The Public Mass Transit Thread (merged)

dooberheim

In DC they hae "stub lines" (I believe that is what they are called). People just wait on the curb displaying a distinctive card, and anyone with space picks them up.

DK
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Johnston · Tar Sands Joined: Sep 17, 2006 Posts: 60 Location: Japan

In discussing public transport, people often focus on the quality of the services in their city or area. Many people say that they can't live without a car because services in their area are not good enough.
But I think an even more difficult problem to overcome RE public transport are the psychological issues. A city or town needs more than just a good system - there needs to be a deeply ingrained acceptance of public transport, and not owning a car.
In my city in Australia, public transport is quite good. If you put your mind to it, you can live without a car quite easily. But psychologically, it is still the normal thing to do to own a car. I have NO intention of ever owning a car - and this is not normal.
So while the public transport system is decent and getting better, there are limits to what can be achieved until people's ingrained attitudes change.
I am living in Tokyo at the moment. It is amazing to see people's wholehearted embrace of public transport. The public transport system is not just a way to get around, it is ingrained in the psychology of the city.
Car manufacturers here have noted declining interest in cars in the population, including young males. Young males are meant to be a car-obsessed demographic, so it is great to see that they are losing interest. I think people are just being sane - WHY would anyone bother with the effort and expense of owning, maintaining, parking, insuring a car when you have a train coming past your station every 3 minutes?
So to end my rant... I think a good public transit system is only half the story. We must get rid of the idea that you are a loser if you don't have a car. I think massively expensive oil might be the only way to change people attitudes in some car-loving countries.

SolarDave · Heavy Crude Joined: May 19, 2005 Posts: 382

Windmills

I think the "carless loser" idea will evaporate along with the car itself. As long as people in the USA can afford to drive, they will. Nothing's going to pry their fingers off their steering wheels except poverty.

I rode the bus for a few years in Tucson. I was content not to have to deal with traffic and all the other drivers trying to kill me. Taking the bus eliminated a source of stress, and I was pleased about that.

TheTurtle

Summer before last, I rode the bus every day to and from work. One early morning, I was standing waiting for the bus (alone, I might add) and in the darkness a pick-up truck raced by. The driver (carrying no passengers, I might add) shouted, "GET A CAR!"

So I definitely hear what you're saying about the general lack of acceptance of public transportation.

That being said, the reason I stopped taking the bus wasn't because the weather started getting colder, but rather because the bus service, which was minimally acceptable at the start of the summer became far worse in the fall. They opened up a new subway line from downtown to the west part of town. Despite the fact that this new line provided no value whatsoever to the south part of town, they decided to consolidate several bus routes in the south part of town into one and to run that less frequently.

With that change, my daily commute went from 90 minutes each way to 150 minutes each way. Using my car (which gets good mpg, of course Smile

), I can get to work in 15 minutes. While I was willing to devote an extra 2.5 hours to my daily commute, an extra 4.5 hours was too much to handle.

So yes, there are deeply ingrained bad attitudes against public transportation and yes, public services in my area are not good enough. I recognize that this is a Catch-22. The services are bad and so people don't use them. Because people don't use the services the public transport management can't (won't) improve the services.

I'm sure as the cost of gasoline steadily increases, a point will be reached where even haughty suburbanites start taking the bus. When that happens, maybe the services will improve and then more people will take the bus and then the services will get even better and then eve more people will ride the bus, etc. etc. forever. Laughing

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Cornelian

I don't have a car (live in Australia, Hobart). I manage fine without it. The last time I was in for a checkup with my local GP he was flabbergasted I did not have a car and begged me to get one (this conversation was utterly surreal).

the hardest thing is, indeed, getting people to realise that living without a car does not mean the end of the world as we know it. It is perfectly doable and just fine. I do not suffer. LOL

efarmer · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 17, 2006 Posts: 506

Parade, the Sunday supplement in US Newspapers ran a story about the need to revive the US railroad transortation system. This is a very old and mainstream publication, and a subject that should be near and dear to all PO oriented people.

Go to www.parade.com and check out the article as well as participate in the poll When I did toda, 99% of responders were for boosting funding of passenger rails.

The train is perhaps the one clear and present technology that makes future travel in America pleasureable and affordable to support the huge tourism business that so much of the nation depends on for revenue. The key to tourism is for people to have money to spend after they pay their transport to and from a destination. The big destinations should consider doing package deals with rail transport just like they have done with airlines to date, and hedge their own future risk from sky high liquid fuel costs
impacting their bottom lines.

"Rather be a stick in the mud than a lightning rod."

mommy22 · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 22, 2005 Posts: 270

In the US in the 40's and 50's, the large US car manufacturers bought up all the light rail lines throughout the Us and then everyone pretty much had to purchase autos. Maybe if we beg and plead, they'll give them back to all of us, and then we'll have a great public system again! OK...I'm just dreaming, of course!

Tyler_JC

As gasoline gets more expensive, the public will demand better public transportation.

To argue that people would rather not go to work than take the bus is ludicrous.

It's amazing how quickly attitudes change in a crisis.

In 5 years America went from a "Capitalist Paradise" to a "Welfare State" (1928-1933).

In 5 years America went from having a military smaller than Sweden's to the largest military force in the history of the planet (1939-1944).

There's going to be a massive change in public opinion, just you wait. Smile

Here's a graph of spending on public transportation over time.

emersonbiggins · Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 8:45 pm Post subject: Re: Advantages to Rail Travel

I saw this article this afternoon and, needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised. It puts the idea of high-speed rail into the public consciousness, which is good, because it doesn't receive near the press even one airplane (A380, for instance) gets on a regular basis.
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pstarr · Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 9:07 pm Post subject: Re: Advantages to Rail Travel

I am taking an Amtrak sleeper from San Fransisco to Springfield MA for the xmas holiday. I did it last year and I loved it. Wake up to good food. Eat good food and stare out the window for 12 hours. Go to bed after some good food. Get rocked to sleep. Do it again.

Good public transportation is wonderful and available all over the world EXCEPT THIS IDIOTIC NASCAR NATION. @sswipe merican jerks suffer to much stress in public from obsessively comparing themselves to other people.

"oh my. That person is not of my faith."

"That [bigot target here] is after my wallet."

"I wish I was good enough to own that handbag."

"I must have her or I will explode in my khakis!"
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mommy22 · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 22, 2005 Posts: 270

The big strike is on in Paris and the rest of France now. We lived there several years ago during a short strike, andi t's quite impressive to see how vitally important public transit (in all it's forms) are to making the city work efficiantly. People really rely on the service, and it takes so many cars off the road. It would be totoally cool to see how much traffic would be taken off the roads stateside if all of a sudden safe, efficient public transit was available, and we were all able to choose to use them. Ahhh...my little fantasy world!

Denny

I recently travelled to south Florida and stayed with retired relatives, and rather than rent a car to get around, I used the county transit. It was not all that pleasant, mostly because the buses were scheduled too far apart. But, also, I found the ethnic mix very slanted to blacks and Hispanics. For instance, at the mall it seems like 70%-80% of the people are white, non-hispanic. Riding on the bus, it was like only 10%-20% were white, and of those, there seemed to be an abnormal bunch with behavioral abnormalities or handicaps. I am not a racist or anything, but I felt uncomfortable being with so many minorities. Not so much afraid, but I guess everybody likes to feel part of the crowd, not to stand out. The only reason I can think so many minorities are using mass transit is that they tend to be low income, or else their poor English skills impair their abillity to acquire a motor car driver's license.

I think many white people would rather have more of their own to travel with and thus, the ethnic mix in itself is a disincentive to mass transit. I found many of the elderly white people at the resort I stayed from NYC and New Jersey area had a fear of the blacks and the hispanics, and so, this loses a potential market to mass transit. And the elderly are a real big market in Florida.
Its almost like there is a major hurdle to jump for transit to gain popularity, not all of it controllable by the transit operators.
Is this racial divide common in America when it comes to transit?

Jack · Dark Lord Joined: Aug 11, 2004 Posts: 5123

There is a racial divide, and also an economic divide.
Mass transit in much of the U.S. is somewhere between pathetic and a joke. For example...once upon a time...I parked the car in a downtown building where I had some matters to attend to. Instead of driving about a mile, I got on the shuttle and rode to the next point. OK so far, right?

Then, coming back, the driver went on break. Nobody gets on, nobody gets off, we just sit there for 15 (insert expletive of choice here) minutes. Lovely.
On another occasion, I missed the (insert expletive of choice here) shuttle at the remote location. I walked - not ran, not jogged - walked to the downtown building. I beat the (yeah, expletive) bus again.
At which point, I said (yes, expletive again) it. And I never rode the shuttle again.
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emersonbiggins

The stigma of mass transit in America is that way by design. I'd suggest checking out (or renting) the film "Taken for a Ride" from your local library to find out how GM conspired with others to reduce and diminish transit service to the point that all but the most indigent were coerced ( or enticed, defrauded, what have you) into buying their own vehicles. Even if you can't accept the conspiratorial nature of the film, there's no denying that transit went from being wildly popular in the 1920's, to wholly unpopular after rails were seen as impediments to the access of the automobile, with the major difference being a subsidization of the automobile causing a cultural shift to the paradigm we recognize today as modern America.
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