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Miami is not a city where you can survive without a car. Its a hassle taking public transport as well. Its like every other sunbelt city pockets of urbanization but on an entire scale NO! It would take forever to get places. The vast majority of Americans cities are non walkable.
You couldn't be more wrong even if you tried. Small pockets of urbanization and public transit usage? Context, please... Miami itself IS small: just 36 Sq. Miles with a population density of 12,300/Sq. Mile, which puts it just ahead of DC and just behind Boston: 2 of the most densely populated American big cities -- and well ahead of Chicago, btw. Sorry Dude, Miami is hardly like 'every other Sunbelt city.' Like several other compact cities with rapid transit -- Boston, DC, SF and, now, Seattle -- non-car public transit movement is much easier than the vast majority of major cities in the car-crazy USA.
Quality transit in rapid transit cities is not only limited to where a rail station is a few blocks away. Such cities usually have robust bus services either feeding or complementing rail. Again, well-spread out downtown Miami is well-serviced by Metro Mover which directly interfaces with Brightline, Tri-Rail, and Metro Rail. The first mentioned commuter/regional services reach far beyond where Metro Rail doesn't -- 2 frequent-running trunk lines all the way up the Southland coast and, w/ Brightline, soon north all the way to Orlando, some 240 miles away. If that's not impressive, esp by American standards, I don't know what to tell you.
South Beach is very walkable but not directly served by rail. Once you get to South Beach, a car is not needed at all. I'm hoping someday one of Miami's rail services will be extended across the bay to Miami Beach... My bet would be Metro Mover given the compact size of the trains -- the elevated guideway could travel Chicago-like over alleyways behind the building line. You'd only really need 1 or 2 stations to service South Beach from Miami -- one around 17th Street near the Convention Center then one further south, say around 5th Street, near the core of the Ocean Drive strip of Art Deco clubs, restaurants, and hotels.
You couldn't be more wrong even if you tried. Small pockets of urbanization and public transit usage? Context, please... Miami itself IS small: just 36 Sq. Miles with a population density of 12,300/Sq. Mile, which puts it just ahead of DC and just behind Boston: 2 of the most densely populated American big cities -- and well ahead of Chicago, btw. Sorry Dude, Miami is hardly like 'every other Sunbelt city.' Like several other compact cities with rapid transit -- Boston, DC, SF and, now, Seattle -- non-car public transit movement is much easier than the vast majority of major cities in the car-crazy USA.
Quality transit in rapid transit cities is not only limited to where a rail station is a few blocks away. Such cities usually have robust bus services either feeding or complementing rail. Again, well-spread out downtown Miami is well-serviced by Metro Mover which directly interfaces with Brightline, Tri-Rail, and Metro Rail. The first mentioned commuter/regional services reach far beyond where Metro Rail doesn't -- 2 frequent-running trunk lines all the way up the Southland coast and, w/ Brightline, soon north all the way to Orlando, some 240 miles away. If that's not impressive, esp by American standards, I don't know what to tell you.
South Beach is very walkable but not directly served by rail. Once you get to South Beach, a car is not needed at all. I'm hoping someday one of Miami's rail services will be extended across the bay to Miami Beach... My bet would be Metro Mover given the compact size of the trains -- the elevated guideway could travel Chicago-like over alleyways behind the building line. You'd only really need 1 or 2 stations to service South Beach from Miami -- one around 17th Street near the Convention Center then one further south, say around 5th Street, near the core of the Ocean Drive strip of Art Deco clubs, restaurants, and hotels.
Vastly different land areas means comparing density among US cities is misleading. 36 prime square miles in DC, Boston, and Chicago would put any of these well above 12,300 people per square mile especially Chicago.
I agree that Miami is not like every other Sunbelt city and that South Beach needs direct rail service.
Sure, it's good to have that regional service, but I think it's a much less important factor than the ease of doing things day-to-day or enjoying the weekend in the local area. It's almost certainly the case that most people will be spending most of their time within the overall local area of what's accessible by frequent and inexpensive rapid transit, walking, or biking if you're living without a car. It does not make any sense to me that the larger factor should be the trips well elsewhere.
And yea, Chicago does have really good transit connections to its airports with a lot of direct flight options.
Chicago has access to the dunes and beaches in Indiana and Michigan, lakeside cities, forest preserves, and regional rail service to Milwaukee, St. Louis (which finally got its new time table to take advantage of its higher speed tracks), and Detroit for major cities as well as a host of smaller ones. Chicago has 15 different Amtrak services coming out of Union Station which is a pretty large number and it's getting another one later this year or next though this is one Hiawatha Line train being extended to cover the same tracks Empire Builder takes to St. Paul but it does open up options for points past Milwaukee. Most of them are infrequent, but they do go in a lot of directions. It has 12 commuter rail lines. Chicago Union Station is the fourth busiest rail station in the country after Penn Station, Grand Central, and Jamaica Station all of which are in NYC.
Certainly more services and greater frequency would be great (and I think some of the shorter lines coming in from different directions should be combined and do run through Chicago rather than terminating) and that is being worked on, but it's not isolated or at least not that isolated if the comparison is to DC, Boston, and SF which all have fewer Amtrak lines and commuter rail lines. There's a Rockford service newly announced. I would like to see an extension of a few Hiawatha trains or a new service altogether to Green Bay. I think the Twin Cities train really needs to hit Madison proper and that given its long run should consider doing a night train until they can get the speed up in which case they should consider making another service to Twin Cities but with a night train service through to Duluth or Winnipeg so it can connect to this. Also, there should be a service into the Windsor Corridor especially since there's already an existing rail tunnel between Detroit and Windsor.
I have no idea how you came to this conclusion in the last sentence. Chicago's stats are going to be skewed because Chicago is a far larger city even when you include the walkable parts of Cambridge and Brookline. Most of Brookline is *not* easy to live without a car and outside of its northeastern corner is mostly winding suburban development with very infrequent buses--Evanston is more walkable overall and has grade-separated heavy rail. Chicago includes a lot of parts where going by transit or biking and walking are not very good, but the expanse where it is very good and where it is just good is larger than that for the others you mentioned.
Last quarter the MBTA metro lines had 99.8% the ridership of Chicago’s L. It’s not a city limit gerrymandering issue. It’s Chicago far more car dependent. Boston has ~70% the Bus ridership Chicago has, and ~70% the commuter rail ridership Chicago has and over 80% the intercity rail ridership Chicago has despite being ~52% the size.
Last quarter the MBTA metro lines had 99.8% the ridership of Chicago’s L. It’s not a city limit gerrymandering issue. It’s Chicago far more car dependent. Boston has ~70% the Bus ridership Chicago has, and ~70% the commuter rail ridership Chicago has and over 80% the intercity rail ridership Chicago has despite being ~52% the size.
I don't think you're using the term gerrymandering in a way that other people use it.
Chicago has a much larger centralized office core for the region and has had a harder rebound. I think that'll shift pretty rapidly in the next several quarters as landlords either file bankruptcy or lower their asking prices.
I reckon in those stats you're using MBTA as a whole rather than just counts for Boston proper which would be pretty hard to attain anyways. That's fine, and that's the better way to do counts. I think you should realize that the other counts in terms of modal share that has been mentioned *is* city limits and so there's a substantial difference that should be noted. Chicago overall as a city in city limits is more car dependent than Boston as a city in city limits, but the walkable contiguous core of Chicago is larger than that of the contiguous Boston and its neighboring communities, and there is higher transit ridership in Chicago *and* higher number of households that don't use transit in Chicago and its metropolitan area than in Boston and its metropolitan area because they are of substantially different population sizes.
You're not addressing it, but I still have a hard time understanding your rationale that the access to other places outside of the city / metropolitan area is *more* important for living without a car than what you have available for your day-to-day needs. That one's still just mind-boggling for me. It's like you're talking about an entirely different plane of existence. This is without going into detail about how odd it is to think that Chicago is particularly isolated for out-of-city excursions given that it's the largest passenger rail hub in the US outside of NYC and has direct rapid transit connections to both of its airports of which one is among the busiest passenger hubs in the world. These sound unreasonable to me, so I'm wondering if it's possible that 1) you've never tried living in various cities without a car and 2) have not spent much time in Chicago and are not very familiar with it?
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 07-18-2023 at 07:53 AM..
I don't think you're using the term gerrymandering in a way that other people use it.
Chicago has a much larger centralized office core for the region and has had a harder rebound. I think that'll shift pretty rapidly in the next several quarters as landlords either file bankruptcy or lower their asking prices.
I reckon in those stats you're using MBTA as a whole rather than just counts for Boston proper which would be pretty hard to attain anyways. That's fine, and that's the better way to do counts. I think you should realize that the other counts in terms of modal share that has been mentioned *is* city limits and so there's a substantial difference that should be noted. Chicago overall as a city in city limits is more car dependent than Boston as a city in city limits, but the walkable contiguous core of Chicago is larger than that of the contiguous Boston and its neighboring communities, and there is higher transit ridership in Chicago *and* higher number of households that don't use transit in Chicago and its metropolitan area than in Boston and its metropolitan area because they are of substantially different population sizes.
You're not addressing it, but I still have a hard time understanding your rationale that the access to other places outside of the city / metropolitan area is *more* important for living without a car than what you have available for your day-to-day needs. That one's still just mind-boggling for me. It's like you're talking about an entirely different plane of existence. This is without going into detail about how odd it is to think that Chicago is particularly isolated for out-of-city excursions given that it's the largest passenger rail hub in the US outside of NYC and has direct rapid transit connections to both of its airports of which one is among the busiest passenger hubs in the world. These sound unreasonable to me, so I'm wondering if it's possible that 1) you've never tried living in various cities without a car and 2) have not spent much time in Chicago and are not very familiar with it?
Because you the difference between having 37 and 27 CVS’s that are transit assessable isn’t an actual QOL difference. Nor is 47 vs 39 sports bars.
People don’t use the whole city. Your everyday needs to not require 17 grocery stores about 11 of those are extraneous statistics. However being able to escape the city is often the thing that people keep their cars for (or are forced to rent one for). People do more than just work, and people who are from Boston/Chicago/etc have friends and family that live across the region and do things outside the city. Being able to go to Old Orchard or Salem matters more than the 23rd dentist on the Red Line.
Lower rates of ridership do matter because there are a lot of people who take transit say to Work or baseball games but not everything. I’d bet Boston having ~20% less ridership probably means more people completely rely on the MBTA than CTA. Since Chicago having the larger city has many more incidental riders who don’t ride it for everything every day.
Because you the difference between having 37 and 27 CVS’s that are transit assessable isn’t an actual QOL difference. Nor is 47 vs 39 sports bars.
People don’t use the whole city. Your everyday needs to not require 17 grocery stores about 11 of those are extraneous statistics. However being able to escape the city is often the thing that people keep their cars for (or are forced to rent one for). People do more than just work, and people who are from Boston/Chicago/etc have friends and family that live across the region and do things outside the city. Being able to go to Old Orchard or Salem matters more than the 23rd dentist on the Red Line.
Lower rates of ridership do matter because there are a lot of people who take transit say to Work or baseball games but not everything. I’d bet Boston having ~20% less ridership probably means more people completely rely on the MBTA than CTA. Since Chicago having the larger city has many more incidental riders who don’t ride it for everything every day.
That 37 vs 27 pharmacies or 47 vs 39 bars means nothing by itself--that's something I absolutely agree with because it is meaningless without talking about the area it's distributed over. If you aren't in close walking distance to a pharmacy or a bar, then it's pretty easily arguable that a place that is close to these and other such shops *is* easier to live without a car than one that is not. I think the problem is thinking that these numbers in abstraction with nothing else means something.
People certainly do not use the whole city. They use their local neighborhoods which is why I said that gets priority over long haul trips. Having more neighborhoods with these options of pharmacies, grocery stores, and bars does mean that you have a larger walkable expanse of the city. Having more than one of each means you have options since it's not the case that all of these are the same. I live in Brooklyn where I have a variety of grocery stores and bars (and restaurants!) in walking distance and they end up doing different options. This *does* matter for making an area better to live in without a car. That 23rd dentist if they specialize in a procedure you need but the other 22 do not also matters.
Lower rates of ridership do matter as long as you understand what the denominator means. The coverage varies. North Side Chicago has good coverage as does some of the areas on other sides closer to downtown before the spokes get so far away that you no longer have those options.
Your bet is almost certainly wrong because ridership concentration changes dramatically in Chicago and it's not coincidental that a lot of the higher ridership stations are along the more densely populated areas.
Sure, having options for trips out of the urban area are great to have and they should count for something. As does having a variety of options for your day-to-day needs. However, these are both in lower tiers of needs for being able to live without a car. if you can not easily get things you need day-to-day without a car (something already a prerequisite for having a variety of options), then in no world do I think that having options for trips out of the urban area then make it easy to live without a car. This is pretty basic and it's also a weird sticking point to have given that Chicago does have, among US cities, the largest number of points outside of the city accessible by rail (and bus). So in neither part of this argument do I think you're right.
Do you currently or have you ever lived without a car in your household? Have you spent much time in Chicago?
I'm also not too sure about your overall transit number counts (also note that South Shore Line isn't part of the survey though that line contributes just a bit with ridership about equivalent to the Fitchburg line), though again, the important thing is that distribution of that transit and how it maps to walkable neighborhoods.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 07-18-2023 at 09:19 AM..
I don't think your reply should incite outrage or mockery. Atlanta is more historic than it gets credit for and was in fact laid out as a fairly dense core, and the "bones" are there, even if post-war development in core really undercut walkability and potential residential density.
Atlanta does at least appear to be pushing towards a more urbanized and walkable future in its core, which is refreshing to see for a Sun Belt city. I think the biggest issue is critical mass/demand to push it to a higher tier. For all of the growth in the Atlanta area over the past few decades, I've been surprised to see how little of it is actually in the city proper. The affordable (maybe not so much these days) McMansion with a large lush lawn seems to be what's on the mind of nearly everyone moving to a place like Atlanta.
Atlanta still needs to continue to knit its core back together to gain a lot more traction with more urban-minded prospective residents, but the potential is there.
Well, the city proper population (small land area) of Atlanta went from 420,000 to 500,000 people from 2010 to 2020 (an increase of 19%). While the MSA went from 5.3 million to 6.1 million people from 2010 to 2020 (an increase of 15%), so the city proper outpaced the growth of the MSA.
That 37 vs 27 pharmacies or 47 vs 39 bars means nothing by itself--that's something I absolutely agree with because it is meaningless without talking about the area it's distributed over. If you aren't in close walking distance to a pharmacy or a bar, then it's pretty easily arguable that a place that is close to these and other such shops *is* easier to live without a car than one that is not. I think the problem is thinking that these numbers in abstraction with nothing else means something.
People certainly do not use the whole city. They use their local neighborhoods which is why I said that gets priority over long haul trips. Having more neighborhoods with these options of pharmacies, grocery stores, and bars does mean that you have a larger walkable expanse of the city. Having more than one of each means you have options since it's not the case that all of these are the same. I live in Brooklyn where I have a variety of grocery stores and bars (and restaurants!) in walking distance and they end up doing different options. This *does* matter for making an area better to live in without a car. That 23rd dentist if they specialize in a procedure you need but the other 22 do not also matters.
Lower rates of ridership do matter as long as you understand what the denominator means. The coverage varies. North Side Chicago has good coverage as does some of the areas on other sides closer to downtown before the spokes get so far away that you no longer have those options.
Your bet is almost certainly wrong because ridership concentration changes dramatically in Chicago and it's not coincidental that a lot of the higher ridership stations are along the more densely populated areas.
Sure, having options for trips out of the urban area are great to have and they should count for something. As does having a variety of options for your day-to-day needs. However, these are both in lower tiers of needs for being able to live without a car. if you can not easily get things you need day-to-day without a car (something already a prerequisite for having a variety of options), then in no world do I think that having options for trips out of the urban area then make it easy to live without a car. This is pretty basic and it's also a weird sticking point to have given that Chicago does have, among US cities, the largest number of points outside of the city accessible by rail (and bus). So in neither part of this argument do I think you're right.
Do you currently or have you ever lived without a car in your household? Have you spent much time in Chicago?
But the immediate neighborhoods are similar between Boston+ and Chicago (in fact the average Boston core neighborhood is more walkable I’d say). If you don’t think people who live in Streeterville or River North or whatever take a mix of driving and transit/walking then idk why you think they all have massive parking podiums
Your average Bostonian/Brooklineite/Cambrudgian/Somervillite/Etc is less likely to use their car for any given trip than a Chicagoan on the city and metro level. You can choose to ignore it cause you like Wriglyville or whatever but it’s a fact Chicagoans drive quite a bit more than their “urban city” peers
And yes I’ve been to Chicago and yes I’ve lived without a car
For you average Cambridge resident the fact the from porter sq you can go skiing at Wachusett is far more important than being able to go to Quincy Center.
For someone from Malden being able to get to Old Orchard provided more value than being able to get to Newtonville via Transit I don’t understand how this isn’t understood. People in Boston own cars ti be able to get out of Boston as often as they have them to get around Boston. And that’s true in SF, Philly and Chicago (and maybe even more so New York)
But the immediate neighborhoods are similar between Boston+ and Chicago (in fact the average Boston core neighborhood is more walkable I’d say). If you don’t think people who live in Streeterville or River North or whatever take a mix of driving and transit/walking then idk why you think they all have massive parking podiums
Your average Bostonian/Brooklineite/Cambrudgian/Somervillite/Etc is less likely to use their car for any given trip than a Chicagoan on the city and metro level. You can choose to ignore it cause you like Wriglyville or whatever but it’s a fact Chicagoans drive quite a bit more than their “urban city” peers
And yes I’ve been to Chicago and yes I’ve lived without a car
For you average Cambridge resident the fact the from porter sq you can go skiing at Wachusett is far more important than being able to go to Quincy Center.
For someone from Malden being able to get to Old Orchard provided more value than being able to get to Newtonville via Transit I don’t understand how this isn’t understood. People in Boston own cars ti be able to get out of Boston as often as they have them to get around Boston. And that’s true in SF, Philly and Chicago (and maybe even more so New York)
That's the thing right there -- the "average". I'm not talking about proportions of the entire city or entire metropolitan area. Chicago is a much larger and more populous city and its metropolitan area is much larger and more populous. The averaging over those whole spans in comparison to Boston and its metropolitan area is going to be lower rates of people able to live without a car and I have no compunction over agreeing with that. My argument is that Chicago has a larger expanse where people live without a car and that you can travel around without a car and that more people live in that expanse than there are people living in the equivalent for Boston+. And yea, Chicago has a lot of parking in its downtown area integrated into buildings. NYC is rightfully considered in a different tier when it comes to living without a car and lot of NYC in its core, especially in mid-20th century and later construction has that, too. It's not a shock for high-rises in dense areas in large US CBDs in pricey urban areas to have that even though I don't like it and hope they've been built with enough flexibility to convert to other uses.
I don't understand why we're now talking about owning cars to get out of the city since the topic is about living *without* a car. We were originally talking about trips to take *without* a car. I still disagree with dismissing having things people generally *need* for day-to-day living as less important (or having a multitude of options--I think a good proportion of people would question living without a car in a city if relegated to eating at the same restaurant and going to the same bar/club over and over again) than having further flung trips available without a car, and I think this turn to talking about trips *with* a car doesn't seem in line with what we're talking about.
I will say though, the scale difference for what I'm talking about in Chicago versus SF, Boston, Philadelphia and DC isn't massive. I think they're overall roughly in the same league. Where it's getting real crazy is with Los Angeles which is much harder to define and has this proportion vs absolute number/area thing in a much more extreme argument.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 07-18-2023 at 10:54 AM..
That's the thing right there -- the "average". I'm not talking about proportions of the entire city or entire metropolitan area. Chicago is a much larger and more populous city and its metropolitan area is much larger and more populous. The averaging over those whole spans in comparison to Boston and its metropolitan area is going to be lower rates of people able to live without a car and I have no compunction over agreeing with that. My argument is that Chicago has a larger expanse where people live without a car and that you can travel around without a car and that more people live in that expanse than there are people living in the equivalent for Boston+. And yea, Chicago has a lot of parking in its downtown area integrated into buildings. NYC is rightfully considered in a different tier when it comes to living without a car and lot of NYC in its core, especially in mid-20th century and later construction has that, too. It's not a shock for high-rises in dense areas in large US CBDs in pricey urban areas to have that even though I don't like it and hope they've been built with enough flexibility to convert to other uses.
I don't understand why we're now talking about owning cars to get out of the city since the topic is about living *without* a car. We were originally talking about trips to take *without* a car. I still disagree with dismissing having things people generally *need* for day-to-day living as less important (or having a multitude of options--I think a good proportion of people would question living without a car in a city if relegated to eating at the same restaurant and going to the same bar/club over and over again) than having further flung trips available without a car, and I think this turn to talking about trips *with* a car doesn't seem in line with what we're talking about.
I will say though, the scale difference for what I'm talking about in Chicago versus SF, Boston, Philadelphia and DC isn't massive. I think they're overall roughly in the same league. Where it's getting real crazy is with Los Angeles which is much harder to define and has this proportion vs absolute number/area thing in a much more extreme argument.
All I am saying is the numbers don’t seem to actually support the vibes people ascribe to Chicago like at all. People drive a lot more even in those supposedly car-free amendable neighborhood.
Boston isn’t Mystic CT you’re not going to run out of places to go. The gap between 6,000 restaurants being transit accessible and 7100 is just irrelevant. You’re never going to go to every restaurant in Boston it’s purely academic.
Being able to get out of the city and do something other than drink at some bar is way more important that the 43rd or 44th neighborhood but less important than the 3rd or 4th. Having a beach or nature preserve. I can guarantee you if there was a train to Franconia or Laconia NH like hundreds, perhaps a couple thousand of people living in Boston+ would ditch their cars because people hold on to their cars because they have lived and interests beyond work.
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