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And both of those places, Boston in particular, have a much better public transportation system in place than, I would guess, 95% of America's "cities".
Boston has the benefit of being a small city (area wise) that can cover more ground with less, as opposed to say, Jacksonville. Plus, Boston was primarily laid out before everyone took (or had the option to take) some form of powered transportation everywhere.
And for L.A., from what I have seen and read (given its size and population) it is currently "adequate", but definitely shooting for "above average" and beyond. I would also venture to guess that people who SOLELY use public transportation as their means of conveyance are not necessarily people who are decidedly "un-poor"?... and that is people who can afford the monetary costs of a car and the time in traffic, but forego their personal vehicles in favor of using public transit.
Like I said before, the mayor of Chicago has been known to use the CTA Brown line to go into the Loop (not always, but sometimes)... he can afford not to use public transit, but still chooses it from time to time because the transit here goes places, and goes to those places on a fairly frequent schedule.
What about L.A.'s mayor?
I certainly can't imagine the mayor of Indianapolis using IndyGo to get to work (because IndyGo sucks).
Hell, Jay-Z uses MTA... even going to his own concert.:
I would imagine Villaraigosa took transit a decent amount, considering the improvement of transit was one of his biggest platforms and basically the reason he was elected. I believe he never owned a car while mayor (probably because he was mostly driven around).
On a semi-related note, Tony V swerving to miss a cab and falling off of his bike (breaking his arm or collarbone or something) is basically what kick-started LA's cycling Renaissance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by A2DAC1985
And for L.A., from what I have seen and read (given its size and population) it is currently "adequate", but definitely shooting for "above average" and beyond. I would also venture to guess that people who SOLELY use public transportation as their means of conveyance are not necessarily people who are decidedly "un-poor"?... and that is people who can afford the monetary costs of a car and the time in traffic, but forego their personal vehicles in favor of using public transit.
I can't really answer this question... you see a lot of people on the buses and trains that look decidedly "unpoor" but there is no way of knowing if they own a car or not. I'm guessing most of those people do own a car and try to use it as little as possible, or are like my wife and I and share one car (aka car-light).
yes it is. the bart in SF was not initially middel class, but the lawyers felt welfare people and prison releasees should also ride the bart so it changed into another ghetto train.
people dont like being mugged so they dont ride the rails. same story in france.
when the streets change ridership will change and not b4. obama spending billions on public rail and ignoring this minor detail shows an utter disconnect with chicago street reality.
While there is crime on the CTA, the truth is no one who works in the loop drives due to traffic and parking. Anytime there is a lot of traffic or expensive parking or the public transit just happens to be as convient or more conveint than driving people other than the poor use it. Chicago's tranist is a company vice president right next to a bum, both use it.
Maybe? While I've never heard anyone use the phrases you use above to oppose mass transit, I certainly have heard the following:
1. I don't use mass transit because it'd take 3 times as long to get to work.
2. I don't use mass transit because I need the ability to access my car either as part of my job or right after work to pick up children.
3. I don't use mass transit because my city doesn't provide it in the area in which I live and/or work.
4. I oppose spending of my tax dollars on mass transit that I can't ever take advantage of... see items 1-3 as to why.
I don't find any of these comments remotely surprising.
Quotes. That's why I used quotes.
1. And that is a product of, in my opinion, being something that is for "poor" people, in most of the country. In a "very good" system, like here in Chicago, unless I'm going somewhere outside the city, or a hard to get to place, it takes either one ride on a mode of transit, or two rides. But in that time, the individual is free to do what they want.
Read? Sure. Check e-mail? Sure. Knit? Sure. Text? Sure. Listen to music in headphones as loud as you want? Sure. Talk to other people riding with you? Sure. Sleep? Sure. Stare blankly into space? Sure.
2. But if the transit was comprehensive, that wouldn't be a problem, would it? There are many schools and daycares around various train stops on my ONE particular train line. Expand it to the nearest bus line by my work or house? And that number doubles, triple, or quadruples.
And are we forgetting about crashes? I would lay down $100 that says there have been more car crashes in Indianapolis, Indiana in 2012 than there were crashes involving public transit in the ENTIRE United States in 2012.
Private transit can get you headed in the direction you want to go when you want to go, but it certainly offers no guarantee that it will get you there when you need it to.
3. Because the current system, pardon my English, probably sucks. Why would people vote to give more money to something that sucks? Why would people want to spend money on something they have lived "just fine without" for so many years?
I think this is an argument an Amish person would make... "Why do we need cars? Or electrical wires? We're doing just fine! Don't spend OUR money on something we don't want, or would never use!"
4. See the Amish for this rebuttal. Or the people of rural Afghanistan. Or the people of North Korea.
I'm not trying or intending to get political with this one, but I think those are good examples of, "Well, I don't use it, why should others get to use something that I will pay for?!?!"
But the, "I'm not going to use it" line of thinking for not paying for something that would benefit others is, quite frankly crap, in my book.
"Why should I spend money on a college education for my progeny when I'm not going to get anything from it???"
It's true. That person won't directly get anything. But they will fund an education for someone who can go on and do other things, like maybe give them medical care when they're older, or plan financially for their, and others futures.
But back to public transit and how expansive and efficient it is, I don't know about you, but every car off the road is less gas being used, less gas being used means more supply later, more supply later means it costs me less down the line.
Every car off the road means that there are less people driving while: texting, putting on make up, talking on the phone, eating, dealing with rowdy kids in the back seat, having engaging conversations with passengers, being distracted in general, road raging, etc.
So while it may not immediately hit someone in the face why it's a good idea that other people public transit and private transit users pay for it, those dividends do surface.
Yes, I believe that your assessment makes plenty of sense. I live in NYC and commute to Jersey City every day. I drive pretty often, however they recently raised the rates in the garage nearest my building, and no reasonable parking alternative is nearby. I'm not the biggest fan of the light rail only because I happen to prefer driving, however driving to the light rail station 11 miles from my house, paying $105 a month in bridge tolls to Bayonne, $114 in light rail parking + fare monthly, and from my estimates, roughly $150 a month in gas just commuting (much more than that for everything else haha).
$369 a month in commuting costs.
Driving directly to my office building which is only another 5 miles or so from the light rail station would cost me the same monthly $105 in bridge tolls, $54 in NJ Turnpike tolls, probably closer to $200 in gas.....and...wait for it....the biggest ripoff of all....$400 freaking dollars a month to park near my building...bringing my monthly expenses for commuting to:
$759.
The Turnpike stretch I'd drive (interstate 78) in is notorious for 10-20 minute backups on a good day at about the last mile or so, due to the heavy volume of traffic going into Manhattan via the Holland Tunnel, so it's understandable.
But, as in my case, a LOT of well-to-do business commuters who ordinarily wouldn't ride transit anywhere else (sans Manhattan) outside of their commute look to save the ~$390 a month by riding the light rail a few miles. I know that I can certainly better spend that money towards my student loan rather than give the corrupt bastards at Central Parking another dime of my money, lol.
In this example, I don't really think of the light rail as taking mass transit....it's more like a remote parking lot + parking lot shuttle combination for my office building. Similar to when you have to park in Guam at Disney World, Six Flags or Hershey Park and ride the little tram thing to the front gate...only on a slightly bigger scale haha.
Now, there's also a NYC Transit local bus route that goes from my neighborhood to the Bayonne light rail station, which quite a lot of people take also. However in this case the only real advantage is that you'd save money in terms of gas, depending on how close you live to the bus route (many would still have to park and ride) and if you really hate driving to work at all, it's good. A monthly Metrocard is $112, versus the monthly bridge toll of $105.... me personally, I'd rather spend the extra money on gas and be able to spend most of the trip relaxing in my car rather than standing on a packed limited run bus that has to stop every 2 blocks. Those folks that don't mind taking it, they do just fine. Honestly, what sucks is that they used to have a private company that ran an express bus along the local route and went right in front of my current building, but it has since shut down in the mid 2000's and been replaced by this local + light rail transfer combination, which I refuse to do.
What does this have to do with your assessment? Well if the transit coverage makes sense and provides a real value in terms of financial savings or time advantage, it can make a lot of sense for people who could still realistically afford to drive (such as myself). In an area where there would be no real advantage for me to take the light rail, for example if Jersey City didn't have the ridiculously expensive parking rates and there was a more direct highway route there that was able to avoid the Manhattan-bound tunnel traffic crush, I would expect the majority of people would drive just like in most places in the country...then its fair to assume that a larger percentage of people on mass transit simply cannot afford a car, and that its their only way around.
Yes, I believe that your assessment makes plenty of sense. I live in NYC and commute to Jersey City every day. I drive pretty often, however they recently raised the rates in the garage nearest my building, and no reasonable parking alternative is nearby. I'm not the biggest fan of the light rail only because I happen to prefer driving, however driving to the light rail station 11 miles from my house, paying $105 a month in bridge tolls to Bayonne, $114 in light rail parking + fare monthly, and from my estimates, roughly $150 a month in gas just commuting (much more than that for everything else haha).
$369 a month in commuting costs.
Driving directly to my office building which is only another 5 miles or so from the light rail station would cost me the same monthly $105 in bridge tolls, $54 in NJ Turnpike tolls, probably closer to $200 in gas.....and...wait for it....the biggest ripoff of all....$400 freaking dollars a month to park near my building...bringing my monthly expenses for commuting to:
$759.
The Turnpike stretch I'd drive (interstate 78) in is notorious for 10-20 minute backups on a good day at about the last mile or so, due to the heavy volume of traffic going into Manhattan via the Holland Tunnel, so it's understandable.
But, as in my case, a LOT of well-to-do business commuters who ordinarily wouldn't ride transit anywhere else (sans Manhattan) outside of their commute look to save the ~$390 a month by riding the light rail a few miles. I know that I can certainly better spend that money towards my student loan rather than give the corrupt bastards at Central Parking another dime of my money, lol.
In this example, I don't really think of the light rail as taking mass transit....it's more like a remote parking lot + parking lot shuttle combination for my office building. Similar to when you have to park in Guam at Disney World, Six Flags or Hershey Park and ride the little tram thing to the front gate...only on a slightly bigger scale haha.
Now, there's also a NYC Transit local bus route that goes from my neighborhood to the Bayonne light rail station, which quite a lot of people take also. However in this case the only real advantage is that you'd save money in terms of gas, depending on how close you live to the bus route (many would still have to park and ride) and if you really hate driving to work at all, it's good. A monthly Metrocard is $112, versus the monthly bridge toll of $105.... me personally, I'd rather spend the extra money on gas and be able to spend most of the trip relaxing in my car rather than standing on a packed limited run bus that has to stop every 2 blocks. Those folks that don't mind taking it, they do just fine. Honestly, what sucks is that they used to have a private company that ran an express bus along the local route and went right in front of my current building, but it has since shut down in the mid 2000's and been replaced by this local + light rail transfer combination, which I refuse to do.
What does this have to do with your assessment? Well if the transit coverage makes sense and provides a real value in terms of financial savings or time advantage, it can make a lot of sense for people who could still realistically afford to drive (such as myself). In an area where there would be no real advantage for me to take the light rail, for example if Jersey City didn't have the ridiculously expensive parking rates and there was a more direct highway route there that was able to avoid the Manhattan-bound tunnel traffic crush, I would expect the majority of people would drive just like in most places in the country...then its fair to assume that a larger percentage of people on mass transit simply cannot afford a car, and that its their only way around.
Can I assume you are not "poor"?
I think you have provided a real world example of how severely lacking, or insufficient, public transit leads people to believe that those who utilize such an inadequate system can be perceived as "poor".
If I'm off base, let me know, and correct me.
But the NYC metro area, and more broadly, the "Bos-Wash corridor" (as City-Data likes to reference) is an area where taking public transit isn't a "negative" because its service and quality of public transit is not deficient (compared to the rest of the country).
Compare that to Topeka, Kansas (which I know nothing about, but I am just throwing it out there for comparison sake... anyone can correct me if I'm wrong), I would have a hard time believing that the people of that city/metro would allow 100 million, 500 million, even 1 billion dollars of tax payer money to go towards revamping, upgrading, or modernizing the transit system there (if one even exists?).
Why do I assume that?
Because the people who are "not poor" already have their own personal vehicles and don't see a need, or more specifically, a financial GAIN for themselves, by making public transit better.
I think my OP still rings true:
Less transit options and service = The idea that only "poor" people use it.
More transit options and service = The idea that "regular" people use it.
congratulations on coming up with an established concept in transit analysis
the distinction between "captive" riders (not only the poor of course - but anyone who cannot drive an automobile, which can also be due to being too young, to certain physical challenges, or to DUI convictions) and "choice" riders.
but as Jarett Walker points out, this binary can be misleading. One may own a car, yet find the cost of parking or gas prohibitive, or one's car may be so old its unreliable - in which case one may take transit even if the service is less than excellent. OTOH one may have no car, but be able to bike, or use zipcar, and so may use transit only for trips where the service is reasonably good.
"I appreciate the link. But my point is that perceptions are what drives people to vote on, and use, public transit, to put it simply and succinctly."
but thats different from the belief that an individual will use it.
I live in the DC area. Transit here is good enough (and parking expensive enough) that thousands of working stiffs (the paper pushers who pass for working stiffs here) leave their elantras and aging minivans at home, and take the metro to work. But there are also folks who drive their BMW's or Mercedes into town and dont mind a parking fee that they can make up in about one second of billing to their lobbying clients. The Mercedes driver may not ever envision getting ON metro - but he is damned glad its taking all those elantras and minivans off the roads.
I think you have provided a real world example of how severely lacking, or insufficient, public transit leads people to believe that those who utilize such an inadequate system can be perceived as "poor".
If I'm off base, let me know, and correct me.
But the NYC metro area, and more broadly, the "Bos-Wash corridor" (as City-Data likes to reference) is an area where taking public transit isn't a "negative" because its service and quality of public transit is not deficient (compared to the rest of the country).
Compare that to Topeka, Kansas (which I know nothing about, but I am just throwing it out there for comparison sake... anyone can correct me if I'm wrong), I would have a hard time believing that the people of that city/metro would allow 100 million, 500 million, even 1 billion dollars of tax payer money to go towards revamping, upgrading, or modernizing the transit system there (if one even exists?).
Why do I assume that?
Because the people who are "not poor" already have their own personal vehicles and don't see a need, or more specifically, a financial GAIN for themselves, by making public transit better.
I think my OP still rings true:
Less transit options and service = The idea that only "poor" people use it.
More transit options and service = The idea that "regular" people use it.
Ah I am most certainly not poor, though like anyone I can always find something better to spend the $400 a month on, especially with my student loans, going on a vacation this summer and trading my car for new, slightly fancier car later this year. I'd be much happier giving a few hundred a month to Honda Financial than Central Parking any day, lol.
As you were saying about transit coverage, I find it has a lot to do with both the density AND layout of an area...not just the general density of everything, but also the density of the core job market in an area. Cities like New York/Jersey City and others in the northeast corridor have historically dense cores, and thus there are more people like me who use mass transit as a "parking shuttle" from a suburban (or suburban like city neighborhood in my case) location to their job because it's more financially beneficial among other considerations (time, traffic, stress, tolls, etc). When I worked in suburban Cincinnati for six weeks last summer, mass transit was virtually nonexistent out there, sans for one measly limited run park and ride express bus off of the interstate to downtown. As you got closer to the core, there is a lot more bus coverage, but downtown Cincinnati has much cheaper monthly parking (ranges from $50-$150 monthly depending on where), traffic congestion is much lighter and there are no tolled highways or crossings there that would add to people's commuting expenses.
And this doesn't even account for the huge number of people who work in suburban office parks, such as where I worked. My complex was in a heavily wooded area about 4 minutes from interstate 275, free parking and no hassles whatsoever.
In a city like Cincinnati, like many other American cities, there isn't as much of an incentive for middle class commuters to take mass transit in large numbers, because it's reasonably allowable to drive in from suburban locations, even city locations to their jobs over a wide range of job centers or offices. Even in the northeast corridor, you have a huge amount of suburban commuters who'd drive as well, but they just drive to a suburban commuter rail, express bus, or in my case...the parking shuttle light rail to save money.
In Los Angeles, that statement is a little more true, but still definitely false.
It's false because it's not true, but it's kinda true in that many people still think that way. Unless you work downtown, when you tell most people that you commute by bus/train they often assume that you are maybe poor and don't have a car, your car is not working, or that you might have a DUI. Oh, and unfortunately the numbers do back up the fact that most LA bus and train riders are in fact poor and low working class.
I've said this before, but that is a common assumption in every sunbelt city. LA is better than most, but it's still sunbelt in this regard. Changing though and may be much different when trains start rolling on the westside.
Less transit options and service = The idea that only "poor" people use it.
More transit options and service = The idea that "regular" people use it.
One could also say:
Less transit options and service = The reality that it's not available and/or convenient enough for many to choose to use it.
More transit options and service = The reality that it's readily available and convenient enough for many to choose to use it.
Whether or nor the many would use it if it existed is the billion dollar question and not one easily answered.
Personally, I'd love to be able to walk a 1/2 +/- mile and jump on transit to do anything and everything I need to do. Reality where I live is that unless you work in the CBD (which I don't), transit is inadequate. In addition, even if you do work in the CBD and happen to live within a 1/2 of a bus stop, it'll still take you 3-4 times as long to get to work. And if you live in the CBD, you still need a car to get to a grocery store or most everywhere but work or a restaurant or bar.
Maybe that will change one day. Until then, I find the transit system, where I live, to be unworkable to get me where I need to go.
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