Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan NYC public transportation is fantastic. We were there for 9 days, never needed to even consider renting a car. I don't know if I'd gone 9 full days without driving since I was 16. It was wonderful.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <True, but in some places it's a lot harder than others. In your example, Brooklyn is still a lot more densely populated than most areas of the country. The train stations can be situated quite close to where people actually live and still run efficiently.> Yes, I understand that. (And Brooklyn is WAY more densely populated - between 2 1/2 and 3 million people in 71 square miles). And I understand that some places are so sprawling that any public transit system would be problematic. But then you have a place like... greater LA. Yeah, it sprawls like crazy. But 2 hours for a bus line that you could drive in 12 minutes? That can't be improved? And the commuter trains aren't nearly as good as they could be. I think for LA a good solution (it would take years, but still...) would be to build elevated commuter lines right along the freeways, like they did in NY with the JFK train. Its tracks are perched on elevated tracks that run right down the middle of the Van Wyk Expressway. The right of ways thus already exist. Imagine lines that ran, say, from Upland to LA right along the 10. Instead of a 2 hour morning commute in heavy traffic, even stopping every few miles you could do it in much less time on the train. Theoretically, if you built such a line along every freeway, you could get from (within a couple of miles of) every point A to very point B in greater LA via train, rather than car. From the station, you'd either walk or get a cab. I'm interested in hearing from X about how Japan's suburbs do it.
Originally Posted By plpeters70 You're right Dabob - I didn't mean to imply we shouldn't try and do something. I just think that to truly get it right in this country will involve a major re-work of where we live, work and play. But we should definitely be doing all we can now to fix the current problems!
Originally Posted By mele I don't think people are ever going to give up their single homes. It's hard enough to find quiet enough neighbors when they live next door, let alone on the other side of the wall. Here is Seattle, many wealthy people use public transportation. You are just as likely to sit next to someone who parked their luxury car at the Park & Ride then sit next to someone who has peed their pants and looks insane. (Sometimes, that's the same person anyway.)
Originally Posted By EdisYoda I've lived in areas that have great public transportation and areas that can use "a bit of help". I lived in the Boston area for 21 years. 15 of which I didn't own a car. Between commuter rail, subway, light rail and busses, I really never missed not having a car. If I needed to go somewhere that wasn't served by public transportation, I was usually able to grab a ride with a friend who was going that way. After Boston, I've lived in the Atlanta area, North San Diego County and now Columbus. None of which really has great public transport. I would either need a car to get where I was going, or a car to get to the transportation and a car to get from the transportation. I'd prefer to have good public transportation and not have to drive as much, but, sadly, I don't see that happening again.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones "But then you have a place like... greater LA. Yeah, it sprawls like crazy. But 2 hours for a bus line that you could drive in 12 minutes? That can't be improved?" It has been improved. LA is improving every year. It's really amazing what they have done. First, local bus service has been improved with a concept called Rapid Bus. They are these red buses that make less stops (stops are spaced roughly every 1-2 miles at major cross sections. The buses also have signal priority which means that as the bus approaches an intersection the light turns green. There's also a concept called BRT, where the bus is given a dedicated busway that only buses can use. There's the Orange Line in the San Fernando Valley and the El Monte Busway along the I-10 that get insane ridership. That's to say nothing of the light rail, commuter rail and heavy rail routes that have and are being built. Mass transit is not for every one, but if you give people a choice, they will get out of their cars.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<For example, in Orange County, CA bus riders have already endured big cuts in service (while freeways continue to be widened) and a 25 cent fare hike (the fare hike is not something I necessarily disagree with) and ridership has dropped 20%.>> One should be very careful about cause and effect in a recession. I doubt all of the drop in ridership was because of cuts in service and fare hikes. It was most likely due to loss of jobs in the service sector, which is the industry most OC bus riders work in. <<This has prompted Orange County Transportation Authority board member John Moorlach to question why we even need bus service in the first place. <a href="http://www.ocregister.com/arti...idership" target="_blank">http://www.ocregister.com/arti...idership</a> "Moorlach said taxpayers cover about 80 percent of OCTA's bus service, while fares cover 20 percent. Federal and state laws require the county to offer bus service or lose highway funding, but maybe the tradeoff isn't worth it, he said.">> And once again the OC partisan politics emerge. Don't be fooled by the motivation of this conservative Republican for eliminating bus service. The group that would be affected the most by removing bus service would be the low income, working class minority residents, who cannot afford to own a car and who typically do not vote Republican. Moorlach is looking for ways to balance the county's budget on the backs on individuals who most likely would not vote for him nor his GOP colleagues. OC has been slowly shifting away from the right in the past decade, which scares the sh*t out of politicians like Moorlach. The OC Republicans want to stay in power at all costs. Forcing minority voters to leave OC for other parts of SoCal which offer mass transportation is one possible tactic Moorlach is considering. This isn't about saving the county money. This is about keeping the Republicans in power.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<That's to say nothing of the light rail, commuter rail and heavy rail routes that have and are being built. Mass transit is not for every one, but if you give people a choice, they will get out of their cars.>> So true. If it weren't for mass trans in the Bay Area, particularly here in San Francisco, there'd be constant gridlock 24/7. I cannot imagine living here without BART and MUNI. No way.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones I've been on BART and Muni, and while no organization is perfect all the time, they are great services. There's still gridlock in cities that have robust mass transit networks. The point is that having a good transportation system available to you gives you a choice to avoid that gridlock. Cars are not evil, of course. Cars are great for transporting light cargo, weekend outings or heading to rural areas. I know people who are car-free most of the time, but enroll in a car sharing program when they want to visit say, a National Park or something.
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt I think buses as public transportation are pretty useless for distances of more than a few miles. Beyond that public transport has to be by rail, and that becomes very cost prohibitive to construct. The other problem is that many large urban areas have multiple transit agencies that can't seem to effectively fuse their service offerings. Here in the Bay Area there are probably at least a dozen major public transportation agencies, including subways, light rail, ferries, buses, commuter rail, etc.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <<But then you have a place like... greater LA. Yeah, it sprawls like crazy. But 2 hours for a bus line that you could drive in 12 minutes? That can't be improved?>> <It has been improved. LA is improving every year. It's really amazing what they have done.> That was a somewhat heartening post! Thanks.
Originally Posted By Anatole69 L.A. used to have the best public transportation in the country. Watch old silent films set in L.A. and you can see it was teeming with buses and railcars. It was dismantled when the interstate freeway system was built due to the lobbying of the automobile makers. So there is nothing in the city itself that makes public transport impossible to use, it's just a matter of rebuilding ridership and infrastructure for long distance bus and rail lines. - Anatole
Originally Posted By TomSawyer Anatole, that wasn't really public transportation you were seeing. The old interurban lines were privately owned, not government-run. The red car was owned by the Southern Pacific and connected downtown with the real estate developments that they were trying to sell.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>L.A. used to have the best public transportation in the country. Watch old silent films set in L.A. and you can see it was teeming with buses and railcars. It was dismantled when the interstate freeway system was built due to the lobbying of the automobile makers.<< Which was to be the topic of the third "Chinatown" movie in a trilogy planned by Robert Towne and Jack Nicholson, but the failure of the "Two Jakes" stopped that. It is explored in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit."
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Dang it. I would like to have seen Jack Nicholson take on Judge Doom.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***But the problem with mass transit is you have to adhere to a schedule. Just getting in your car and driving doesn't require that.*** Well, the problem with just getting in your car and driving is that it's expensive and bad for the environment. But to answer this complaint, I would say that an excellent mass transportation system must have, by definition, frequent and convenient and PUNCTUAL schedules. Frankly, I don't worry about train schedules much because they're so frequent. And in general, it's usually FASTER to get anywhere here by transit than by car, so there's not much of an advantage (I suppose comfort would be the only big advantage).
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt "Rail is no more cost prohibitive than freeways." Yes. However, I would guess that the yearly expense of operating a rail system is more costly than a network of freeways covering the same distance. Of course I don't know for sure, but it seems likely.
