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The cost of land in a place with balanced supply/demand, plus the cost to build an average housing unit. Roughly $140,000 to break even. Add another $50,000 for developer profit and the fact that it costs a little bit more to build in urban settings due to logistics, and you get a downtown housing unit for $190,000.
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Originally Posted by IC_deLight
Hmm, let's apply that logic:
It costs more than that to have underwater housing. Therefore demand is higher for underwater housing.
It costs more than that to have housing on Mars. Therefore demand is higher for housing on Mars.
Maybe your logic is faulty?
Construction prices aren't that much more in urban cores than suburbs. Construction prices are much higher underwater or on Mars. Maybe your logic is faulty?
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Originally Posted by IC_deLight
Well if you are going to stereotype all driving then why not do the same for all transit?
Waiting to board at a transit station because the first two trains were too full due to the transit service not providing adequate service (despite the cost)[complaints about NYC MTA from article]? Standing room only? The press of humanity? The smell of barf lady and stinky man?
In your own car you have much greater control over what time you leave, what route you take, what your destination is, who is next to you, the air temperature and volume, and ambient noise, among other things. Certainly don't see how being unable to do anything while waiting to catch transit or being unable to do anything while sitting/standing on transit to be better...
Great description of overcrowded transit. That just builds up the case that we should spend more on rail, so it is less crowded.
Ummm, then why do most places that have multi-billion dollar rail transportation packages generally pass them by large margins? I don't think you get how government and taxation works.
Because most people are have been indoctrinated to believe that it will work. However it never does. Its mostly a Sham. I know because Ive been involved in Public works most of my life.
Up until the late 1970's most public works projects were mostly paid for by bonds that were paid for by the users of what ever service was being provided using Revenue bonds, General obligation bonds were not generally allowed. Not to be paid for by general taxation. If the project failed, or was un profitable, The investors, bond purchasers didnt get their money back. Then they changed the laws to allow for both taxation and guarantee of bonds to large scale investors such as banks. That is why you see these days only financial institutions buying the bonds in totality. They will get their money back no mater what from the taxpayers. This has led to all this over taxation and debt that municipalities hold. Municipalities that have in place mass transit systems that work have had them for 50-100 years and it took all that time to build them little by little. Most were built as private endeavors. Not as governmental actions.
Even Claifornias freeways werent paid for by general taxation. They were paid for by use tax on gasoline. It was assumed that if you drove, you bought gasoline. However these mass transport projects arent paid for by the users. Who would pay $600 for a ticket from Santa Clarita to downtown. Who would buy a bond? No one.
The bulk of the US population lives in major metro areas with MetroCard equivalents.
Then they probably have the same problems.
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Originally Posted by Western Urbanite
New York does have a spending/union/management problem. That doesn't change the fact that it costs less per user to transport people in trains rather than cars.
Whose cost are you referring to?
Drivers are forced to pay fees that are used to subsidize trains.
If it's about "saving money", you aren't saving any money when you look at the cost of living there....
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Originally Posted by Western Urbanite
It costs more because more people want to live there and use a MetroCard than want to live in some Midwestern suburb and own a car.
Or maybe they can't earn a living or a handout elsewhere outside NYC.
Or maybe they can't afford to leave because they don't have money or skills.
Your cause and effect are suspect at best.
A herd mentality (# of people near NYC) is not a basis for trying to force everyone else to use trains.
Your false logic can readily be used against itself: the bulk of the United States population obviously wants to live somewhere other than New York and would rather drive their own car than be told by some yahoo that they want to use a MetroCard.
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Originally Posted by Western Urbanite
The solution is to upzone everything and build a ton of new housing.
Because you prefer more congestion? How is more housing going to solve NYC's severe transit problems?
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Originally Posted by Western Urbanite
Agenda 21 is a good thing.
Why, because it promotes limiting human settlements to condo housing next to railroad tracks? You have to have an unhealthy obsession with railroads (and a desire to control how everyone else should live) to promote that as a means to an end.
Why, because it promotes limiting human settlements to condo housing next to railroad tracks? You have to have an unhealthy obsession with railroads (and a desire to control how everyone else should live) to promote that as a means to an end.
Whose cost are you referring to?
Drivers are forced to pay fees that are used to subsidize trains.
If it's about "saving money", you aren't saving any money when you look at the cost of living there....
Or maybe they can't earn a living or a handout elsewhere outside NYC.
Or maybe they can't afford to leave because they don't have money or skills.
Your cause and effect are suspect at best.
A herd mentality (# of people near NYC) is not a basis for trying to force everyone else to use trains.
Your false logic can readily be used against itself: the bulk of the United States population obviously wants to live somewhere other than New York and would rather drive their own car than be told by some yahoo that they want to use a MetroCard.
Because you prefer more congestion? How is more housing going to solve NYC's severe transit problems?
Why, because it promotes limiting human settlements to condo housing next to railroad tracks? You have to have an unhealthy obsession with railroads (and a desire to control how everyone else should live) to promote that as a means to an end.
There is nothing really wrong with rail. It has many advantages. However our culture does not allow for it. It is based on freedom of movement which is constrained by railroads. The rail lines in Losangeles are like flying in an airplane. Generally more room. In places where rail is real and mature, You are stuffed into the car like sardines. Ive seen windows pop out of passenger cars. People in NYC might put up with that. But people in Losangeles wont.
Public transportation HAS to be subsidized - it probably does not pay for itself. Where I live we have a fabulous bus system that is heavily used. The $1.50 fare (the max) doesn't even begin to pay for it. The local university shares the cost; you can ride free with your ID. The university and health system doesn't have even half the parking space it needs, so lots of people (even if they have a car, like me) choose to ride the bus.
But, it has benefits even for those who don't use it. Namely, there are less cars on the road- a little less traffic, less pollution, low income workers can get to their jobs, shop, etc without needing to have a car. And, people who own cars don't have to use them as much which is a great savings for them. Operating a vehicle is not cheap when everything is factored in.
There is nothing really wrong with rail. It has many advantages.
In the abstract and for certain applications, sure.
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Originally Posted by Joewy
However our culture does not allow for it.
Our "culture" does allow for it. That's why rail exists in heavily subsidized form in some areas of the country. What some are attempting to do is change our "culture" to deny choice and to force their view of how everyone should live in order to rationalize rail.
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Originally Posted by Joewy
It is based on freedom of movement which is constrained by railroads.
I think you could have stopped at "freedom". Posters like some on this forum detest the idea of freedom and certainly the concept of individual freedom. They will argue vehemently against why you should have a "choice" other than the one they've already made for you. Fortunately they are relegated to launching diatribes from remote locations behind anonymous pseudonyms on social media platforms.
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Originally Posted by Joewy
The rail lines in Losangeles are like flying in an airplane. Generally more room.
Having a choice rather than a government mandate tends to cause the system to have to be responsive to prospective user needs!
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Originally Posted by Joewy
In places where rail is real and mature, You are stuffed into the car like sardines. Ive seen windows pop out of passenger cars. People in NYC might put up with that. But people in Losangeles wont.
Well if you haven't noticed, some of the posters here would like to extend that misery of transit to your residential housing situation ... which is intended in turn to support the transit misery they seem to want to heap on users. Nothing but a downward spiral while the anonymous posters tout it as a better world under tags such as "sustainable", "efficient", etc.
There is nothing really wrong with rail. It has many advantages. However our culture does not allow for it.
With a bit of historical research, you'll find evidence of the DELIBERATE DESTRUCTION of electric traction rail so as to favor American oil, automobiles, and pavement interests.
It had NOTHING to do with the cultural demand for "Freedom of travel."
And if you research the fuel consumption per capita, America sticks out like a sore thumb, due, in part, to the inherent wastefulness of the automobile. America doesn't have the highest standard of living anymore - just one of the most expensive. And that's sad.
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Originally Posted by Joewy
It is based on freedom of movement which is constrained by railroads. The rail lines in Losangeles are like flying in an airplane. Generally more room. In places where rail is real and mature, You are stuffed into the car like sardines. Ive seen windows pop out of passenger cars. People in NYC might put up with that. But people in Losangeles wont.
Current passenger rail systems are deliberately designed to be boondoggles, thanks to the political meddling and inherent waste in government.
Investigate the practices of the 19th and early 20th century electric traction rail companies, and you'll see the opposite. Rail lines were placed to maximize service and therefore profits. Companies didn't get rich from pocketing government subsidies. They only made money moving passengers from A to B.
And to get more folks into those train cars, many of these pioneers, who built some of the first electrical power stations, subsidized ELECTRIC AMUSEMENT PARKS. This increased passenger use during the week-ends and raised consumption of electricity, capacity that would otherwise be wasted. Oh, those EVIL capitalists and their schemes to lure us to enjoy week ends. How dare they subsidize dancing and frolicking and cavorting.
Electric Park was a name shared by dozens of amusement parks in the United States that were constructed as trolley parks and owned by electric companies and streetcar companies. After 1903, the success of Coney Island inspired a proliferation of parks named Luna Park and Electric Park, while the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 inspired the formation of White City amusement parks at roughly the same time.
With a bit of historical research, you'll find evidence of the DELIBERATE DESTRUCTION of electric traction rail so as to favor American oil, automobiles, and pavement interests.
It had NOTHING to do with the cultural demand for "Freedom of travel."
And if you research the fuel consumption per capita, America sticks out like a sore thumb, due, in part, to the inherent wastefulness of the automobile. America doesn't have the highest standard of living anymore - just one of the most expensive. And that's sad.
There's a lot of truth to this point, but it has been over-simplified, over-emphasized and ridden to death by the more zealous of the mass-transit advocates.
When I was an undergraduate student, having grown up in a rural area that lost its last passenger train in 1953, and matriculating in one of the most isolated of the major university towns (State College, PA), I learned some of the fine points of getting into the major cities without a car. What's more, I used the same tactic for visiting New York or Philadelphia when back home for inter-session and summer breaks -- drive as far as the first commuter-train stop, and stash the car.
But this all took place in the years 1968-72, when the entire nation was even more polarized than the present day. Since that day, rail-based suburban services have been rebuilt -- even extended and speeded up -- in the limited number of markets where it is technically and economically feasible to do so. And as with our well-intended, much-vilified, and struggling Amtrak Northeast Corridor, the remainder of the issue is hopelessly caught in the quagmire of urbanite politics.
There has been much more progress along those lines than the detractors will admit -- Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami and Washington have rebuilt-from-scratch commuter (heavy) rail networks, and older markets like New York, Boston and Philadelphia no longer have to deal with conflicts with "retail" freight railroads since the container trains are unloaded and sorted on the cities' outskirts and the goods delivered by truck. (Chicago is a special case due to the huge volume of interchange business).
And in ten years or so, when enough of California's oversold HSR project is completed to permit the promised 200 MPH top speed through the Central Valley, it is likely to become a viable alternative for a lot of people; but not in every case.
Because the "overgrown-streetcar" light-rail systems which have been heavily promoted in cities like Denver, Phoenix and Portland (especially "progressive" Portland) too often boil down to a pretty thin tradeoff -- the cost is lower on an absolute, and immediate basis, but the customer is forced both to sacrifice the options and autonomy of the personal vehicle, and to add more structure to his her day -- something a lot of us inherently view with a healthy skepticism.
A case in point -- also from the thread linked above:
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Originally Posted by NickB1967
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.
It's an argument that will never end -- only subside a bit if we continue to learn to get along -- but I'll continue to advocate locking up the liquor, weapons and valuables whenever some goody-two-shoes shows up proclaiming that (s)he knows what's best for all the rest of us -- and I'll redouble that if the largely-fantasy realm of "self-driving" vehicles is invoked.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 04-30-2017 at 10:36 AM..
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