The average U.S. consumer is done with SUVs and full-size pickups. Although the shift may have had something to do with safety concerns, political correctness and environmental awareness, probably not. The simple truth is that rising gas prices killed the genre faster than Old Sparky took out Pedro Medina. Of course, that hasn't stopped the left – right debates surrounding the private ownership of gas guzzlers, or, indeed, cars. We've been chronicling the UK's anti-car jihad for some time; recently highlighting their oppressive, CO2-based tax regimes (which even have the left up in arms). The Huffington Post's Sean-Paul Kelley provides us with a U.S. equivalent of the UK hard-core anti-car elite, penning a dietribe against personal transportation. "To me a car is like a prison sentence," Kelley opines, before totting-up the cost of running a car. "Wouldn't you rather save $8,000 a year and only pay $2,000 a year in infrastructure taxes to ride the subway? Or an excellent bus system? And improve our national rail network? As a part of the bargain you would walk more, get exercise, be healthier and as another bonus spend more time in closer quarters with your fellow Americans, building communities, making new friends, the chance meetings of people reading the same book on the metro or bus?" Kelley cuts non-urban dwellers a bit of slack, but not much. Look for more of this in the days, weeks and years to come…
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I’d like to see him waiting for another late bus in minus 15 temps in sunny Michigan!!
“Wouldn’t you rather save $8,000 a year and only pay $2,000 a year in infrastructure taxes to ride the subway? Or an excellent bus system? And improve our national rail network? As a part of the bargain you would walk more, get exercise, be healthier and as another bonus spend more time in closer quarters with your fellow Americans, building communities, making new friends, the chance meetings of people reading the same book on the metro or bus?”
No.
Most of us don’t need to ride the bus to meet new people, or give up the car to exercise.
And spending more time in closer quarters with my fellow Americans sounds more like a threat (or at least a prison sentence) than anything else.
This may come as a shock, but most of us are running our lives quite well, and don’t to be told what to do regarding transportation choices or anything else.
And if he really believes that it will only cost a person $2,000 in infrastructure taxes to dramatically upgrade urban mass transit and interstate rail service, I want what he is smoking…especially considering that roads are not going to go away.
Could you sound a little more like Peter De Lorenzo? (smile)
Why are the people we’re against always “the elite” or “the intelligentsia?” What does that make us? Sloping-forehead morons?
I’d like to see him walking a mile to the bus stop, which then drops you off 800m from work on a 95-degree day with nearly 100% humidity. In a suit.
I’m not a mass transit hater. It just takes a lot of investment and STILL requires a lot of sacrifices on the part of the commuter. I think most Americans would sooner be forced from their homes into communal housing before they’d give up their private cars (bonus: that would probably have more positive impact on the environment, too!)
I walk to work because I can. I ride the train if it’s crappy, but I would say 1/5 to 1/10 of the time, I regret riding.
* Taking the train between 6am and 9am SOMETIMES is not faster than walking. My walk to work is 22 minutes. I need to bounce two stops to get to work. 2 stop,s thats it. Why do I pay $1.75 for this? Why should walking 1 block, taking the train 2 stops & walking 2 blocks home take longer than walking 9 blocks?
* Crazies on the train….The drunks, the solicitors, the people who decide not to use deoderant or take a shower every day. Get rid of them and I’d be alot more likely to take the train.
* I can say the same for the Bus. There is actually a local/free newspaper in Chicago called “Redeye” that has a column JUST for bus/train complaints & experiences. Most of them are not good.
* I used to take the “red line” in chicago from downtown to “morse ave” stop (Not a very good area) home and it is actually safer & faster to walk the 2 miles home than HOPE a 96 Lunt bus shows up before you are robbed/mugged. When I used to take that route, 90% of the time I’d walk the entire way home (2 miles took me about 35-45 minutes) without a SINGLE bus passing me. Supposedly a bus is supposed to hit that stop every 15 minutes.
With gas taxes, federal taxes, state taxes, and the highest sales tax in the country (10.25%: THANKS Chicago!), I REFUSE TO PAY MORE IN TAXES FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORT. I’d estimate my taxes at almost 50% for crappy potholed roads, one of the highest murder rates in the country (I’d guess top 20), no public health insurance, and crappy public transportation. At least the tap water is fairly decent.
Public transport, outside of rush hour going TO downtown is a nightmare.
I once tried to be a “team player” and take the bus/train to Joliet (56 miles from my house) which on a Sunday afternoon is a 70 minute drive, almost all highway by car. It took me 7 hours to get there! NOT REASONABLE. And that is with advanced planning & trying to time all the buses and trains!
Public transportation is a disaster in Chicago. The real solution to high gas prices is elsewhere. A 4 day workweek, spread out work schedule, etc. I am happy to work in a job that I can start anywhere from 6-10am and leave anywhere from 3-7pm.
I’m getting sick of the carbon footprint thing. The greens have legislated and pressured wild life and forest management agencies to stop controlled burns. Now every summer, thousands of acres of tinder dry under brush touch off and destroy trees, wild life and houses. . Who is gonna get nailed for that carbon tax?
I rode the bus–for years–in sunny Ontario. Of course, I lived in metro Toronto at the time, which made it easier.
I also biked to work, which actually took less time, in snow and cold. Rain was unpleasant, but the worst–by far–were the smog-alert days that required me to wear a particulate mask. Breathing through a mask in 30degC weather is hard.
Guess what the big cause of ground-level pollution is in Toronto?
Andy,
Forest fires are not a problem (well, they are for particulates and raw property destruction, but not for carbon). Provided we don’t defoliate the planet, biofuels’ carbon is already unlocked and part of the planet’s carbon cycle. And to be fair, a lot of the “burn” problems have to do with climate change resulting in overly warm and dry conditions in certain areas.
The problem is CO2 and other greenhouse gases from “locked” sources like fossil fuels. Burning that introduces net new greenhouse emissions into the atmosphere.
Biofuels, as implemented, have their own issues, but provided we’re not burning fossil fuels to make them, they’re more or less carbon-neutral. So are forest fires.
Wow. From the comments here, it really sounds like “the elite” are the people who can’t bear to ride the bus because of inconvenience, scheduling or the chance of having to deal with riff-raff.
psarhjinian: Guess what the big cause of ground-level pollution is in Toronto?
If Canada is the same as America, probably the 5-10 percent of the vehicles (i.e., clunkers) that emit over 50 percent of the pollutants. (That figure may be outdated – I’ll bet that with newer, cleaner cars, the clunker brigade is even more guilty.)
If government wants to clean up the air, the LAST thing it should do is make new cars more expensive.
psarhjinian: Wow. From the comments here, it really sounds like “the elite” are the people who can’t bear to ride the bus because of inconvenience, scheduling or the chance of having to deal with riff-raff.
Which is why we have…cars.
Incidentally, check how many of the “elite” really do ride the bus. I have a hard time believing that Arianna Huffington, for example, is schlepping around on the LA bus system, or living in a cramped high rise apartment. Last I heard, she does enjoy her car (which, to her credit, is a Toyota Prius), and lives in Beverly Hills, which isn’t exactly the most eco-friendly place on earth.
As one blogger put it – I’ll believe there is a crisis when the people who keep telling me there is a crisis act like there really is a crisis. Ed Begley, Jr., tends to be the exception, not the rule…
Robstar,
I echo your sentiments. Public transportation (outside of NYC, and perhaps DC and SF) has traditionally been for designed and intended for poor people to get around. The bottom line is that European-style public transportation will not work in US cities, which are spead out over hundreds of square miles and have low population densities. Detroit, with its suburbs, (like Chicago) is a vast place. Driving in Europe is somewhat of a luxury for those who can afford it -and Europeans have had mutiple generations used to taking mass transit locally and inter-city trains. But in the U.S. it will be very difficult for a society that has driven everywhere for at least seventy years to accept and to get used to shoulder-to-shoulder commuting. People see it as downgrading their economic life. It’s somewhat psychological.
Oh, and I have taken the bus to work everyday for the past two years.
What we all can agree on is the desirability of high-tech inter-city rail. Look at China and Germany building those high-speed magnetic trains — How about Detroit to Chicago in 1.5 hours non-stop, downtown to downtown? Wireless internet, TVs, restaurant cars — would anyone ever fly?
Yikes, the comments to that article are really scary. Only a couple of people defended the right to own a car and even they were ok with using a car share type service. I will never, ever give up my car!!!
I too winced at the word “elite”, though in this context it’s not too bad. But often people who try to appeal to the “common” refer to those they wish to put down as “elitist”. Like what? you should be stupid, not read a book, drink wine, go to college, visit a museum, do anything that’s not nascar and football? That is the attitude that kept good ol boy GW in office. But yeah this guy is funny, I spent years taking the ny subway and trust me, being in close quarters with your fellow Americans is not very pleasant.
Robstar: What a shame. 20 years ago I spent a summer with my sister in Wilmette and loved the transit. Very dependable back then. Sorry to hear things have fallen apart.
John
Before I retired I commuted either 25 min or 40 min each way depending on which office I had to go to that day (sometimes both). If I took the commuter bus to the closer office It would have taken more than 70 minutes with a transfer in the city to get there, there was/is no commuter service to the other office.
Public transit in Connecticut is a joke, poorly implemented and a total waste of time unless you happen to live and work close to one of the “hub” lines. Most people in this state will be driving their private vehicles for a very long time to come.
JK43123>
I agree. If the bus/trains were ANYWHERE near clean, reliable, and run around the clock, I’d pay $10 a ride to go downtown and put up with the “riff-raff”. Parking in downtown chicago is going to cost you $10-$25/day anyhow…. it would also have to get me to my destination in no more than 1.5x the time it would take to go by personal vehicle. Example: 60 minutes by car = no more than 90 minutes by public transport. I don’t think that is unreasonable.
Perhaps they should experiment with 1 train “premium” car for an extra cost (kind of like business/1st class on planes)…? They should do anything to get public transport better, even if it is less affordable. I know I would highly appreciate it.
The same reason I don’t pay for a monthly pass is the same reason I don’t want to pay through taxes — I don’t use it all the time.
It would be nice if these people actually believed in us making the choice but by and large they prefer a government to make the decision for us. They are nothing but totalitarians.
Note: Mass transit isn’t available where I live.
I have two young children. Getting them to and from the sitter, doctor appointments, and preschool (for the oldest) is a chore as it is. There is NO WAY I would attempt this on mass transit.
Example: 60 minutes by car = no more than 90 minutes by public transport. I don’t think that is unreasonable.
I think that is VERY unreasonable. That’s an extra hour per day I have lost forever. If I added the extra stops to drop off/pick up the kids, there’s no telling what the total time would be; that’s less sleep for them (and me).
Oh, and there’s no way I would use the school buses for my kids. My parents tried that when I was in grade school. The threats from the older thugs on the bus and the lack of rule enforcement or monitoring by the driver and school system caused that little experiment to end quickly. I can only imagine what it’s like to ride the bus in large cities.
Sorry, I’ll keep my vehicle, thank you.
another commenter called it: it’s a pure population density problem
Probably the most extreme example of where mass transit will never work is in my hometown of Houston, Texas.
Houston is the 4th largest city in the country but it covers 600 square miles with a population of 2.2 million people.
For comparison London has 7.4 million people in 600 square miles.
I don’t know what the population density has to be before mass transit works but what I do know is that it is ridiculously more expensive to do it in a city with 4 times less people in a square mile than in London.
There are more cities like Houston in the US than there are like New York.
no amount of wishful thinking will change that fact.
canfood
Great example. Where I live (Birmingham, AL) has only about 250k people in the city proper, but the metro area covers something like 8 counties for over a million people. The sprawl is similar to what you describe, but the densities in outer areas are VERY low. Many people I know commute nearly an hour each way (and I’m not talking about sitting in traffic. I mean “cruise control commuting”)
And this is how the bulk of the US is laid out. So even if we offered some kind of park & ride for those outer areas, people still have to get in their cars and drive twice a day. For most, might as well just go to work instead of waiting on the train or bus.
The solution has to come with things like flex time, 4/10 schedules, traffic coordination/planning, and telecommuting. We’re too quick to look at potential solutions in the realm of directly addressing the quantity of miles driven. Instead, I propose we do something radically different so we can maintain our standard of living while setting an example to others. Employers have most of the power in this equation.
Houston will survive even $6.00 – $7.00 a gallon gasoline. They don’t have much of a choice. The sprawl extends pretty much into Fort Bend County.
Up the road a piece in Austin, I see the same patterns. Knock on wood – I live about a mile from work and the bicycle commute isn’t on a major thoroughfare. Most folks still need to drive, whatever the carbon foot print.
It also sounds like the problem isn’t so much public transit versus car use as much as it’s terrible urban planning in US cities.
I think people in the US are up in arms by proxy over what’s happening in the UK. (RobertF: you lived there, which gives you a basis for commentary, so the above comment doesn’t include you). A number of American posters who get twitchy about congestion charges, emissions carbon taxes simply do not live in cities like, say, Los Angeles, New York, or in my case, Toronto.
Public transit in Europe simply isn’t as bad as the US, and urban congestion is a much more serious issue in, say, central London than in Podunk, USA (or Canada, to be fair), pop 1200. Complaining about how the bus or train doesn’t work and how we need our cars is a fair cop in most of the US, but any major urban centre needs encourage public transit, implemement congestion-management and contain sprawl. It’s not even remotely sustainable to have a multimillion-person city without them, even if it means rubbing shoulders with undesirables and adding hours to one’s commute.
And yes, we’re not going to see media princesses dragging their asses onto a subway car every morning, but that’s not an excuse for everyone not to. They can (and should) pay for the privilege of having a car in a major city, and congestion charges are a good way to do that.
For anyone living outside of the northeast US this is a non-starter. It also would be political death for any politicians who become too openly anti-cat when the population eventually catches on. They can tack on some taxes and more regulation but if it becomes obvious that the point is to force you out of your car then the gig is up. Even London voted out Livingston when they caught on. The South , Southwest, West and Northwest general population will never allow themselves to be taxed out of their cars.
I read this blog along with a slew of other car-related blogs almost daily, so I don’t think I fit the profile of a “car hater.” A car-luster-after-er would be more accurate. That disclaimer aside, I agree with some of Sean-Paul Kelley’s assessment, if not his prescriptions or anti-car vitriol. Our transportation options–both local and long distance–are pretty limited in comparison to other “developed” countries. I personally would be happy to drive less and take more mass transit if I actually had decent mass transit where I live. Having more options is a good thing, and I’m willing to pay for it, provided the service is good.
“Why are the people we’re against always ‘the elite’ or ‘the intelligentsia?’”
They’re “the elite” because such ideas are rarely voiced by people who actually have experience with mass transit, making a living, etc. They’re “the intelligentsia” because their chief conceit is that their views are shaped by information and rational thought rather than ignorance and superstition.
It’s good to read posts that recognize that mass transit isn’t viable in our sprawling cities. Until we’re all forced into high-rise apartments, the best solution for most people is a highly economical private vehicle. Even in Houston, LA, etc., Kei cars would suffice for most trips. I’d buy one if the government would let me.
Poor urban planning? Well lets put it this way, I purchased a 2/1 house with a free standing garage in 1996 for 42,500 dollars. Why was this possible? Prior to the real estate run up we have plenty of spread out land. I also have some 2/1 large duplexes that I only charge 400 dollars a month rent. I have some senior citizens on fixed incomes that rent them. They only get social security. I had a teachers aid that made 11 dollars an hour rent from me. She had 3 kids, she didn’t qualify for housing assistance. Many of us simply don’t make as much money in the South as an example as people in the Northeast.
I am comfortable using the term elites. My brother an attorney in New York city who has a minimum fee of one million dollars once asked me to take him to Walmart because he had never been in one before. Tell me again what we are suppose to do. You can’t simply impose standards which are fine for New York or London which not only are high tax but also have high income along with the necessary infrastructure on other areas.
If you impose New York standards on the rest of the country, it is the working poor who suffer the most. It is simply reality that people are dependent on the automobile in most areas in the US.
I’m gonna have to disagree with those who dismiss public transit as not working. Using Chicago (where I live) as an example, it is already happening.
Granted CTA/MTA has a lot of issues. 80 years of deferred maintenance has a nasty habit of causing problems. However, I’ll stand up for CTA/Metra because overall, it is an excellent system.
To those who say new transit won’t make a lick of difference, Metra (the suburban to Chicago commuter rail) is already packing in the bodies over the past year. Park and ride lots are full well before the trains leave the station. If you’re not at an early stop of first on, its standing room only. These trains use old diesel locomotives, probably 25 year old cars that are seriously out of date and rather uncomfortable inside, and you still have to buy a paper ticket at the ticket booth….with cash. Yet ridership is skyrocketing.
Inner city CTA is much the same.
I’m the biggest car-nut there is. I LOVE my car. As do almost all American’s. However, good transit for a good price with high fuel prices result in people using it, including me. Before the blue-line took a dump, I’d take it to O’Hare regularly, because it was faster and easier than driving. I take the Orange line to Midway every chance I get. Its fast as hell and costs me $4 round trip vs $14/day to park in the economy lot. Before the north-side train work, I’d frequently ride up to Wrigleyville anytime I needed to go. Beat driving and finding parking any day. But the car is required to give that “freedom” none of us want to give up. I like transit when it works for me, but I’d never want to have to be 100% reliant on it, at least in the United States.
I will agree with the time-constraint as others have. But thats more a result of good transit planning than anything else. If I can reasonably expect to beat traffic most of the time, transit is great. But like my current commute….I can drive 35 minutes in the car door to door. But the Metra station to station takes an hour, then I have a mile in Chicago and a mile in Tinley. No thanks. Now if I had high-speed trains that could match or beat driving, I’d be all over it. Recently discovered that the express from Union Station to Naperville takes 30 minutes. You can’t touch that most days on the East-West and Eisenhower. Not surprisingly these trains are extremely popular.
Guess I’m just saying that if you design it correctly, transit will work and people will ride it. If you sit on a bus in the same traffic you’d drive in, makes no sense. But when you can fly by drivers and get home just as quickly or more quickly, ridership will skyrocket.
More dedicated right-of-way trains and busses (and streetcars) would go a long way in this country….
No system will work 100% of the time for 100% of the population, but options are good. Relying almost exclusively on cars hasn’t been good for this country. Being able to have options on transit/biking/walking/cars is a great thing. Sure you can’t drive your kids all over town on transit, which is why cars will always be popular for a lot of folks. But that same family my have another spouse that can easily commute on public transit and would love it with the right infrastructure. Hey, everyone wins. Faster, less stressful commute for those on transit, more open roads for those who like to drive, lower environmental impact for those who love the earth. Sounds good to me!
For those of us who commute from the suburbs to the heart of a major city, public transit is great! I’m not ready to pay $30 a day for parking. The metro tickets themselves cost as much or more than the gas I would use if I drove, but I have time to read and I don’t get nearly as stressed out. For every crazy I meet on the train, there’s a crazy (and dangerous) driver on the road that I’m glad not to have met.
My car is now a weekend vehicle, still giving me the freedom to go wherever I want. I’d never give that up. But on weekdays, I don’t miss it. It’s silly, anyway, for a thousand people to drive themselves to the same place. The longest part of our commutes – the freeway portion – is simply better served by mass transit. It’s the boring part of the commute anyway. So I think the ideal is for us to drive from our spread-out homes to a transit hub, be whisked away to the city we’re going to, and after that it’s a bit more complicated. If you’re working in a dense downtown, you can just walk from the station. Otherwise it might make sense to have minicar or personal transportation pod rentals or something. If you work in a suburban-like area, you might as well keep driving.
The argument that mass transit is financially wasteful isn’t a good one either – people who say that always forget how much we pay for roads and their maintenance. No one asks the government to make a profit on those, so why should public transit?
@guyincognito: Only a couple of people defended the right to own a car and even they were ok with using a car share type service. I will never, ever give up my car!!!
I don’t think anyone here is advocating stripping you of your “right” to own a car or asking you to give it up. This isn’t theology, it’s a debate reasonable people can have about the advantages and disadvantages of our car-centric culture.
“…the chance meetings of people reading the same book on the metro or bus?”
This person has obviously never had to take the 33 bus along Venice Ave in Los Angeles. There are some seriously disturbed people on that bus than even made me, a 6-3, 220lbs white dude, nervous.
They may respond with “It’s OK. The driver is watching what happens on board.” Um, no. One time the driver decided to cancel the bus ride at night and forced everyone off at a dark stop for God knows how long before a replacement bus might show up. So if you are a poor smaller woman, you are now stuck on the street with a bunch of scary people and no cops of transit police around. That’s got to be nerve wracking.
The sad fact is, most of the public transportation in the US is very poor quality and often downright scary.
Transit will improve vastly in quantity and scope of offering proportionate to a drop in personal transportation.
As vehicles containing one person disappear from the streets, the need to be transported effectively will be met by an increase in public transport and in more expensive pay-per-hire transport. Car sharing is not the only option here. Lots of jobs will be created as people set up transportation solutions for those who need to get from doorstep to doorstep, in whatever kind of style you require.
Change being that most of those vehicles will no longer run on gas.
You’ll see comparable improvements in fixed (rail, subways) and variable public transportation.
Offshoot: an increase in productivity, in today’s connected world, a lot of people will actually be doing work while in transit; a reduction of congestion and a possibility to reclaim the inner-city areas that have been the domain of cars for decades.
The option to keep one’s private car will be there, it’s just going to be incredibly expensive in comparison to the other offerings available.
as another bonus spend more time in closer quarters with your fellow Americans
Ah yes…that bonus.
I took the subway home Friday for the first time in a while. At the first stop after I boarded, a woman got on the train and slumped heavily into the seat beside me. Her head start rolling around like the sunflower in a North Dakota breeze. Then she yawned, and it became apparent she’d spend the last several hours doing tequila shooters. Them, overcome with booze, she simply went limp and collapsed onto me. I spent the rest of the ride home thinking ‘Will she puke?’. When I got to my stop I had to gently wake her up to get out. Gently didn’t work, nor did not so gently. Everyone around me was smiling and giggling, and a couple broke out laughter. Finally I managed to wake my comatose travelling companion and sprint out to the platform.
I guess the bright side is that she wasn’t driving home.
The only “elitists” around here seem to be the eco-elitists. And the next time one of them runs in front of me so that they can catch the bus I’m not slowing down.
TexasAg03:
Oh, and there’s no way I would use the school buses for my kids. My parents tried that when I was in grade school. The threats from the older thugs on the bus and the lack of rule enforcement or monitoring by the driver and school system caused that little experiment to end quickly. I can only imagine what it’s like to ride the bus in large cities.
Yup. That school bus operations are so brainless is further proof that government can’t be trusted to do decent public transport.
My sister’s a teacher and her pet peeve is the
ZoloftOprah addicted stay-at-home-mom-lobby who think molesters lurk behind every tree and bus driver/attendant unions who’ve love extra work hours. The result : an obesity-friendly policy of dropping kids right at their doorstep. Little Johnny and Janey can’t walk a flippin’ block… Furthermore, pity the poor slob of a kid who getsscrewed withthe LAST STOP. What USED TO be a 30 minute bus ride with 10 stops is now a HOUR+ ride with 25+ stops.Criticize such policies and you’re a child hater – there can be no debate.
Wouldn’t you rather save $8,000 a year and only pay $2,000 a year in infrastructure taxes to ride the subway? Or an excellent bus system?
No?
It’s always seemed to me that the last thing our society needs is more people who feel constantly rushed and like they don’t have any time to themselves. If I were to take public transportation to work, I’d lose at least another hour out of each work day, and I don’t feel that that’s an acceptable sacrifice. That’s another 5 hours – more than half of another work day – per week. This is extra stress I don’t need, stacked on top of the stress from the unpleasant experience of taking public transit to begin with.
Make it more comparable timewise to driving my car and we’ll talk.
I really think it’s time for an opportunity cost evaluation here.
Today’s public transportation system operates as an adjunct to the private transportation option that cheap gasoline and cheap commodities made possible.
Tomorrow’s public transportation system will operate as the main mode of transportation, with private transportation being the option.
Resources will be channeled to public transportation in order to fill the precise desires that people are expressing here: door-to-door options; different grades of transport as to comfort, speed, number of stops; different and quite sophisticated modes of transport.
Why will this happen? Because there’s no way around it – there isn’t enough room for personal transportation, unless we turn everything into roads.
Here’s the actual and projected world population – since the advent of cars:
1900 1.6 billion
1927 2 billion
1950 2.55 billion
1955 2.8 billion
1960 3 billion
1965 3.3 billion
1970 3.7 billion
1975 4 billion
1980 4.5 billion
1985 4.85 billion
1990 5.3 billion
1995 5.7 billion
1999 6 billion
2006 6.5 billion
2010 6.8 billion
2012 7 billion
2020 7.6 billion
2030 8.2 billion
2040 8.8 billion
2050 9.2 billion
geeber, the correct answer to psarhjinian’s question is the ttc’s cruddy diesel buses were (probably still are) the main source of particulate matter pollution in toronto’s potholed streets …
another chicago commuter, from north side of city to far north suburbs – reverse communte is awful, and the trains are infrequent and do not work for my schedule. ugh.
Public transportation.
Public housing.
Public restrooms.
Public schools.
Public != Good
“Wouldn’t you rather save $8,000 a year and only pay $2,000 a year in infrastructure taxes to ride the subway? Or an excellent bus system? And improve our national rail network?”
Now how would that help me if I decide to go cross country skiing this winter or decide to take a vacation camping/hiking in one of the national parks? Thanks, I’ll keep my car and use public transportation when it makes sense – like traveling in downtown Toronto for example. Sean-Paul Kelley types can stay in the city – rural attractions will that much less crowded.
BTW – GO Transit service is excellent in the Toronto area.
Living in Pittsburgh, I’m really on the fence about public trans. IMO, the Allegheny County Port Authority is second only to the PA Department of Transportation in ineptitude. Depending on what area of the City or suburbs you’re in, you either have a great light rail system, decent bus service, horrid bus service, or no choice but to drive.
I recently started a contract position that pays 20% less than I used to make, prior to being laid off. And it’s in Downtown. So I figured I’d save a bit of cash, with $10/day parking, and take the ‘express bus’ which passes the top of my street (1/4 mile walk). It is 16 miles from the top of my street to the heart of Downtown…and even with this ‘express’ using the dedicated, 50mph busway for most of the trip, it takes 53 minutes for those 16 miles. That is just ridiculous. Express? Yeah, it’s nice and cheap($5.20 a day, round trip), but the extra 40 or so minutes it adds to my daily commute is absurd. It’s because the route planning and analysis done by the transportation authority is woefully underdone. There are something like 40 stops on the ‘express’, and it’s stupid. I’d gladly pay more to have a faster route, or split the route into 2 lines.
It won’t happen, because the Port Authority is annually crying poor, even after receiving some bailout in the form of a pour tax on drinks in the county. It’s very very poorly run.
Someone mentioned the Maglevs…I only wish there were bullet trains in the US…it’s not like we don’t have enough land.
Stein X Leikanger: Offshoot: an increase in productivity, in today’s connected world, a lot of people will actually be doing work while in transit; a reduction of congestion and a possibility to reclaim the inner-city areas that have been the domain of cars for decades.
You are missing another possibility – that increasing connectivity will radically reduce the need for people to even be at the office. They can work from home, which means staying in the suburb (i.e, home or the local library) all day, and rarely venturing into the city.
You also assume that everyone commutes from the suburbs to the central city. This is not the case anymore.
As for “reclaiming” central cities from the car – these areas have ALWAYS had lots of traffic. In the old days, said traffic was drawn by horses and mules (which emitted their own unique brand of exhaust). Check out photos of London, New York City and Paris in the late 1800s, before the advent of the automobile – they were hardly pedestrian paradises.
The streets were jammed with lots of traffic, which is one of the things that made them cities – as opposed to a village or small town – in the first place.
Stein X Leikanger: Why will this happen? Because there’s no way around it – there isn’t enough room for personal transportation, unless we turn everything into roads.
The only problem with that thesis is that in many places in the industrialized world, where the anti-car hysteria is the worst – the big concern is DECLINING population. Germany, Italy and Japan, for example, are concerned about dropping population figures. Even Great Britain and France aren’t growing all that rapidly. You have to look at WHERE the growth is occurring.
If these countries were growing at 2 % or so annually, there would be a concern, but unless they plan to hold the door wide open for immigrants, I doubt that they will be completely paving over their respective land areas anytime soon.
Will some things change? Sure – we are seeing it in the market already. SUV sales are cratering, and pickup sales are retreating to where they were in the 1960s and 1970s – largely bought by farmers, tradesman and small business owners.
Mass transit use will increase, and as more middle-class people use it, they will increase pressure to upgrade service, spruce up the stations and equipment, and remove the less savory characters. On the other hand, increased use of telecommuting will mean that an increasing number of people will make FEWER trips to the central city. (Another trend – what we are seeing in Pennsylvania is an increased demand for lines that connect one suburb to another.)
Hate to disappoint anyone, but cars will still be the transport method of choice (although people will increasingly choose Fiestas instead of Explorers), and the suburbs aren’t going to wither away and die anytime soon.
I do, however, expect more congestion charges and fees, but that has more to with money-hungry urban politicians (who are loath to reduce spending, as this would antagonize municipal labor unions and interest groups) desperately seeking new sources of revenue. In the long run, of course, this could backfire and encourage more people and businesses to stay in the suburbs.
This past weekend I attended a popular old-car meeting (West Coast Meet) in beautiful San Luis Obispo. Friday featured a driving event to a scenic park in nearby Arroyo Grande. As over a 100 mint mostly 60’s Classic Americans threaded through the historic downtown, the locals walking by were giving enthusiastic thumbs-up to the parade passengers. One fellow in my car observed, “It won’t be long before they will be giving us a different digit.”
Why don’t we just give up our freedom, agree to live and work like the serfs of eons ago. Oh let me see, we aren’t living in a feudal system and no longer believe in the divine right of the monarchy, or did we just celebrate the 4th of July for nothing?
@ BuckD:
My comment was referring to the commenters on Huffington Post, many of whom certainly do want to remove my “right” to drive.
But, I still have to disagree with what you said. This is not a theological argument? You severly underestimate my love of the automobile. Actually, you would more easily change my religious beliefs than convince me to give up my car.
Now, driving to and from work, I would definitely give that up, if it were possible. Unfortunately, I live in the city (Boston) but work outside of it. There is no public transporation option to get me there and its a 25 mile commute, so not quite bikeable.
Of course, I know how we could immediately take a huge % of cars off the road with no added costs, telecommuting!! You never hear that idea come from the anti-car jihadis and yet its the easiest to quickly implement. So are they more interested in the environment or taking away our right to drive?
I used to live in the UK and frequently travelled into London. At first, I’d drive part way then get on the Underground, but after people started to break into parked vehicles, I took the bus and train from home instead. This added a little to the time of my trip, but it was all chargeable time so it didn’t really matter much. Living in London would have been the best option, but at the time it cost too much for my limited income. I would have preferred to drive, but London parking and traffic were too much for me.
Later on, I lived in Florida in a beach community and worked some 20 miles away. I could (and would) have taken the bus that passed by the end of my street every 15 minutes all day, except I’d need to change twice to different routes that didn’t have timetables that meshed so I’d be hanging around bus depot’s, and the last bus from the vicinity of my office was two hours before I finished work at midnight. It would have taken almost three hours to get to or from work. Needless to say, I drove.
More recently, I lived in a large Kansas town and worked in the downtown area. I could see downtown from my front porch. I could have walked the 2.5 miles, ridden a bicycle or taken the bus. But I drove, partly because it was easy to do (paid parking) and partly because I was a lazy SOB. Shortly after I started, the company moved to a new development in a suburban location and the bus routes just don’t go anywhere near there.
Now I live in the country, on a smallholding that lets me grow my own fruits and vegetables. I’m away from the city and the crime that the local PD
don’t seem to care aboutcan’t do anything about. My daily commute is still 35 minutes, but it’s all highway cruising instead of stop-go traffic so my weekly gas bill has dropped considerably. Sure, I’d like to ride mass transit, but I don’t think a route will be passing anywhere near home anytime soon. A car, an iPod and audible.com lets me keep up with my “reading” too.Would I like to live in a city and be able to walk or take mass transit to work? Sometimes the convenience would be good… but then I get to watch the sunset over swaying wheat fields from my deck, or get to taste the first truly fresh tomato of the season grown right outside my back door, or stand outside in the pitch dark stargazing in the dead of night and the only sound is your own breathing… I’ll take that over public transporation or urban living any day. Been there, done that, and I don’t feel like doing it again.
Gottleib
Anyone who has a loan, for car or home, in today’s society is a serf.
serf |sərf|
noun
an agricultural laborer bound under the feudal system to work on his lord’s estate.
Today, you are bound to work in order to maintain your standard of living, which is yanked away from you should you fail to meet your obligations.
Since when has “elite” become a negative attribute? I thought accusing people with differing opinions of elitism was only the realm of Fox News?
Let the free market take care of itself. Gas gets high enough and people will shift how they do what they do and how they get around and what they get around in.
Around here (small town TN) people are slowing down a litte, more small cars coming out of the barns/backyards/garages, people are driving around less and the evening/weekends feature roads that are a little more empty sooner. If gas gets high enough somebody will sell electric cars (see Phoenix Electric car’s SUT 250 mi range, 0-60 in under 10 seconds, 110 mph top speed).
I think mass transit will get better as the low income ridership becomes more diluted with wealthier and more educated folks riding. I agree, I have ridden alot of mass transit in the USA and Italy. The Italian trains were good and the Italian riders worked pretty hard to make other folks respect the trains and buses. No feet on the seats, respectful behavior, etc.
I’ll have a car for the forseeable future as our town has zero mass transit and few roads where I would consider riding a bike to be safe. I’d ride a trolley if the city would run one. Up one of the main roads and back along the other. Make a big loop out of it.
I expect what would happen first is that my neighbors and I would start carpooling to work or the store and split the cost. Fotunately we chose to live in a small town so while jobs can be fewer we also have a 10 min drive to anywhere in town.
Stein X Leikanger Says:
July 14th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Gottleib
Anyone who has a loan, for car or home, in today’s society is a serf.
serf |sərf|
noun
an agricultural laborer bound under the feudal system to work on his lord’s estate.
Today, you are bound to work in order to maintain your standard of living, which is yanked away from you should you fail to meet your obligations.
1) That kind of nonsense is often said by unemployed hippies that collect cans and sleep on the floor.
2) There are two ways to fail to meet your obligations. Over extend yourself or you are a loser and not a man.
Anyway, I’m fine with those that take public transportation. It leaves more room for my SUV’s. :D