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One of the aggravations of taking buses in this country is the fumbling for coins to feed the meter which can be an unnecessary waste of time, particularly if there's a dozen or more people getting onto the bus.
In the city where I live in Germany (Chemnitz) they eliminated cash fares when boarding local buses without a ticket. There are ticket machines at many of the busy bus stops, or you can pay upon boarding with a wireless debit ATM card with NFC (near field communication for tap and pay). This speeds up the boarding process. A big percentage of passengers have monthly passes (students, job-subsidized, senior, etc) and you just show the pass when boarding. The buses are modern and clean, and many are double length articulated with tons of seat capacity - keeps the bus from feeling crowded.
Light rail trains in the city and suburban routes all have ticket machines in every train. You can board without a ticket and buy the ticket right after boarding while the train is in motion - this means the train stops are very fast with no waiting for people to buy fares from the driver. Again, most people that ride have a monthly transit pass to eliminate the need to buy tickets. My senior citizen region-wide transit pass costs $55 (same price in Euro) per month and lets me go anywhere in a big four county region on buses, local light rail and regional heavy rail trains.
In the city where I live in Germany (Chemnitz) they eliminated cash fares when boarding local buses without a ticket. There are ticket machines at many of the busy bus stops, or you can pay upon boarding with a wireless debit ATM card with NFC (near field communication for tap and pay). This speeds up the boarding process. A big percentage of passengers have monthly passes (students, job-subsidized, senior, etc) and you just show the pass when boarding. The buses are modern and clean, and many are double length articulated with tons of seat capacity - keeps the bus from feeling crowded.
Light rail trains in the city and suburban routes all have ticket machines in every train. You can board without a ticket and buy the ticket right after boarding while the train is in motion - this means the train stops are very fast with no waiting for people to buy fares from the driver. Again, most people that ride have a monthly transit pass to eliminate the need to buy tickets. My senior citizen region-wide transit pass costs $55 (same price in Euro) per month and lets me go anywhere in a big four county region on buses, local light rail and regional heavy rail trains.
Even if our community had a good bus and light rail system I would be less inclined to use them because of my autism & PTSD. Being in a tightly packed space with many people will set me on edge. Because of how infrequently I travel and the fuel economy of my vehicle I make 11 US gallons or 41 liters last 3 weeks and the current price of gas locally is $3.35 or €3.27 per 3.785 liters. I personally know many people who would benefit from a good bus or light rail system so I have nothing against a well planned and executed system. It’s our community’s current system I don’t like. The city wasn’t well planned, those who create the bus routes don’t seem to get input from the community members most likely to use the service, routes frequently change making it difficult for users to learn the system, and the bus service stops or reduces service after a certain hour because of reduced riders. Meanwhile businesses, like hospitals for example, are always open with some staff and patients needing the bus service.
... If we were to adopt the "Chicken Bus" system of Central America, more people would abandon their cars.
People who regard cars as a burden or a wasteful expense, would abandon their cars. So might those who relish the communitarian experience of the public - be it public transit or public markets or public-whatever.
I would consider public transit for cases where cars are logistically problematic. An example is going to the airport for a lengthy trip. Where to park one's car, cheaply and safely? Or to outings where alcohol is involved. Or somewhere downtown, where again parking is a problem. Mine is not a doctrinaire or withering objection to mass-transit. But mass-transit forecloses on the private. Cars are by their very nature private enclosures and a private space. They are privately operated, at private discretion. So we have a cultural difference... save money and mingle too, or pay more (and waste more) but keep to oneself.
And once again, we have to distinguish between cars as mere means of conveyance, and cars as sport. Maybe for cost-reasons I might abandon cars as conveyance, but it would be abysmally depressing to abandon cars as sport.
Last edited by ohio_peasant; 11-21-2022 at 11:32 AM..
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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I think car culture remains very high in historic terms but has ebbed downward. But people not owning their car and instead depending on an uber driver's car is still car dependency. Reality is vast majority of Americans live in places that have poor or moderate walkability and those built environments aren't going away just because more housing in walkable areas is finally being built.
The car culture is still there; just the demographic has changed. It's no longer the All American Boy's thing; now it's mostly Hispanic, especially Puerto Rican and Mexican.
LOL, I am noticing this from the window of our rental beach condo in SoCal. Along the "promenade", the lowered, tiny-wheeled, tilting Trans-Am's and such, cruise slowly along while showing off. Tilting up and down, or even side-to-side, blasting the bass you can hear miles away....
It's amusing. Don't know how they are street-legal, but they are having a lot of fun with them.
Vote me the laziest traveler in the world. Thank God there's a number of cities today where there's a light rail train right at the Airport, whisking you away to known or unknown part of the city. No vacation is a vacation if I have to put my hands on a steering wheel.
A few years back I took an experimental trip to L.A. and wanted to sample the 2nd best bus system in the country and I navigated all over L.A. for 3 days via bus. Normally, the buses come by every 15 minutes and some of the buses even have television screens to watch CNN while traveling. And a TAP card is only $7 good for 24 hours.
If we were to adopt the "Chicken Bus" system of Central America, more people would abandon their cars. I rode these all over Central America on 5 trips. Big pluses, you don't have to be at a designated bus stop, merely hail one down, if you want to get off, just say Stop and it stops, and it could be right in front of your house. No waiting for people to plug coins into the meter, a far collector does that which speeds things up. And along the way, vendors hop on and off, trying to sell you anything under the sun: fried chicken, ice cream, vitamins, DVD's/Cd's, candy, you name it, which would make it much more attractive to use the bus.
They even have pick-ups prowling the streets and roads, where you can hop onto the back of a truck, with a pole to hang on to. I rode those too, a super fun way to travel. Just think of all the big pick-up trucks prowling our streets that could serve as vehicles for transportation.
One of the aggravations of taking buses in this country is the fumbling for coins to feed the meter which can be an unnecessary waste of time, particularly if there's a dozen or more people getting onto the bus.
We second this. No desire to be driving ourselves around in a foreign country. We have the "chicken bus" system where we retired (Ecuador). Buses go by every few minutes, you just have to hail them down. A guy later collects the 50 cents between stops, so no waiting for that. We handle the grocery shopping by taking the bus there and a taxi back. There are queues of taxis at the supermarket. And yeah, on the longer trips, vendors come on board with goodies to sell. Movies are shown too.
Visiting SoCal right now, we decided not to rent a car. Amazingly, we are getting by with the light rail station less than a mile away. At the other end, if we need to go further, we get an Uber (many are Teslas!). Or someone picks us up at the train station. It's been so liberating! We are renting downtown, so can walk to everything we need. No hassle with limited parking.
In Europe, we never rented a car. Taxis and the train were all we needed. Loved it. I think we have totally lost the desire to drive. It's been 6 years now since either of us have driven. I do miss certain aspects of it, but overall, it makes life simpler and cheaper. Being retired helps, since we can adjust our schedule to the train schedule. No worries about drinking at some venue.
It seems to me like it is being attacked on multiple fronts:
-There is much more interest in walkable/transit oriented cities than there has been in the past
-Teenagers aren't as interested in driving anymore
-Surging prices of fuel and vehicles are shutting people out of the car market
-Work from home
-Online shopping and services eliminate a lot of the need for driving that there once was (Remember driving to Blockbuster to rent a movie?)
Mass transit ridership has been falling over the last 10 years (even pre-Covid). I don't know why--it seems as though mass transit is better than it was in the past, with more service than before--but it is. Thus car culture has not peaked.
I was able to sell my car 3 years ago, after owning one for most of my adult life, in the Atlanta suburbs- but only because I moved my life to Seattle, in the city proper near the downtown core area, and Seattle has the supportive density and walkability, and most importantly, I could work from home and didn't need to commute. And now when I do commute to the office downtown, it's 1-2 days a week, and it's a either an easy 3 block walk to a light rail station and a 3 block walk at the destination, or a short Lyft ride. While I wish I had access to one sometimes, especially on the weekends when I would be driving out of the city on nice days in the summer and such- there's no pressing need for a car in my current situation. Also I'm single and no kids, so that certainly helps.
The money I've saved is... quite a lot. No car payments of course, no insurance, no taxes, no parking (which is like $200/month or more at most apartment buildings around here, and never free at office buildings or most other parking either). And no maintenance. I don't miss car maintenance at all.
If you live in an actual city, or one that's human scale oriented and dense and walkable (which in the US is mostly on the coasts and older cities in the northeast, and not the sunbelt dominated by car sprawl culture), then a car is more like a burden, and it almost feels freeing to not have one. And when I need a car or really want one, I can just rent one.
I may purchase a car at some point in a few years, when my situation changes, or when I'm ready to. But, I don't regret ditching driving and car owning, and it's still going great. Can't believe it's been 3 years. Also the money I made off selling my car (which was paid off), nicely financed the costs of moving and getting settled out here. I recommend this urban lifestlye for whoever can swing it. It's simple and cheap and healthier. If I need groceries I just grab my canvas bag, walk right downstairs, across the street to the grocery store, get whatever I need, and I'm back home in mere minutes, totally hassle free. If I didn't get everything or need more stuff, I can just go back later in the day. I'm limited to what I can carry per trip, but there's no trying to find parking or loading and unloading vehicles or all that.
Also, the general rise of the world of delivery and Amazon and all that, has helped this lifestyle tremendously. My TV died the other day, I ordered a new one online (got a nice Black Friday deal), and the local Best Buy is going to bring it to me within a few days. If I had bought it on Amazon Prime I would have had it already. That's not quite as good as having a car and driving to a big box retailer and bringing it home, but a minor delay is totally fine for a non essential purchase like that.
Car culture is still around, and hasn't went anywhere- one just need to know where to look. Used car market wouldn't be so over priced if it weren't. Car meets, and SEMA are still a thing.
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