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When I was in my teens I lost my license for a year for drag racing, and had to take the bus everywhere. It was NOT a great experience, and some of the people you meet are not exactly ones you want to socialize with under any circumstances.
It's funny how much easier it is to love public transportation when you actually have a car in the garage. When taking the bus is not a choice, it doesn't quite feel the same.
It's funny how much easier it is to love public transportation when you actually have a car in the garage. When taking the bus is not a choice, it doesn't quite feel the same.
It didn't change my perception for myself. Well, my car's not a garage, it's in a driveway.
I'm all for public transit, and purposely chose to live somewhere where having a car would be optional, but not necessary (i.e. walkable distance to the train, local shops, buses, etc). That said, the US has a long, long way to go before our public transit systems are easy or even enjoyable to use. For the most part (speaking from a NY/East Coast perspective) taking public transit is usually an overcrowded, smelly hassle which involves cramming into an over-crowded subway car which runs on crumbling infrastructure out of even more dilapidated stations. Even Metro North, which is our commuter rail line and usually fully-funded is laughable compared to similar transit systems in other countries which are by far, cleaner, faster, quieter than similar offerings in the US. That said, public transit in the US has, by and large, been something that until very recently most consider reserved solely for the lower economic classes who could not afford a car, and thus funding and technology have been de-prioritized in the extreme.
If the NYC subway is to be considered the pride of US public transportation systems (which it, sadly sort of is right now), we've got a long way to go and it will involve a huge shift away from car culture in the larger, coastal cities. I doubt this will ever be feasible in the larger part of middle America and the Midwest, where a car is simply a logistical necessity. Having grown up in a Midwestern city, public transit is mostly unavailable except in the 'inner city' neighborhoods, and even then schedules were often spotty and routes only run in one direction. A trip of a few miles might take half a day relying on buses alone. For most people, this is not a viable means of transportation.
Finally, I think at a deeper, cultural level the personal automobile represents one of America's most treasured values - liberty and personal autonomy. Culturally, we have always preferred the private option to the public one be it transportation, charity, social services, etc. At the heart of the matter, the car really represents very deeply-held beliefs about liberty, individuality and self-reliance.
As a couple others have mentioned, the aspect not mentioned in the article or by most anti car people is the fact that mass transit for most of us is horribly inefficient. It only really works well if you live in the inner core of a major city needing to get around within the main core of the city, OR if you happen to live near a park and ride station that offers direct, nonstop service to the main core if you happen to work there.
For the rest of us, it is really a hassle that you have to plan your day around if you do use it instead of driving. In my case, I live in a suburb that is just 10 miles from my office (my office is in the city proper). If I were to take the bus all the way in, I would have to switch buses twice, and the ride would take 90 minutes. If I drive all the way in, it's about 30-40 minutes.
And also the article falsely makes it sound like the car is some kind of unique culture here in the US. Do people not realize people all over the world drive, and that the car is the primary means of transportation for large percentages of people all over the globe? Look at Canada, Australia, even much of Europe! Sure in Europe they have good transit and a higher percentage of people use it daily than here, but the percentage is still rather low- the majority still actually DRIVE. And then there are even places like China, that is still in the process of modernizing- they have good mass transit due to their density and the fact that lots of people cannot even afford a car if they wanted one. But guess what? Huge numbers of people each year are buying cars and starting to drive instead of using transit because they also realize that it's a more convenient and more comfortable way to get around.
I say this only to get it out there that this is not a uniquely American thing- the car is a global phenomenon.
"What the author calls convenience an economist might call utility, i.e. usefulness. There's a subtle but important difference in the two words and concepts. Convenience sounds kinda frivolous and suggests that the driver is a lazy hedonist. Utility, on the other hand, has real value to the driver that can be wieighted against other options and qauntified to an extent."
I'm over the three sentence limit as it is, but the guy expands on this idea. I think he makes good points.
If the NYC subway is to be considered the pride of US public transportation systems (which it, sadly sort of is right now), we've got a long way to go and it will involve a huge shift away from car culture in the larger, coastal cities. I doubt this will ever be feasible in the larger part of middle America and the Midwest, where a car is simply a logistical necessity. Having grown up in a Midwestern city, public transit is mostly unavailable except in the 'inner city' neighborhoods, and even then schedules were often spotty and routes only run in one direction. A trip of a few miles might take half a day relying on buses alone. For most people, this is not a viable means of transportation.
Finally, I think at a deeper, cultural level the personal automobile represents one of America's most treasured values - liberty and personal autonomy. Culturally, we have always preferred the private option to the public one be it transportation, charity, social services, etc. At the heart of the matter, the car really represents very deeply-held beliefs about liberty, individuality and self-reliance.
When I was looking to go to the airport from the suburbs, I was going to leave my car at my city office at the time, walk with my luggage to the bus station, and make several bus changes to the airport. It would take about three hours. Not practical at all with luggage.
I'm fine with density, where practical and reasonable, but I am not an anti-car person. I see the car as an important means of autonomy and freedom, and I think there is a movement afoot by leftists to consolidate more and more people into small areas in major cities.
And also the article falsely makes it sound like the car is some kind of unique culture here in the US. Do people not realize people all over the world drive, and that the car is the primary means of transportation for large percentages of people all over the globe? Look at Canada, Australia, even much of Europe! Sure in Europe they have good transit and a higher percentage of people use it daily than here, but the percentage is still rather low- the majority still actually DRIVE. And then there are even places like China, that is still in the process of modernizing- they have good mass transit due to their density and the fact that lots of people cannot even afford a car if they wanted one. But guess what? Huge numbers of people each year are buying cars and starting to drive instead of using transit because they also realize that it's a more convenient and more comfortable way to get around.
I say this only to get it out there that this is not a uniquely American thing- the car is a global phenomenon.
This kind of touches on what you are talking about here. Though a noticeable thing is the fact that car use in big cities in other countries that the article mentions is about half of what it is in the US. That definitely has a big impact on how cities are designed and how transportation functions.
I live on a train line and I had a contract at a company on another train line. The other town is 6 miles from my house or 11 to 18 minutes at rush hour via car. The morning train options were 6:13am and 78 minutes, 6:55am and 93 minutes, 7:11 and 88 minutes, and 7:44am and 100 minutes. The job was 1/2 mile from the train station and I live 7/10 mile form my train station. The monthly pass for the train is $170. Using the IRS $.54/mile number my driving cost was $129.60.
Even if I drive to my train station, the best case train commute takes almost 1:40 vs 18 minutes worse case driving. By driving, I can drop my kids off at school and not have to pay for before care services. If I leave work at 6pm, by train, I will get to my train station at 7:35pm vs home by 6:15pm if I drive. If I miss the 6:06pm train I get back to my train station at 8:14pm.
You would think that living 20 miles from NYC in high density suburbs there would be enough support for additional mass transit. The issue is all the towns in north NJ have residential and commercial so there is a huge amount of point to point commuting. There is no way for mass transit to accommodate this type of commuting. The car actually turns out to be a huge time saver and time has value.
One of the reasons public transportation is so poor and inefficient in the US, is because our transportation infrastructure is based so heavily on the car. Public transportation is virtually an afterthought.
Here is an example of the change that made public transportation such a poor choice. 60-70 years ago, downtown Youngstown was a major retail center of the region. The main thoroughfare through downtown is Federal Ave., and the retail district was about 0.6 of a mile, from end to end. Today, that same retail district--for all intents and purposes--is stretched out along a 7.5 mile stretch of US 224, in the suburbs. So, while a streetcar could easily whisk someone from end to end of the downtown shopping district, it's a cumbersome bus ride to get from end to end of the suburban shopping district. The biggest difference between then and now is that there were no parking lots and drive-thru's between each store and restaurant, downtown.
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