How to stop the decline of public transport in rich countries(economist.com)
economist.com
How to stop the decline of public transport in rich countries
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/06/23/how-to-stop-the-decline-of-public-transport-in-rich-countries
216 comments
It's a bit of a chicken-egg problem, at least from my perspective in the US, as well as a bit of a vicious cycle. I'm not optimistic. Here's why. (and also why I think the fix wouldn't work for many cities in the US at the current time.)
In Seattle, if I want to get from a suburb on the east side into the city, during ANY trafficked time, it's going to be at least 2 busses (usually crowded, late, or full, so add another ~1), a decent amount of walking, and a 1.5-2 hour total trip. This compounds with the fact that many of the fringe buses only come once every half/hour, and not at all on weekends.
Compare this to a city that had proper infrastructure to start, Philadelphia. I lived a comparative distance, and the population is MUCH higher and denser. But a 5 minute walk and a single 20-30 minute train ride put me anywhere I wanted in center city. While Seattle "has light rail" it's an honest joke next to the coverage in the north-east.
As such, there's _no option_ to tax balance, it would end up being highly regressive punishing those forced to live further out and with no option but to use a car. The vicious cycle comes into play as the increased car traffic makes public transit less emphasized, convenient, and more of a perceived negative, leading to increased car traffic, etc etc. (compounded by less people wanting to take the tax burden they don't see a personal benefit to; there are a few different "tragedy of the commons" type effects in this mess.)
If we had trains that could get me to work like the sister post says about Stockholm's, no need for additional motivation, I wouldn't own a car for an instant, and didn't until my mid/late 20s when I left the east coast, but that's not the reality of the cities we've built, and now we're in a bit of a hole that I'm not sure how to incentivise people out of.
In Seattle, if I want to get from a suburb on the east side into the city, during ANY trafficked time, it's going to be at least 2 busses (usually crowded, late, or full, so add another ~1), a decent amount of walking, and a 1.5-2 hour total trip. This compounds with the fact that many of the fringe buses only come once every half/hour, and not at all on weekends.
Compare this to a city that had proper infrastructure to start, Philadelphia. I lived a comparative distance, and the population is MUCH higher and denser. But a 5 minute walk and a single 20-30 minute train ride put me anywhere I wanted in center city. While Seattle "has light rail" it's an honest joke next to the coverage in the north-east.
As such, there's _no option_ to tax balance, it would end up being highly regressive punishing those forced to live further out and with no option but to use a car. The vicious cycle comes into play as the increased car traffic makes public transit less emphasized, convenient, and more of a perceived negative, leading to increased car traffic, etc etc. (compounded by less people wanting to take the tax burden they don't see a personal benefit to; there are a few different "tragedy of the commons" type effects in this mess.)
If we had trains that could get me to work like the sister post says about Stockholm's, no need for additional motivation, I wouldn't own a car for an instant, and didn't until my mid/late 20s when I left the east coast, but that's not the reality of the cities we've built, and now we're in a bit of a hole that I'm not sure how to incentivise people out of.
You could build more bike lanes and add transit only lanes. Build out from the city core, and expand it to outlying areas. Prove its value by showing people that alternatives to cars can actually be better.
For example if there was an express buss between Bellevue and the U District that didn't have to sit behind cars crossing Lake Washington, I think it would be pretty popular.
The chicken and egg problem is hard to crack. Not enough transit riders -> high car usage -> not enough transit riders -> ...
If we all throw up our hands and say "too hard" it's only going to get worse. Growing up in Seattle and Tacoma, it was pretty frustrating to hear about the supposed light rail connection between the two that's been promised and delayed countless times over the last 20+ years.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_process
For example if there was an express buss between Bellevue and the U District that didn't have to sit behind cars crossing Lake Washington, I think it would be pretty popular.
The chicken and egg problem is hard to crack. Not enough transit riders -> high car usage -> not enough transit riders -> ...
If we all throw up our hands and say "too hard" it's only going to get worse. Growing up in Seattle and Tacoma, it was pretty frustrating to hear about the supposed light rail connection between the two that's been promised and delayed countless times over the last 20+ years.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_process
A lot of me wonders if the root is less a lack of specifically transit, and more of the broader oft-discussed problem of decaying ability to efficiently build public infrastructure/motivate capital improvements.
Novelty hill rd in the NE was supposed to be 4 lanes, even through the switchback, but because of bad contractor (likely back-scratching internally) and a lack of contractual protections, 4 lanes were paid for but 2 were obtained. If we can't even do simple things right (that road typically bottlenecks for ~20-30 miles straight during rush hour, and is single lane, so no bus advantage) and your aformentioned rail link, it's really a moot point, so the focus might need to be on governance than on the transit itself.
(To address your suggestions, I agree that dedicated bus lanes might be helpful, but worry that given the respective usage volumes 1. would it be effective and 2. can you convince everyone else potential further limitation to their lanes is worth it?. Not to say "throw hands up" but it might need to come coupled with a proposal to offer more car bandwidth.
I've always been skeptical of bike lanes on the longer-haul lines outside of city centers, because at least for the area I live in with huge gaps between "stuff", (and with our weather/geography) it's not a feasible form of long-term travel for most people, even for things like picking up groceries. If it can be built without impacting road bandwidth/significantly increasing cost, I obviously see that as a plus, but I'd need to be convinced that the tradeoff actually provided the right outcome.
My focus is typically on rail build-out, improving bus usage, and aforementioned governance/efficiency, as these seem to align incentives pretty well among various groups of transit users.)
Novelty hill rd in the NE was supposed to be 4 lanes, even through the switchback, but because of bad contractor (likely back-scratching internally) and a lack of contractual protections, 4 lanes were paid for but 2 were obtained. If we can't even do simple things right (that road typically bottlenecks for ~20-30 miles straight during rush hour, and is single lane, so no bus advantage) and your aformentioned rail link, it's really a moot point, so the focus might need to be on governance than on the transit itself.
(To address your suggestions, I agree that dedicated bus lanes might be helpful, but worry that given the respective usage volumes 1. would it be effective and 2. can you convince everyone else potential further limitation to their lanes is worth it?. Not to say "throw hands up" but it might need to come coupled with a proposal to offer more car bandwidth.
I've always been skeptical of bike lanes on the longer-haul lines outside of city centers, because at least for the area I live in with huge gaps between "stuff", (and with our weather/geography) it's not a feasible form of long-term travel for most people, even for things like picking up groceries. If it can be built without impacting road bandwidth/significantly increasing cost, I obviously see that as a plus, but I'd need to be convinced that the tradeoff actually provided the right outcome.
My focus is typically on rail build-out, improving bus usage, and aforementioned governance/efficiency, as these seem to align incentives pretty well among various groups of transit users.)
Yeah, LA has a lot of commuter express buses from the suburbs that only have 3-4 stops. The problem is you're stuck in the same freeway traffic that everyone else is. Despite this, I know several people taking these buses, which are ~2.5 hour one way trips during rush hour.
That's only a problem because the government doesn't reserve lanes for the busses.
LA also seems to be building a ton of rail. The Expo Line to Santa Monica was completed recently, and they're currently building the Crenshaw Line to LAX, the Purple Line extension into Beverly Hills, and a new set of stations downtown with more in the pipeline.
[deleted]
> In Seattle
Seattle is a really bad example if you want to talk about poor public transportation. Seattle is one of the few places where bus ridership is increasing. Living anywhere with 5 miles of downtown (beside some areas divided by water) makes having a car somewhere between optional and inconvenient. It's one of the few places where bus ridership is increasing, and Sound Transit 3's implementation will make the Link Light Rail much more accessible. The number of bike trails and separated bike paths is arguably at the point where we might have too many for bike ridership levels. The city is very anticar, increasing the area where minimum parking requirements are not required, making bus only lanes in high traffic downtown areas, and talking about a downtown toll.
Saying it takes 1.5-2 hours to ride a bus from the east side to the city ignores the fact that it takes more than an hour to do so in a car. Not to mention how important the I 90 floating bridge light rail project is to further connect the east side to the city.
Transportation sucks in Seattle because of the population growth and the lack of investment in the 60s and 70s. Most of the things Seattle and King County has done in the last 20 years in regards to public transportation is correct with a few notable but not critical exceptions.
Seattle is a really bad example if you want to talk about poor public transportation. Seattle is one of the few places where bus ridership is increasing. Living anywhere with 5 miles of downtown (beside some areas divided by water) makes having a car somewhere between optional and inconvenient. It's one of the few places where bus ridership is increasing, and Sound Transit 3's implementation will make the Link Light Rail much more accessible. The number of bike trails and separated bike paths is arguably at the point where we might have too many for bike ridership levels. The city is very anticar, increasing the area where minimum parking requirements are not required, making bus only lanes in high traffic downtown areas, and talking about a downtown toll.
Saying it takes 1.5-2 hours to ride a bus from the east side to the city ignores the fact that it takes more than an hour to do so in a car. Not to mention how important the I 90 floating bridge light rail project is to further connect the east side to the city.
Transportation sucks in Seattle because of the population growth and the lack of investment in the 60s and 70s. Most of the things Seattle and King County has done in the last 20 years in regards to public transportation is correct with a few notable but not critical exceptions.
> Saying it takes 1.5-2 hours to ride a bus from the east side to the city ignores the fact that it takes more than an hour to do so in a car.
But, that's a key part of the problem. It's easy to compromise and take public transit instead of a car when the public transit saves you time. For many trips between popular commuting destinations, Seattle doesn't have that yet.
Seattle doesn't have good public transit because it's getting better, it is getting better because it has so much catching up to do. Right now we're pretty good at filling busses with riders, then jamming those busses up in traffic.
There wasn't just a critical lack of investment in the 60s and 70s - the 80s and 90s didn't make great progress with infrastructure either. What did Seattle have to show by 2000? Less than a mile of monorail, a downtown transit tunnel, and a few retired streetcar lines?
Seattle's first light-rail line opened in 2009. By comparison, Portland's MAX opened in 1986 and had over 50 miles of light rail by that point.
I'm optimistic that things are getting better and heading in the right direction, but am sympathetic to the argument that Seattle's system is poor - because in many ways it is.
But, that's a key part of the problem. It's easy to compromise and take public transit instead of a car when the public transit saves you time. For many trips between popular commuting destinations, Seattle doesn't have that yet.
Seattle doesn't have good public transit because it's getting better, it is getting better because it has so much catching up to do. Right now we're pretty good at filling busses with riders, then jamming those busses up in traffic.
There wasn't just a critical lack of investment in the 60s and 70s - the 80s and 90s didn't make great progress with infrastructure either. What did Seattle have to show by 2000? Less than a mile of monorail, a downtown transit tunnel, and a few retired streetcar lines?
Seattle's first light-rail line opened in 2009. By comparison, Portland's MAX opened in 1986 and had over 50 miles of light rail by that point.
I'm optimistic that things are getting better and heading in the right direction, but am sympathetic to the argument that Seattle's system is poor - because in many ways it is.
> It's easy to compromise and take public transit instead of a car when the public transit saves you time.
And/or money. The public parking in the city is prohibitive, alone.
And/or money. The public parking in the city is prohibitive, alone.
> It's easy to compromise and take public transit instead of a car when the public transit saves you time.
I don't get this at all. Between parking and traffic I almost always save time by taking the bus or riding a bike for trips less than 5 miles long.
I don't get this at all. Between parking and traffic I almost always save time by taking the bus or riding a bike for trips less than 5 miles long.
> The public parking in the city is prohibitive, alone.
Prohibitive, or correctly priced?
Prohibitive, or correctly priced?
I will candidly admit I've only had 5 years of context, but in those 5 years, while bus ridership may be increasing, my perception has not been that it's proportional to population growth, and a brief look at the data seems to back this up. (comparing % growth of ridership to % growth in population over the last 10~ years) [0][1] I don't want to come across as to criticize growth and progress, I don't have enough knowledge on what was done to address that. I just don't find the results to be sufficient; as you said, population growth is a huge factor, and that's what renders this a pressing issue.
I agree that we're probably paying for a lack of investment; to the point of my comparison with Philadelphia where the infrastructure was in place. I'd reference my other comment questioning governance, since while you say a few notable but not critical exceptions, I find massive build-out times (Overlake Transit Center, for instance, will be closed until 2023, assuming I'm not confusing dates), lack of funding (discussed this issue at a local city council meeting, apparently it's partly a state/federal problem), and mismanagement (see other comment) to be quite prevelent. I may well be seeing a small slice of this, but my slice's commute is looking anywhere but up, even considering future development.
I'd also add that I didn't ignore that it takes an hour in the car. I'd agree, it takes an hour in a car. But you're in your own car, which many people see as a positive despite the mental overhead of driving, and that's still less time, variance, and inconvenience than the bus. I can only speak to the # of cars I see in the lots at work, these are clearly sufficient dis-incentives to the bus as it currently exists, and we can't ignore that if we want to improve the situation. (I'd also note that your mention of "less than 5 miles of downtown" makes me think we may be looking at very different strata of things; perhaps I should have said initially "Seattle Area", the trains I was referring to in Philly go 20+ miles out in many directions)
[0]https://www.kingcounty.gov/independent/forecasting/King%20Co... [1]https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Qyj31NiW1kc30GX9PCNr...
I agree that we're probably paying for a lack of investment; to the point of my comparison with Philadelphia where the infrastructure was in place. I'd reference my other comment questioning governance, since while you say a few notable but not critical exceptions, I find massive build-out times (Overlake Transit Center, for instance, will be closed until 2023, assuming I'm not confusing dates), lack of funding (discussed this issue at a local city council meeting, apparently it's partly a state/federal problem), and mismanagement (see other comment) to be quite prevelent. I may well be seeing a small slice of this, but my slice's commute is looking anywhere but up, even considering future development.
I'd also add that I didn't ignore that it takes an hour in the car. I'd agree, it takes an hour in a car. But you're in your own car, which many people see as a positive despite the mental overhead of driving, and that's still less time, variance, and inconvenience than the bus. I can only speak to the # of cars I see in the lots at work, these are clearly sufficient dis-incentives to the bus as it currently exists, and we can't ignore that if we want to improve the situation. (I'd also note that your mention of "less than 5 miles of downtown" makes me think we may be looking at very different strata of things; perhaps I should have said initially "Seattle Area", the trains I was referring to in Philly go 20+ miles out in many directions)
[0]https://www.kingcounty.gov/independent/forecasting/King%20Co... [1]https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Qyj31NiW1kc30GX9PCNr...
> it would end up being highly regressive punishing those forced to live further out and with no option but to use a car
I feel like zoning regulations that altogether prohibit housing density in US cities play an extremely large part in this, and that shitty US transit and strict land-use regulations in US are not two independent phenomena. Allowing landowners to build apartments (or single-family homes on very small lots with high lot coverage and no setbacks, or duplexes/triplexes/quadplexes, etc) with density commensurate with the market need allows transit to suck far less (as does letting transit operators to build their rights-of-way along sensical alignments and allowing commercial density around train stations).
I feel like zoning regulations that altogether prohibit housing density in US cities play an extremely large part in this, and that shitty US transit and strict land-use regulations in US are not two independent phenomena. Allowing landowners to build apartments (or single-family homes on very small lots with high lot coverage and no setbacks, or duplexes/triplexes/quadplexes, etc) with density commensurate with the market need allows transit to suck far less (as does letting transit operators to build their rights-of-way along sensical alignments and allowing commercial density around train stations).
Zoning is the problem, especially parking minimums. Not only are areas zoned to only allow single-family homes (thus reducing density), but many zoning codes mandate a certain number of parking spots for every new business, leading to a car-centric lifestyle.
I read about this a lot, but looking at different cities from airplane windows really drives this factor home.
If you want to get rid of minimums per building look at the upgrade path.
Parking /silos/ owned by the city, right at transit transition hubs, at the edge.
The use case is driving in from the 'savage lands', having ample (free (paid for the same way roads are)) parking, and transferring to the local rail/bus/people-mover-belt system of the dense urban core.
Parking /silos/ owned by the city, right at transit transition hubs, at the edge.
The use case is driving in from the 'savage lands', having ample (free (paid for the same way roads are)) parking, and transferring to the local rail/bus/people-mover-belt system of the dense urban core.
Put another way, letting people live in comfortable homes, free of noise, light, and smell pollution from neighbors, has transit costs. Having a miserable home in order to get fast commutes isn't a trade everyone wants.
While this may be true, I'd like to see some unrented apartments in major cities that can't be filled before we decry this solution. Rents have been skyrocketing - so it appears there's a lot of people who WOULD like this trade, but can't do it.
The opposite is true. If people wanted these homes on large lots isolated from neighbors, you wouldn’t have to make it illegal to build other kinds of homes.
In my area, the government will use its monopoly on violence to keep you from building in a lot smaller than one third of an acre. Yet, in my pre-code subdivision (exempt from the minimum), houses are being built on 1/12 acre lots and selling just fine. In the rest of the county, the low density you see doesn’t reflect what people want. It reflects what a minority of people who control the local government have imposed on everyone else.
In my area, the government will use its monopoly on violence to keep you from building in a lot smaller than one third of an acre. Yet, in my pre-code subdivision (exempt from the minimum), houses are being built on 1/12 acre lots and selling just fine. In the rest of the county, the low density you see doesn’t reflect what people want. It reflects what a minority of people who control the local government have imposed on everyone else.
Right now there's very little around the US that's in the middle. On the one hand there's urban areas with no parking-minimums, mixed-use zoning, and cramped development. On the other is suburban and rural areas where there are strict parking minimums and single-family homes everywhere.
A more reasonable way to develop a city would be to have a cramped, urban core where everything is well connected, has low parking minimums, and minimal zoning restrictions, surrounded by areas of gradually decreasing density, and holding parking in "rings" around these areas. In my mind, I'd like to organize the city in these rings: walkable, bikable, short-drive/suburban, long-drive/rural.
The big issue is the US has made up-zoning impossible. There are no mandatory zoning changes as people move to an area, or anything of that nature. Add to this that many American homeowners derive a significant portion of their equity from their house value and you have a situation where it is very difficult for any area of the US to expand to accommodate to an influx of population.
A more reasonable way to develop a city would be to have a cramped, urban core where everything is well connected, has low parking minimums, and minimal zoning restrictions, surrounded by areas of gradually decreasing density, and holding parking in "rings" around these areas. In my mind, I'd like to organize the city in these rings: walkable, bikable, short-drive/suburban, long-drive/rural.
The big issue is the US has made up-zoning impossible. There are no mandatory zoning changes as people move to an area, or anything of that nature. Add to this that many American homeowners derive a significant portion of their equity from their house value and you have a situation where it is very difficult for any area of the US to expand to accommodate to an influx of population.
Can't you tax all the people which have a car and are close to public transportation that makes center accessible, with those taxes finance public transit expansion and slowly tax people close to the new expansion?
This is an absolutely terrible idea, and really hurts the lower class, especially in sprawled out places like the US. Often times, housing that low-income people can afford are not near their jobs or places of business. Sometimes, owning a personal use automobile is the only reasonable way to get across town to their jobs, or back to their home in time for an evening with their kids. Raising the cost of driving artificially directly impacts the lower income groups at a far more impactful rate than the higher income groups.
Long story short, a flat toll is an incredibly regressive tax and directly damages lower income communities.
Long story short, a flat toll is an incredibly regressive tax and directly damages lower income communities.
But the opposite is also true - cities have sprawled out to the degree that they have in part because driving is subsidized. You are quite right that addressing this too quickly can hurt a lot of people with limited means, but maintaining artificially low cost of driving isn't doing anyone any favors either.
> driving is subsidized
This seems like such a weird commend given that the top of this thread is advocating making drivers subsidize public transportation to encourage people to use it.
When ~90% of adults in the US drive it's hard to argue that driving is being subsidized by anyone other than people who drive. And that's before we account for the forms of tax revenue used for these subsidies that are paid for exclusively by drivers -- like gas and registration.
This seems like such a weird commend given that the top of this thread is advocating making drivers subsidize public transportation to encourage people to use it.
When ~90% of adults in the US drive it's hard to argue that driving is being subsidized by anyone other than people who drive. And that's before we account for the forms of tax revenue used for these subsidies that are paid for exclusively by drivers -- like gas and registration.
There probably aren't a lot of people getting cheated, paying a lot in and getting nothing out, because so many people drive, yes. This is a valid point (although the distribution of infrastructure spending may not match the driving). However, the other trouble with automobile subsidies is they are invisible. An individual can't see the true marginal cost of their use, either direct (road wear) or indirect (sprawl, parking lot oceans).
Behavior would change dramatically if, e.g., you had a GPS tracker logging miles and you paid a monthly road use bill, and parking spots were all metered at their true cost.
Behavior would change dramatically if, e.g., you had a GPS tracker logging miles and you paid a monthly road use bill, and parking spots were all metered at their true cost.
Drivers and Parkers get a huge free real estate subsidy.
People who don't drive are subsidizing drivers by not joining traffic.
People who don't drive are subsidizing drivers by not joining traffic.
From who? Parking is expensive, or paid for by business owners who want customers, or paid through the tax dollars of mostly drivers.
And if we're talking about subsidies let's take NYC public transportation as an example: They get $6.2B in fares and $8.2B in subsidies from:
- General fund (state & local). - Gas taxes. - Taxes on homeowners. - Property taxes. - Payroll taxes. - Tolls.
So if you want to be gung-ho about killing subsidies you'll be taking most public transportation down with it.
And if we're talking about subsidies let's take NYC public transportation as an example: They get $6.2B in fares and $8.2B in subsidies from:
- General fund (state & local). - Gas taxes. - Taxes on homeowners. - Property taxes. - Payroll taxes. - Tolls.
So if you want to be gung-ho about killing subsidies you'll be taking most public transportation down with it.
> When ~90% of adults in the US drive it's hard to argue that driving is being subsidized by anyone other than people who drive. And that's before we account for the forms of tax revenue used for these subsidies that are paid for exclusively by drivers -- like gas and registration.
You need to look at the problem a little bit more. Designing a car-centered city and suburbs is expensive. You not only have to build highways to handle traffic, but your building options are limited because you need to build enough parking ; which results in sprawl, leading to less efficient use of the land. The higher costs due to this sprawl are undeniably borne by consumers. There are many other such hidden "subsidies" that have allowed such an overwhelming car-centric culture in the US.
You need to look at the problem a little bit more. Designing a car-centered city and suburbs is expensive. You not only have to build highways to handle traffic, but your building options are limited because you need to build enough parking ; which results in sprawl, leading to less efficient use of the land. The higher costs due to this sprawl are undeniably borne by consumers. There are many other such hidden "subsidies" that have allowed such an overwhelming car-centric culture in the US.
Actually that's about "the market" externalizing costs in to the commons.
A better question is why haven't cities required sufficient housing near jobs to keep the cost of rent (let alone actual ownership of even a condo) competitive with the suburbs via supply control?
A better question is why haven't cities required sufficient housing near jobs to keep the cost of rent (let alone actual ownership of even a condo) competitive with the suburbs via supply control?
> A better question is why haven't cities required sufficient housing near jobs
Because to require a particular level of housing near jobs would require a prohibition on offering jobs without developing additional housing, in effect limiting jobs. Even if local governments are given the power to do that, politically, citizens demand that politicians do what they can to encourage job creation, not limit it by some other constraint.
Because to require a particular level of housing near jobs would require a prohibition on offering jobs without developing additional housing, in effect limiting jobs. Even if local governments are given the power to do that, politically, citizens demand that politicians do what they can to encourage job creation, not limit it by some other constraint.
You're taking this the wrong way; I'm not saying that jobs or housing should be directly limited. I'm saying that it's the job of the governance of a region to fulfill the needs of it's people.
Need for housing ~= {jobs} + {adult students} + {unemployed} + {retired} + {liquidity room} - {All housing in the market}
If the need for housing is positive than actions should be taken to accelerate and promote the development or re-development of new planned accommodations.
If the need is /dire/ (as it is for the large west coast cities) then that the government should take on the buy out and re-development of entire neighborhoods in to areas that are suitable for the continued health and prosperity of the whole (as private interests have clearly failed to do so or regulations have not allowed them to do so).
This planning and redevelopment should also include mass transit and other resources as well as more than meeting 'minimum code' for all construction. (My own views about the inadequacy of such codes are out of the scope of this topic.)
That would help prevent the decline of public transit.
Need for housing ~= {jobs} + {adult students} + {unemployed} + {retired} + {liquidity room} - {All housing in the market}
If the need for housing is positive than actions should be taken to accelerate and promote the development or re-development of new planned accommodations.
If the need is /dire/ (as it is for the large west coast cities) then that the government should take on the buy out and re-development of entire neighborhoods in to areas that are suitable for the continued health and prosperity of the whole (as private interests have clearly failed to do so or regulations have not allowed them to do so).
This planning and redevelopment should also include mass transit and other resources as well as more than meeting 'minimum code' for all construction. (My own views about the inadequacy of such codes are out of the scope of this topic.)
That would help prevent the decline of public transit.
[deleted]
Drivers already don't pay for the infrastructure they use. Both public and private are subsidized by the government, hence everyone.
Imagine the flip side: a city with functional public transit, where most poor people take subways and buses to get to work. Now someone proposes cutting down on public transit because you can always buy a car and that gives you more freedom.
Imagine how much burden it would be for a poor family to suddenly have to buy a car.
That's the cost America is passing on to poor families. It just doesn't look like much because it's been thoroughly normalized.
* That said, of course with change of policy some people will be hit and some poor people will be hit the hardest, so there should be mitigating measure.
Imagine how much burden it would be for a poor family to suddenly have to buy a car.
That's the cost America is passing on to poor families. It just doesn't look like much because it's been thoroughly normalized.
* That said, of course with change of policy some people will be hit and some poor people will be hit the hardest, so there should be mitigating measure.
> That said, of course with change of policy some people will be hit and some poor people will be hit the hardest, so there should be mitigating measure.
No it won't hit poor people at all if you fund it with progressive taxes and ticket sales. Car ownership on the other hand is not only expensive and unreliable (if you can't afford to buy decent cars), its ridiculously dangerous, increases stress and decreases well being. A well designed public transport assists the poor by making it much safer, cheaper and faster to come into the denser areas (typically with better/higher paying jobs) for work while living in lower COL suburbs.
I sincerely believe that impediments to more public transportation in the US is not chiefly financial; I believe its mostly due to what was before racism, and now is just NIMBYism. People don't want a bus stop or train station in their neighborhood, which will attract the homeless/poor/lower classes etc.
No it won't hit poor people at all if you fund it with progressive taxes and ticket sales. Car ownership on the other hand is not only expensive and unreliable (if you can't afford to buy decent cars), its ridiculously dangerous, increases stress and decreases well being. A well designed public transport assists the poor by making it much safer, cheaper and faster to come into the denser areas (typically with better/higher paying jobs) for work while living in lower COL suburbs.
I sincerely believe that impediments to more public transportation in the US is not chiefly financial; I believe its mostly due to what was before racism, and now is just NIMBYism. People don't want a bus stop or train station in their neighborhood, which will attract the homeless/poor/lower classes etc.
It's still partially racist. Just look at Atlanta and Detroit's lack of regional transit.
This is a really good point.
My life living in London would be hugely more expensive if I had to buy a car to get around - not to mention a lot worse since cycling is so much better for me and everyone else.
My life living in London would be hugely more expensive if I had to buy a car to get around - not to mention a lot worse since cycling is so much better for me and everyone else.
Isn't it a stereotype that poor people are the ones taking the bus/train?
It’s the stereotype, not the reality. Check out the housing prices near frequently-served bus stops in your local city.
Rich and poor do both. Poor people have longer trips on BOTH transit and cars.
Depends on the city. You can't really do it in Atlanta unless you can afford to live near a stop.
If it is automated, there is no reason the fee couldn’t be progressive.
In Stockholm it's done by cameras that read the license plate (automated payment once a month can be set up). So no, progressive taxing would not at all be impossible (but perhaps unpopular in the US).
I travel 40 mins daily across town in stockholm. Change subway once for each journey. I travel at 08.30 and home at 17.15. I always get a set both ways. I turn on my laptop, work on the 4g connection all the way home. Rarely is there any problem.
I assume you live near Tunnelbanan and/or take the car regularly? Currently I spend about an hour each way on my commute (e-bike Täby -> Danderyd, then subway to T-Centralen), for a trip that GMaps says takes 20mins by car. And the piece of crap doesn't work during the winter. Alternately I could take two buses to Danderyd, for a total of 66 minutes in the absolute best case (never actually happens).
A car is absolutely #1 on my saving-target list, due to that. Oh, and being able to lock stuff inside it. The primary problem is the absolutely awful quality of service (in some areas, at least), not that it is somehow too expensive.
A car is absolutely #1 on my saving-target list, due to that. Oh, and being able to lock stuff inside it. The primary problem is the absolutely awful quality of service (in some areas, at least), not that it is somehow too expensive.
This approach would place a disproportionate tax burden on the poorest sectors of the population, at least in the US. It's mandatory to have a car in order to get to work in most parts of the country. The structure already exists, punishing the least fortunate because of existing systems and structures seems punitive.
The poorest Americans do not own cars.
Three quarters of poor people in America have cars [0]. While the poorest people do not have them, car ownership is very common among poor Americans.
https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/under...
https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/under...
> Of course it should be heavily taxed so that cycling, bus and subway infrastructure can be financed.
I like sentences that start with "Of course...". But I tend to think that Stockholm might not be a very representative city of the worst transportation problems.
Stockholm has a population of ~950,000 (or 2.3 million metro) and a city area of 188 km². Contrast that with London with 8.1 million (13.6 million metro) people and 1,572 km². Plus, there are unique geographical characteristics, different population distributions and infrastructures. All these affect commute times and congestion.
I don't think the solution in Stockholm is nearly universal. It might solve the specific problems of that specific city but would fail in many ways if applied blindly in many other places.
I like sentences that start with "Of course...". But I tend to think that Stockholm might not be a very representative city of the worst transportation problems.
Stockholm has a population of ~950,000 (or 2.3 million metro) and a city area of 188 km². Contrast that with London with 8.1 million (13.6 million metro) people and 1,572 km². Plus, there are unique geographical characteristics, different population distributions and infrastructures. All these affect commute times and congestion.
I don't think the solution in Stockholm is nearly universal. It might solve the specific problems of that specific city but would fail in many ways if applied blindly in many other places.
> I don't think the solution in Stockholm is nearly universal. It might solve the specific problems of that specific city but would fail in many ways if applied blindly in many other places.
Or it may work even better in other cities. What differences between London and Stockholm makes you think that it is going to work worse?
> All these affect commute times and congestion.
And that is why London needs it more than Stockholm. And that is why London already does it. (https://www.visitlondon.com/traveller-information/getting-ar...)
Or it may work even better in other cities. What differences between London and Stockholm makes you think that it is going to work worse?
> All these affect commute times and congestion.
And that is why London needs it more than Stockholm. And that is why London already does it. (https://www.visitlondon.com/traveller-information/getting-ar...)
> It's not rocket science
It is not complicated to say that, it is complicated to get those issues past when a large majority of people drive and will never want to stop.
It is not complicated to say that, it is complicated to get those issues past when a large majority of people drive and will never want to stop.
Why would you want to stop and switch to public transportation? It's a pretty significant QoL downgrade. If you can afford a car you pretty much always want to.
There is no horizon in sight where shared transportation will actually be an improvement on cars so it's always going to be kind of a futile battle.
There is no horizon in sight where shared transportation will actually be an improvement on cars so it's always going to be kind of a futile battle.
I can afford a car but choose not buy one because riding a bike and taking public transport is a more convenient and often faster than taking the car. I don't have to look for parking spots, I don't have to refuel the car, I save a lot of money, I don't have to do maintenance on the car... owning a car just doesn't make much sense here in Berlin if you don't have to transport children around.
Out of curiosity how do you finance all this public transport when driving is so expensive you lose money with each tax increase?
It's a balancing act I suppose. People still find that it's worth paying to take the car, but not to the same extent as without the tolls (it only costs between $1 and $4 depending on the time of the day). I'd guess there's still some headroom for increasing the tolls without decreasing the car traffic too much.
If it were too expensive there'd be less money to finance public transportation which, I guess, creates a strange dependency. It somehow works, but there's still of course far too much car traffic.
If it were too expensive there'd be less money to finance public transportation which, I guess, creates a strange dependency. It somehow works, but there's still of course far too much car traffic.
Technology never solved human nature related problems tho, and in public transport we have a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons.
yeah that ain't gunna do shit to fix bart. (seriously though, the problems w/ mass transit, at least here in the bay area, are not simply "not enough money".)
A significant facet of the decline is overcrowding. This is a prescription to make that part of the crisis far worse.
The epicenter of this decline is New York, where cars are already impractical and everyone already relies on the subway.
The epicenter of this decline is New York, where cars are already impractical and everyone already relies on the subway.
Where i'm at in Michigan, they always put any kind of transit funding proposal on the ballet. This obviously gets voted down because most people don't want higher taxes for system that will only benefit urbanites in the short term. And the politicians who don't want transit know this.
It becomes obvious what they are doing when more funding for freeway expansions just gets rubber-stamped. That is "an executive decision" by the politicians for "long-term success of the region".
The entire funding model is aligned where they can move money around for more roads, but any public transit funding should be "up to the people to decide"
It becomes obvious what they are doing when more funding for freeway expansions just gets rubber-stamped. That is "an executive decision" by the politicians for "long-term success of the region".
The entire funding model is aligned where they can move money around for more roads, but any public transit funding should be "up to the people to decide"
> This obviously gets voted down because most people don't want higher taxes for system that will only benefit urbanites in the short term.
There's more to it than that though. In cities not named Chicago, DC, and New York, these stupid light rail measures inevitably end up with trips that take waaaay longer than driving, and still involve driving to a bus station. Patronage is predictably low and the system loses money per passenger in perpetuity. No, that can't be why people vote these down, they're just hating on them fancy downtown folks.
There's more to it than that though. In cities not named Chicago, DC, and New York, these stupid light rail measures inevitably end up with trips that take waaaay longer than driving, and still involve driving to a bus station. Patronage is predictably low and the system loses money per passenger in perpetuity. No, that can't be why people vote these down, they're just hating on them fancy downtown folks.
I recently took a trip to Bochum, Germany. They have a light rail system that goes to every small suburb, the university, and is centered at the Bochum city train station where there are cabs, bus lines and connections that get you to any surrounding city.
It is maybe 6-8 lines total and was incredibly useful because it was designed to be, I didnt need a car to get anywhere and it was clean and cheap (2 euros per trip) .
The new Q-line in Detroit is 1 line that is three miles total and is more designed as a tourist trap, most people dont work three miles away from where they live. You need to connect it to other systems like an airport or a bus station, and you need more than 1 line (duh).
If you gave everyone horses and only build a three mile road you wouldn't say that "cars are a failure, and roads lose money". For some reason in the States we build out a tiny one line system and then throw our hands up in the air when nobody rides it.
It is maybe 6-8 lines total and was incredibly useful because it was designed to be, I didnt need a car to get anywhere and it was clean and cheap (2 euros per trip) .
The new Q-line in Detroit is 1 line that is three miles total and is more designed as a tourist trap, most people dont work three miles away from where they live. You need to connect it to other systems like an airport or a bus station, and you need more than 1 line (duh).
If you gave everyone horses and only build a three mile road you wouldn't say that "cars are a failure, and roads lose money". For some reason in the States we build out a tiny one line system and then throw our hands up in the air when nobody rides it.
Worse than that, in the states we often build the lines between places where nobody wants to live or get to. A low density slum that only the poor live in on one end, and a nearly dead mall on the other. The few who live near the line find that it doesn't go to where they can find a job so they never use it. Then it dies.
Building a train can make sense. There is a very simple and relatively cheap way to test your route before building rail: put an express bus route on the nearby roads, and give them the same controls emergency vehicles have to change the lights when they come. If the train makes sense this bus route will be always busy and make money. You can even adjust the bus route a few times to study alternate routes. Of course nobody wants to do this as it would kill their pet project.
Building a train can make sense. There is a very simple and relatively cheap way to test your route before building rail: put an express bus route on the nearby roads, and give them the same controls emergency vehicles have to change the lights when they come. If the train makes sense this bus route will be always busy and make money. You can even adjust the bus route a few times to study alternate routes. Of course nobody wants to do this as it would kill their pet project.
>Q-line
Most American streetcar systems suffer the same fate: Shiny but slow, much like a theme park monorail; and sold first as a way to boost property values and economic development. They are designed to do everything except provide a useful way to commute.
Most American streetcar systems suffer the same fate: Shiny but slow, much like a theme park monorail; and sold first as a way to boost property values and economic development. They are designed to do everything except provide a useful way to commute.
That's probably because "doing it right" is expensive.
There should be an 'express' bypass (which actually does this) that hops only among key points (such as the airport to a downtown hub, and maybe the next hub out on the other side).
There should also be /frequent/ service - which probably means you need fully automated routes (it might be best to move the humans to supervising the actual concourses, where human interactions are highest). I also like the idea of a couple days of subservience that's automatically deleted if not expressly copied out for legal proceedings.
Finally, everything should be enclosed and on it's own isolated layer. Subways sound great, above-surface enclosures might work too.
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Why enclosed? Security, noise abatement, weather isolation. The middle point lets you run the trains faster and with less disruption.
There should be an 'express' bypass (which actually does this) that hops only among key points (such as the airport to a downtown hub, and maybe the next hub out on the other side).
There should also be /frequent/ service - which probably means you need fully automated routes (it might be best to move the humans to supervising the actual concourses, where human interactions are highest). I also like the idea of a couple days of subservience that's automatically deleted if not expressly copied out for legal proceedings.
Finally, everything should be enclosed and on it's own isolated layer. Subways sound great, above-surface enclosures might work too.
-
Why enclosed? Security, noise abatement, weather isolation. The middle point lets you run the trains faster and with less disruption.
> the system loses money per passenger in perpetuity
To the parent's point, the U.S. system for cars does as well. Including highway + local road funding (and delayed funding that has led to roads and bridges collapsing), parking lot real estate costs, oil exploration subsidies, the national oil reserve, pipeline and ocean damages, national defense, and more.
To the parent's point, the U.S. system for cars does as well. Including highway + local road funding (and delayed funding that has led to roads and bridges collapsing), parking lot real estate costs, oil exploration subsidies, the national oil reserve, pipeline and ocean damages, national defense, and more.
> still involve driving to a bus station
This is often the equivalent of those cities commuter rail; and one interpretation is not enough readily available last mile options.
Bonus, not everybody drives to those bus station, some of us bike to the rail/bus station. (anecdotally)
This is often the equivalent of those cities commuter rail; and one interpretation is not enough readily available last mile options.
Bonus, not everybody drives to those bus station, some of us bike to the rail/bus station. (anecdotally)
For the NYC subway trains: get rid of the dance troupes, musicians, beggars, and crazy people.
I would pay extra for the NYC subway user experience to be like the LIRR user experience. Why can’t it be?
Why do I have to dread getting on the subway after 10pm?
Why do I have to put up with mariachi bands playing in my ear at 6am?
Why do I have to worry about my face getting kicked by a dancer during my commute?
I would pay extra for the NYC subway user experience to be like the LIRR user experience. Why can’t it be?
Why do I have to dread getting on the subway after 10pm?
Why do I have to put up with mariachi bands playing in my ear at 6am?
Why do I have to worry about my face getting kicked by a dancer during my commute?
I like it though, so let’s get separate cars.
One word: comfort.
Riding the public transportation systems meant I would arrive at work sweaty (hot crowded train and bus), with a backache (inadequate seats) and a headache (noisy engine).
Those issues made my life so miserable that I swore never to ride those again.
Riding the public transportation systems meant I would arrive at work sweaty (hot crowded train and bus), with a backache (inadequate seats) and a headache (noisy engine).
Those issues made my life so miserable that I swore never to ride those again.
All those issues can be fixed with more funding and better equipment. Not saying you're wrong, but the issues are not unsurmountable. In most cases people will have a handful of bad experiences and default back to their comfort zone.
I prefer to travel by subway in Stockholm because of the comfort. It's a money issue, plain and simple. Jeff Bezos could fix the problem for the whole US all by himself. Will he? Will he, my ass!
Maybe it's a bad idea to let people get really rich.
Sweden has more billionaires per capita than the US.
I'm not talking about the US. I'm talking about the world. This is not a competition. Maybe it is generally a bad idea to concentrate financial means in few people.
I don't want to depend on a billionaire's altruism.
I don't want to depend on a billionaire's altruism.
Counterpoints:
1. It's not concentration, it's creation. There's probably not an active conspiracy to make the rich richer. (Your phrasing seemed to connotate that)
http://www.paulgraham.com/ineq.html
2. We tried forming a broad spanning coalition and charging it wit public transportation (among other things). Then we gave it 30-40% of all economic activity. And yet, people apparently still feel like only excitable billionaires can fix public transport. I don't see how taking more money from the billionaires and putting it into the government would help.
2. We tried forming a broad spanning coalition and charging it wit public transportation (among other things). Then we gave it 30-40% of all economic activity. And yet, people apparently still feel like only excitable billionaires can fix public transport. I don't see how taking more money from the billionaires and putting it into the government would help.
Not really. In Belgium we went from this comfy setting https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/MS... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/MS... to this https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/MS...
No more adjustable tray for laptop or books in the back of seat. No more armchairs and the whole seat seems to be designed to be uncomfortable.
One of the reason I now rather listen to podcasts in my car on the highway than not being able to work in the train. No more
No more adjustable tray for laptop or books in the back of seat. No more armchairs and the whole seat seems to be designed to be uncomfortable.
One of the reason I now rather listen to podcasts in my car on the highway than not being able to work in the train. No more
I don't really understand. You don't get a laptop tray while driving a car, and you're able to listen to podcasts on a train.
Somehow my post was scrambled (I blame cosmic rays).
If I go by train I expect to be able to work (to compensate for the stress of missing a connection or being late). I can easily listen to podcasts in my car and in much better condition than in the train (plus the fact that 99% of the time I'll be at the office on time).
All in all I don't want to listen to podcasts but I'd rather to listen to podcasts in my car on my way to work than sitting in one of the new and upgraded train seats which don't allow working with a laptop.
Besides, listening to podcasts with a headphone in the train is a no-no because I need to crank up the volume.
If I go by train I expect to be able to work (to compensate for the stress of missing a connection or being late). I can easily listen to podcasts in my car and in much better condition than in the train (plus the fact that 99% of the time I'll be at the office on time).
All in all I don't want to listen to podcasts but I'd rather to listen to podcasts in my car on my way to work than sitting in one of the new and upgraded train seats which don't allow working with a laptop.
Besides, listening to podcasts with a headphone in the train is a no-no because I need to crank up the volume.
All issues can be fixed with more funding
From that perspective, it highly depends on your point of view. I'd rather read the news and sip coffee on the bus than white knuckle it through stressful, cut-throat gridlock.
True.
But still, riding in a bus is not a good experience.
Now let's imagine, if riding in a bus was a great experience, maybe more people were more forgiving to how much time it takes ?
But still, riding in a bus is not a good experience.
Now let's imagine, if riding in a bus was a great experience, maybe more people were more forgiving to how much time it takes ?
I agree. I think that one reason I prefer to commute by train instead of car is because I had a friend in middle school lose her father to a heart attack during his daily commute.
What country are you in? Out of all the public transport complaints I'm familiar with, "the train is too hot and the engine gives me a headache" is not one I've heard before.
What about the seats being very small, poorly shaped, and not padded at all?
How about the passengers that smell for lack of bathing, too much drink, or that smell like they are trying to cover up one of the other defects by covering themselves in potent airborne warfare agents? (E.G. those body sprays, perfumes, colognes, etc)
I think the above could probably be fixed by a combination of better social support policies and better social morals that helped to promote a tranquil ride zone in part of the transit cabins.
How about the passengers that smell for lack of bathing, too much drink, or that smell like they are trying to cover up one of the other defects by covering themselves in potent airborne warfare agents? (E.G. those body sprays, perfumes, colognes, etc)
I think the above could probably be fixed by a combination of better social support policies and better social morals that helped to promote a tranquil ride zone in part of the transit cabins.
> How about the passengers that smell for lack of bathing, too much drink, or that smell like they are trying to cover up one of the other defects by covering themselves in potent airborne warfare agents? (E.G. those body sprays, perfumes, colognes, etc)
The thing is, you would not notice any of those with proper ventilation and spacing/seating that meant we didn't have to sit on each others.
The thing is, you would not notice any of those with proper ventilation and spacing/seating that meant we didn't have to sit on each others.
Being a few inches farther away from a homeless person who hasn't bathed in weeks is not going to make much difference.
I specifically left out the seat bit because I've heard and experienced that one regularly.
[deleted]
Not to mention listening to peoples inane phone conversations, and having to shove other passengers legs out of the way when they think they can encroach on your seat space.
Bus drivers also tend towards the unpleasant. I realise it's a stressful job but that doesn't make my commute any better.
Bus drivers also tend towards the unpleasant. I realise it's a stressful job but that doesn't make my commute any better.
Seattle buses only have the noise problem.
I've dropped $350 on a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. It was the best investment I've made in a long time, because it let me ditch my car, without a serious reduction in commute comfort.
I've dropped $350 on a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. It was the best investment I've made in a long time, because it let me ditch my car, without a serious reduction in commute comfort.
Public transit works if large amounts of people move along predictable routes at predictable times, and the immense cost of infrastructure and operation is spread among a large pool. People desiring additional control and comfort can use personal vehicles, and use publicly-subsidized roadways, but fuel taxes, licensing fees, and tolls recoup a small portion of this cost from the operator.
As the article points out, newer car-hire services mount the most unfortunate competition, because they take advantage of the low costs of private vehicles' road use, and then turn around to collect a fare from each user, which, depending on market conditions, may or may not even result in an operating profit. While these are comfortable for their occupants, they clog up the streets more so than personal-use vehicles, which don't need to patrol the town when their driver is occupied. The fact that the likes of Uber notoriously ignore local regulations hurts even more. These car hire services pay the same way as private vehicles do, but the marginal difference between their usage goes not to the government's coffers, but to private operators.
As the article points out, newer car-hire services mount the most unfortunate competition, because they take advantage of the low costs of private vehicles' road use, and then turn around to collect a fare from each user, which, depending on market conditions, may or may not even result in an operating profit. While these are comfortable for their occupants, they clog up the streets more so than personal-use vehicles, which don't need to patrol the town when their driver is occupied. The fact that the likes of Uber notoriously ignore local regulations hurts even more. These car hire services pay the same way as private vehicles do, but the marginal difference between their usage goes not to the government's coffers, but to private operators.
The Tokyo metro is doing fine, maybe try learning from Japan?
Public transit works great in other countries. People in the US don’t like it because of the “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” thing, so we make up all these reasons about why it can’t work while setting up all future public transit up for failure (defunding, not letting it pass through areas people would want to travel to/from, failing to maintain it, bike-shedding for decades instead of building something, etc). As much as I hate to say it, I doubt we’ll see any successful public works projects happen in the next decade or two, and only then if things drastically improve.
People don't like it in the US, because it's overwhelmingly a shit experience. Are there any other countries in the world with the vastness of the US, that have awesome public transit? Everyone here is waaaaay more spread out. No excuse for cities, but most of us don't live in giant cities. It's just easier to take your car.
There has to be a point where you stop relying on national exceptionalism as the reason for why something can't happen, because all it sounds like is an excuse. It's as if you're saying you have a lot of land so there's no point in improving anything.
Public transport in the US is an overwhelmingly shit experience not because of the geography of the country, but because it all got sold out to lobbyists who wanted to sell as many cars as they could. Shit public transport = more cars.
It's overwhelmingly shit because urban planning favoured cookie-cutter suburbs far out of town, with no local amenities and no convenient transport connections in any reasonable walking distance. They never had to be designed that way.
Add to that the whole nuclear family rhetoric - a husband, a wife, some kids, a couple of cars...
People won't pay out of pocket to upgrade infrastructure and provide these services knowing how much they've been gutted over the past hundred years, so it really requires a government who is willing to invest in it and support it and begin to change the perception of public transport. That will probably come at a loss but an arguable purpose of a government is to provide such services that a corporate entity won't, without profit motive, because it is still ultimately in service of its people.
This isn't the only topic where people in the US are convinced they're in a unique situation that nobody else in the world has ever encountered and then solved, and I'm sure that it almost always boils down to some element of corporate lobbying that rejects any attempt to make life easy for citizens.
Public transport in the US is an overwhelmingly shit experience not because of the geography of the country, but because it all got sold out to lobbyists who wanted to sell as many cars as they could. Shit public transport = more cars.
It's overwhelmingly shit because urban planning favoured cookie-cutter suburbs far out of town, with no local amenities and no convenient transport connections in any reasonable walking distance. They never had to be designed that way.
Add to that the whole nuclear family rhetoric - a husband, a wife, some kids, a couple of cars...
People won't pay out of pocket to upgrade infrastructure and provide these services knowing how much they've been gutted over the past hundred years, so it really requires a government who is willing to invest in it and support it and begin to change the perception of public transport. That will probably come at a loss but an arguable purpose of a government is to provide such services that a corporate entity won't, without profit motive, because it is still ultimately in service of its people.
This isn't the only topic where people in the US are convinced they're in a unique situation that nobody else in the world has ever encountered and then solved, and I'm sure that it almost always boils down to some element of corporate lobbying that rejects any attempt to make life easy for citizens.
> lobbyists who wanted to sell as many cars as they could.
That's such a boring scapegoat. Rail was a plenty powerful industry at the time who afforded themselves plenty of lobbyists. Personal vehicles were a literal revolution. What always seems left out is that people overwhelmingly wanted this state of affairs and largely still do. People here are acting like people would love public transportation if only their minds hadn't been corrupted by the bad people.
> It's overwhelmingly shit because urban planning favoured cookie-cutter suburbs.
But now that we're here what do you propose we do? Going back in time for a do over isn't exactly a solution.
> People won't pay out of pocket to upgrade infrastructure.
* People who own cars don't use public transportation and have little desire to start.
* The overwhelming majority of people own cars.
* Public transportation comprehensive enough to replace cars is ludicrously expensive.
* People who don't use a thing don't want to pay for a thing.
=> It's not exactly a leap in logic that people wouldn't vote for it.
I think you've got a better chance of creating programs that just outright buy cars for the poor.
That's such a boring scapegoat. Rail was a plenty powerful industry at the time who afforded themselves plenty of lobbyists. Personal vehicles were a literal revolution. What always seems left out is that people overwhelmingly wanted this state of affairs and largely still do. People here are acting like people would love public transportation if only their minds hadn't been corrupted by the bad people.
> It's overwhelmingly shit because urban planning favoured cookie-cutter suburbs.
But now that we're here what do you propose we do? Going back in time for a do over isn't exactly a solution.
> People won't pay out of pocket to upgrade infrastructure.
* People who own cars don't use public transportation and have little desire to start.
* The overwhelming majority of people own cars.
* Public transportation comprehensive enough to replace cars is ludicrously expensive.
* People who don't use a thing don't want to pay for a thing.
=> It's not exactly a leap in logic that people wouldn't vote for it.
I think you've got a better chance of creating programs that just outright buy cars for the poor.
Fair points, but it feels like the product of an intensely individualistic society and at some point the impact of that has to be taken into consideration, considering the effect it has on government, policy, and culture.
If a group can look at evidence of successful public transport (and other things) and still decide that can never work for them, for various nonsensical reasons (big country, x million people, the guiding hand of the free market, whatever), then they can at least be honest with themselves and say what their problem really is.
If a group can look at evidence of successful public transport (and other things) and still decide that can never work for them, for various nonsensical reasons (big country, x million people, the guiding hand of the free market, whatever), then they can at least be honest with themselves and say what their problem really is.
Population density is about 4x in the US as it is in Sweden. The difference is planning is better here. That is, we pay for good government who do a good job planning how cities expand and putting infrastructure in place before growth happens. Everything can be solved by money, just pay more taxes and hold govt accountable, all will be good in 20-50 years (that's your catch-up time).
What's the habitable area of Sweden? No way it's as much as the US. There is very little farmland there. Look at the size of Canada, and most of it is useless beyond the southern greenbelt area.
US cities are denser than Swedish cities.
Rural areas are not the problem. People will have to use their cars in rural areas no matter what. But that’s fine - there’s no density there. You don’t see people complaining about traffic in rural areas either. The issue is the cities, and comparing cities in the US to cities in Canada, American cities lag in having good public transit.
China is just as big as the USA and the public transit is amazing.
It's overwhelmingly fine. Everyone's got a story about a bad experience, but so often I see these generalized into "it's just shit".
I've ridden TriMet daily in the past, SoundTransit daily, and the L in Chicago daily. (Now I bike.) Maybe one trip in 20 or 30 there'd be unpleasantness.
Not overwhelmingly a shit experience. Mostly fine.
(Also FYI 80% of the US lives in cities. And 82 million of us--a fourth of us--live in the top 10 metropolitan areas alone.)
I've ridden TriMet daily in the past, SoundTransit daily, and the L in Chicago daily. (Now I bike.) Maybe one trip in 20 or 30 there'd be unpleasantness.
Not overwhelmingly a shit experience. Mostly fine.
(Also FYI 80% of the US lives in cities. And 82 million of us--a fourth of us--live in the top 10 metropolitan areas alone.)
That 80% number is very misleading though because of the broad way the US Census categorizes urban. According to the census, my 7,000 person town is considered urban even though myself and my two neighbors are collectively on about 100 acres of land.
That is a consequence of failed premises in the city planning in the US.
People don't want to live on top of one another. We have a huge country, and we enjoy having our own land. I understand most people in this world don't understand that rationalization, but it is what it is. Murica.
The trend towards urbanization is unbroken. Most young people want to live in the city - and not just because of jobs
Then they wise up and leave to go somewhere they can afford and have some privacy, raise their kids, and the cycle starts anew.
Do you have any sort of proof that this happens on any sort of statistically significant basis? It appears most of the people in this country live in urban places and that this has been an upward trend for a long time...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_Sta...
Observation? Who the fuck wants to live cheek by jowl with other people if they don't have to?
Apparently most of America, wants to. Your observation doesn't really mean a whole lot, I could move to Michigan and buy a 10 acre lot for a tenth of what I'd pay here in king county, but I and most of the people that live here don't want to do that....and not only is this my observation - it's a statistical fact.
More and more families are deciding to stay in city centers, too. Not all of them of course, but the current trend is clear.
The last decade has seen people leaving rural areas with their own land to very much live on top of one another in the cities. More Muricans live on top of one another than you're giving credit for. In the context of this thread, no one is suggesting building subways in the middle of Wyoming - this conversation is very much focused on urban areas.
That's fine. Manhattan, Kansas does not need a highly functional train system. Seattle, LA, San Diego do.
Right, but the experience is largely due to lack of funding. And people being more spread out is partly due to public transit being shit, so they don't build near transit stops and there aren't more transit stops to build around.
Yes, Russia has awesome public transportation.
Source: here now
Why? Cities are built at human scale (i.e., vertical)
Source: here now
Why? Cities are built at human scale (i.e., vertical)
I love public transportation and hate driving my own car to and from work. I stopped using public transportation for personal safety reasons. I am not a temporarily embarrassed millionaire.
It works great in dense cities, obviously. Even dense US cities like New York, Chicago, etc...
Except Tokyo represents only the small fraction of Japan. Outside of largest cities in Japan, and perhaps a lot of prefectoral capitals, public transit option is fairly limited.
Only my limited personal experience here. In the last 20 years I’ve used the following public transport:
- One bus ride in western mass with crazy drug head yelling crap.
- Six T rides in Boston, one ended with some drunk dude yelling and cursing at me. Another with some bum hassling a woman and then pretending to have a gun when my buddy stepped in.
- Four Metro train rides from CT to NY. Not too bad. Only saw two fights that didn’t involve me.
- A few metro rides in Paris, nothing bad, just a few harmless beggars.
- A few time in the Tube in London. Jolly good there.
So, my personal answer to this question is safety. Fewer crazy passengers and more security.
- One bus ride in western mass with crazy drug head yelling crap.
- Six T rides in Boston, one ended with some drunk dude yelling and cursing at me. Another with some bum hassling a woman and then pretending to have a gun when my buddy stepped in.
- Four Metro train rides from CT to NY. Not too bad. Only saw two fights that didn’t involve me.
- A few metro rides in Paris, nothing bad, just a few harmless beggars.
- A few time in the Tube in London. Jolly good there.
So, my personal answer to this question is safety. Fewer crazy passengers and more security.
I live next to a train station in San Diego (one of those high-density near public transport setups, in a comfortable/safe apartment). Safety is what prevents me from taking it anywhere, I see fights at the station on a worryingly more regular basis, arrests every few weeks, and yelling almost daily (all witnessed from my apartment window). I've seen in the news that teenagers have been victims of an armed robbery on or near the train station just after mine (amaya) last summer. The San Diego trolley really needs a transport police officer on every station and in every train. I feel bad for the people whom this this the only transport option for. The system actually seems well designed as far as the trains, station location, and future growth plans go. But with no ticket based access-control on trains (seriously just walk on) and pretty limited police coverage, it just doesn't seem able to reach its potential.
I rode the train in Boston in the subway in NYC a few times each and saw nothing odd at all.
I also rode the trains and subways in Tokyo for a week and a half and saw nothing odd, except the odd looks my wife got for wearing a shirt with the wrong date on it. (It was a shift from a marathon and just happened to coincide with Pearl Harbor Day, IIRC.)
I think you had a lot of bad luck in the US, and I don't think the percentage of craziness you experienced is the norm. I know it happens, and it absolutely discourages people from public transit, but I just don't think it happens that much.
I also rode the trains and subways in Tokyo for a week and a half and saw nothing odd, except the odd looks my wife got for wearing a shirt with the wrong date on it. (It was a shift from a marathon and just happened to coincide with Pearl Harbor Day, IIRC.)
I think you had a lot of bad luck in the US, and I don't think the percentage of craziness you experienced is the norm. I know it happens, and it absolutely discourages people from public transit, but I just don't think it happens that much.
Man, you're like a magnet for bad luck with transit. I've taken the subway everywhere since turning 13. In 20-odd years of 2+/day subway rides in NYC (morning, afternoon, evening, 3am), the worst things I've encountered have been:
- Homeless people with severe B.O (~1x/week)
- Obnoxious bible thumpers hollering at everyone in the subway car (2-3 times)
- Panhandlers walking from one end of the car to the next (~2x/mo)
- Mariachi bands and dance troupes invading the subway car (~2-3x/week)
- A woman changing her toddler's diaper on the seat right next to me (ew; thankfully only once).
And the only actually threatening ones:
- Mentally ill people talking to themselves (maybe a half dozen times ever) and grumbling at people around them (~2-3 times ever)
- Some creep sitting next to me and asking personal questions and ignoring my requests to leave me the fuck alone.
You can avoid most of these situations by avoiding any disproportionately empty subway car. If you get in the wrong car by accident, you switch at the next stop (<2 min). Most of the rest will leave on their own within a few minutes.
For every unpleasant encounter I've had on the subway, I've had one that's restored my faith in humanity: half the car helping out a woman who fainted; the whole car grinning at each other while an actor in a green rabbit suit did magic tricks for the kids sitting across from her; offers of tissues to someone who developed a spontaneous nosebleed. I've never seen tourists stare in confusion at a map for more than a couple minutes without someone stepping in to offer directions; once with someone else nearby stepping in to translate to Japanese!
- Homeless people with severe B.O (~1x/week)
- Obnoxious bible thumpers hollering at everyone in the subway car (2-3 times)
- Panhandlers walking from one end of the car to the next (~2x/mo)
- Mariachi bands and dance troupes invading the subway car (~2-3x/week)
- A woman changing her toddler's diaper on the seat right next to me (ew; thankfully only once).
And the only actually threatening ones:
- Mentally ill people talking to themselves (maybe a half dozen times ever) and grumbling at people around them (~2-3 times ever)
- Some creep sitting next to me and asking personal questions and ignoring my requests to leave me the fuck alone.
You can avoid most of these situations by avoiding any disproportionately empty subway car. If you get in the wrong car by accident, you switch at the next stop (<2 min). Most of the rest will leave on their own within a few minutes.
For every unpleasant encounter I've had on the subway, I've had one that's restored my faith in humanity: half the car helping out a woman who fainted; the whole car grinning at each other while an actor in a green rabbit suit did magic tricks for the kids sitting across from her; offers of tissues to someone who developed a spontaneous nosebleed. I've never seen tourists stare in confusion at a map for more than a couple minutes without someone stepping in to offer directions; once with someone else nearby stepping in to translate to Japanese!
Vancouver has never legalized Uber/Lyft.
Vancouver has the highest gas prices in NA.
Vancouver's transit operator Translink is enjoying a big influx of funding from the government and is increasing service hours.
Unsurprisingly Vancouver transit ridership is experiencing record growth.
> Average weekday boardings on buses were up 9.5 per cent. Expo/Millennium Line average weekday boardings were up 9.2 per cent, while Canada Line’s boardings grew 8.1 per cent. On SeaBus, average weekday boardings increased by 13.1 per cent, thanks in part to increased sailings. Even West Coast Express ridership is on the rise, up 6.7 per cent.
http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/transit-ridership-hi...
Vancouver has the highest gas prices in NA.
Vancouver's transit operator Translink is enjoying a big influx of funding from the government and is increasing service hours.
Unsurprisingly Vancouver transit ridership is experiencing record growth.
> Average weekday boardings on buses were up 9.5 per cent. Expo/Millennium Line average weekday boardings were up 9.2 per cent, while Canada Line’s boardings grew 8.1 per cent. On SeaBus, average weekday boardings increased by 13.1 per cent, thanks in part to increased sailings. Even West Coast Express ridership is on the rise, up 6.7 per cent.
http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/transit-ridership-hi...
in this town there would be simple solutions, first is that here if you need to get anywhere generally you have to take not one but two buses, this makes it petty expensive, but thats not the biggest flaw.
oh no, the main problem is one of time, none of these buses match up so despite being a mere 3-4 miles an average commute via public transport is well over an hour, not only that but the timetable is not even close to accurate, youll often wait for a bus marked on the digital info boards as coming any min only to find that bus actually never existed and you have another 30 min wait
basically if you want to get to work on time be prepared to leave at least 2 hours early. you may be thinking "hey its only 3-4 miles, just walk you lazy bastard!" but sadly again this town does not lend itself well to things such as walking or cycling because there is no such thing as flat roads here, youre either going up a steep hill or down one
a reasonably priced tram system or even a properly organised and reasonably priced bus service could fix these issues easily but sadly that will never happen
oh no, the main problem is one of time, none of these buses match up so despite being a mere 3-4 miles an average commute via public transport is well over an hour, not only that but the timetable is not even close to accurate, youll often wait for a bus marked on the digital info boards as coming any min only to find that bus actually never existed and you have another 30 min wait
basically if you want to get to work on time be prepared to leave at least 2 hours early. you may be thinking "hey its only 3-4 miles, just walk you lazy bastard!" but sadly again this town does not lend itself well to things such as walking or cycling because there is no such thing as flat roads here, youre either going up a steep hill or down one
a reasonably priced tram system or even a properly organised and reasonably priced bus service could fix these issues easily but sadly that will never happen
We can start by stopping the political influence of those who benefit from declining public transportation.
How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country
https://nyti.ms/2lmrvVP
How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country
https://nyti.ms/2lmrvVP
I was in London a couple of weeks ago and used the subway extensively and it was, overall, an excellent experience. It made me wonder if there are cities that have made big investments in subway or other light rail systems and then later regretted it.
Interesting. The London system is ancient, creaking, lacks modern conveniences like mobile coverage/wifi/aircon, and has comparatively small trains that get horribly overcrowded at peak times. It it probably a worse experience than most European metros (unless you're using one of the few new lines). But it does get a decent amount of investment and fundamentally it works. If only we could get a comparable level of investment in the rest of the UK.
Regretted systems: guided buses. Both Edinburgh and Cambridge regret theirs and Edinburgh built trams over it instead (with massive disruption and cost overrun, but not actually regretted yet).
Regretted systems: guided buses. Both Edinburgh and Cambridge regret theirs and Edinburgh built trams over it instead (with massive disruption and cost overrun, but not actually regretted yet).
> It made me wonder if there are cities that have made big investments in subway or other light rail systems and then later regretted it.
There are people who regret it. There are always people who only want roads and cars. It just depends who is in power.
There are people who regret it. There are always people who only want roads and cars. It just depends who is in power.
Arrived in Singapore recently and I'm quite impressed with the public transportation system here. My base is the slow Metro transit in Los Angeles and the over crowded system in Manila.
Meanwhile in Singapore: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Rapid_Transit_(Singapor...
Best city public transport ever and getting better every day. For the most part.
#/media/File%3AEvolution_of_the_MRT.gif){kind=link}
Best city public transport ever and getting better every day. For the most part.
If I were to take public transportation to work Google maps says it would look like this:
2 min: Walk to bus stop
15 min: Bus to transit center
35 min: Bus to rail
20 min: Train 1 then switch
15 min: Train 2
45 min: Bus to transit center
20 min: Another bus
15 min: Another bus
3 min: Walk to work
Including wait times, we are at 3 hours 45 minutes. Compared to 1.5-2hrs by car depending on traffic. I don’t think more funding can realistically fix this. People are spread out and the USA is a big place.
2 min: Walk to bus stop
15 min: Bus to transit center
35 min: Bus to rail
20 min: Train 1 then switch
15 min: Train 2
45 min: Bus to transit center
20 min: Another bus
15 min: Another bus
3 min: Walk to work
Including wait times, we are at 3 hours 45 minutes. Compared to 1.5-2hrs by car depending on traffic. I don’t think more funding can realistically fix this. People are spread out and the USA is a big place.
This is the problem that real public transit will address, obviously if you have no density then it doesn't make sense.
But there are places in the US that do have density where people sit in traffic all day and think its normal. It doesn't have to be complicated -> 400,000 cars move up and down my local freeway during rush hour, so build a subway underneath and make stops every mile or so.
Go to the Ruhr/Cologne area of Germany, it is bunch of little and big cities all spread out across a large region and they have hundreds of transit options from high speed trains to trams to bus lines etc. Its very easy to get around and you don't have to sit in traffic on the autobahn.
We need better transit in the States, you can't bury your head in the sand and proclaim that AV cars will solve everything. You have massive urban centers and metro areas that will continue to grow and roads just don't scale that well (look at LA)
But there are places in the US that do have density where people sit in traffic all day and think its normal. It doesn't have to be complicated -> 400,000 cars move up and down my local freeway during rush hour, so build a subway underneath and make stops every mile or so.
Go to the Ruhr/Cologne area of Germany, it is bunch of little and big cities all spread out across a large region and they have hundreds of transit options from high speed trains to trams to bus lines etc. Its very easy to get around and you don't have to sit in traffic on the autobahn.
We need better transit in the States, you can't bury your head in the sand and proclaim that AV cars will solve everything. You have massive urban centers and metro areas that will continue to grow and roads just don't scale that well (look at LA)
There is a big problem: the infrastructure needed for good public transport is increasingly nontrivial, especially in the larger European cities, which tend to be older cities with historic centres which they wish to preserve. It's all well and good to build a city from the ground up in a way that's PT friendly, but if you have a channel city, or one with a densely populated and vitised historic centre, it's immensely hard to be able to have a well-regulated and up to snuff public transport.
Some anecdota: the netherlands has an excellent public transport networks. Our busiest train station, Utrecht Central station, has over a hundred million passengers going through it each year. To put that into perspective: there are roughly 17 million people in the Netherlands. To put that into further perspective: utrecht has 330K inhabitants. Over 5 times the entire population of the entire country is going through that station each year, and over three hundred times the entire population of the city the train station is in. I'm stunned daily by how little delays we have.
However: the Uithof, the (mostly) STEM part of the Utrecht University's campus, is pretty big by Dutch standards. Most of them use the public transport to get there. There are roughly 35K people using public transport to travel to the Uithof each day, with an estimated 45K in 2020. There are a little over 2 double-bendy busses going to the Uithof from the Central station each minute during rush hour. Each double-bendy bus can, according to the specs [1], carry 150 people. A friend of mine who still goes to the Uithof daily using these busses told me that if he has to get there during rush hour, or leave during rush hour, will often have to wait anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes until there's space for him on a bus.
To combat this, the goverment is spending 440 million euros to build a tram line from Central station to the Uithof, and it's still not sure that this will be enough.
1: http://soderholmbus.com/abc/pdfs/AGG300.pdf
Some anecdota: the netherlands has an excellent public transport networks. Our busiest train station, Utrecht Central station, has over a hundred million passengers going through it each year. To put that into perspective: there are roughly 17 million people in the Netherlands. To put that into further perspective: utrecht has 330K inhabitants. Over 5 times the entire population of the entire country is going through that station each year, and over three hundred times the entire population of the city the train station is in. I'm stunned daily by how little delays we have.
However: the Uithof, the (mostly) STEM part of the Utrecht University's campus, is pretty big by Dutch standards. Most of them use the public transport to get there. There are roughly 35K people using public transport to travel to the Uithof each day, with an estimated 45K in 2020. There are a little over 2 double-bendy busses going to the Uithof from the Central station each minute during rush hour. Each double-bendy bus can, according to the specs [1], carry 150 people. A friend of mine who still goes to the Uithof daily using these busses told me that if he has to get there during rush hour, or leave during rush hour, will often have to wait anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes until there's space for him on a bus.
To combat this, the goverment is spending 440 million euros to build a tram line from Central station to the Uithof, and it's still not sure that this will be enough.
1: http://soderholmbus.com/abc/pdfs/AGG300.pdf
Interesting write up on this, I think there are plenty of opportunities for better engineering and big private/public projects. Like you said though these are non-trivial for sure.
What I can say though is imagine all of those people at that University driving cars everywhere and parking at the Uni, and it quickly becomes a dystopian hellscape like LA. We should not let the perfect become the enemy of the good and forsake all public transit because it is difficult or expensive.
What I can say though is imagine all of those people at that University driving cars everywhere and parking at the Uni, and it quickly becomes a dystopian hellscape like LA. We should not let the perfect become the enemy of the good and forsake all public transit because it is difficult or expensive.
> Interesting write up on this, I think there are plenty of opportunities for better engineering and big private/public projects. Like you said though these are non-trivial for sure.
Another fun short anecdote: that tramline they're building has run into a lot of problems on the Uithof itself. The Uithof contains a lot of rontgen and other electromagnetically sensitive equipment due to being home to a large hospital as well as several research groups using similar equipment. It has been moved several times during planning processes, as well as have its speed severly limited to not to interfere with the aforementioned equipment.
> What I can say though is imagine all of those people at that University driving cars everywhere and parking at the Uni, and it quickly becomes a dystopian hellscape like LA.
Yeah, I'm not trying to imply that this would be a better solution, because here it clearly is not, especially since the highway going past the uithof is a horrible bit of two-lane highway, which is a permanent traffic jam literally as far as the eye can see (and do not underestimate how far you can see in a land as flat as the Netherlands) in both directions during rush hours.
Another fun short anecdote: that tramline they're building has run into a lot of problems on the Uithof itself. The Uithof contains a lot of rontgen and other electromagnetically sensitive equipment due to being home to a large hospital as well as several research groups using similar equipment. It has been moved several times during planning processes, as well as have its speed severly limited to not to interfere with the aforementioned equipment.
> What I can say though is imagine all of those people at that University driving cars everywhere and parking at the Uni, and it quickly becomes a dystopian hellscape like LA.
Yeah, I'm not trying to imply that this would be a better solution, because here it clearly is not, especially since the highway going past the uithof is a horrible bit of two-lane highway, which is a permanent traffic jam literally as far as the eye can see (and do not underestimate how far you can see in a land as flat as the Netherlands) in both directions during rush hours.
30-45 minutes? That sounds extreme. In the very worst crowding situations I've seen in the Netherlands I've only had to miss my bus a few times, and I just got on the next one which was fine. And that's from Leiden/Delft, where lots of students take the bus.
2 double-bendy buses is 300 people per minute. If he has to wait 45 minutes, he's in a line with 13,500 people. At 3 people/meter, that's a line 4.5 kilometers long. Now, I imagine it's more like a large crowd. But are you sure he has to wait 45 minutes? And are you sure there are two double-bendy buses per minute? 9292 says in the spits from the Uithof-Centraal there is one bus every 4 minutes.
2 double-bendy buses is 300 people per minute. If he has to wait 45 minutes, he's in a line with 13,500 people. At 3 people/meter, that's a line 4.5 kilometers long. Now, I imagine it's more like a large crowd. But are you sure he has to wait 45 minutes? And are you sure there are two double-bendy buses per minute? 9292 says in the spits from the Uithof-Centraal there is one bus every 4 minutes.
> 2 double-bendy buses is 300 people per minute.
I made a mistake while writing that: it should've been 1 bus every two minutes. Don't know why I decided to quadruple the capacity...
> 9292 says in the spits from the Uithof-Centraal there is one bus every 4 minutes.
Strange. Maybe they did change this, but I recall there being 30 of those buggers per hour during rush hours.
I made a mistake while writing that: it should've been 1 bus every two minutes. Don't know why I decided to quadruple the capacity...
> 9292 says in the spits from the Uithof-Centraal there is one bus every 4 minutes.
Strange. Maybe they did change this, but I recall there being 30 of those buggers per hour during rush hours.
A 2 hour commute by car sounds kind of insane to begin with. You spend 3-4 hours a day commuting to a 8 hour workday?
Not sure about him. For me living in mid-size city in US and 10-12 miles to work. It is about ~2 hr commute everyday. I think bay area gets more coverage but even smaller cities are having terrible traffic nowadays.
2 hours for 20-24 miles? Just.. wow. You'd be faster with a bike if the infrastructure was there.. (e-bike for no sweat)
I think you hugely overestimate the number of people who can ride a bicycle for 24 miles - let alone those who can do that in 2 hours.
I ride a bicycle a 3 miles to work every day, and while I'm sure I could work up to it I'm not entirely sure if I can do 24 miles without stopping because I haven't done it in so long. And keep in mind my 3 miles commute is more than the vast majority of westerners ever do - I probably have a higher base fitness just by using a bicycle at all.
I ride a bicycle a 3 miles to work every day, and while I'm sure I could work up to it I'm not entirely sure if I can do 24 miles without stopping because I haven't done it in so long. And keep in mind my 3 miles commute is more than the vast majority of westerners ever do - I probably have a higher base fitness just by using a bicycle at all.
Good point. It's only half the distance without stopping since there is a full workday before going back, but it's still not close.
3 miles is pretty standard around here, I think about 75% of people could do it. (excluding small kids and bedbound elderly) (some of them will have muscle aches at first, maybe, and be really slow)
3 miles is pretty standard around here, I think about 75% of people could do it. (excluding small kids and bedbound elderly) (some of them will have muscle aches at first, maybe, and be really slow)
Oh you're talking round trip? That's a bit more realistic.
[deleted]
http://fortune.com/2016/03/03/us-cities-average-commute-time... (2014) 16% of commutes in New York state are over an hour one-way.
> I don’t think more funding can realistically fix this
When public transit is built, residential and commercial properties spawn up around its stops. This is why my Manhattan commute is 15 minutes door to door.
TL; DR The lack of public transit, and public subsidies for parking and roads, drives density within America’s metropolitan areas.
When public transit is built, residential and commercial properties spawn up around its stops. This is why my Manhattan commute is 15 minutes door to door.
TL; DR The lack of public transit, and public subsidies for parking and roads, drives density within America’s metropolitan areas.
Manhattan is in a very unique situation that does not apply to many other cities. even its transit system is beset by thirty four billion dollars of debt even with taxes on tunnels that cars use to support it and money from the state government. plus there are too many stories about service woes and when you pay out more in salaries alone than rider fees how can you expect to stay ahead of the game.
the state of many metropolitan transit systems is very similar, tens of billions in deferred maintenance, high payroll costs, and even worse is not keeping up pensions.
the folly many cities fell into was trying to make light rail work, the idea of build it and they will come did't pan out and some expansions that a few networks have tried were more expensive than the original build. to make up for money short falls and force ridership some agencies resorted t cutting bus service.
can we save transit, sure, but it has to be adapted to how people live and not be built out to change how people live. it needs to be taken out of the hands of politicians who love cutting ribbons on expensive projects that don't deliver. any good transit solution will need to involve better road planning, fully integrated traffic signaling, and pushing to provide better service that earns riders instead of passing laws to try to coerce them
the state of many metropolitan transit systems is very similar, tens of billions in deferred maintenance, high payroll costs, and even worse is not keeping up pensions.
the folly many cities fell into was trying to make light rail work, the idea of build it and they will come did't pan out and some expansions that a few networks have tried were more expensive than the original build. to make up for money short falls and force ridership some agencies resorted t cutting bus service.
can we save transit, sure, but it has to be adapted to how people live and not be built out to change how people live. it needs to be taken out of the hands of politicians who love cutting ribbons on expensive projects that don't deliver. any good transit solution will need to involve better road planning, fully integrated traffic signaling, and pushing to provide better service that earns riders instead of passing laws to try to coerce them
34 billion is less than 4,000$ per NYC resident. Considering we are talking about infrastructure it's what 15$ a month in interest? That's basically pocket change even excluding how many tourists and people commuting from outside NYC use the system.
So yea the system is poorly managed, but without it NYC would not function.
So yea the system is poorly managed, but without it NYC would not function.
Reorganizing can fix it. For now bus and train are optimized for for source and destination.
We would need to start ( especially in cities) to optimize for range.
We would need to start ( especially in cities) to optimize for range.
Google maps refuses to find a transit route between my home and the last place I worked on site. It's about a 50 minute drive, on a nice open highway. But there literally isn't any mass transit between here and there. Supposedly it takes 12 hours to walk... I don't think that's gonna work.
How far is your drive? How long does it take you?
I have a 3 mile commute that takes me roughly 10-15 minutes during morning rush hour and maybe another 5 in the evening. According to Google Maps walking takes an hour and public transit take 45 minutes.
I have a 3 mile commute that takes me roughly 10-15 minutes during morning rush hour and maybe another 5 in the evening. According to Google Maps walking takes an hour and public transit take 45 minutes.
...4mph average speed for the transit option? How is that even possible? Walk 20min, bus 5 min, walk 20min? That's not really what I have in mind when I think mass transit in a city.
Not that 20 minutes to go 3 minutes in the evening by car would be that great either, of course
Not that 20 minutes to go 3 minutes in the evening by car would be that great either, of course
If someone is silly enough to accept a 2 hour travel time, that is on them. Nothing will fix that. PT is not for every idiot who wants to travel a large distance.
FWIW, as an avid hypermiler (who also owns an EV and pays for wind power), and works from home, the mpg per person of public transport isn't that great, I have no problem exceeding it, even without passengers (though I usually have passengers when I go somewhere).
https://www.afdc.energy.gov/data/10311
Certainly there are plenty of motorcycles that beat it without much effort/technique as well.
So, what am I supposed to be taxed for again? The environment inside a moving box full of strangers, and the scheduling headaches, doesn't excite me much as an alternative.
I wonder how much of the "decline" is because of people who work from home. I don't think uber is entirely the cause, more like uber displaced taxi drivers.
https://www.afdc.energy.gov/data/10311
Certainly there are plenty of motorcycles that beat it without much effort/technique as well.
So, what am I supposed to be taxed for again? The environment inside a moving box full of strangers, and the scheduling headaches, doesn't excite me much as an alternative.
I wonder how much of the "decline" is because of people who work from home. I don't think uber is entirely the cause, more like uber displaced taxi drivers.
> So, what am I supposed to be taxed for again?
The societal benefits of poor people being able to get to work every day.
The societal benefits of poor people being able to get to work every day.
It isn't about mpg, it's about use of space & everything that falls out of that. Less money building roads, parking lots, etc.
Sidebar, I wonder how an EV car stacks up to an EV bus.
Sidebar, I wonder how an EV car stacks up to an EV bus.
The article does mention home work. It's probably a combination of factors as the piece suggests. There are certainly enough anecdotal stories of people switching to UberPool from transit because the price works out to be about the same. And biking infrastructure has tended to get better however incrementally. And you have bike share services too.
> the mpg per person of public transport isn't that great
The point is that it gives an opportunity to reduce the "m" in the mpg.
The point is that it gives an opportunity to reduce the "m" in the mpg.
What Chinese electric bike is worth buying? Electric bike review seems to point to Western brands costing several thousand dollars.
Any recommendations on where to start looking?
Any recommendations on where to start looking?
I don't have a brand recommendation, but if you are handy, it is possible to convert an existing bike by adding a motor and batteries. For a bike like experience (as opposed to a light electric motorcycle experience) the components can be had for between $500 to $800 depending on how much battery you need. Some resources:
- ebikes.ca - Informative website, sell high quality items with a lot of the problems worked out and with support. Prices are fair given the added value. Motor and trip simulators for calculating speeds and feeds etc.
- bmsbattery.com - Chinese vendor of cheap but mostly functional components. Not much support and shipping will add 30% to prices, but very inexpensive if you can make it work.
- lunacycle.com (US), e3emv.com(China) - Sell high quality battery packs
- endless-sphere.com - massive discussion board full of good information leavened with the usual opinionated know nothings, but mostly civil.
Assuming you need to go less than 25 miles and don't need to climb long steep hills and intend to pedal lightly I'd say you are looking for a small front geared hub motor rated for 250-350 watts and a small controller rated for 20A or less along with a 48v battery between 350-600 watt hours capacity. Target speed should be around 18 to 20 mph. Start with a nice used practical commuter bike, older mountain and road bikes and hybrids will all work. Get something that started out as a decent bike, not big-box store "bike shaped object".
I've built a few now and am pretty happy with the process and results.
- ebikes.ca - Informative website, sell high quality items with a lot of the problems worked out and with support. Prices are fair given the added value. Motor and trip simulators for calculating speeds and feeds etc.
- bmsbattery.com - Chinese vendor of cheap but mostly functional components. Not much support and shipping will add 30% to prices, but very inexpensive if you can make it work.
- lunacycle.com (US), e3emv.com(China) - Sell high quality battery packs
- endless-sphere.com - massive discussion board full of good information leavened with the usual opinionated know nothings, but mostly civil.
Assuming you need to go less than 25 miles and don't need to climb long steep hills and intend to pedal lightly I'd say you are looking for a small front geared hub motor rated for 250-350 watts and a small controller rated for 20A or less along with a 48v battery between 350-600 watt hours capacity. Target speed should be around 18 to 20 mph. Start with a nice used practical commuter bike, older mountain and road bikes and hybrids will all work. Get something that started out as a decent bike, not big-box store "bike shaped object".
I've built a few now and am pretty happy with the process and results.
Thanks for the reply.
I'm considering the BBS02 but I really like the torque sensors. I was hoping that there was some mass produced Chinese model T but couldn't find it.
I'm considering the BBS02 but I really like the torque sensors. I was hoping that there was some mass produced Chinese model T but couldn't find it.
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The real problem that no one wants to admit is overpopulation. If every couple had only 1 child, the problem would gradually go away as the population shrank.
Hong Kong has one of the highest population densities in the world and their transportation is excellent. Your argument isn’t supported by data.
Yes the problem would go away. Along with the economy and all standards of living.
Why not have fleets of electric vehicles with varying sizes, from 2 person mini cars to 20 person vans for large parties? Where I live, there are no subways, and busses are very energy/money inefficient. You may have a nearly full bus here and there, but the majority of the time there are barely any people in the busses, probably because it's $2.50 and it's a poor service. You don't get door-to-door service, increased road surface damage (y=x^4, where y= road damage with x=vehicle weight), crappy diesel fuels spewing pollution onto pedestrians/cyclists, hitting sidewalks and causing cars to back up whenever they make turns. I don't believe in the investment path to useful public transport here when we can have decentralized, electric, personalized services in the near future.
My understanding is that road damage is linked to tire pressure and contact surface, and that bus and trucks with bigger tires have a larger contact surface hence the same pressure as a car and therefore don't do more damage than a car.
See the following analysis by Brad Templeton, a SDC expert:
Road wear There is strong potential to reduce the damage to roads (and thus the cost of maintaining them, which is immense and seriously in arrears) thanks to the robotruck. That's because heavy trucks and big buses cause almost all the road wear today. A surprising rule of thumb is that road damage goes up with the 4th power of the weight per axle. As such an 80,000lb truck with 34,000lb on two sets of 2 axles and 6,000lb on the front axle does around 2,000 times the road damage of a typical car! An interesting solution is now possible. With fully self-driving trucks (or platoons with nobody in the rear vehicle) you can have two half-weight trucks, which would do 1/8th the damage. 4 1/4 weight trucks would do roughly 1/16th the damage. This is a bit more expensive in fuel and truck wear, though you can get back some of it with platooning. The platoon can space out further on bridges to avoid stressing them.
https://ideas.4brad.com/otto-and-self-driving-trucks-what-do...
Road wear There is strong potential to reduce the damage to roads (and thus the cost of maintaining them, which is immense and seriously in arrears) thanks to the robotruck. That's because heavy trucks and big buses cause almost all the road wear today. A surprising rule of thumb is that road damage goes up with the 4th power of the weight per axle. As such an 80,000lb truck with 34,000lb on two sets of 2 axles and 6,000lb on the front axle does around 2,000 times the road damage of a typical car! An interesting solution is now possible. With fully self-driving trucks (or platoons with nobody in the rear vehicle) you can have two half-weight trucks, which would do 1/8th the damage. 4 1/4 weight trucks would do roughly 1/16th the damage. This is a bit more expensive in fuel and truck wear, though you can get back some of it with platooning. The platoon can space out further on bridges to avoid stressing them.
https://ideas.4brad.com/otto-and-self-driving-trucks-what-do...
Regarding pressure/road damage: Polish roads in particular are marked with grooves created by heavy trucks. And we know for sure that it's because of trucks because it only happens on the rightmost lane, where they typically drive.
Yes, trucks have more wheels and therefore bigger contact surface, but it only partialy compensates bigger mass. Pressure on road is still few times bigger than of typical car.
Buses however, are big but not that heavy, so they are not as bad as trucks.
Yes, trucks have more wheels and therefore bigger contact surface, but it only partialy compensates bigger mass. Pressure on road is still few times bigger than of typical car.
Buses however, are big but not that heavy, so they are not as bad as trucks.
> bus and trucks with bigger tires have a larger contact surface hence the same pressure as a car and therefore don't do more damage than a car.
In parts of Europe where the temperature soars over 40°C in the summer, trucks are forbidden from driving during the daytime because when the asphalt softens, they do more damage than a car.
In parts of Europe where the temperature soars over 40°C in the summer, trucks are forbidden from driving during the daytime because when the asphalt softens, they do more damage than a car.
Road surface damage? In an utopia where all calls are self-driving, sure, then there is real life.
You don't even need SDCs for this though. You can have smaller, more personalized vehicles driven by municipal employees or by privately owned companies. The point is why have a MASSIVE bus carrying 1/4 capacity on average? You should only have massive busses when you need them, since their downsides are much higher than a van or a minivan.
I don't think it's wild Silicon Valley chatter to say that public transportation along fixed routes WILL decline as a result of new technology, and this is a great thing.
Fixed-route 19th-20th century public transportation networks are inefficient because most of the vehicles are pretty empty most of the time. This makes these systems expensive on a passenger-per-seat-mile basis. Not to mention the colossal waste of people's time spent trying to accommodate their journeys to those fixed routes (and schedules).
Example: LA's Metro system is subsidized to the tune of about 50 cents per passenger seat/mile, or was as of 2009 (http://www.newgeography.com/content/002361-los-angeles-metro...)
In 10-15 years, transport companies like Lyft/Uber/Didi will be able to offer municipalities a much better deal than that. An electric car or van without a driver in it, with an operating lifetime of a million miles, will cost on the order of 20-40 cents a mile to run. Get 3-8 paying customers into the vehicle, and there is absolutely no need for a 50 cent per passenger seat mile subsidy.
Fixed-route 19th-20th century public transportation networks are inefficient because most of the vehicles are pretty empty most of the time. This makes these systems expensive on a passenger-per-seat-mile basis. Not to mention the colossal waste of people's time spent trying to accommodate their journeys to those fixed routes (and schedules).
Example: LA's Metro system is subsidized to the tune of about 50 cents per passenger seat/mile, or was as of 2009 (http://www.newgeography.com/content/002361-los-angeles-metro...)
In 10-15 years, transport companies like Lyft/Uber/Didi will be able to offer municipalities a much better deal than that. An electric car or van without a driver in it, with an operating lifetime of a million miles, will cost on the order of 20-40 cents a mile to run. Get 3-8 paying customers into the vehicle, and there is absolutely no need for a 50 cent per passenger seat mile subsidy.
> I don't think it's wild Silicon Valley chatter to say that public transportation along fixed routes WILL decline as a result of new technology, and this is a great thing.
I do.
People are leaving rural and suburbs for cities. Cities are becoming more dense. Fixed line transportation offers significantly more passengers/area/hour than roads. Tokyo supplies 40M daily train rides. Nothing Lyft/Uber/Didi is doing suggests anything close to that amount of density.
Hyperloops are going to push maximum passenger density of fixed route paths even higher.
I do.
People are leaving rural and suburbs for cities. Cities are becoming more dense. Fixed line transportation offers significantly more passengers/area/hour than roads. Tokyo supplies 40M daily train rides. Nothing Lyft/Uber/Didi is doing suggests anything close to that amount of density.
Hyperloops are going to push maximum passenger density of fixed route paths even higher.
While you are correct in that technology like Hyperloops can solve the following issue, public infrastrucute, like the housing problem, is a political and social problem too. Take Chicago, for example. Musk and Emmanual talked about a Hyperloop between O'Hare airport and downtown. How is that going to benefit the average inter-city commuter?
That specific implementation won't help the average intercity commuter, but that doesn't mean that the tool is not useful for heping intercity commuters.
>Fixed-route 19th-20th century public transportation networks are inefficient because most of the vehicles are pretty empty most of the time. This makes these systems expensive on a passenger-per-seat-mile basis. Not to mention the colossal waste of people's time spent trying to accommodate their journeys to those fixed routes
You know what else sits empty most of the time? Highways.
Ok, I was being snarky. Couldn’t resist. Snark aside, this is not an insurmountable problem with public transit. The Vancouver SkyTrain operates on the assumption that frequent, automated, short trains are better than longer less frequent ones. Headways are about 90 seconds during peak commute hours and scale with demand.
> Example: LA's Metro system is subsidized to the tune of about 50 cents per passenger seat/mile, or was as of 2009
Hong Kong’s turns a profit. And who said transit systems have to turn a profit anyway? Just like our roads, they are provided for public benefit.
A large amount of transit money is spent building, operating and maintaining a dedicated transit right of way, needed to make any sort of rapid transit work.
You know what else sits empty most of the time? Highways.
Ok, I was being snarky. Couldn’t resist. Snark aside, this is not an insurmountable problem with public transit. The Vancouver SkyTrain operates on the assumption that frequent, automated, short trains are better than longer less frequent ones. Headways are about 90 seconds during peak commute hours and scale with demand.
> Example: LA's Metro system is subsidized to the tune of about 50 cents per passenger seat/mile, or was as of 2009
Hong Kong’s turns a profit. And who said transit systems have to turn a profit anyway? Just like our roads, they are provided for public benefit.
A large amount of transit money is spent building, operating and maintaining a dedicated transit right of way, needed to make any sort of rapid transit work.
Mass-market self-driven car commuting is more than 10-15 years out.
How does that affect those who have to take public transit due to finances?
Personally, I expect there will always be a need for high throughput fixed line transit in some areas. But, to answer your question, if some portion of the population requires transportation subsidies to participate in society then the best policy answer would seem to be to provide them with subsidies directly.
They’ll save money because they can now afford cheap self driving transport.
Also if you’re subsidising mass transit only for the poor, why not just give them subsidy directly?
Also if you’re subsidising mass transit only for the poor, why not just give them subsidy directly?
I think it’s worth starting to question the term ‘Rich Countries’ when what we mean is countries with a richer elite.
Specifically "rich countries with a contingent of multibillionaire ideologues actively working to destroy public infrastructure".
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-pub...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-pub...
In contrast, the richest family in Sweden (Wallenberg) just contributed 100m Euro to a research programme on AI -
http://wasp-sweden.org/
Proper Noblesse oblige. The Koch family are evil, in contrast.
From all available evidence there is no need to add the qualifier “by contrast” to that statement. The problem is that it seems about half of the American electorate support the Koch’s and others like them for ideological reasons. As a non-American it’s a really strange thing to see. Dirt poor families from generations of bad education and dirt poor seem to think distant billionaires have their best interests at heart. They all seem to think they’re about to join the ranks of those billionaires any day now, and they’d hate the idea of hurting their prospects. It’s so weird...
Greed and selfishness based politics are the enemy of public transit. They stand against anything that is for the good of society unless it directly provides them profit.
It's also a false premise to think "rich countries" need a lot of investment in public transport because they are rich. Investment should be tied to population density, not the ability of "rich countries" to shoulder more tax burdens.
> rich counties
I am unaware of this trend across multiple rich countries of less public transit. Anyone have actual numbers instead of hersay?
I could believe that people travel longer distances than they used to, in ways that transit never served. But less public transit itself? Is love to learn more.
I am unaware of this trend across multiple rich countries of less public transit. Anyone have actual numbers instead of hersay?
I could believe that people travel longer distances than they used to, in ways that transit never served. But less public transit itself? Is love to learn more.
How to stop the decline of public transport in rich countries:
1) Allow transit systems to provide a luxury tier of service with no upper limit on price
2) Mandate that 100% of the money that comes from (1) has to be pumped back into expanding transit infrastructure
1) Allow transit systems to provide a luxury tier of service with no upper limit on price
2) Mandate that 100% of the money that comes from (1) has to be pumped back into expanding transit infrastructure
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My commute:
* driving: 10 minutes
* biking: 24 minutes
* bus: 12 minutes walk + 20 minutes on bus 1 + 11 minute wait for transfer + 29 minute bus 2
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Somewhat interesting. I have a different reason for the declining weekday rates of the MTA (NYC's subway system). More and more companies every year seem to be alright with their employees being remote on a more regular basis, which would attribute for the _slight_ decline in weekday ridership.
How many factory workers, construction workers, waiters, barbers, etc. do you know whom work remote?
it's not declining in Tokyo afaict. I believe that's because they privatised it?
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/10/why-tokyos-pr...
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/10/why-tokyos-pr...
The rich country I live in is investing billions in public transport. Its also investing heavily in cycling.
Trying to meet the Paris climate accord and making sure people don't die from poor air quality makes this a legal requirement. Ofcourse the US has Trump so there is no such pressure to get people out of their SUVs.
Trying to meet the Paris climate accord and making sure people don't die from poor air quality makes this a legal requirement. Ofcourse the US has Trump so there is no such pressure to get people out of their SUVs.
Money. QED.
Hey, if I lived in the city centre and worked a few blocks a way, I too would probably want to hate on the car. Same people get families, move out of the centre, get car, regret they voted for politicians who put in place huge tolls on roads.
Yeah, for starters the right fix is probably to make public transit free.
Just reducing traffic would payoff in terms of less wear and tear on the roads, and less need to expand the roads.
And with any luck, free public transit would help poor people the most. Allowing more people to find work.
Just reducing traffic would payoff in terms of less wear and tear on the roads, and less need to expand the roads.
And with any luck, free public transit would help poor people the most. Allowing more people to find work.
Ok, so the ones with jobs should pay for those without a job?
I have a better solution, why not let the unemployed drive the busses without pay. Then they get to do something, I get free transportation. Win-win?
> Ok, so the ones with jobs should pay for those without a job?
Yes.
And if by some miracle we can help people get jobs, by making transportation cheaper then we call it a win-win.
Note, even if public transit was free that wouldn't make everybody use it all the time. But it might reduce the number of cars on the road, and help a few people out of poverty.
Yes.
And if by some miracle we can help people get jobs, by making transportation cheaper then we call it a win-win.
Note, even if public transit was free that wouldn't make everybody use it all the time. But it might reduce the number of cars on the road, and help a few people out of poverty.
How much of your salary do you donate today? This is not something the government has to enforce. You are free to do it by yourself.
Self driving vehicles will solve all of this. You don't need centralized routes, it can be door-to-door, it can be tiered for comfort, it can be high density transport, it can be on demand, it can be safe and secure, it can be automated, it can be taxed to incentivize density or usage patterns or demand as needed.
Serious question: how would it be door to door and high density at the same time? So far, all self driving car proposals I saw looked just like cars, or vans at best. Compare this to a fully loaded double-decker bus in e.g. London. So much more efficient use of road space.
Let's look at a traditional bus route in an urban area:
Scheduled set of stops between basically two places.
Each of those stops rely on people walking a couple blocks or more to a stop for the route.
Basically, you deconstruct and make on-demand the route. As people register for a trip, you combine a set of origination and destination points into closely grouped numbers, pick up a set of people in close proximity, and drop off them off.
At high density times, there will be opportunities for substantial "rideshare" efficiencies.
At less high density times, you save overhead of the busses with a couple riders.
If you've ever taken the cheaper alternative airport -> city hotel van that goes to all the hotels in a downtown from an airport, that is basically the idea. It isn't as convenient as 1:1 taxi transport, but it's a lot better than the vagaries of train/bus hopping.
It seems strange that with all the graph and NP-complete interview-ready people on this site that this isn't completely obvious. Self-driving vehicles will obviate all but the highest density mass transport.
And then if you get self-flying drones going...
Scheduled set of stops between basically two places.
Each of those stops rely on people walking a couple blocks or more to a stop for the route.
Basically, you deconstruct and make on-demand the route. As people register for a trip, you combine a set of origination and destination points into closely grouped numbers, pick up a set of people in close proximity, and drop off them off.
At high density times, there will be opportunities for substantial "rideshare" efficiencies.
At less high density times, you save overhead of the busses with a couple riders.
If you've ever taken the cheaper alternative airport -> city hotel van that goes to all the hotels in a downtown from an airport, that is basically the idea. It isn't as convenient as 1:1 taxi transport, but it's a lot better than the vagaries of train/bus hopping.
It seems strange that with all the graph and NP-complete interview-ready people on this site that this isn't completely obvious. Self-driving vehicles will obviate all but the highest density mass transport.
And then if you get self-flying drones going...
Make it less attractive to take the car by building automated car tolls and let the drivers pay. Subsidize public transportation to make it cheaper for the citizens.
That's basically what has been done in Stockholm (even though I wish it had been done to a greater degree, public transportation needs to be even cheaper). Cars destroys our shared environment and expanding it's infrastructure costs plenty (space, money, pollution). Of course it should be heavily taxed so that cycling, bus and subway infrastructure can be financed.