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It's a no brainer. Public transportation in America is funded by CITIES. They can't make PT viable most of the time, due to the lack of customers. Everybody drives their own car in America. Metro Subways are an exception because people who commute to the city to work from the suburbs are legion, and they can supply the necessary revenue base. They don't want the nightmare of parking, so they take the train.
European countries are small. The entire continent of Europe is less than half the size of the CONUS and with half the population. PT makes sense in Europe. American affluence is/was much greater, and every family had at least one car.
Most transit districts are metro wide, BART, MARTA, SEPTA, RTD, etc.
I have the sensation that smart roads and driverless alternative-power cars will solve, at least to a significant extent, the transportation infrastructure problem, so maybe the current lack of investment in these "middling" technologies will prove to be the right thing.
Add to that less of a need for personal ownership--yet still having "personal" transportation. A driverless UBER-type system where a vehicle can be ordered (or even scheduled) to your home, picks you up and takes you to your destination, then a vehicle (the same vehicle, having made trips for others in the meantime, or a different vehicle of the same type) is waiting for you when you want to depart. A driverless taxi system.
I have the sensation that smart roads and driverless alternative-power cars will solve, at least to a significant extent, the transportation infrastructure problem, so maybe the current lack of investment in these "middling" technologies will prove to be the right thing.
Can we please refrain from the fantasy of "self-driving cars"?
Anyone who digs a little deeper into this subject by reading the professionally-oriented publications -- either automotive mechanics or trucking -- can attest that while there are things in the works that will make driving easier, and save more than a few lives, we are nowhere near complete automation of the operation of independent vehicles.
Yet as regularly as clockwork, some gadfly with a degree in art appreciation or the like will show up with Oprah, Ellen or Katie to tell the suburban soccer-moms that "a self-driving car will be here in two to five years".
If, after 45 years of trying, we have not been able to completely automate something as well-insulated from the street as an urban subway system, it's not realistic to believe that technology can be quickly modified to cope with an environment as diverse as a highway network, or all the extraneous possibilities, most of them with negative consequences, that arise from the foibles of human behavior.
There will be progress, but it will come in fits and starts, and we can't expect it to take us exactly where we would like to go.
Can we please refrain from the fantasy of "self-driving cars"?
Anyone who digs a little deeper into this subject by reading the professionally-oriented publications -- either automotive mechanics or trucking -- can attest that while there are things in the works that will make driving easier, and save more than a few lives, we are nowhere near complete automation of the operation of independent vehicles.
Yet as regularly as clockwork, some gadfly with a degree in art appreciation or the like will show up with Oprah, Ellen or Katie to tell the suburban soccer-moms that "a self-driving car will be here in two to five years".
If, after 45 years of trying, we have not been able to completely automate something as well-insulated from the street as an urban subway system, it's not realistic to believe that technology can be quickly modified to cope with an environment as diverse as a highway network, or all the extraneous possibilities, most of them with negative consequences, that arise from the foibles of human behavior.
There will be progress, but it will come in fits and starts, and we can't expect it to take us exactly where we would like to go.
A polemic about nothing said here.
Nobody here has said "two to five years."
And if you yourself admit "there will be progress," you can't call it a "fantasy."
I lived where a decent commuter bus, going from near my home in my suburb, to where I worked sort of near downtown, was available, and I used it.
But then, the transit authority built a "light rail" showpiece, and the buses, instead of going from my neighborhood to where I worked downtown, then went from my neighborhood to the light rail station closest to my neighborhood. And the light rail station downtown didn't quite go where I worked like the old bus did. So there was another bus from the light rail station downtown to my place of work.
What was once a single bus from my home to my work, became a bus from my home to one light rail stop, then the light rail to another light rail stop, then a bus to my work.
Transition time lags meant my transit time nearly doubled.
I gave up transit and drove my car. So did many other people. Ridership actually *dropped* because of a decent bus system cannibalized for a light rail showpiece.
Unfortunately, this is an all-too-typical experience when cities roll out their shiny new light rail systems. It's duplicative to operate bus routes parallel to the rail line, and "they" want to ensure that their new trains get as much ridership as possible. So they'll take bus routes that used to run the whole way into downtown and truncate them at a light rail stop. And your not-too-slow, one-seat ride suddenly got twice as long and twice as inconvenient.
As for ridership, though, the numbers will always show an improvement, thanks to the standard use of "unlinked passenger boardings" as a measurement of ridership. What this means is that, every time someone gets on a transit vehicle, they are counted. So when you used to ride your one single bus route to work, you were counted as two "unlinked passenger boardings" -- once when you rode from home to work, and then again when you rode from work back to home. But now that you have to take a bus to a light rail to another bus (each way), you're actually counted as SIX (!) unlinked boardings, since you boarded six separate vehicles during your daily commute.
As you said, some people will just give up and stop riding, so the actual number of individual human beings using the transit system will decline. But the ridership numbers from the remaining individuals who are stuck using the system (reported as unlinked passenger boardings) will go up, thanks to one boarding now being counted as two or three. And so, voila, the politicians get to trumpet that ridership has gone up since their new light rail opened, and most people are none the wiser.
Reporting ridership as "linked passenger boardings" (i.e. counting each individual person's transit trip from start to finish as a single rider, regardless of how many vehicles it took to complete the trip) would solve this smoke-and-mirrors trick. But to be fair, it's vastly easier for transit systems to count unlinked rather than linked riders, so that's why it's done. An honest transit system will explain the difference to you; a politician never will.
see the disaster of public transit in Cheyenne, Wyoming for example
Cheyenne has a population of about 62,000 and a density of about 3,000 per square mile. The city's transit system has 6 routes, all of which are timed to connect at a downtown hub on the hour. The buses run every hour, with the first block of trips starting at 6:00 a.m. (weekdays) or 10:00 a.m. (Saturdays), and the last block of trips starting at 6:00 p.m. (weekdays) or 4:00 p.m. (Saturdays).
IMO, Cheyenne's transit system offers an appropriate level of service for a city of its size and population density.
Unfortunately, this is an all-too-typical experience when cities roll out their shiny new light rail systems. It's duplicative to operate bus routes parallel to the rail line, and "they" want to ensure that their new trains get as much ridership as possible. So they'll take bus routes that used to run the whole way into downtown and truncate them at a light rail stop. And your not-too-slow, one-seat ride suddenly got twice as long and twice as inconvenient.
.
And these rail systems begin to look like a gimmick, and a white elephant.
Can we please refrain from the fantasy of "self-driving cars"?
Anyone who digs a little deeper into this subject by reading the professionally-oriented publications -- either automotive mechanics or trucking -- can attest that while there are things in the works that will make driving easier, and save more than a few lives, we are nowhere near complete automation of the operation of independent vehicles.
Yet as regularly as clockwork, some gadfly with a degree in art appreciation or the like will show up with Oprah, Ellen or Katie to tell the suburban soccer-moms that "a self-driving car will be here in two to five years".
If, after 45 years of trying, we have not been able to completely automate something as well-insulated from the street as an urban subway system, it's not realistic to believe that technology can be quickly modified to cope with an environment as diverse as a highway network, or all the extraneous possibilities, most of them with negative consequences, that arise from the foibles of human behavior.
There will be progress, but it will come in fits and starts, and we can't expect it to take us exactly where we would like to go.
This is a pretty bizarre denial of where technology is today. Google has logged 1.4 million miles so far.
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told automakers it is willing to exempt up to 2,500 vehicles industry-wide from some auto safety standards for up to two years in a move that could allow Google to get its self-driving cars on U.S. roads.
Mass market autonomous cars are probably a decade away. It's not science fiction. In my view, this is going to solve the US highway infrastructure problem. You can create autonomous car lanes where they all go bumper-to-bumper at 60 mph in complete safety. Within 5 years, everyone who commutes in heavy traffic is going to buy one. You don't need to add lanes. You have to get the stoooopid humans out of the equation since they're the ones causing the stop & go and the traffic jams when they rear end the car in front of them.
I'm 57. I'm hopeful that my car when I'm old and on the verge of losing my drivers license is self-driving. It will likely buy me several years in my own house where I'd have to move to some lousy assisted living place otherwise.
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Back on the Europe public transportation vs US automobile thread:
In browsing the thread, nobody completely covered the economics of car ownership in the US versus Europe. Let me take a stab at that:
Because of VAT/GST, a car in Europe costs about 30% more than the same car in the US
Fuel cost has already been covered. Europe is easily 2x what we pay in the US.
What hasn't really been covered is the fraction of disposable income it costs to own and operate a car in the US compared to Europe. Wages are a bit lower in Europe than in the US since they've caught up and the more affluent European countries have passed the United States when looking at median household income. If you're in southern Europe, you make a lot less. If you're in northern Europe, you make about the same or a bit more. The difference is the middle class in Europe pays huge taxes. The median household in the US earning $50K with a mortgage and 1.4 kids is paying close to zero federal income taxes. They pay payroll taxes to the tune of 6.2% for FICA and 1.45 for Medicare and that's about it. Typical tax burden is about 15%. In Europe, it's more like 50%. Mortgage interest isn't deductible. Tax rates are much higher. On top of that, food is about 2x more expensive. Europeans don't have anything close to the disposable income of Americans. They get nationalized healthcare and cheap college if they can get admitted but Joe Average in the US probably didn't go to college and his employer provides health care. He has his full size pickup in the driveway and the wife drives a crossover or a sedan. That's normal in any middle class tract housing in the United States. It might not be new cars but they have them. They have the disposable income to afford it. In Europe, they don't. They have less disposable income, costs for anything non-automotive they buy are far higher than in the US, and automobiles and fuel are much more expensive.
I don't think one way is better than the other. I'd love to step out my door, walk 1/4 mile, step on a shiny new S-Bahn, and get to the city center. I also like being able to keep most of my gross pay and I like being able to buy inexpensive consumer goods on Amazon and cheap food at the grocery store. You can't have both.
Because General Motors embarked on a policy of buying up mass private transportation, then running it into the ground, in an attempt to force Americans to buy cars, instead of using mass transit.
It's not a conspiracy theory....it's a documentary film. Watch it and learn.
THIS is the primary reason the US has horrible public transit.
Cheyenne has a population of about 62,000 and a density of about 3,000 per square mile. The city's transit system has 6 routes, all of which are timed to connect at a downtown hub on the hour. The buses run every hour, with the first block of trips starting at 6:00 a.m. (weekdays) or 10:00 a.m. (Saturdays), and the last block of trips starting at 6:00 p.m. (weekdays) or 4:00 p.m. (Saturdays).
IMO, Cheyenne's transit system offers an appropriate level of service for a city of its size and population density.
In addition, Cheyene is small enough that a healthy person can walk/bike to most destinations. Despite the idea of Wyoming as a frozen wasteland, the weather is Cheyenne is conducive to biking much of the year, with average highs above freezing year-round. https://weatherspark.com/averages/30...-United-States
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