Those who lived at the end of school bus and train routes are part of a very special (and elite!) club that nobody else can understand, and that we don’t have the words to discuss. If we didn’t do it, somebody else would have, but we did do it, and it weird.
.su is the TLD for the Soviet Union! It exists today because it was registered 8 months before the dissolution of the union. Mildly interesing side-fact.
So Russia and Japan can arrange train stops so public transit serves a single school child, but the US cannot even arrange decent bus service in many cities?
The excuse that we (the US) just lack population density sufficient to make public transit work begins to ring hollow.
What I collect from my discussions with HNers on car use / public transit (I believe car use should be severely limited to cases where it's indispensable, and general public use public transportation, including taxis) is that Americans just don't like public transit. A frequent theme is the fact that in public transport you need to share space with other people and sometimes it's uncomfortable and crowded. Many think they're too good to "suffer" that, and they want to be in their private tonne-heavy metal and plastic bullet possibly speeding along or drowsily waiting in traffic. Public transportation is for those who can not afford a car.
Also, running public transportation is not a very profitable, if at all, business, so government enterprise is required to run it. And the US seems to lack that.
> A frequent theme is the fact that in public transport you need to share space with other people and sometimes it's uncomfortable and crowded. Many think they're too good to "suffer" that
1. Crowded/uncomfortable
2. Very late/early
3. Unhygienic
I think I most people could deal with one or two of those, but in my personal experience in the US (PA, NY, DC), it's frequently all three.
the biggest reason I know of for people not wanting to take public transit is safety. In the SF Bay Area, MUNI has not always had the best track record for safety and recently BART has had some unfortunate incidents of groups of criminals getting on a train car at one station, robbing everyone in the car, and getting off (and away..) at the next station.
And then there's always the stereotypical intoxicated/homeless/mentally unstable individual that poses a safety threat. Sadly something I personally witnessed on BART more than once.
So, first of all, I'm sympathetic to this concern. I don't think all risks are equal. We're humans, not statistical robots, so we fear some things more than other things and that matters.
But it is worth remembering that you're still far, far less safe in your car. In the United States 40,200 people died in automobile-related accidents last year. [0] It's not like it's just a little bit less safe to drive. It's orders of magnitude less safe. How many people died on public transit last year? 20? Is it even 20?
Again, I understand why people accept that risk, while not accepting the risk of violent crime, but the numbers are what they are.
Annual public transport deaths in the US are around 2-300. And the number of passenger miles is vastly smaller than cars, so you can’t just compare the raw numbers.
This is a good point. The numbers are still overwhelmingly in transit's favor (but not orders of magnitude better when passenger miles are considered):
Also note that most of the danger in transit is not the the users, but to other people on the road (blue vs. yellow bars in the chart). Considering just the users themselves, transit is nearly an order of magnitude safer.
> How many people died on public transit last year?
I am not sure. I know that driving puts one at a higher risk of death, but you're not going to get assaulted, groped, stabbed, mugged, punched, verbally harassed, etc while driving at the same rate you will on public transit.
This is, sadly, a self-perpetuating problem. If a group of gangs boarded a train car in Seoul and robbed everybody, there would have been a full news coverage for the next week and the opposition leaders would have demanded president's apology. Because such a thing is simply considered unacceptable. (Of course Korea has its own societal problems; gangs roaming in subway is not one of them.)
In America, everybody knows that public transit is dirty and dangerous, so when such a thing happens, everybody just shrugs it off. Middle class people don't want these ugly stations in their neighborhood; if they have one, they don't want the politicians to waste money on nicer benches or a decent-looking wall. What's the point? It will be filled with graffiti the next week.
So public transit remains underfunded, unsafe, dirty, and always late, and of course people point to that and say "See? We don't need more of these things. Let's build more highway."
4. Inconvenient. Many people don’t work in central business districts.
When I worked downtown, the bus was a no brainer. Working in a different location, I would spend $10 less a week to have a 80 minute commute vs 10 minute drive.
Not exactly. Some voters in counties surrounding my city quite frankly do not want the public train coming into their county. There were options to fund it. Multiple counties declined over the years even though it would likely help mobility in the region.
If the voters don’t want it how do you improve public transport? Would you wait until the next generation? Thoughts?
Yeah I've heard about the hygiene problem in New York metro, and that was really surprising to be honest. I guess, for all three of your points, it takes government operation to run a nice public transit system because only that can afford to not profit or to lose money. Capitalism won't ever get you there in this particular area because there's no economical interest in running a nice public transit system.
"Public transportation is for those who can not afford a car."
There's a first-mover disadvantage here. In cities where this isn't true, the bus is a much better experience. Take a bus in St. Louis and then take one in Seattle and see for yourself. The experiences won't even be recognizable as belonging to the same category of activity.
Unless you are in an area where parking is not easy, for most Americans taking their own car easily beats taking public transit, especially if the public transit is buses.
1. No long walk to a bus stop or train station. In good weather, such a walk can be good, pleasant exercise. In bad weather...ugh.
2. If you have several places you need to go, the wait time at the start of each segment can really add up. Consider a trip where you want to go to (1) the bank to get some cash, (2) the post office to mail something, (3) your pharmacist to pick up some medicine, (4) a grocery store for some food, and (5) back to home. That's at least 5 waits at bus stops. Maybe more if those places are not all on the same route. A car will usually be much faster (especially if the bank has a drive up ATM and the pharmacy has a drug through pick up). (The post office probably has a drive though mail drop, but I'm assuming the post office is on the itinerary because you need to buy postage--otherwise you'd be mailing the item from home).
3. Public transit too often is treated as a collection of independent routes, each assessed in isolation when the bean counters tweak things, rather than as a complete system that should be assessed globally.
If I buy a house or condo or rent an apartment based on a good car commute to my work and good car access to the other places I need to or like to go to, there is a good chance 10 or 20 years from now I'll still have good car access to those places.
If I buy a house based on good bus routes to those places with stops close to my house and to my destinations and buses running frequently enough that the waiting is not too bad, what are the chances that will still be true in 10 years? In 20 years?
Much lower than with the car, I think. It's far too easy for the transit authorities to decide that my important routes are not getting enough ridership, and that some other, more popular router, need more resources, and shift buses away from my routes or even cancel mine completely.
I think #3 is the big one. It means that even if the public transit is good enough in my area that #1 and #2 are acceptable now, I can't count on it remaining that way long term (and in some cities, probably not even short term).
Hi, thanks for this response! I think actually it's #2 that is the big one. See, I live in Istanbul province, in a European quarter rather up north by the Bosphorus, so nowhere near the city centre, but when I go to the centre of my quarter, I can easily do all of the things you list there in about half an hour, the time spent at each place included, only by walking from one place to another. And my quarter is part of a comune (tr: ilçe) with a population of slightly more than a hundred thousand people (the province itself counts upwards of 15 million people). I guess what is different between here and the usual US city/suburb is that there shops and stuff are more laid out, where here instead they're congregated in the central areas. So once you're there often you can get all the things done, and catch the bus back home.
Also, because urban trains and busses are frequent enough, we seldom need to think about the wait times. Except for the villages you can get hold of a bus in at the worst case about ten minutes everywhere. I do have to walk quite a bit to the bus stop, but that's because my part is like a little instance of a suburb between the Belgrad forests and the strait, thus scarcely populated and an exception to the general situation with the bus network. But after a 10 minute walk to the main street, it'll take less than 5 minutes to get a bus or minibüs (a private/cooperative alternative to the council's busses, pricier but more frequent) to the closest metro station. But I guess the general density of the population helps keep all this network in service, and get it to be built in the first place.
I agree; where I've lived in Europe, places are mostly organized as villages/towns/cities, with one or more centers where you can get everything done. Even the suburbs are usually small towns surrounding bigger cities, not just a ring of houses, so you can do all the daily activities described by the parent post without ever "going into the city".
I am American. I never liked driving. At some point after my divorce, I was able to give up my car. I eventually gave up my driver's license.
I don't want to make it illegal, but there are lots of people with long, miserable commutes they hate and we really need a world with more viable options.
What is insane is that most people who love driving would probably be happier if those who didn't want to drive were happily serviced by decent public transit.
So everyone has to be more miserable because of myopia and indifference.
That is an excuse. One of my older coworkers grew up in rural Pennsylvania and took a train to school. The train would stop at small depots for one or two kids.
Even today you see that. Take the Amtrak from Albany to NYC, there are a few stops at primarily Metro North stations that pick up a few dozen people a day.
The difference is building new and the cost associated with it. Costs to build track are astronomical because urban sprawl makes condemnation expensive and really only practical for government. You can’t have a small depot with the conductor dropping a stool out... you need at grade platforms with ADA compliant ramps or lifts. Bigger stations need elevators, etc.
Once you build it, you need to staff it, and that also gets expensive, especially since intermediate distance trips are always cheaper via car (by dollars) or plane (by time).
Trains won’t get practical until they can share interstate rights of way and we stop airline subsidy. Without the high margin long haul trips, you can’t afford to pickup school kids.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 45.6 ms ] threadhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-339582...
The excuse that we (the US) just lack population density sufficient to make public transit work begins to ring hollow.
Also, running public transportation is not a very profitable, if at all, business, so government enterprise is required to run it. And the US seems to lack that.
1. Crowded/uncomfortable
2. Very late/early
3. Unhygienic
I think I most people could deal with one or two of those, but in my personal experience in the US (PA, NY, DC), it's frequently all three.
the biggest reason I know of for people not wanting to take public transit is safety. In the SF Bay Area, MUNI has not always had the best track record for safety and recently BART has had some unfortunate incidents of groups of criminals getting on a train car at one station, robbing everyone in the car, and getting off (and away..) at the next station. And then there's always the stereotypical intoxicated/homeless/mentally unstable individual that poses a safety threat. Sadly something I personally witnessed on BART more than once.
But it is worth remembering that you're still far, far less safe in your car. In the United States 40,200 people died in automobile-related accidents last year. [0] It's not like it's just a little bit less safe to drive. It's orders of magnitude less safe. How many people died on public transit last year? 20? Is it even 20?
Again, I understand why people accept that risk, while not accepting the risk of violent crime, but the numbers are what they are.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/business/highway-traffic-...
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/12/19/heres-how-much-safer-...
I am not sure. I know that driving puts one at a higher risk of death, but you're not going to get assaulted, groped, stabbed, mugged, punched, verbally harassed, etc while driving at the same rate you will on public transit.
In America, everybody knows that public transit is dirty and dangerous, so when such a thing happens, everybody just shrugs it off. Middle class people don't want these ugly stations in their neighborhood; if they have one, they don't want the politicians to waste money on nicer benches or a decent-looking wall. What's the point? It will be filled with graffiti the next week.
So public transit remains underfunded, unsafe, dirty, and always late, and of course people point to that and say "See? We don't need more of these things. Let's build more highway."
When I worked downtown, the bus was a no brainer. Working in a different location, I would spend $10 less a week to have a 80 minute commute vs 10 minute drive.
If the voters don’t want it how do you improve public transport? Would you wait until the next generation? Thoughts?
There's a first-mover disadvantage here. In cities where this isn't true, the bus is a much better experience. Take a bus in St. Louis and then take one in Seattle and see for yourself. The experiences won't even be recognizable as belonging to the same category of activity.
1. No long walk to a bus stop or train station. In good weather, such a walk can be good, pleasant exercise. In bad weather...ugh.
2. If you have several places you need to go, the wait time at the start of each segment can really add up. Consider a trip where you want to go to (1) the bank to get some cash, (2) the post office to mail something, (3) your pharmacist to pick up some medicine, (4) a grocery store for some food, and (5) back to home. That's at least 5 waits at bus stops. Maybe more if those places are not all on the same route. A car will usually be much faster (especially if the bank has a drive up ATM and the pharmacy has a drug through pick up). (The post office probably has a drive though mail drop, but I'm assuming the post office is on the itinerary because you need to buy postage--otherwise you'd be mailing the item from home).
3. Public transit too often is treated as a collection of independent routes, each assessed in isolation when the bean counters tweak things, rather than as a complete system that should be assessed globally.
If I buy a house or condo or rent an apartment based on a good car commute to my work and good car access to the other places I need to or like to go to, there is a good chance 10 or 20 years from now I'll still have good car access to those places.
If I buy a house based on good bus routes to those places with stops close to my house and to my destinations and buses running frequently enough that the waiting is not too bad, what are the chances that will still be true in 10 years? In 20 years?
Much lower than with the car, I think. It's far too easy for the transit authorities to decide that my important routes are not getting enough ridership, and that some other, more popular router, need more resources, and shift buses away from my routes or even cancel mine completely.
I think #3 is the big one. It means that even if the public transit is good enough in my area that #1 and #2 are acceptable now, I can't count on it remaining that way long term (and in some cities, probably not even short term).
Also, because urban trains and busses are frequent enough, we seldom need to think about the wait times. Except for the villages you can get hold of a bus in at the worst case about ten minutes everywhere. I do have to walk quite a bit to the bus stop, but that's because my part is like a little instance of a suburb between the Belgrad forests and the strait, thus scarcely populated and an exception to the general situation with the bus network. But after a 10 minute walk to the main street, it'll take less than 5 minutes to get a bus or minibüs (a private/cooperative alternative to the council's busses, pricier but more frequent) to the closest metro station. But I guess the general density of the population helps keep all this network in service, and get it to be built in the first place.
I don't want to make it illegal, but there are lots of people with long, miserable commutes they hate and we really need a world with more viable options.
So everyone has to be more miserable because of myopia and indifference.
Even today you see that. Take the Amtrak from Albany to NYC, there are a few stops at primarily Metro North stations that pick up a few dozen people a day.
The difference is building new and the cost associated with it. Costs to build track are astronomical because urban sprawl makes condemnation expensive and really only practical for government. You can’t have a small depot with the conductor dropping a stool out... you need at grade platforms with ADA compliant ramps or lifts. Bigger stations need elevators, etc.
Once you build it, you need to staff it, and that also gets expensive, especially since intermediate distance trips are always cheaper via car (by dollars) or plane (by time).
Trains won’t get practical until they can share interstate rights of way and we stop airline subsidy. Without the high margin long haul trips, you can’t afford to pickup school kids.