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Also I purchase my groceries one day a week and I get a lot of stuff. Without a vehicle I couldn't imagine hauling around all those groceries block to block. One of my bags broke just the other day and food fell out. What if that happened in the freezing cold of Chicago?
That whole scene in my head seems so miserable.
I only get groceries once a week too, and indeed I carry everything and don't have a car. Even when it's freezing cold outside. How do I manage?
First, I don't have a family (yet, anyway!), so I only have to buy food for one person (myself). Second, I use reusable bags which are durable enough for the job. Third, I can take a train for part of the route if need be (or in a hurry). Fourth, I am accustomed to it (I've been living like this for more than 5 years, and I know what I need to wear depending on the weather). Finally, if the weather is truly unbearable or unusually extreme, I can wait it out for a couple days if need be.
But of course, I realize that for those with a family, who aren't accustomed to it, who live several miles from any transit or shopping, or live in difficult climate or geography, etc. might not find that lifestyle practical.
The biggest car use for many is not grocery shopping but their commute. And the easy solution to that, which may or may not be practical for a given person's circumstances, is to live closer to work.
If you have two spouses with jobs 20 miles apart, obviously at least one of them will need to commute (unless telecommuting is offered by one or both employers) but there is no reason both have to - you can live near one of the jobs. The real tough spot is with school-age kids that need continuity in their education or a home that would be difficult to sell. Of course one may argue that the latter is just a reason not to own a home in the first place, but this brings up a whole 'nother set of messy issues.
This is absolutely the wrong approach. Public transit should be usable and reliable for every day use, so that people who do not want to drive and/or cannot drive can live without having access to a car. Driving should not be the only available choice.
Yes, it absolutely should be the only option in some places. If you're somewhere rural, for example, chances are transit will not ever be a practical alternative. Transit is still important in those places, but it's for a different reason. It's not so you can accomplish your day-to-day errands as much as so you can have mobility regionally. Say the northern third of California. In most places, transit is just never going to feasibly be a replacement for an automobile, bicycle, or your feet. It's way too expensive to provide. People that choose to live in those areas do so with the understanding that the government won't take care of their transportation needs the way it does in a city.
Suburbs are more a mixed bag. Yes, there should be some level of transit, but again it's often going to be more of a poor substitute than a realistic alternative. Where I live you CAN get around via transit, it just is pretty limited. You can get some places in a reasonable amount of time. Again, people choosing to live here have to be selective in WHERE they live and WHERE they go if they want transit to be a viable alternative. You wouldn't want to live in my neighborhood and dependent upon transit, although there's a few neighborhoods where, depending on where you worked, you could definitely use transit. It could work for some people but not most.
Places like where I live it's extremely expensive to provide high-quality comprehensive transit. That's just a fact of life. Realistically, there's no money for it. Most of the population gets around with a car, and most of the population does not have huge amounts of disposable income. You'd really need to spend about 10x as much on transit as we do to provide adequate transit at the level you think is your God Given Right, and even then it would only be in the city and not the rural areas and small towns which account for half of the county's population. And it still wouldn't be anywhere close to as effective as having a car, just doable.
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These are not "roadblocks" to using transit. You can bring a bag or even a cart on to the bus/train/whatever to carry your groceries. If it is safe enough to go out in your car in freezing weather, it is also safe enough to go outside and walk to the train station or walk to the bus stop.
Again, not everyone lives in urban areas. It's a mile to the nearest bus stop from my house. Buses stop running pretty early, especially weekends.
San Francisco spends $850 per capita providing transit. We spend $50. It really should be more, but it's just not going to be $800 per capita here. Even $200-400 per capita isn't going to happen, which is about what would be necessary to provide your God Given Right levels of transit in the principal city (Stockton). The other 400,000 people living in the smaller cities and rural areas would cost even more.
uh, they got these things call "packs". In Korea, I've seen a 110 lb man TROTTING with a 50 gal drum of diesel fuel on his back. That's 300 lbs. Who says that you have to live in Chicago, or so far from your resources, hmm?
Having grown up in Dayton, I agree that public transportation is a complete nightmare in that city, but you're talking about a GM town. Cars are a fundamental part of the culture.
I can only assume that post-80's Dayton mass transit has slid downhill. I rode regularly late 60s through the early 80s and it always got me where I was going, with minimal confusion, and they ran on time. There was always a stop within walking distance - though admittedly walking distance when I was 20 was a lot further than it is now. And it was super cheap. I think it was still 50c per ride with unlimited transfers in the same direction when I left. It was a quarter in the 70's.
And it was an NCR town as much as it was a GM town. Also - those tires - I forget the brand ...
Providing options is fine, a policy of intentional coercion of taxpayers is not - and that is what I was responding to.
Perhaps the gas taxes (and registration fees - here in NM it is set by GVW since heavier vehicles damage the roads more) would be better able to cover the maintenance costs if the politicos weren't always playing the shell game with existing funds in order to fund new sexy projects like mass transit without having to raise taxes.
I have no problem with the existence of mass transit, and no problem with the taxpayer funding it in areas where it truly is an improvement over heavy traffic.
I do have a problem with people thinking they and they alone have the "smarter" solution to be applied to one and all. Experience has shown me that usually they are wrong in their thinking.
What you have to understand is that most of America has been subsidized and zoned for automobile use over transit use, suburbia has been coerced onto most of America. I think most transit advocates want a better balance of funding and more options.
Sometimes systems work, sometimes they fail. Depending on the setting, the same system might fail miserably or succeed spectacularly. Busses, the subway and a ferry system work fairly well in NYC. They work risibly poorly in Dayton, Ohio. We should further those systems that work the best, where they work the best. A one-size-fits-all solution is by its nature doomed to inane misallocation of resources. Those who are fortunate to live in dense urban areas, near a metro station, and also work and shop near a metro station, are going to rave over the efficacy and smoothness of mass transit. Those who live surrounded by forests and cornfields will invariably depend on private transportation.
America's transportation problem is especially thorny because we have such spread of population. We don’t cluster in massive city cores. Even large urban areas have various city districts, inner suburbs, outer suburbs, and so forth. Below some critical population density, there isn't sufficient "mass" to justify "mass transit". It becomes a forced and artificial fit. Above some critical population density, cars become impractical, given the road congestion and dearth of parking.
I live in the rural Midwest, but often have business in Washington, DC. I drive to DC, park my car, then take the metro. Driving across the Appalachians is cheaper and often even faster than flying, because direct-flights are few, and mechanical or weather-related delays are common. Maybe if there were good rail service between the lower Midwest and the Mid-Atlantic coast, that would be a good option… but it's impractical.
It's stupid to tax cars to finance rail service, or to raise rail ticket prices to subsidize highways. Such shell-games fail, because invariably all parties feel robbed. There must be a better way….
What do you call a national network of highways (which the majority of the jobs, residences, and social opportunities in the USA depend on) that non-drivers must pay for with their taxes but are legally banned from using? That's worse than coercion.
I call it persons' free choice to drive or not. They still enjoy the fruits of those highways - quite literally if they enjoy purchasing fresh fruit in January. How do you think your produce gets to the market? Elves?
Similarly, I have no children, and never plan to have children. Yet I do not begrudge my tax dollars going to education of others' children, any more than non-drivers should begrudge some of their tax dollars going to an efficient roads system.
How self centered!
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Originally Posted by dv1033
What you have to understand is that most of America has been subsidized and zoned for automobile use over transit use, suburbia has been coerced onto most of America. I think most transit advocates want a better balance of funding and more options.
I understand that many people choose to live in the suburbs, or in my case, a rural area. I do not think you can prove that it is coercion. If those people wanted to live in inner cities, they sure are free to do so. It would probably be cheaper for them too. But they like a bit of space and a garden instead, and find the time and expense of a commute worth the price.
Funny how the self appointed worthies of the world always have a problem with people's choosing freely what they want rather than what the worthies want them to choose.
I can only assume that post-80's Dayton mass transit has slid downhill. I rode regularly late 60s through the early 80s and it always got me where I was going, with minimal confusion, and they ran on time. There was always a stop within walking distance - though admittedly walking distance when I was 20 was a lot further than it is now. And it was super cheap. I think it was still 50c per ride with unlimited transfers in the same direction when I left. It was a quarter in the 70's.
And it was an NCR town as much as it was a GM town. Also - those tires - I forget the brand ...
NCR, GM, and Wright-Patterson. At least the Dayton metro still has the base.
Maybe Cooper Tire? It's from Findlay. Or are you referring to Grismer Tire?
Last edited by randomparent; 03-25-2014 at 10:29 PM..
Bad news for the people who live in rural areas - where income is already low.
I feel the solution is to improve mass transit. Some places it is really good, but a lot of places its spotty, hard to get to, difficult to plan a trip, and doesn't run reliably. If its easier to access, people will be far more likely to ride.
Part of "improving" would be making it easier for people to get their grocery shopping done. As it is now, this is a task that is extremely difficult to manage on a bus - especially if you have a small child you must deal with at the same time.
One of the grocery stores in my neighborhood offers free grocery delivery, with a minimum purchase of $100.
And? If you're going to rely on mass transit, buy yourself a big stand up freezer, and do one big grocery trip a month with a rental car! Enterprise will even come to your door and pick you up!
Folks who want to utilize public transit for their daily activities can readily do so.
Folks who want to use their private automobiles for their daily activities can also do so.
The overwhelming majority of decisions as it relates to buying homes and vehicles are made by females, and since extremely few of our 100 largest cities have excellent public schools, the so-called 'soccer moms' will choose to live in the suburbs as well as the vehicles which best suit the needs of their families.
As demographer Joel Kotkin pointed out recently in the Orange County Register as well as on his website at Newgeography.com | Economic, demographic, and political commentary about places, many cities which have spent billions of dollars for light rail systems, including Portland, DFW, Atlanta, Raleigh, Phoenix and many other cities are losing $$$$ by the ton on those systems because of abysmal ridership levels, much to the consternation of the urban planning blockheads who insist that they'll be packed as well as beneficial to the cities in which they're located.
How the heck is a soccer mom supposed to take Jeremy to soccer practice and Jessica to her piano class?
If you want stump any urban planner out there, throw those questions at them, and wait for an answer.
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