Don’t know where you live, but to put this into perspective: it’s the same situation here and I live in The Netherlands (outside of the major cities). Even in a rich, flat country, the size of a post stamp, we cannot make mass transit work outside of larger cities. I agree that we need mass transit, but it’s only one solution for the mobility puzzle. Cars also fit in there as a puzzle piece, especially in areas where the population density is lower.
So from my perspective, no, cars aren’t just for the rich.
It’s probably not anywhere near the same situation. I lived a year in Nijmegen in the Netherlands and a year in Duesseldorf in Germany. I’ve ridden my bike from Duesseldorf to Belgium and back, including rural areas.
Where I live, the nearest bus route is 7km away, and it only goes downtown. I almost never go downtown except for concerts or sporting events, but that bus doesn’t run after 6pm.
I can’t bike. I’ve been stuck in this house since the market crash that happened in 2007-2008, I’ve been here 18 years and in that time I’ve seen two people try to commute on bikes, they both disappeared after less than a month. I hope they’re alive.
I have seen more than a dozen bikes on the roadside in memorial of people who died. It’s just deadly for bikes. Tons of huge trucks on narrow curvy lanes with no shoulder, just a ditch. And high speeds.
I also live in the Netherlands and live in a commuter town of 80k inhabitants. There are a lot of bus routes in this town but they are all designed for commuters going to Amsterdam or for people going to the town center. If I want to visit a friend on the other side of town by bus I have to take multiple buses and waste a lot of time on waiting. I usually take the bike when I visit them since that’s faster than going by bus. But if I have to bring lots of things or it’s raining heavily or I know that I’m going home after midnight I take the car, since public transportation is just not a good option to take. Or if I want to visit another town that isn’t on route to Amsterdam it takes me twice as long to get there by bus compared to taking the car. Majority of homes in this town have a car since public transportation or the bike doesn’t satisfy every transportation need they have. And I rather want all these cars to be electric since that is conducive for the air quality.
It’s just not cost effective for a town this size to have dedicated bus routes that connect every corner of town to each other. And it’s even worse for smaller towns.
Cost effectiveness is a capitalist concept and as rational people we should eschew it. We ought to construct societies in such a way that they function according to needs and desires. We have people, we have materials, we have locations. Done deal.
I agree. The whole existence of a government is based on the union of people to organize common infrastructure that might otherwise not be cost effective to be operated in a commercial manner. Therefore, public transport should be an easy 1, 2, 3. Unfortunately, it’s not the reality.
well yeah but that’s just because modern western urban planning is kind of absolute shit, it isn’t from some sort of hard limit of means.
china has such extensive public transport that it has become a popular political position to advocate building less high speed rails and shit on both sides of their political aisle.
Cars also fit in there as a puzzle piece, especially in areas where the population density is lower.
When there’s 1 farm per 5 km maybe. In 1920, you could get from Savanah to Boston just by taking trains and streetcars; every neighborhood was served by atleast a tram.
The USSR found it worthwhile to build rail lines to remote settlements, without stops, a few times a day a guy would just drive a 2 train locomotive and stop if he saw anybody.
In some rural parts of Japan, you have lines it’s just 1 railroad, and every 20 miles is an unmanned station where it splits into 2 for the trains to pass, for like 10 stations. So you have 200 miles worth of suburbs being served by 40-50 workers running 20 3 car trains, that arrive every 30 minutes or so. The unmanned stations tend to have tons of bikes, they probably have buses too.
Average cost of owning a car per day is 20USD or so. A single railroad line that allows just 1000 people to not pay for a car does not cost 20,000 USD a day to operate. This is not including the cost of road building and maintenance. But even if it did, cheap transit is a public good; transit isn’t supposed to be revenue neutral. Roads aren’t revenue neutral.
Sure, you can get from Savannah–a major city–to Boston–also a major city just by taking trains. That’s a great case for public transport.
But as someone else pointed out, can you get from one side of Savannah to the other efficiently, at off-peak times? I lived in Chicago for over a decade, and while the transit system isn’t great, it’s not bad. I lived in the Austin neighborhood (if you know Chicago, you know that’s not a great area); if I went to see a concert at downtown without driving, I had to walk about a mile and a half to get home, because that was the closest train stop to my home, and busses in my area stopped running at 11p.
Where I live now, even if trains ran to my town (and they technically do, but it’s only freight), I would have to travel 15 miles to get to the train. And that 15 miles from where I live to the train is also about 1500’ of elevation loss. That’s pretty great for riding a bike there, and really, really sucks for getting home. Especially if I have groceries of any kind.
I agree that we should have better public transit, and I agree that the cost is a net public good. But that doesn’t solve all transportation needs. It may take a large bite out of them, but it doesn’t fix all of them.
Continuing to run some transit late at night is one of the few things NYC and Chicago actually do better than most cities.
Even Tokyo runs some of its last trains before midnight. Some stations don’t get their first trains until 6 am. Missing the last train because of an event that let out at 2AM or 11 and it took awhile to get to the station isn’t that uncommon. It’s not terrible to walk 5km in a more walkable city. But also that’s where ebike and scooter shares, and even taxis fill the gap. You don’t need to destroy the city with parking lots and wide roads to support that.
I think that most of the trains in Chicago run late at night, although far, far less frequently. I remember taking the green line with my bike late at night, drunk, and riding the mile or so north to my home through some moderately shitty neighborhoods (a bit west of Garfield Park, if that means anything to you). I lived in in a pretty rough area; there were definitely no taxis waiting for fares near the train stations (or anywhere!), and there weren’t any e-bike or scooters in that area either. It was just rough getting around the Austin neighborhood in Chicago late at night without a car.
From my perspective, you have to be rich to drive. The so-called poverty line is now what I and everyone I know aspires to one day reach, but secretly know we won’t. If you’re not wealthy and you’re driving, you have made a choice that demands compromise from every other aspect of your like. Though, likewise with not driving… But you can’t be not wealthy AND drive AND be a single parent of three, for example. And since you can’t sell the kids, you WILL figure out how to live without a car.
Where I live 90% of the homeless have cars, or are at least in a relationship with someone who has one. Many of them sleep in them. Because here you can live without a house but you can’t live without a car. Walking or biking the roads is deadly. Like you WILL die. Poor people have cars.
Don’t know where you live, but to put this into perspective: it’s the same situation here and I live in The Netherlands (outside of the major cities). Even in a rich, flat country, the size of a post stamp, we cannot make mass transit work outside of larger cities. I agree that we need mass transit, but it’s only one solution for the mobility puzzle. Cars also fit in there as a puzzle piece, especially in areas where the population density is lower.
So from my perspective, no, cars aren’t just for the rich.
It’s probably not anywhere near the same situation. I lived a year in Nijmegen in the Netherlands and a year in Duesseldorf in Germany. I’ve ridden my bike from Duesseldorf to Belgium and back, including rural areas.
Where I live, the nearest bus route is 7km away, and it only goes downtown. I almost never go downtown except for concerts or sporting events, but that bus doesn’t run after 6pm.
I can’t bike. I’ve been stuck in this house since the market crash that happened in 2007-2008, I’ve been here 18 years and in that time I’ve seen two people try to commute on bikes, they both disappeared after less than a month. I hope they’re alive.
I have seen more than a dozen bikes on the roadside in memorial of people who died. It’s just deadly for bikes. Tons of huge trucks on narrow curvy lanes with no shoulder, just a ditch. And high speeds.
I also live in the Netherlands and live in a commuter town of 80k inhabitants. There are a lot of bus routes in this town but they are all designed for commuters going to Amsterdam or for people going to the town center. If I want to visit a friend on the other side of town by bus I have to take multiple buses and waste a lot of time on waiting. I usually take the bike when I visit them since that’s faster than going by bus. But if I have to bring lots of things or it’s raining heavily or I know that I’m going home after midnight I take the car, since public transportation is just not a good option to take. Or if I want to visit another town that isn’t on route to Amsterdam it takes me twice as long to get there by bus compared to taking the car. Majority of homes in this town have a car since public transportation or the bike doesn’t satisfy every transportation need they have. And I rather want all these cars to be electric since that is conducive for the air quality.
It’s just not cost effective for a town this size to have dedicated bus routes that connect every corner of town to each other. And it’s even worse for smaller towns.
Cost effectiveness is a capitalist concept and as rational people we should eschew it. We ought to construct societies in such a way that they function according to needs and desires. We have people, we have materials, we have locations. Done deal.
I agree. The whole existence of a government is based on the union of people to organize common infrastructure that might otherwise not be cost effective to be operated in a commercial manner. Therefore, public transport should be an easy 1, 2, 3. Unfortunately, it’s not the reality.
well yeah but that’s just because modern western urban planning is kind of absolute shit, it isn’t from some sort of hard limit of means.
china has such extensive public transport that it has become a popular political position to advocate building less high speed rails and shit on both sides of their political aisle.
When there’s 1 farm per 5 km maybe. In 1920, you could get from Savanah to Boston just by taking trains and streetcars; every neighborhood was served by atleast a tram.
The USSR found it worthwhile to build rail lines to remote settlements, without stops, a few times a day a guy would just drive a 2 train locomotive and stop if he saw anybody.
In some rural parts of Japan, you have lines it’s just 1 railroad, and every 20 miles is an unmanned station where it splits into 2 for the trains to pass, for like 10 stations. So you have 200 miles worth of suburbs being served by 40-50 workers running 20 3 car trains, that arrive every 30 minutes or so. The unmanned stations tend to have tons of bikes, they probably have buses too.
Average cost of owning a car per day is 20USD or so. A single railroad line that allows just 1000 people to not pay for a car does not cost 20,000 USD a day to operate. This is not including the cost of road building and maintenance. But even if it did, cheap transit is a public good; transit isn’t supposed to be revenue neutral. Roads aren’t revenue neutral.
Sure, you can get from Savannah–a major city–to Boston–also a major city just by taking trains. That’s a great case for public transport.
But as someone else pointed out, can you get from one side of Savannah to the other efficiently, at off-peak times? I lived in Chicago for over a decade, and while the transit system isn’t great, it’s not bad. I lived in the Austin neighborhood (if you know Chicago, you know that’s not a great area); if I went to see a concert at downtown without driving, I had to walk about a mile and a half to get home, because that was the closest train stop to my home, and busses in my area stopped running at 11p.
Where I live now, even if trains ran to my town (and they technically do, but it’s only freight), I would have to travel 15 miles to get to the train. And that 15 miles from where I live to the train is also about 1500’ of elevation loss. That’s pretty great for riding a bike there, and really, really sucks for getting home. Especially if I have groceries of any kind.
I agree that we should have better public transit, and I agree that the cost is a net public good. But that doesn’t solve all transportation needs. It may take a large bite out of them, but it doesn’t fix all of them.
Continuing to run some transit late at night is one of the few things NYC and Chicago actually do better than most cities.
Even Tokyo runs some of its last trains before midnight. Some stations don’t get their first trains until 6 am. Missing the last train because of an event that let out at 2AM or 11 and it took awhile to get to the station isn’t that uncommon. It’s not terrible to walk 5km in a more walkable city. But also that’s where ebike and scooter shares, and even taxis fill the gap. You don’t need to destroy the city with parking lots and wide roads to support that.
I think that most of the trains in Chicago run late at night, although far, far less frequently. I remember taking the green line with my bike late at night, drunk, and riding the mile or so north to my home through some moderately shitty neighborhoods (a bit west of Garfield Park, if that means anything to you). I lived in in a pretty rough area; there were definitely no taxis waiting for fares near the train stations (or anywhere!), and there weren’t any e-bike or scooters in that area either. It was just rough getting around the Austin neighborhood in Chicago late at night without a car.
Savannah is a planned city designed in the 1700s. It’s probably the most walkable large city in Georgia.
From my perspective, you have to be rich to drive. The so-called poverty line is now what I and everyone I know aspires to one day reach, but secretly know we won’t. If you’re not wealthy and you’re driving, you have made a choice that demands compromise from every other aspect of your like. Though, likewise with not driving… But you can’t be not wealthy AND drive AND be a single parent of three, for example. And since you can’t sell the kids, you WILL figure out how to live without a car.
Where I live 90% of the homeless have cars, or are at least in a relationship with someone who has one. Many of them sleep in them. Because here you can live without a house but you can’t live without a car. Walking or biking the roads is deadly. Like you WILL die. Poor people have cars.