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Wow, one person that wants to get rid of their car. You are not the norm.
Cars burn cleaner so tell me how much polution that is causing? Real science suggests not much polution from the cars on the road. I do not get my science from the likes of Al Gore.
As far as storage of cars I have a garage for my cars. I also park in our employee parking structure. When we are in Los Angeles we are able to find lots of places to park, it does cost maybe $10 but our car has a place.
People travel alone because they need to get somewhere now and the bus is not there. I find it funny when people want everyone to give up their car. Feel free to give up your own car but any problems that I will have parking or keeping a car are mine alone.
I don't get trying to stir the pot on a thread after we've already had so many pages. Quite frankly, the discussion has centered around finding a balance between the value of the car and the costs to other residents and to the government. Posters have been quite respectful, generally, and thoughtful about how much the car is really necessary in different contexts--eg, dense urbanity vs. moderate urbanity vs. suburbs vs. rural. Some have thought the car is more necessary to daily life, even in urban contexts, others have disagreed. This hasn't been a witch hunt against the car, not by a long shot.
Of course, it's "quite common". Car ownership is even "quite common" in Manhattan and everywhere else on the planet. There is no first world place on the globe where owning an auto is some rare phenomenon.
But the point is that auto ownership is less common in NYC's outer boroughs than anywhere else in the U.S. You are talking, by far, the least car-dependent places in the entire country.
That's very low car ownership for U.S. standards, especially because we're talking an entire county, with some suburban parts. Hudson County is roughly comparable to Chicago, SF and Philly in terms of car ownership, and those are some of the most transit dependent places in the U.S.
And, as I previously wrote, this isn't true. There is no place in the U.S., outside of NYC proper that is less car-dependent than the urban parts of Northern NJ.
And the data you're quoting isn't true. There are a number of NJ cities with car ownership under 70%. Paterson has 68% car ownership, not 82%. Most of the small cities on/near the Hudson across from Manhattan have relatively low car ownership, as do most of the urban Northern NJ nodes.
Unless you're comparing Northern NJ to Manhattan and adjacent parts of Brooklyn/Bronx/Queens, urban NJ is about as transit-oriented as it gets in the U.S.
I will stand by the data I noted. Unless there are links, all you have presented is your own opinion.
NJ is about as transit-oriented as it gets in the USA (other than a few cities), but it is almost impossible to serve town to town commuting in NJ with mass transit. Due to how NJ has developed, mass transit will never allow people to live without a car. Also, even if the majority of your commute can work with mass transit, there is a good chance you will have to drive to a station.
% of household car ownership in
Hudson County, NJ 76%
Essex County, NJ 88%
Palisades Park, NJ, (Bergen County) 87%
Rutherford, NJ (Bergen County) 98%
Clifton, NJ (Passaic County) 95%
Paterson, NJ (Passaic County) 82%
Elizabeth, NJ (Union County) 85%
Hoboken, NJ 74%
I will stand by the data I noted. Unless there are links, all you have presented is your own opinion.
Again, you posted incorrect data. You were posting county-level data and calling it city data. We already know the real data, which shows that the more urban parts of Northern NJ have basically the lowest auto ownership of anywhere in the U.S. excepting core NYC.
Nearly half of Jersey City residents have no cars. Most of the big Northern NJ cities, and the small urban towns near Manhattan, have low car ownership.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 46H
NJ is about as transit-oriented as it gets in the USA (other than a few cities), but it is almost impossible to serve town to town commuting in NJ with mass transit.
No, NJ is about as transit oriented as it gets in the US except for ANY city, excepting NYC. There is plenty of town-to-town commuting, but obviously, like everywhere on the planet, transit between secondary nodes will be markedly inferior to primary nodes. Even somewhere like Germany you don't have train lines running between two suburbs; commuting is to core districts.
If your claim that NJ is auto dependent, fine, but then your are claiming the entire U.S., excepting a small part of NYC, is totally auto dependent. To me, that's not a very nuanced argument.
Clearly there is a difference between living in Philly and suburban Phoenix, even if 70% of Philly residents own cars. Somewhere with 70% car ownership is quite transit oriented by U.S. standards. In some towns in NJ, the % car free is even higher. Basically any U.S. city with vehicle ownership below 80% will have some pedestrian/transit orientation, unless it's a desperately poor city.
Again, you posted incorrect data. You were posting county-level data and calling it city data. We already know the real data, which shows that the more urban parts of Northern NJ have basically the lowest auto ownership of anywhere in the U.S. excepting core NYC.
It's clearly that it's county-level data from the post and correct. At this point, both of you have been posting accurate statistics, just one person calling the numbers low, another high. It's getting to be a tedious argument.
First off people like owning their own car, truck, or motorcycle. People love to be able to have the freedom to do what they want, and what they want is to drive their own car.
Second, cars and trucks are much more efficient and cleaner burning now than at any time in history. They keep getting better.
Third, we have plenty of our own oil here in the USA that we can tap into.
fourth, The global warming crowd is mostly made up of alarmist that are trying to push bad science. Almost all of these people are not scientist at all but mostly political people that want to get voted into office or find a way to keep their seat in office. Real science has found nothing in the way of man made problems that have done anything to warm up the planet.
The only thing that I would buy in the story is the cost of a car and here is how to combat that. Keep your cars longer. I laugh when I see someone in a Prius and in four years they have another car. They did not get the return on the investment. They may as well have purchased a gasoline powered car. I am not big on hybrids because the returns are so bad. I am for buying and holding. Our Astro Van has over 160,000 miles on it and it is still going. I figure we can get another 40,000 miles on it. That is a bargain.
I was gonna say that walking, biking, and public transit are still more energy efficient. But then I realized that arguing with someone who thinks that climate change isn't real and some kind of way to get into office isn't worth it.
It's clearly that it's county-level data from the post and correct. At this point, both of you have been posting accurate statistics, just one person calling the numbers low, another high. It's getting to be a tedious argument.
No, I have posted both city and county data. I just indicated what county the cities where in. NOLA has posted zero links to back up his claims.
No, NJ is about as transit oriented as it gets in the US except for ANY city, excepting NYC. There is plenty of town-to-town commuting, but obviously, like everywhere on the planet, transit between secondary nodes will be markedly inferior to primary nodes. Even somewhere like Germany you don't have train lines running between two suburbs; commuting is to core districts.
Germany doesn't really have anything as big as NYC Metro Area though and their employment is quite centralized. However, in cases where it isn't like Rhine-Ruhr, you do have S-Bahn running frequent rapid transit between all the various cities. You have Berlin with a belt-line, and even a small city like Munich has rapid transit lines criss-crossing outside downtown rather than being purely radial lines.
If NE NJ/NYC was in Germany, you would still have much better non-Manhattan focused rail options.
You would likely have frequent <15min all day service on all the commuter rail lines heading into NYC, as well as rapid transit lines connecting places like Fort Lee-Jersey City-Staten Island with a stop to transfer on the NJ Transit rail lines going to Penn Station.
You'd definitely have a rapid transit line from Newark to Passaic, and likely also connecting Passaic to Hackensack, Fort Lee, another crossing of the Hudson to Manhattan/The Bronx. In the other direction, the same line would likely head south to Elizabeth, and perhaps further to New Brunswick or Perth Amboy. If Berlin can have a belt-line, NYC which is much bigger would probably have 2.
Newark would have its own tram network, maybe even a subway network, with several lines, for more local travel. Same goes with Trenton, Bridgeport, and maybe even Paterson and Stamford.
The gaps between the rail lines, places like Watchung, NJ, would probably be left undeveloped/rural rather than having exurban development. Essentially all major retail and office development would be along rail lines, with only industrial/warehouse developments and low density residential located a bit further away and served by buses (or trams). Oh and by the way, the trams would largely be running on reserved ROWs so they'd be more like LRT than streetcars.
I don't get trying to stir the pot on a thread after we've already had so many pages. Quite frankly, the discussion has centered around finding a balance between the value of the car and the costs to other residents and to the government. Posters have been quite respectful, generally, and thoughtful about how much the car is really necessary in different contexts--eg, dense urbanity vs. moderate urbanity vs. suburbs vs. rural. Some have thought the car is more necessary to daily life, even in urban contexts, others have disagreed. This hasn't been a witch hunt against the car, not by a long shot.
You mean someone offering a different opinion than what appears to be the consensus of the thread? I think that's good!
The central issue is, do we regard cars as being a necessary evil of runaway 20th century civic mismanagement, or do we fundamentally enjoy cars?
As an automotive enthusiast, I don't view cars as mere convenience or appliance or even as status-symbol. I venerate the ideas behind their engineering. I crave the act of driving, even on my morning commute. It regenerates and soothes me, as say riding a bicycle or jogging do not. I cycle or jog for exercise, not for personal pleasure or emotional reconstitution. To be bereft of my cars would be a grievous penalty and sacrifice, a diminution of quality of life.
Even so, I realize that areas of expensive land and high population density are not conducive to widespread private automotive operation. Parking and traffic become difficult. Cars – even compact cars – are large, taking up valuable space. Though I've had no trouble driving in Manhattan, it was unbelievably irritating to find curbside parking there.
If we hate cars, if we daydream of relegating them to past history, then of course new-urbanism becomes a truculent crusade against all things automotive, be it from the viewpoint of environmentalism, energy, space-efficiency, safety or whatnot. All of these things are valid concerns. But they can be pursued without vilifying the car.
Hopefully we have gentrify urban spaces, or design new ones, without marginalizing cars as something morally bankrupt or despicable. Cars and car-owners won't always win. But must we think of cars as some awful ruse, foisted upon a gullible and unsophisticated people?
Parking garages can make sense if there's a large number of private spots added compared to the public spots lost to the curb cut, or if there is either no on-street parking, or it exists but demand for it is low.
I thought parking garages ripped apart urban fabric though.
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