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The problem with DART is gets oh so close to where it needs to go, but just misses the target in most situations. Uptown and Oak Lawn aren't super far from a rail line, but the rail misses the hart of the action and population. This is a prime neighborhood for public transit users (dense apartment buildings, walkable neighborhood, young, educated, professional, gay-friendly, etc.). Instead of being right in the middle of it all in those neighborhoods, the stations are on the periphery located on/near large freeways/highways. The station by SMU is across a freeway and doesn't actually serve the student population, nor does it hit the shopping/dining area north of the campus. Again, prime demographic of young college students. I'm not an expert on Dallas and all its neighborhoods, but following the lines on Google Maps, you can see there are some missed opportunities.
It's sort of the opposite in Atlanta. MARTA hits a lot of the major nodes of the city(Downtown, Midtown, Central Buckhead, Lindbergh, Inman Park/Little Five Points, etc). It's biggest problem is it needs more lines that criss cross the city into the residential neighborhoods. Still, it has solid ridership for a "sunbelt city". It does better than BART in terms of daily boardings per mile and not too far behind Washington.
In case you haven't noticed, younger people are trending away from cars and toward urbanity, walkability, and mass transit.
Actually, quite a few of the youngest (Gen Z) totally are gravitating towards cars. They despise the 9-5 lifestyle that public transit commutes are associated with, and are totally willing to get those Lamborghinis and live that jet-set, laptop lifestyle.
Actually, quite a few of the youngest (Gen Z) totally are gravitating towards cars. They despise the 9-5 lifestyle that public transit commutes are associated with, and are totally willing to get those Lamborghinis and live that jet-set, laptop lifestyle.
Gen Z is early 2000s. Those kids are like 18 years old. Idk exactly where cutoffs are, but I'm assuming some are like 15 years old. When I was that age, I loved cars and couldn't wait to drive because it meant I could get out of my transit-desert neighborhood. However, once I got older and experienced the hell of commuting in LA traffic, I learned to love public transit in all its forms because anything was better than sitting in traffic for hours on end.
Wait till these kids grow up and driving isn't just "hey let's drive to Taco Bell" or "wanna go to the mall? I'll drive" or "I'm bored and my mom gave me the car tonight so let's just go drive around and do nothing." I feel like we all had that phase unless we grew up in a family with no access to a vehicle in an urban city center.
Also, they may prefer the careers that allow for remote working, but let's be real, how many of them are going to get lucky enough? Didn't we all want that? And here the majority of us are, either sitting in traffic or commuting via public transit every day to sit in an office, answer emails, make phone calls, etc. Even at tech startups, you can't just NEVER go into the office. You can work from home many days, but not EVERY day. I know a girl moving to the Jersey Shore to live the beach life, but she's moving near a NJT Rail line so she can commute into Manhattan 2 days per week. Gen Z can dream big, but get back to the Millennials when you're saddled with the same student loan debt that Boomers force on us so they can give tax cuts to the wealthy and some of you can't even afford to own a car. Gen Z will be begging for solid public transit that costs $100/mo for a monthly pass when the alternative is a car payment + gas + insurance + parking while their student loans payments are equal to or greater than their car costs and rents are skyrocketing nationwide. They're too young to understand the reality of commuting in traffic + debt + car ownership costs + the rental/real estate market + the lack of good paying jobs in those "fun sounding" offices.
Yes and no in my experience. Boston has pockets of the light rail network that runs on tracks with traffic in the street (it's mostly separate ROW) and people rarely alter their driving habits for it.
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The irony of Boston is that, its street running Green Line sections, sans Heath which is entirely a streetcar on the surface, are often/usually faster than the historic 2-track, trunk line tunnel under Bolyston and Tremont streets because of train congestion. I'm hoping the Green Line extension north to Somerville will be much faster given that it will also be grade separated but with far fewer through branches coming from the south and west.
Gen Z is early 2000s. Those kids are like 18 years old. Idk exactly where cutoffs are, but I'm assuming some are like 15 years old. When I was that age, I loved cars and couldn't wait to drive because it meant I could get out of my transit-desert neighborhood. However, once I got older and experienced the hell of commuting in LA traffic, I learned to love public transit in all its forms because anything was better than sitting in traffic for hours on end.
Exactly. Pragmatism generally ends up trumping Idealism at some point. I couldn't wait for the freedom of driving when I was a teen. I still actually love road trips and weekend excursions and have zero interest in giving up my car. But the realities of driving/parking in major metro areas have made me glad to be able to park the car during the week and use transit for my daily commute. The novelty of driving quickly goes away when you're sitting in rush hour traffic.
The irony of Boston is that, its street running Green Line sections, sans Heath which is entirely a streetcar on the surface, are often/usually faster than the historic 2-track, trunk line tunnel under Bolyston and Tremont streets because of train congestion. I'm hoping the Green Line extension north to Somerville will be much faster given that it will also be grade separated but with far fewer through branches coming from the south and west.
Agreed. And I'm hoping that the signal upgrades will loosen a little of the congestion in the tunnel as well. On the flip side, you rarely have to wait more than 2 minutes for a train between Park and Copley.
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