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Also generally true as long as you're talking about inner-city as the poverty stricken places. Inner-city like Manhattan or San Francisco have low obesity rates. It's mostly because they're wealthy. Wealth is of greater importance when predicting obesity than much of anything else. Overall rural areas have higher obesity than urban areas. Rural areas also have higher poverty rates.
Also generally true as long as you're talking about inner-city as the poverty stricken places. Inner-city like Manhattan or San Francisco have low obesity rates. It's mostly because they're wealthy. Wealth is of greater importance when predicting obesity than much of anything else. Overall rural areas have higher obesity than urban areas. Rural areas also have higher poverty rates.
True, those that live inner city that take transit, bike, and/or walk tend to be much healthier because they are not only active but they can also afford to eat healthier.
Once you get outside of more dense parts of cities, the transit and walkability drops dramatically in most cases. With the invention of the car, our country moved as far away from being a transit focused country.
It was not really the invention of the car, but the construction of the interstates, the home-buying incentives, the residential redlining, and the connection of property taxes to school funding that moved our country away from the cities, I would say.
It was not really the invention of the car, but the construction of the interstates, the home-buying incentives, the residential redlining, and the connection of property taxes to school funding that moved our country away from the cities, I would say.
We wouldn't have interstates if we didn't have cars.
We also wouldn't have stop lights if we didn't have cars, but attributing the suburbanization of America to the invention of cars fails to acknowledge that that same suburbanization did not happen over the whole world (where cars also exist).
Once your car is very old, whether you have a lot or little miles doesn't make a huge difference in its value, it may still have issues regardless of mileage, especially here where roads are salt-treated most of the winter. My car has 123,000 miles on it, any problems it has a result of age not mileage. But if you put a lot of miles a year, (say more than 15,000 miles or especially 20,000+ miles) the mileage will shorten its useful lifespan. You're more likely to run into problems on a ten year old car with over 200,000 miles than one with 100,000 miles. So if your commute is long (maybe 25+ miles each way) added wear and tear on a car will be significant. Of course, almost all 25+ mile commutes tolerable (time-wise) on public transit are either on rail or express bus, usually to a downtown.
Call that it $2,000 over ten years or $200 a year. Honestly, I think that's understated but whatever.
Replacement interval is likely more of a big deal. If you're driving 5,000 miles a year, you might replace your car every 15 years versus every 10. Call a Civic LX $20,000.
20,000 - 3,000 (NADA 10@200k) replaced every ten years is $1,700/yr.
20,000 - 2,500 (NADA 15@75k) replaced every 15 years is $1,166.67
Just call it $600/yr as again I think that's understated.
Then you've got marginal cost of operating. 15,000/yr works out to a 30-mile commute one way, just as frame of reference. If we call the marginal cost of driving 25 cents a mile (for support: http://www.vtpi.org/tca/tca0501.pdf), that's $3,750/year.
Then you include the road subsidy. For Sacramento, my area, my MTP estimates that at $500-$1,000/yr per driver. Take the upper bound of $1,000
Total cost $5,350/yr. That's a solo driver ignoring externalities.
Back when I first moved to Seattle area and was staying in Marysville, I took the bus to work downtown. Cost for the commuter bus is $198/month nowadays. Commuter buses, unlike regular buses, generally make a tremendous amount of sense. I'm not aware of the farebox recovery ratio for that bus, but we have commuter in my area now that run healthy profits for the transit agency and cost about the same.
Amtrak (Capitol Corridor) is $426/month for a 70-mile trip, transfer to BART in Richmond and operates at a 66% farebox recovery today (almost double what it did 20 years ago). Back when I lived near enough to Amtrak, that was my preferred way of getting to the San Francisco, actually. Now I drive to BART. The single-fare prices on both Amtrak/commuter bus to BART are too high to make fiscal sense.
Incidentally, this is why I have called commuter transit the big enabler of exurban living. Doesn't work for everyone by any means.
We also wouldn't have stop lights if we didn't have cars, but attributing the suburbanization of America to the invention of cars fails to acknowledge that that same suburbanization did not happen over the whole world (where cars also exist).
I am only speaking about specifically the US when I said that. Though it is more of a general statement than anything, I am sure one could target more specific moments like the creation the in interstate system.
I am only speaking about specifically the US when I said that. Though it is more of a general statement than anything, I am sure one could target more specific moments like the creation the in interstate system.
And the other stuff, the redlining, the home-buying incentives, and the tying together of school funding and localized property taxes--also probably the long-standing U.S.-Saudi relationship. It's no secret that transit (and walking/biking) work well in dense areas--cities. So the key to understanding America's globally high car dependance is understanding why America departed from denser development to more sparse development--suburbs. The car was invented long before suburbanization. The car existed around the world, including in places that did not sub-urbanize the way America did.
True, those that live inner city that take transit, bike, and/or walk tend to be much healthier because they are not only active but they can also afford to eat healthier.
It's irrelevant what people can do. Have you been to a grocery store and watched people loading up on junk before paying with their food stamps? Those are all people who can afford to eat healthful foods too. They just choose not to. Low-income people as a group make poorer lifestyle choices than high-income people do. Food deserts, for example, are mostly in rural areas although a few exist in urban areas. That can make it more difficult. Similar with exercise, high-income people are more likely to be active. Lower SES areas actually have higher access to facilities for recreational physical activity than higher SES areas.
And the other stuff, the redlining, the home-buying incentives, and the tying together of school funding and localized property taxes--also probably the long-standing U.S.-Saudi relationship. It's no secret that transit (and walking/biking) work well in dense areas--cities. So the key to understanding America's globally high car dependance is understanding why America departed from denser development to more sparse development--suburbs. The car was invented long before suburbanization. The car existed around the world, including in places that did not sub-urbanize the way America did.
Very true, there are lots of things that have played to the demise of public transit in the US.
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