couple years I lived on an LA street called Trolleyway, a reference to the long-since ripped up rail line that had existed decades prior. It seemed incredibly unfortunate to have lost that structure but, as TFA points out, those privately-operated lines hadn't been sustainable.
Every time I think about trying to move back to where I grew up, though, I can't get over how much of a regression it would feel like to lock myself back into being car-dependent. More than anything else, that is probably what will determine how my life plays out in the future: how rural can I get while still having access to transit? The UK does a remarkable job, in many ways. I'm able to train from London to Dartmoor, or to Hebden Bridge, or to any number of other out-of-the-way places and then close any gaps to my next destination by bus or on foot. Locals grumble over how the cost of trips like that has been on the rise for decades but to my naive mind it's an incredibly sophisticated sign of very good infrastructure planning. I daydream about America discovering the same outlook.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 3:01 AM on March 31, 2023 [13 favorites]