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Of course, I do not expect self-interested "oil men" from car-dependent places like Texas to know much about the wider world.
Wow that was a poorly thought out comment. The oil industry is probably one of the most international industries today. These 'oil men' from Texas work all over the world. Nigeria, Scotland, Saudi, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Canada, Brazil, Qatar, Norway and many many other places. Not only that, people from all over the world work in Texas. Houston is one of the most diverse cities in the country. It seems like your firm anti-car stance is misguiding your view of the 'wider world'. There are many great cities outside of Hong Kong, Tokyo and London.
Wow that was a poorly thought out comment. The oil industry is probably one of the most international industries today. These 'oil men' from Texas work all over the world. Nigeria, Scotland, Saudi, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Canada, Brazil, Qatar, Norway and many many other places. Not only that, people from all over the world work in Texas. Houston is one of the most diverse cities in the country. It seems like your firm anti-car stance is misguiding your view of the 'wider world'. There are many great cities outside of Hong Kong, Tokyo and London.
The mistaken entitlement of "Free Parking" is connected to the mess that cities like Detroit find themselves in, K.
If Detroit does it right - THINKING LITTLE ABOUT CARS AND PARKING, and instead focuses on:
+ The needs of pedestrians
+ The need to build density around the stations
+ The need to make efficient connections with buses
+ Providing some accommodation to bikers
No that is the wrong way to do it. A successful public transit system thinks about all issues. In the case of the EL there is parking at some stations, kiss and ride at others. In the burbs there can even be parking for buses. In the case of Metra likewise. The thing is public transit has to offer some advantage to the user over driving otherwise no one who can afford a car will use it.
In the case of the EL and Metra faster trips downtown where parking is expensive and inconvient. In the case of buses ability to leave the car behind or save money by not buying a 2nd cars(a family might but it is less pressing) and ability to get to EL and Metra stations without long waits/walks.
Anyway I don’t think the loss of the street car was the problem as much as the lack of rapid transit. Street cars unless they have a grade separated route interact with traffic and can be slowed by it. To give an idea of just how useful being grade separated can Metra, CTA EL and CTA buses all run to Oak park.
CTA buses which actually stop a bit short of where the EL and Metra go(except a night) take about an hour. The Lake Street EL takes about 30. The Blue line about 25(and isn’t technically in Oak Park but a little south of the green line). Metra about 17. A car can drive this distance in rush in 40 mins. This speed of travel combined with cheaper parking at home or near the stations (vs. the loop) makes taking the train to the loop the best option for many people but if the car only had to compete with the bus shall we say at this distance the bus would lose.
IMHO if parking is too free/cheap and there is no transit available it will stunt growth because a growing company or retail will have to either build more parking or move and the first can be disruptive to an area and the latter causes job losses to less dense areas. If a portion of the people can use public transit and if the company/retail charges for parking then it tilts the favor to public transit but you cannot force people who have been used to having free parking to do this and the transit system much connect something to something and be useful…Detroit’s people mover for instance is a toy not a transit system.
No that is the wrong way to do it. A successful public transit system thinks about all issues. In the case of the EL there is parking at some stations, kiss and ride at others. In the burbs there can even be parking for buses. In the case of Metra likewise. The thing is public transit has to offer some advantage to the user over driving otherwise no one who can afford a car will use it.
In the case of the EL and Metra faster trips downtown where parking is expensive and inconvient.
. . .
…Detroit’s people mover for instance is a toy not a transit system.
In reverse order:
3/ I agree with you on the People Mover
2/ Frequency of departures can be as important, or more important than the actual speed of movement of a Transit vehicle
1/ If you don't like my opinions on the best way to conceive of a Model Transit station, then I would suggest (one again!) that you listen to a real expert, Ian Rasmussen:
StrongTowns Podcast / Show 123: Transit / Jan. 17, 2013
Ian Rasmussen joins Chuck Marohn to talk about transit systems and how they should be viewed as the Suburban Experiment continues to wind down.
2/ Frequency of departures can be as important, or more important than the actual speed of movement of a Transit vehicle
1/ If you don't like my opinions on the best way to conceive of a Model Transit station, then I would suggest (one again!) that you listen to a real expert, Ian Rasmussen:
Suburbs have existed as long as cities have existed. They are not going away. They may become less autocentric and some of them may become slums but that is that.
The trouble with frequency of departure is that again it competes with the car. I can depart to anywhere right now with my car. I don’t have to wait for a train. I don’t have to wait for a bus. I can walk to my garage faster than I could walk to a bus stop. Yes frequency of departure is very important and it also a part of speed. i.e. If I need to wait an hour before I can use public transit I am less inclined to use it because instead of being about equal to or faster than me driving it is slower.
Both speed and frequency are important. In the case of Metra people drive to Metra stations and depart to jobs in the loop. Buses really cannot serve the burbs quite as well as the city (not enough density/walkability). Likewise from distant el stations or from el station to events like say (sports game.). In Chicago speed and cost are the ways public transit stays relevant to a world where the car exists.
Even in Chicago I used to drive to a Metra station and take the train out to the burbs for a job. The train was cheaper and more comfortable and the car gave me more flexibility about my departure time (i.e. I wasn’t tied to the bus or EL schedule to meet said train. I could also choose more easily which Metra station to depart from as the train did not make all stops. ).Some of my coworkers who lived in the burbs also did this rather than drive to that suburban location.
Now there is a danger of building so much parking at the station that you discourage other uses of the land but a Metra Station in the burbs with no Parking would be useless and EL stations with parking attract users. Making no accommodation to cars is dangerous because it limits what kinds of customers you can serve and requires walkability and transit is in place before the train (increasing costs and political opposition). For instance some people don’t feel safe at night on buses. Some bus routes don’t run 24/7. And driving can be faster than the bus.
Here is a good example near me is a Metra line that runs to the Chicago Board of Trade. While it could be cheaper (and much slower) to use CTA for this trip, you could drive to a parking lot, park your car and take the Metra to work if you worked near that stop. This attracts users.
He said: "All retailers want and need Free parking."
I pointed him to the busiest and most successful shops in the world, and told him where it was and showed him in a photo that there was no free parking.
Obvious, ipsofacto: He is wrong.
Last edited by nei; 03-03-2013 at 04:34 PM..
Reason: trolling
Parking is the fat belly of the suburban lifestyle, and these two things are as intwined as any two things you can think of. Isn't that obvious by now?
Nope. I'm off to go pay $20 on Monday to park in the suburbs.
Beats the heck out of taking heavily subsidized transit to drive for an hour and a half and pay $20 to park than spend 5 hours on transit and get a hotel for the night. Like most of your points about NYC, Chicago, Boston, DC, San Francisco, etc being completely auto-dependent, it only makes sense to you. I could, of course, take transit and spend around $100 for a hotel. But I'd rather "choose to be auto-dependent" on this trip.
???
My comment was a complete debunking of the following nonsense from TexDav:
"Ask nay merchant who does have enugh or any parkig what he thinks it cost him and its quite high"
Why get off the subject, and bring irrelevancies into it?
TexDav does not need a fog around him to protect himself from debunking, surely. Are the others here so confused by their desire to protect America's bad habits that they cannot see my counter-example of very successful shopping in HK where there is no free parking has demolished his silly argument?
And, Why are you all so super-sensitive and unwilling to learn from the rest of the world?
The problem of making Mass Transit viable without huge subsidies has been solved. And you can have very successful shopping areas without choking the landscape with parking lots. Why not borrow the good ideas that exist out there in the rest of the world?
(Have Americans become so dumbed down since I was educated there some years ago, that they have lost the ability to carry on a debate using logic? That is what I keep seeing here. Emotion and un-needed patriotic spirit have replaced logic on many threads here. It is an embarrassing to someone who hears so many negative comments on the US overseas, and defends his country with logic, but only when it is justified. When someone is clearly wrong, you should admit it, not try to defend it with an appeal-to-emotion. But this reaction seems so very common here on C-D. I wish that people could grow beyond that.)
That comment was not off topic. I was replying to you generalized attack that people involved in the Oil industry from Texas know nothing about the wider world. Im guessing you have never been to Texas, and the only reason you seem to dislike it is because driving is the dominant form of transportation (like in most of the country), and because many people are employed in the oil industry here.
It has been pointed out many times that Hong Kong is not like anywhere in America. If there were a group of small mountainous islands where 7 million people lived in America, I believe it would look very much like Hong Kong. But there isn't. Most American cities have populations less than 2 million and they have hundreds of square miles of developable land. So just because a shopping center in Hong Kong is successful without free parking doesn't mean that it will be successful in America or Canada or Australia.
I am very willing to learn from the rest of the world, but only if those developments will work well in America. America has a pretty low population density, so we should be looking at what other low density countries have been doing. I personally think that there should be more roundabouts in America. But a high capacity subway going through Atlanta, or an expensive light rail system going through Detroit are things we should not be doing because they are not economical, and require huge subsidies.
Nope. I'm off to go pay $20 on Monday to park in the suburbs.
Beats the heck out of taking heavily subsidized transit to drive for an hour and a half and pay $20 to park than spend 5 hours on transit and get a hotel for the night.
I don't like "heavily subsidized transit" anymore than I like "heavily subsidized roads."
We have both subsidies in America. And they are bigger than they need to be.
But as I have said again and again, we can reduce or eliminate the need for subsidy on mass transit, but building it right, with the right density. The density may not be there on day one. But with the right plan, it can grow up around the stations. And over time, the need for subsidy can shrink rather than grow.
Do you think I am in favor of build the "wrong" mass transit? I am not.
And I am in favor of putting the extra cost of the highways into the gasoline tax.
So perhaps we agree - Why don't you register some agreement on these sensible policies?
Rather than going after those who want to see the US become more transport-efficient with smaller Cash Drains on the middle class, why don't you go after those who are reinforcing policies which are draining those around you? The US is running out of time, as the dollars held by foreigners grows and grows.
I am very willing to learn from the rest of the world, but only if those developments will work well in America. America has a pretty low population density, so we should be looking at what other low density countries have been doing. I personally think that there should be more roundabouts in America. But a high capacity subway going through Atlanta, or an expensive light rail system going through Detroit are things we should not be doing because they are not economical, and require huge subsidies.
Of course mass transit with density around it will work in America. It has worked where it is tried. Be it Asia, Europe, or North America.
But we need to change out-of-date zoning laws which favor car-dependent development. It isn't only suburbanites that need to wake up in America, it is the planners too. And I am not the only one saying this. Check it out on the web, and you will find many people talking about crazy zoning laws in America.
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