We like to think there’s a reason behind the way things are. And yet, in reality, our societies are shaped by arcane market forces and the maelstrom of actions by billions of individual actors. It raises the question—if we intentionally tried to change our cities, would it make a difference? A Harvard study in 2019 raises certain questions about the status quo of the automobile given the costs they incur for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Many Western societies take the car as a default. The sprawling suburbs of the United States demand vehicle ownership as the price of admission. Far-flung shopping districts mean you can’t get food if you don’t have a car. Criss-crossed highways leave no room for pedestrians. A lack of alternative transport links means you need to get behind the wheel if you want to go anywhere, or pay someone to take you.
These are all very real costs for both individuals and governments alike. Cars must be fueled and repaired, licenses bought and paid for. Infrastructure must be maintained, and ever more roads built in an endless losing battle against traffic. Add it all up, and for Massachusetts, the bill apparently came to a mighty $64 billion a year. Let’s look at how it figures out.
Dollar Bills
The study was undertaken by Linda Bilmes in her role as a senior lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard, and supported by graduate students at the Harvard Kennedy School. In its conclusion, the study states that relying on cars and light trucks costs $64.1 billion a year in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
That figure covers all the costs, both public and private, incurred in running and maintaining the 4.5 million passenger cars and light trucks that plied the state’s roads in 2019. It also takes into account infrastructure costs, such as capital costs to state authorities. Furthermore, the study measured social and economic costs from things like traffic congestion, pollution, and injuries due to road accidents. Land use impacts from parking lots was also considered. This can often be a blight on downtown areas, taking up great amounts of space and ruining walkability.
“The numbers are surprisingly high, and should make us think twice about whether cars are the most cost-effective ways to connect,” said Bilmes. As a guide, the public costs of the car economy—around $35.7 billion in total—end up costing around $14,000 per family in the state. This is irrespective of whether or not the given family owns a vehicle. That’s in part because gas taxes and infrastructure user fees aren’t enough to cover the state’s budgetary costs. In Massachusetts, they covered only a third at best in the study period. This shortfall is thus made up from other taxation revenue.
Consumer costs make up the remaining $28.4 billion of the $64.1 billion bill, or roughly 44.3%. Families that own a vehicle spend an extra $12,000 of their own money on average, in direct costs like gas and vehicle maintenance.
Beyond consumer vehicle ownership, injuries and deaths come in as particularly expensive. At an estimated $10.5 billion a year, it’s a big handbrake holding back the state. These numbers are based on the calculations of the “value of a statistical life” (VSL), based on US Department of Transport methodology. There’s a very human cost when humans are injured or killed on the roads. There’s also an economic cost due to the loss of that person’s future contribution to society. Congestion also plays a big role. In 2019, there was an estimated $4.6 billion cost for all the time the people of Massachusetts waste sitting around in traffic.
The authors were keen to note that this high cost should be taken into account when pricing out public transport projects. “Of course we need cars and roads–but we also need to remember that cars and roads are not free,” said Blimes.
Think of it this way. The construction cost of a project like the North-South Rail Link might incur $3.8-$12.3 billion in one-off costs. In turn, it would reduce reliance on-road vehicles and help shave down that massive $64 billion that’s being spent on automobile transport every year. Suddenly, it sounds like a much more compelling deal.
Obviously, public transport projects come with their own maintenance and staffing costs. They’re not free, either. But the general assumption needs to be that these projects come with a side economic benefit. When built and utilized properly, they can cut personal and public spending on roads and vehicles significantly.
Personally, as a huge car fan, I’m picking up what the study is putting down. I love driving, but I hate commuting. In fact, a lot of my daily car trips are frustrating and dull. I yearn to live somewhere I can walk to get a coffee instead of having to drive for ten minutes and go through four traffic lights. I’d love to catch the train for a night out instead of spending huge sums on Uber rides to get home.
Cars are great, and it’s good to love them. But they come with a caveat. When we build our cities and our lives around them as a necessity, it’s costing us more than we might think.
Image credits: Harvard study, Harvard Study, Leon Bredella via Unsplash License incl. top shot
Great article! Please keep this content coming. It’s great to be exposed to studies you would otherwise be unaware of, that challenge conventional thought.
To be frank, this is the only automotive news blog I visit regularly. I really appreciate the self-aware take on car enthusiasm.
This has been well known for some time.
Report: 98 Percent Of U.S. Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others
https://www.theonion.com/report-98-percent-of-u-s-commuters-favor-public-trans-1819565837
Am I missing something? That ‘article’ is from The Onion.
That’s joke!
This is, 100% pure bullshit.
You say, with absolutely zero supporting evidence.
Add to the conversation in a meaningful way, or just get out of here.
A lot of these costs are impossible to verify, and the land costs being a reoccurring 9 Billion a year lost is laughable.
This isn’t worth a real response because its all bullshit. Sure there are certainly costs to driving. But did they add in the benefit that cross out a lot of those costs? What’s the net?
I’ll save them a few billion, stop dumping insane amounts of salt and brine up and down my fucking road every time it RAINS.
That would save the environment and a lot of costs/destruction of everything from the salt.
They’re not impossible to verify, it just takes legwork, which is what makes research more meaningful than unsubstantiated claims.
Have you looked at the price of land in Boston? More people- more lanes- more space. This place is so expensive last time they expanded the highway, they went under the freaking sea.
And it took like 20 years and $30 billion. I hope they budgeted for corruption.
It’s certainly a little bit of bullshit. Even if there was not a single car that ever passed by the end of my driveway, my driveway is still useless if there isn’t a public right of way connected to other public right of ways allowing me to get where I need to go. Or are we suggesting flying cars?
If everyone in your neighborhood didn’t have a giant driveway, or if the streets werent 60 feet wide for pickup trucks they could build more houses, more tax revenue. Same thing with city streets. Not to mention the space wasted with 12 lane highways.
The state owns a ton of land, they also plan on buying over 50% of ALL land. They have tons of space to build housing, they just don’t want to. This study is to focus us on something that isn’t a problem so that we can ignore the real problems.
Lack of political will to do anything besides the status quo and no one to oversee the un-reviewable mass state legislature.
I’ve lived in Boston for 5 years now and I’d love to utilize public transportation more often, but that would mean the trains in Boston would need to be reliable.
Extensive shut downs of multiple branches have seen trains replaced with charter buses. This clogs the roads, reduces how many people can move efficiently, and slows everyone down. Don’t get me started on brake failures, fires, and derailments.
Large portions of the city aren’t even accessible by train and bus.
My old job saw me go to Cambridge each day. On weekends, with the Saturday bus schedule seeing only one bus an hour (ish…it wasn’t ideal) and the closest stop half a mile away, I’d take the train. I would take a green line train all the way down to Park, hop a red line train to Harvard. Usually took an hour. Sometimes more. It would be twenty minutes by car.
Of course public transportation would fix many a woe, but it isn’t up to the task for ever expanding cities. An effort has to be made to make building new and better rail infrastructure appealing. We’re not there yet.
And yet they spend 64bil on roads for cars… The money to spend exists, they just need to commit.
Funny how we “invest” in roads and “subsidize” transit.
It’s all potatoes.
Nyet to car. Nyet to train. Only potato.
The MBTA operates somewhat independently with its own budget. The state does fund them, instead of the riders covering all the costs. The state subsidizes the fares.
There’s no charge for driving on the roads (except for one), so the full expense just goes to the state.
Yeah these Harvard researchers can miss me with this advocacy piece masquerading as a study. Can anyone tell me with a straight face that the researchers doing this didn’t have pre-existing bias against cars? If it had somehow shown cars were cheaper than expected, would it have been published? As is tradition it puts a made up price on various things to make a point.
I am curious what remains of the StrongTowns-style advocacy post-covid. I think everyone now is keenly aware of the downsides of packing everyone into small places and relying on transit.
I live on an arrow-straight road a quarter of a mile from a major grocery store but I can’t walk to it or even ride my bicycle because there are no sidewalks or bike lanes. You don’t have to put a bus stop or a subway line in my front yard to realize that there is still plenty of work to be done.
Curious: did you read the Harvard study, or just what was written here?
I read this article only, and took nothing that was said to have an existing bias toward cars. It’s laying out what is already known, but putting a dollar figure to it. Dense, urban cores especially are bad for car ownership. People outside of those urban cores pay for roadworks when “the car is the answer” triumphs over public transit. I doubt any of this is a secret…
There was an environmental activist article in the Guardian recently about how “Oil and gas companies are supporting genocide in Gaza”.
Like, of all the things behind the horrible war on Gaza, the availability of fuel isn’t exactly top of the list. Fuel is fungible. If the big oil and gas companies weren’t selling, middlemen would.
Another benefit of the 4 day workweek: Less people on the road commuting, and the savings of a day’s worth of commuting expenses.
I commuted for a couple of years to school using public transit light rail. It took about ten minutes longer than it did to drive the same distance. It was free because I was a student. I hated it. Eventually went back to driving just so I could control my own schedule.
I think transit is great. I think its a worthy goal. I don’t get mad when my tax moneys get spent on it. I don’t believe it will ever be the choice for me. (and that is pretending I still lived in a city, reality is my commute to work is 105 miles or so. And 100% worth it.)
I’m 100% in favor of mass transit… for other people.
I can tell you why damn near everything in the US is the way it is: some robber baron and or/corporate ghouls decided it was more profitable that way.
Eh, that’s a big part of it, but “we can’t possibly have nice things if those people would benefit from them” is another big one.
True story. To paraphrase a quote I heard recently, there are those who would rather see 99 people out of 100 people go without so that the one person who “doesn’t deserve it” does not benefit.
Bring on the 15 minute cities!
The idea that I can walk or bike for basic amenities and use public transit for work gives me an excuse to own a fleet of impractical but fun vehicles that I can hoon because I WANT to, not cause I HAVE to.
[sarcasm tag] But don’t you know those 15 minute cities are just training you so they can lock you up in your districts and force your kids to fight to the death!
Hilariously, a few months ago various Conservative politicians here in the UK had clearly been listening to their US counterparts too much because they started ranting against ’15 minute cities’ in the UK, because it’s ‘part of the woke agenda’ or something.
Despite the fact that most urban parts of the UK are already ’15 minute cities’, and have been for centuries.
As if any Brit wants to live more than 15 mins from the nearest pub 😉
I love that this has become a threatening thing for some people. In much of the time the US has existed you had a neighborhood grocer and in some major old cities you still do. People could walk, ride bikes, take transit or drive but were not forced to do anyone of those things. When I was very young and my great grandmother was still alive, like in the 1980’s, we would walk to the neighborhood market and butcher a couple of blocks from her home. Lots of places were 15-minute cities.
And it’s not just a major city thing. A lot of old small towns in the Midwest fit the bill of a 15-minute city. I lived a town of 5700 people for several years and – assuming you weren’t in one of the recent housing developments just outside town – you could do 90% of your daily business on foot. The reason was the vast majority of the town was built pre-1940 and it wasn’t close enough to any major cities to become a bedroom community.
Counterpoint. I want to be able to walk 15 minutes before I see a neighbor.
I’ve lived that. I grew up in the country. Traveling long distances for literally everything gets old REAL quick. I was a 45 minute bike ride to the corner store.
Hell is other people. – Sartre
You can still do that while others want to be able to walk places and exist without having to get into a car to do anything. We are just tired of our downtowns being torn apart for parking lots and unsafe streets so those driving in and out get priority over those that live there.
I have no problem at all with urban density. Some people love it and I wish them well. IMO, the walkable cities movement carries an undertone that folks who wish to have space are selfish planet killers which disrespects their choice to live outside the city. I agree that there are many externalities of suburban sprawl that are inadequately captured by our political system and some incentive adjustments should be made.
Great. Let’s just have you pay your own way for how much more expensive it is to serve you with infrastructure. As the study shows, the capital budget (i.e., everyone) pays for it now.
Urban residents get much more services and amenities compared to suburban residents.
Nevermind the fact that the downtown workforce is largely made up of suburban residents.
Here we are talking about infrastructure. Urban residents need fewer miles of sewer, water, electrical, and road than suburban and sprawl residents. However, suburbanites don’t pay more for these extras so urbanites are subsidizing them.
Sure a portion of downtown workers commute in to the city (and thus don’t pay taxes to the city but use their infrastructure). Are you suggesting the city should pay to facilitate that instead of, say, invest to support local redevelopment? I think this actually contradicts your point.
Most workers downtown commute from outside the city. That’s why rush hour exists.
I’m saying without outside workers, urban businesses wouldn’t be able to exist.
The suburbs are often part of the same municipal unit as downtown so downtown gets workers and more amenities and the suburbs get more space.
Both benefit.
Did they factor into the study how much of the ~$690B economy is largely driven (pun intended) by all these people driving? No traffic in western MA, but also barely any economic output relative to the greater Boston area. That also means there’s a lot of commuter wealth and those people aren’t taking public transportation. After COVID, a lot of people who stopped taking public transportation during that time never went back. When you have to own a car, anyway, it doesn’t make sense to also pay for the overpriced, unreliable, inconvenient, and filthy public transportation (and I commuted on public transportation when it was better than now) when most of your car ownership costs are already paid. I’m all for increased and better public transportation, but encouraging WFH jobs, 4-day-weeks, staggered schedules, etc. are a much better solution and vacated redundant commercial property can be repurposed for housing (there’s a bill being talked about to fix zoning issues to allow this).
encouraging WFH jobs, 4-day-weeks, staggered schedules, etc. are a much better solution
Preach!
Of course you will be fighting an uphill battle with the commercial property owners and the governments who see all that as a threat to their property values and tax revenues. Also the supporting businesses – restaurants, janitorial services, building maintenance, etc. WFH cuts into their business, big time.
Then there’s the middle managers who see it as a threat to their jobs and the big bosses who just like to lord over the cubicle farm.
Those people care much more about their bottom line than your happiness and are willing to play very dirty to win.
Was feeling I’d have to expand upon what I wrote, but you got it—old bosses will miss “working” those long days by lording over everyone and it’s harder for incompetent middle managers to take credit for the work of others. There is some slow movement happening, but it’s typically slow and probably slow enough to stop before it runs away too much.
I am ALL ABOUT that 4-day workweek. I pitched it to my employer last year, one of my bullet points was the environmental benefit of people commuting 20% less as tying in with our existing sustainability initiatives.
When I first started the job I have now, it was 4-day weeks, which was great. Then we got a boss who didn’t like it and all the statistics and arguing had no affect on the decision to go 5.
It boggles my mind that anyone would rather work 5 days than 4.
Our site prez was actually very receptive to the idea; he said it was very popular and effective at his former employer. He brought it up with corporate and they were not so receptive. I had emailed corporate HR as well and got a “thanks for the input but no thanks” response.
Meanwhile, it’s like a ghost town here today because like a typical Friday, half the company has decided to take a half day, long lunch, or just slack off somewhere.
It boggles my mind that anyone would rather work 5 days than 4.
Its not so hard to understand when you realize salaried folks often already put in 10 hrs days, sometimes much more. So the bosses stand to lose “productivity” even if those extra hours spent in the office are catching up on all the non-work stuff those folks could do at home rather than wasting time in traffic.
Salary is such BS, at least for non-executives. Just a way to get more for less.
This isn’t directed at you, I’m just screaming into the void here.
The 40hr workweek dates to 1940. In 1940 there were no computers, no email, no robots, automation, barcode scanners, etc. Everything was typed on manual typewriters, sent back and forth via mail or messenger and filed away in cabinets. Realistically we get more work done in 20, maybe even 10, hours than we would in 40 in 1940, yet it’s never enough. Suddenly these corporate jobs now take 50 hours/week. It’s ludicrous.
In 1940 there were economists predicting we wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves because we’d have eventually gotten so productive that we’d only need to work 15 hours a week.
They were also predicting just a few years later that thanks to nuclear energy electricity would become “too cheap to meter”.
So much for that.
Well … we did get so productive that we’d only need to work 15 hours a week, if the powers that be would accept that level of output. But they are wholly incentivized to continually increase our productivity and thus their gain. Why on earth would they give US some of those gains in the form of time (or money lol)?
This same boss once called me from a beach in Hawaii where his lawyer wife had “dragged him” for vacation to ask about some old email he had been copied on about some design change that I had taken care of a week previous. I told him to go to a pig roast and he said there’s only so much of that he can eat. He was actually a great boss, just lived to work, I guess. He almost never bothered me after hours unless it was a simple question, so I’ll give him credit for that.
That “live to work” mindset is so sad. What’s worse is being in power and holding everyone else to that. (especially on a national level)
Or sitting at their desks posting to the Autopian while pretending to work
Haha! Probably describes a good number of us, though I typically only read & post on my lunch break.
this pretty clearly just looked at costs. A balanced approach would also consider benefits, like the economic engines keeping all those automobiles on the road, building said roads, etc. On the “indirect” side, how much does each dog-owning Massachusettsian in their car-centric suburbs value having a backyard for their pup? Two can play this game.
Yeah, that’s another point: much of that cost is money that is redistributed to other citizens of the state. And as a misanthrope living surrounded by woods and ponds with animals as primary neighbors (all better than humans, except for Canada geese that are about a wash with a bad human), I can tell you I’m a lot healthier mentally than if I lived in the city.
Much of suburban Massachusetts is a bastion of two-acre zoning, also known as “snob zoning”. (Oddly, that seems to be far more common in the Northeast than in the South, despite lower land costs. Overall population density in metro Los Angeles is higher than in metro New York because the distribution is a lot more even and half an acre comprises an “estate-sized lot” in most of it and did even before California real estate prices surpassed the Northeast’s in the mid-’70s.) If you don’t have a pack of huskies training for the Iditarod, you don’t need two acres.
The quarter-acre suburban lot served postwar generations just fine and, while still wasteful (single-family houses in interwar streetcar suburbs were sited usually on no more than two or three 25’ x 100’ standard lots, which would be fine – those of our ancestors who came to this country and its northern suburbs voluntarily didn’t work so hard and suffer so much to have to live in something cruddy and semi-detached like the English, for G*d’s sake), would be only one-eight as wasteful as the environmentally concerned in Weston and Andover. And, yeah, a quarter-acre won’t perc, but that’s close enough for sewers, which is a better solution all around. The only benefit of that kind of development is that there will be fewer people in those car-dependent places, but everybody else, including the workers who support them, will end up in crappy and rapidly deteriorating townhouses 50 miles away that in many cases they can’t afford to buy and pay rent the owners rarely put back into maintenance.
I agree that the roadways also allow a lot of economic productivity. It seems like the point of this study was to come up with the total cost of cars in the state. The benefits can be tallied by some other poor grad students for the professor’s credit.
A topic near and dear to my heart, Boston and trains. I know many of you will say, “I love my commute, I love driving it.” I’m guessing none of you live and or drive inside the greater Boston area. Once you’re inside the 95 loop, this is no longer driving. Its just out-right warfare. See, Boston was founded in 1630 by John Winthrop and a few settlers. Soon after about 10 more people moved in. Since then, Boston has been considered packed. You could have not picked a worse spot to build a major city. A marshy peninsula, surrounded by bog, surrounded by piles of rocks. There is not a single inch of available developmental land in Boston since maybe 1860. yeah, New York is more dense, but that’s a grid pattern. Boston let you put a road where ever you felt like it, for like 200 years. Its pure grid chaos all the way around the bay. No sane person likes driving in Boston. Anyone who does spends their free time getting into fist fights outside of a Dunkin in Lynn and should not be trusted.
Also where are you going to put anymore roads? Boston ran out of minority neighborhoods to teardown in the Big Dig. Maybe teardown Current Statehouse, or the old Statehouse or the even older Statehouse combined church, or like 7 Dunkins. Because that’s what sits between North and South Station. Then were are you going to put parking lots for all these cars, the Charles? Cars serve their purpose, but for dense urban cores they are a massive cost and waste of space. This article really is only really getting started on why everyone taking their person two ton pod into a city for eight hours is a net negative to the social fabric.
P.S- Serious why did they never put a track between North and South in the Dig, its so obviously needed.
Commuting sucks. I only drive in Boston when I’m getting paid to. I think they cut the north-south connector due to spiraling costs that were already being complained about, but there may have been another factor I can’t recall.
I only know Boston from playing Fallout 4. If it makes you feel any better its quite walkable after a nuclear apocalypse as long as you own a well stocked powersuit.
It’s actually pretty great walkability before the nuclear apocalypse as well. Little less fire-fights. But still some death-claws around Logan.
I’m from SE MA and hate Boston with a passion, I would never take a job that required me to commute into the city.
I commute from RI to SE MA 5 days a week. Thankfully I don’t have to deal with the Washington Bridge clusterfawk, but I still do not enjoy my commute. It’s nearly 2 hours per day that I don’t get paid or get anything productive done, other than listening to podcasts. I figured it out a while back, between the cost of unpaid time and fuel, it costs me aprox 6/hr just to be here.
That’s the worst route into Boston. I’m NE and it still sucks, but I used to work south of Boston, so I’m too familiar with both routes and SE is the worst.
I’m mainly on 195, and unless there’s an accident or construction, I don’t typically hit traffic.
Anything involving Boston is stressful, even when I’m just trying to head up north for the weekend, gotta plan the trip around Boston traffic or take the long way around. Last few times I went to the Killington VT area I went west before turning north near Worcester.
Yeah, I used to come up from 95 south of the split a lot and would listen to the traffic report as I got close. Only way I went 93 is if there was a crash on 95 even though that was a longer distance to the north shore.
Well there’s no parking cause they sold all the mud lots to put up luxury condo buildings.
From 2000-2013 I commuted to Boston, about 75% was commuter rail and 25% driving. Parking cost was the big deterrent, when I had subsidized parking or worked near the Seaport when it had cheaper lots, driving was preferred. Time was about the same and cost was about the same as long as parking was under $10 a day.
Sure traffic sucks but as a person that likes to drive I preferred versus living on the rail schedule. When they really started jacking rail & subway costs I started driving more.
Thing is if you take the rail into the city and don’t work close to Back Bay, South Station, or North Station, which requires you to take the subway then it really sucks. The Boston subway is the slowest and unreliable, one day it may be 10 mins between trains and 2 min the next, the ride to go 4 stops could take 5 min or it could take 20 min. Anybody you work with that takes both, their window when they would get to work varied up to 45 min everyday. The commuter rail isn’t as bad, but still very unreliable and inconsistent, especially in the winter, Living on that schedule sucks train frequency on avg was prolly 30min plus but after 6 it was 1hr, missing a train by few mins meant sitting at South Station 45-60 min. You can walk faster anywhere in downtown Boston than taking the subway 1-5 stops.
MBTA usually hovers around 85% on-time reliability. Which granted it’s Boston, so it’s growing bigger everyday and every thing is under construction ain’t too bad. Rides outside of peak commute are too spotty. If they had smaller cars to run down peak, probably help them be profitable.
But yeah that green, red, blue intersection is a mess. Way to many stations, way to close together. You can basically see Haymarket when you leave North Station. Really slows down lines with increased delays. Boston does have pretty good walkability, so cutting out a science park/west end type stations would help.
But their “on-time” metric is calculated very fuzzy. Many years ago the commuter line had an on-time guarantee that if the rail was late you could get a refund/free ticket, but on-time gauge was either 15 or 30 min late, so yeah…. That program didn’t last as it cost them a fortune.
Except it’s not at all how that metric is calculated. Anything within five minutes is consider reliable. Literally on their website. MBTA has hit a peak of 97% in 2017, currently averages 85% this year, but Boston rapid expansion in the CBD is really taking its toll on all forms of transport.
Why would people building buildings in cities be a bad thing? I thought cities were for people to live in, not to store their cars.
Any study that considers only costs and ignores benefits is a very poor study.
The study is “How much does it cost MA to maintain its car infrastructure?” It’s not “This is why MA should justify spending 64 billion on roads.” or “MA is wasting 64 billion for cars”. You need the data before you can make conclusions. Plus you are reading someone’s interpretation of the study and the conclusion they’ve drawn from it. Read it yourself and you can draw your own conclusions.
More transit = less boring cars & more interesting cars!
More transit = less Altima-te dangers & less traffic!
More transit = less air pollution & microplastics (80+% of which come from tires)
More transit = less drunk & sleepy drivers!
More transit = less giant parking lots & less difficulty parking!
Counterpoints:
More transit = less gas bought so less taxes brought in.
More transit = less congestion for overpaid MBA consultants to “solve”.
More transit = more disease vectoring.
More transit = better access for those icky poors to come to YOUR neighborhood (applies mainly to NIMBY richies).
More transit = less stuff bought (harder to haul home on transit).
I pray you’re being ironic.
I wish I were. Unfortunately it is how a lot of people in power think regardless of what they say publicly:
More transit = less gas bought so less taxes brought in.
Taxes are the least of the concerns. More public transit impacts the pockets of auto dealerships, auto manufacturers, auto parts manufacturers (e.g. Firestone tire), petroleum companies, auto repair businesses and so on right down to the taxes generated by gasoline purchases, car registrations and sales taxes. Those are some of the most powerful lobbying groups around.
More transit = less congestion for overpaid MBA consultants to “solve”.
https://www.cato.org/blog/how-us-wastes-transportation-dollars
(you think those MBAs did that for free?)
More transit = more disease vectoring.
https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/60232
More transit = better access for those icky poors to come to YOUR neighborhood (applies mainly to NIMBY richies).
Here in the SFBA BART was originally supposed to circumnavigate the Bay Area but at the time the very wealthy NIMBYS on the peninsula blocked it construction there because in part they were concerned about the poors who didn’t work for them using it to access their neighborhoods. Joke’s on them – thanks to the Palo Alto VA and their own anti-housing NIMBY actions there are plenty of homeless all over the peninsula.
More transit = less stuff bought (harder to haul home on transit).
If you know of a way to haul 10 4’x8′ plywood sheets or a stack of 2″ x 4″s home on the bus please do tell.
I LOVE pissing off NIMBY richies. I was one of those “poors”, now make the lower rung of the NIMBY richie kind of income, still live like one of those “poors” in the same neighborhood the “poors” do, and have vehicles that allows me to gallivant around THEIR neighborhoods, unregistered, uninsured, no plates, ect. My vehicles stand out too.
I play Satanic black metal and gangster rap while riding around, just to piss off the Karens. And it does!
Livin’ the dream!
I’ve been car free for half a year and it’s honestly pretty nice simplicity wise.
That being said I wish I lived somewhere where I could use a small boat for all my commuting (in fresh water). Sadly the only places where that is even semi practical in the US are in humid areas (and I hate humidity).
Have you looked at any places on The Great Loop?
Yep, Sadly all the freshwater routes are in humid states, and even worse all of them have state income tax (except for TN and they still tax dividends and such).
Tennessee is probably the best bet for me, but I hate humidity with a passion.
If Lake Tahoe didn’t become a rich person’s retreat and instead it got “developed” more (in a good way like more beachside businesses, smaller homes, etc.) it would be perfect for my use case, sadly the only reason to have a boat in Tahoe is for recreation.
Dude, TN humidity is nothing. It’s no worse than Denver or Ann Arbor in July and August. I don’t know of a place in the US that doesn’t have a humid summer. I live in one of the most humid areas in the whole stinking country. You get used to it. Besides, there is always a breeze and some shade when by the water.
Stop being a baby! 😉
I mean I’d definitely visit before considering moving but I’ll see. NH is also a possibility but it’s not part of the Great Loop.
There is always the Keys. It’s a “tad pricey” but the trade winds diffuse whatever the humidity says in the forecast. If I didn’t need to be closer to a top-notch medical system, I’d live there, no question.
For me the thing that rules out the Keys is the saltwater. I much prefer freshwater, though I am somewhat spoiled in my preferences as I spent a lot of time as a kid around Lake Tahoe and the water is crystal clear (despite the wetlands being filled with 10,000 truckloads of gravel to create the abomination that is the “Tahoe Keys”)
Not sure that’s such a great solution:
https://www.sportsmanboatsmfg.com/blog/71-everything-you-need-to-know-about-boat-fuel
I plan on going with an air cooled outboard with less than 40 Horsepower so MPG shouldn’t be too bad.
I guess if you consider ~5 MPG not too bad. I don’t know how efficient those small air cooled outboards are but I’d expect they are no more efficient than a small generator at 15% TE.
Even still do you think your commute will be any faster in a boat than on a congested freeway? The few times I’ve been sailing I thought we were flying along at just 6-7 knots. Even a congested freeway tends to crawl along faster than that:
https://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/20-most-congested-highways-in-america-1231895/
It’s not about the MPG or the speed, rather it’s about how peaceful it is and how simple boats can be. A dinghy with an outboard is about as simple as motorized transportation gets.
Also I think most people would agree if they had the choice of commuting in bumper to bumper traffic or via a boat with no “traffic” they’d choose the boat, even if it ends up being slower.
Honestly my main issue with boats currently is finding properly small ones. Noone makes an 8ft Aluminum boat anymore, let alone a 6ft one. The smallest one I can find is a mini jet boat kit, which I very well may end up putting a small outboard or airdrive on it and using it as a mini putt putt boat.
Well if it’s simplicity you are looking for try BEING the motor on a bicycle. It gets no simpler (unless you feel up to a unicycle).
Or maybe a skateboard but I can’t imagine those will be much use for a commute of more than a mile or so. A bicycle is good for 4-5 miles at least and can go at least as fast as your boat. Plus it’s great exercise.
If that’s too much of an ask maybe a class 1 e-bike? Faster and less effort. Any way you go there’s a lot less traffic in the bike lanes.
Oh sure the road traffic here and there might kill you but at least you can’t drown 🙂
Seriously though good luck with your dream. It reminded me of an ad I saw as a kid, maybe in the back of Boys Life, nestled among the X-ray specs and whatnot. It was an ad for plans of an airboat with a propeller or for a few extra bucks a ducted fan. It didn’t look like a bayou special but more streamlined and high tech. As a kid I WANTED one, even though I lived far from anywhere I could actually use it.
Flats suck, and current airless bike tires suck as well.
Even a long board with the biggest standard wheels can easily be taken out by a pebble.
E-Bike has the same issues as the bike but with the spicy magic that is electricity in the mix.
Relative to carrying capacity, ships are an extremely efficient form of travel, look into the narrowboat canals of the UK, they have very interesting history. A horse could tow a narrowbarge with much more cargo in it than the same horse towing a carriage.
Thank you for the well wishes, and yeah, they make suprisingly small airboat drives for boats, look up Bandit Airdrives, they make one as small as 6.5HP, it’s probably very loud compared to a traditional outboard, but it’s very cool.
Flats suck, and current airless bike tires suck as well.
Even a long board with the biggest standard wheels can easily be taken out by a pebble.
I’m running puncture resistant Continental Ride Tours, Schwalbe Marathons and Rhinodillo liners on my regular tire bikes. Thanks to those no-one in my family has gotten a single flat – except for ones by giant citrus thorns, the kind I’ve had go through a shoe – over what is by now thousands of combined miles despite living in goat head country. We sure got a lot of goat head flats on regular tires.
E-Bike has the same issues as the bike but with the spicy magic that is electricity in the mix.
The Continentals are e-bike rated. And I’d say as far as “spicy magic” goes a carburetted ICE in the middle of large body of water is spicier.
Counterpoint: Boats can be punctured too. Hmm, flat tire and walk vs punctured boat and swim….
;P
Relative to carrying capacity, ships are an extremely efficient form of travel.
I know. Yet I was shocked to find out the awful fuel efficiency of a small motorboat not moving very fast. A loaded semi gets better MPG!
I mean I knew big yachts were awful but et. tu. small motorboats?
Well there’s always sailboats I guess.
Anywhere that has sufficient waterways for commuting by boat will have high humidity due to the sheer amount of water in the area.
Depends, Lake Tahoe is pretty dry.
I agree that cars are expensive, but some number doesn’t seem “correct” to me.But I think that is not fair to judge that without reading the study in detail and fully understand the methodology.
Focusing at the issue instead, there is always some kind of caveat.
Huge metropolitan areas that have good public transport coverage usually have supply issues, so you will end cramped inside a tuna can during rush hours.
Also, there will be old cities that were not planned for public transportation, so they dig around to expand the coverage, and that is expensive. And if they are not good for public transport, it won’t be for cars either.
What I want to say is that modern cities are the problem, not the cars, buses, trains or whatever. You work to far away from your home, and is very likely that you can’t live at walk distance because is either expensive or won’t suit your needs.
And the same for all your other needs: shopping, education, healthcare, etc. Usually they are not near each other.
Ideally, cities would ne to be rebuilt from zero considering modern needs. Take that crazy city Saudi Arabia is building thru the NEOM initiative. A linear car less city where you will need to walk 5 minutes for everything you need, because it is a collection of blocks, and each block should have everything you need to live. Service is underground and if you really need to go far away, a high speed train is there.
But rebuild or build new cities is not exactly possible in most contexts. The ideal soluiton? This needs to be thought in a case by case basis.
This is because they made up things like “time lost waiting in traffic”
Time lost waiting in traffic are easily quantifiable and very pertinent.
Not to defend car centric cities, but productivity lost because where people live and where work is available is equally relevant whether you’re on public transit or in a car.
Where I live the city actively discourages this kind of thinking and discussion, because they want to incentivise public transit use, but the City is very poorly integrated with residential and business (outside of the oldest areas of course), so if you assume someone has a car, they have to devalue their time to justify taking public transit anywhere it involves a bus
Fair. It depends on how that “time lost in traffic” figure is calculated. Ultimately, the same “cost” could be applied to all forms of transportation as to determine an accurate costing.
No because I can fall asleep on the train but I can’t in a car.
You can, but you must not want to. That’s on you, though.
I always run late for everything and I have strong tendencies to wander, and I also like to run errands like grocery shopping on my way home from work (a habit I picked up when I had to commute through a frequently clogged tunnel but didn’t have family or other responsibilities on the other end.) Also, I hate people. So, transit (which locally meant a bus trip that would take about as long as walking the 3.5 miles to work with a small allowance for headway) is really undesirable for me and even though I’ve been carless for a year and a half I still don’t use it. That said, we’re all going to have to make changes in order to dig ourselves out of the environmental pit industrialization has dug for us. I hate to agree with Elon Musk, but we really need a revenue-neutral carbon tax to incentive conservation, with rates that cover the true and currently externalized costs of various forms of energy generation.
What? I don’t get this response? I can’t fall asleep while I’m driving, but the ability to sleep on the train is valuable to me and to a lot of people, especially considering how overworked most people are.
I didn’t say falling asleep while driving would be a good idea. You might drift off the road or into a parked car, or cross over the shoulder into a tree or the yellow line into oncoming traffic. You may be injured or killed, and/or injure or kill others. The net effect will almost certainly be the opposite of restful, even if your head droops for only a moment before you snap yourself awake out of fear. But you can do it, at least once.
The time loss is, but unless my employer wants to start paying me for my commute nobody is losing an appreciable amount of money sitting in traffic.
Literally nobody thinks about the time they lose in the bathroom after eating Taco Bell as a financial loss.
It’s opportunity cost. A well-worn economic concept. Just because someone’s not directly footing a tab does not mean there is no measurable economic cost.
Understood, think it’s pretty silly in this context.
Apparently not, else people would realize that dining at the French Laundry would have been cheaper, even including ground transportation and airfare from anywhere west of the Mississippi.
Redevelopment happens all the time, and we’re about to see a wave of it now that malls are dead and large office buildings are left empty from the rise of working from home.
What will they be replaced with, another isolated subdivision where you must drive everywhere, or a mixed use development with townhomes and duplexes that have corner stores and neighborhood daycares and clinics (currently prohibited by zoning codes)?
Ironically, it’s the oldest cities that are the best suited to public transit, because they tend to have the right type of development to support it. New cities were designed with only the car in mind, which led to everything being spread so far and wide, which has forced dependence on cars.
Huge metropolitan areas may have transit demand issues during rush hour, but if they used cars instead, they’d be completely dysfunctional. Usually these issues are caused by underfunding.
IMHO, few redevelopment initiatives get it right. But again, that’s my opinion.
Zoning is an issue no matter where. There is always lots of interests involved.
About the old cities: your mileage may vary. I don’t live in US, and in my experience, old cities grew in a uncontrolled way, so, it is hard to build a public transport network that covers everywhere. And that are cities thought in a reasonable good way. Take Brasilia, Brazil’s capital city, it was thought with both cars and walkers in mind, and you would be able to tolve everything walking. That changed along the time, but is still mostly true.
And I was not saying that those huge metropolitan areas should rely in cars to fulfill what public transportation does, I was saying that even with public transport that is more demand than supply. Take Tokyo, the interval between trains in rush hour is small, still, there is a guard to push people inside trains so they can close the doors. Not a funding issue, not necessarily a transport infrastructure issue, maybe a zoning issue. Mexico city is different, London, Paris, São Paulo.
There is no “one size fits all” solution. It really depends on many factors.
Ah, I was writing this from an American perspective, where a huge portion of development (excluding the older cities on the East coast) are heavily suburban and built exclusively around the car, starting around the post World War 2 American economic boom. You could say that this was the American version of the uncontrolled growth that you mentioned.
The zoning code here tends to have 2 modes (this is a generalization, zoning varies by local government):
1) high density multistory apartment buildings (including ‘5 over 1’s). Able to support transit well, but is often required to have a large expensive parking lot or underground garage, greatly increasing the price and limits it to city centers and higher income residents.
2) low density single family homes with a large lawn. Unable to support transit well as they allow for too low of population density. Also, the road design in these areas may not even have sidewalks, and the street layout is convoluted and winding to discourage through traffic, but lacks good shortcut footpaths, meaning that in many cases walking to the house that borders your backyard can take 10-15 mins when it should really be 5 mins. These areas usually do not allow for any other type of building like a small corner store or coffee shop, meaning that there are not destinations to walk other than other residences.
Notice that there is no option for a smaller building with 2-8 units or a business downstairs and residential upstairs, which would be affordable to develop and still dense enough to support transit. For whatever reason, it faces heavy opposition from some members of the public, yet in older cities that have some of these types of buildings left over, they are some of the most desirable neighborhoods with extremely high demand and prices. These types of buildings seem very common in other countries, but in the US they are very rare.
I agree that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but in most of America, seemingly any solution with transit than there is currently is a good one.
Also this reminds me to do more research on how urban planning is in South and Central America. I know that a lot of Central and the North and West of South America is quite mountainous even around the cities, leading to cool things like the Bogotá cable cars. But I don’t know much about flatter countries like Brazil, which also has a decent automotive industry.
I find it funny how US zoning is restricted sometimes. From my window in a multistory apartment building I can see several neighbours with single family houses, smaller 2 story residential buildings with 4/8 unit, a nice cafe, two hospitals (one public, the other private), a mall, a supermarket and some smaller stores, barber shops, beauty salons among other things.
See, uncontrolled growth. Zoning here is more relaxed, although there are purely residential and commercial zones and it varies a lot.
I know that Brasilia was planned and built from scratch, can’t really remember other from the top of my head. And not only Bogota, but other andian cities adopts cable cars. Cool, not really safe but cool.
They, US developers, could have those vast sub developments but be smarter with them with amenities like grocery stores, restaurants, and entertainment nearby. There was a video on I believe Norway that the first thing they build to a new area is the train line then in a zoned ring go from high density to single family homes as it goes out. Seems reasonable to me. Like a mini downtown district.
The transit disfunction is by design thanks to political forces focusing on roads even in those cities that we in the US think have good public transit. Infrastructure not for cars is an afterthought.
Please don’t turn this site into a social justice anti car site like Jalopnik. Pretty please!
Ya know – better transit means less traffic. Less traffic makes your life better if you have to/want to drive.
That’s all fine and good. I just don’t want to read about urban planning on a car site.
The two are intrinsically linked. The kinds of cars we drive and how we drive them are directly affected by urban planning and vis versa. This website isn’t just ‘car news and reviews’. There’s space for this kind of article and the surrounding discourse.
I don’t see how they’re intrinsically linked. I don’t remember reading about urban planning when I was a kid reading Car and Driver.
Just because Car & Driver didn’t include an article about it when you were a kid doesn’t mean they aren’t linked. There was a time when car magazines would never thing to talk about phones, but now they do because phone integration is a big deal.
If this article were about gun control or zoning, that would be one thing. But this is an article about transit, roads, and vehicle ownership. It highlights aspects of urban planning that are directly relevant to, impacted by, and affecting cars, their use, and their ownership.
I disagree that they’re intrinsically linked. I’m fine if you like this content, it isn’t something I expect to see on The Autopian and I hope it’s not the start of a new trend.
So, you think the common usage of cars—their very purpose and reason for existence—and the problems encountered in mass operation is unrelated? Huh. Well, there are plenty of articles about wrenching on junkers that are no longer fit for daily use to click on.
Social Justice, hmmm…
I cancelled my Car and Driver subscription about 20 years ago when I read an absolutely appalling comment by the late Brock Yates.
Paraphrasing, the only thing worrisome for him was the exorbitant price of gas going over $10/gallon IF Iran decided to “bust their nukes over Israel”.
I thought WWIII would’ve been a bigger deal for me.
So go read Car and Driver then? If this kind of content hurts your feelings that much, maybe it’s time to find another blog.
Just because you can’t comprehend how cars, (A very popular form or transportation) might effect a city and how they plan their transportation infrastructure, doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t get to read about it.
I’m sorry, but unless you literally can’t spare two braincells to rub together, I fail to see how you’re being anything but deliberately obtuse.
I like driving. I find it relaxing, meditative, sometimes exciting. Cars are fascinating machines. That’s how I relate to this blog’s ‘Pro Car’ stance. I like cars, I am an enthusiast. That doesn’t mean I’m against critical discourse on how they effect society.
I hate to inform you, but some key editorial staff at this website cut their teeth at the dastardly ‘anti-car’ Jalopnik.
I’m well aware of the history of this website. The editorial slant of Jalopnik changed gradually over time to what it is today.
Anyway, I never got upset about it. I just voiced my opinion about how odd it was to discuss a five year old urban planning paper.
People can discuss differences of opinion in respectful ways. Maybe something to consider in the future.
So, don’t click on the article? Until you have passwords and final say on what gets uploaded, maybe just stop worrying about content you don’t find compelling. It’s not your call to make and a waste of energy.
Not trying to be a dick here, but use some common sense, eh?
I can express my opinion that I hope this content doesn’t become a regular feature.
You could have always just scrolled past my comment.
And yet, here we are.
We love cars, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore reality. Fewer commuters just mean more open roads for those of us who love cars.
Just hoping this type of content doesn’t become a regular feature here.
Urban planning seems out of the scope of what this site should be about.
This site is about cars and car culture. Urban planning fits right in and I for one am all for this type of content.
It’s relevant and interesting.
I don’t see it fitting. There’s all kinds of urban planning sites to read about that stuff, it really seems out of place to me.
I see your point, but wholly disagree. I like this type of content, find it very relevant to cars and car culture, and look forward to seeing and reading it along with all the other content the Autopian provides. The german lighting website died for other reasons, not this one.
I enjoy this type of content; I do hope it becomes a regular feature here.
Don’t worry.
Autopian’s website clearly says “ it’s entire purpose is to champion cars by creating informative and entertaining automotive content on a truly user-friendly website”
I’m sorry you’re offended by one article that struck you as “social justice” that may lead to the downfall of a great entertaining car site. I trust that you will be overjoyed reading future articles concentrating only on “car facts” with no regard to actually driving them.
I’d recommend that you avoid reading all future articles that actually involve other people, roads, tracks, fuels, pollution, expenses, taxes, insurance or anything otherwise impacted by the actual driving of cars then.
If someone commenting negativly about an out of the ordinary article gets you this worked up, I’d recommend getting off the internet for the day.
Ok
” yearn to live somewhere I can walk to get a coffee instead of having to drive for ten minutes and go through four traffic lights.”
That ‘somewhere’ would be a ‘city’. I live in the city. There are tradeoffs to living in the city. You can’t expect to be able to get a detached house with a huge property like you can in the suburbs unless you’re willing to spend a 7 figure sum. There will be more traffic. Your property taxes will be higher.
But in my view, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Those higher property taxes I pay mean I have 24 hour public transit a 5 minute walk away. And that also means my 2 kids can get around without needing cars… which at this point is saving me at least $1000/month. The schools my kids go to are all within walking distance too. Plus i have a city connection to water and sewage. So I don’t have to deal with drilling my own well or maintaining my own sceptic system.
I also have a natural gas line going to my house… so my heating bill is cheaper compared to having to heat with oil, propane or wood.
I have access to good electricity service. Upgrading to 200amps is no issue.
Plus I have multiple charging options for when I get a BEV.
Dating is also easier when you live in the city as well!
Living in the city is also more pleasant if you like being around people, aren’t irrationally afraid of people or the world and don’t get freaked out over the odd homeless/transient person.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of cities that are little more than overgrown suburbs with a dense commercial core. In those cities, walking, biking, and transit are simply not viable options because the infrastructure was built to benefit cars to the detriment of everything else.
Why can’t the further flung areas where properties are less expensive also be zoned for some business to integrate with residential areas instead of being forced into what is essentially a service-less dormitory?
NIMBY-ism
There ARE some places like that. In Ontario, there are places such as Burlington and Oakville just off the top of my head.
It really comes down to the local city council and how good their urban planning is.
Also around me is ‘Mississauga’. The best parts of Mississauga are the parts that existed before Mississauga existed. All the urban planning they did was the terrible ‘slave to your car’ kind.
I love cars just as much as anyone else on this site, but got damn I am sick of having to get behind the wheel to do everything. I want to enjoy driving and it’s nearly impossible when driving five miles takes half an hour and that’s just to buy a loaf of bread.
I’d love to be able to get on a train to go to another city 70 miles away instead of that journey taking 150 minutes in a car.
I’m with ya. I enjoy driving as a past time, not a necessity.
There was a time when American cities were smaller, less dense, and somehow had better public transportation options. If we could recapture some of those “good old days” with a more modern twist, life would be so much better. Even if your commute was exactly as long as it is now, imagine being able to read a book or take a nap instead of jockeying with hundreds of inattentive Altima drivers.
Imagine sharing your commute with homeless people, having to leave work at a specific time to catch your train/bus or be forced to wait for the next one, have no flexibility to stop for errands on the way home, etc.
There’s a reason most people prefer to commute by car, even when other options exist.
I commuted by rail to work for years and what you are describing is not at all what my experience was. First of all, I don’t hate homeless people and straw manning them into this argument is weird. Plenty of homeless people have cars and we share the road with them. Who cares?
Second, I spent many years driving in Texas to work and I spent way more time in traffic, on average, than I did waiting for another train. During rush hour trains come all the time. Have you never been to a city? If I’m stuck in my car I’m stuck in my car. If I’m stuck waiting for my train I just go grab a beer.
Finally, transit works where density exists, meaning I can do plenty of errands on foot between the train station and home.
You really don’t see the difference between having metal and glass between you and whoever else is on the road vs sharing a confined space with them?
Replace “homeless” with “unpredictable drug user” if that is preferable to you. Because yes, that has been my experience in cities on trains. You need not take my word for it:
https://pix11.com/news/local-news/subway-crime-surge-highlights-new-yorks-growing-mental-health-crisis/
https://nypost.com/2023/07/23/we-must-get-mentally-ill-off-subways-for-our-safety-and-theirs/
https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-cta-crime-red-line-train/13107614/
When I lived in SLC I’d say about 1/2 of my light rail experiences involved an uncomfortable situation with a homeless person/hard drug user.
Yeah, I really don’t understand the hand-waving away of this issue from other commenters and authors here.
People aren’t going to take the train or bus if they have to share it with people who consistently make them uncomfortable.
I agree it’s an issue, but it’s not so prevalent that I think about it as regularly as it’s brought up. Like, hail was an issue when I was driving, but I didn’t stop driving because I was worried a hail storm might occur (though I did get nailed once and it sucked).
My basic view is this: you’re attacking public transit for being public, but it’s the intrinsic nature of public transit that it’s public. And the public space is where you sometimes witness societal problems (guns, drugs, gangs, homelessness, Cowboys fans). Some of these issues happen in public parks but I don’t stop going to public parks or beaches or streets.
Being aware of issues my nature isn’t to run away from them, I guess is what I’m saying. We should address them and I’d just like to point out that my hometown of Houston has done a pretty decent job of expanding rail and also addressing homelessness, so it’s not entirely a radical European dream.
As I said to another commenter, its perfectly fine if your tolerance for disorder is different than mine.
I guess the last comment I’ll make on the topic is that for as long as I feel unsafe/uncomfortable on transit (or would feel unsafe using it with my kids) I’m never going to support building more, either politically or financially. Perhaps that doesn’t matter and the initiatives will succeed without my vote.
I do think the transit-maximalists would have better luck getting support from reluctant potential users if there was more public acknowledgement of the issue/attempts made to rectify it rather than the “it’s not so bad” or “there’s disorder other places” replies I’ve been getting. Again, maybe that doesn’t matter to them and purity to the orthodoxy is more important.
Your critique would be fair if it were based in sound reality and clearly not just a canard to support your pre-existing prejudices. You suggest that transit is dangerous when compared to driving one’s own car and that’s why it’s bad and should not be advocated for. That’s been shown to be false. You then leaned on your own subjective discomfort and used that to claim whole swaths of the population avoids transit. I can’t argue your feelings, but that latter part is also false.
At the end of the day, you’re making broad claims about the value and efficacy of public transit based on your own subjective distaste. If you just don’t like it, own up to that. But don’t try to claim you have some kind of reasoned, factual, or empirical basis for something that amounts to your own personal distaste.
I’ve never pretended anything I’ve said here amounts to any more than my own opinions/observations.
You have an agenda too, we clearly aren’t going to see eye to eye on it, and that’s fine with me.
The status quo in this country supports my point of view on this issue. It’s your side that needs to do the convincing if you want change. Based on what I’ve seen argued here, I’d go back to the drawing board if I were you.
It’s a self-supporting status quo. Transit has comparatively low utilization when it’s underfunded, held to unrealistic standards, our outright blocked by NIMBYs. As you said yourself, people use what works. If car/road infrastructure is given priority at the planning level, it’s inherently going to work better and attract more users. It is not correct to then make a blanket assumption that transit is not or cannot be viable based on those imposed handicaps.
If your claims had been “I don’t like being around the occasional homeless person”, that would be one thing. But you repeatedly made claims or implications regarding the safety, efficacy, and ridership demographics of major transit systems in the US. You only reverted to the “well that’s my opinion” when those claims were refuted.
When I visited SLC every drive and walk passed by such people…
The first time I visited I was on the train from the airport to my hotel and I saw traffic get stopped by a bum fight in the middle of a crosswalk. They are built different in SLC.
Since you brought it up – the rate of violent crime on the NYC Subway is about 1 per 1M rides. The Chicago L has a rate of about 5 per 1M rides. Anecdotal instances and moderate increases in exceedingly rare occurrences don’t really make the point you’re trying to make.
It’s arguable that, even with supposedly massive increases in violence, you’re safer on the NYC Subway than you are just existing in most places in the US.
A person need not commit a violent crime to make someone uncomfortable or fearful.
Obviously each of us has our own threshold for those feelings. It sounds like yours is higher than mine. Great! But it’s people like me whose support you need for funding these projects.
I understand that comfort is an issue that needs to be addressed and considered, but these comfort issues are not unique to public transit. It’s sad and uncomfortable to see the homeless guy camped out in the bus shelter or on the train. But it’s also sad and uncomfortable to have the panhandler bugging you for a few bucks while you’re pumping gas or follow you into the store while you’re walking a mile through the parking lot.
If we’re concerned about transportation adjacent discomfort with the homeless and drug users, at least more concentrated transit systems make it easier for them to be addressed by service and law enforcement.
As someone who only half-jokingly hopes to witness humanity’s extinction before they destroy the Amazon and my sloths, taking public transportation feels like walking through a sewer. People don’t scare me much (threat of crime actually makes me feel more comfortable, like we’re just finally being honest instead of clinging to the veil of civility), but they thoroughly disgust me, so if I had to take public transportation again, it would be for a job paying so well that I could retire well in a year.
Dude, I usually, at least somewhat, agree with your takes. However, you are waaaaay off on this one. I’ve talked a bit about it on here in bits and pieces, but I am a retired Train Conductor that worked in NYC. A retired Passenger Train Conductor for a lot of years of that time.
Out of the 200 or so trains a day that ran on the line I worked, you might have a situation in one car (capacity of about 150 when packed) maybe once a week. That situation was usually on Friday or Saturday night when the kiddos pounded drinks at midnight in order to catch the last trains and the full buzz hit once they sat down in a car of about 40 passengers.
It’s not anywhere close to bad. Sure, the subways have more problems than the commuter lines, but that’s primarily due to scale.
It’s not the “situations” that impact the operation of the transportation he’s talking about, it’s the guy “straight jorkin it” through his pocket and the man loudly talking about how he was in prison for 23 years for a violent crime and the person trying to sell the tools they just stole and the clearly schizophrenic person who thinks you broke up with them last week (???? Wtf).
I know what you’re saying, but those a such random examples, lol. Using back of the napkin math, I interacted with roughly 5 million passengers in my time running those kinds of trains, and I never once saw a dude’s wang shadow.
The fact of the matter is that riding public transit is no different from standing in line at Publix or going to a bar/restaurant. There is no compelling reason to get in EVERYYONE”S business anywhere, so why would you. Just mind your own shit and don’t make eye contact with strangers for longer than you would a poster for Pop Tarts and your fine.
It’s not like you are running for office and shaking hands and kissing babies or some shit…Unless you are into that, which in that case, you deserve it.
SLC admittedly has zero barrier to getting on their train and the only realistic consequence is getting kicked off.
Fantastic usability with some consequences
Then how did you know whether or not there would be six more weeks of winter?
Well, if a hooker can’t see any bruises when wearing a sun-dress…
There’s a joke in Southern California (and a lot of major metros, to be honest) that leaving for work 10 sooner can make you 30 minutes early and leaving 5 minutes later makes you an hour late. These same time limitations apply anywhere you have large groups of people moving all at once. However, with a good transit system with high frequency and good connections makes it possible for riders to grab a bus/train whenever they need it and make detours along the way.
The homeless people boogyman is an odd one. There mere presence of a homeless person doesn’t bother me (apart from the fact that society should care for them better). I don’t appreciate being panhandled, but I’ve had that happen to me far more when I’m at the gas station filling my tank than whenever I’ve been on transit.
Ultimately, people commute in the ways that work best for them. When transit as a concept is met with astroturfed outrage and outright sabotaged by corporate interests, of course cars will be the “better” choice. But in the places that have good transit – even people that own cars will choose to use transit a fair amount of the time.
“Damn, people different from me! Back to my car fortress!”. I’m sorry, but this is an incredibly callous and unemphatic worldview. I get that people who sleep on the street can have some unfavorable tendencies. But these are still people that we should learn to respectively share space with. We ultimately live in a country were poverty exist, hiding from it solves no issues. We just create two Americas out of shared public space.
The fact of the matter is that if you want wealthier people (or maybe more accurately, people with the choice to use it or not) to have a favorable view of public transit, using it has to be palatable to them.
Drug use and disorder in public spaces is a direct threat to that.
You can call it callous if you want to, but it’s reality.
But its not at all. The four busiest transport networks in America are NYC, Washington Metro, Boston and the L. All four cities that have a high proportion of wealthy residents, and these people regularly take public transport. And these are all cities noted for high unhoused populations.
I can’t speak for the NE cities because I don’t spend a lot of time there, but wealthy people are absolutely not riding the El except possibly to a weekend Cubs game.
Why are you so focused in on how wealthy people are getting around? Transit will almost always skew towards lower income folks – especially in places where it’s a transit-oriented system and not a commuter-oriented system.
But if you say that “wealthy people are absolutely not riding the El”, clearly you haven’t been on the Brown Line or ridden the Red Line during baseball season.
People with means are the ones who pay taxes to support these systems. They are the ones who are politically active. They are the ones with the choice to ride or not.
People of all income brackets pay taxes that support these systems and are/can be politically active. But you’re treating this supposed (and demonstrably false) lack of wealthy ridership like an indictment on the concept of public transportation.
But hey, some numbers never hurt. The US Census Bureau reported that 21% of transit-using households have an income above $100k (23% of US households have an income above $100k).
Dude, there’s a line in literally in Evanston. The L has a massive upper middle class and upper ridership commuting into the loop everyday. This is all hot takes, if a line functions most incomes will use it. Wealthy people in cities are use to cities and will do city stuff like ride trains with the poors.
+1 for Evanston. My grandfather rode that L for decades. He had a job where a driver was provided for him each day, but he preferred to commute this way.
Once you experience that red line tilting, it’s hard to go back. And I’m not sure if it’s still like this due to growth, but the Purple/Red line use to have some of the best lake views.
Dude I have plenty of well-off friends in Chicago who commute primarily via the L. Who do you think is getting on and off the stops on the northern half of the Red Line? Or like the entire Purple Line?
Actually Boston has a relatively low unhoused population – the social workers and programs do a very good job. If the fight with Quincy over replacing the bridge to Long Island/ Moon Island ever gets resolved it should go down further with access to the housing and treatment facilities that used to serve a couple thousand people. The last report I saw said Boston had about 1,500 unhoused, which is way less than many cities of comparable size. And in Boston you are more likely to see such people on the street than on the subway – although often near the subway entrance. I must say compared to 20 or 30 years ago things are much better to the casual observer (except for one or two specific places) I am not sure how they are pulling this off with the stratospheric cost of housing here.
As someone who likes to drive I really want the state to spend a LOT on public transportation- the more people on the trains and buses means less cars in front of me!
I’ve been a social worker in the Boston area for years, so I really should of given Boston it’s flowers here. It really has gotten alot better over the last few years. Part of reason, is Boston has invested a lot of money in social programs and steering the unhoused away from the criminal justice system and towards better treatment options. A part of this is frankly just luck too, in the surrounding New England is desperate for low skill labor. So when people have moved though these programs, they can find work pretty quickly. Then transition into more stable housing. It’s pretty interesting how the system actually works, as its fairly counter to the rest of country. Maybe for another blog I’d go further in-depth.
I’m not gonna pepper you with replies (promise!), but I can guarantee you that the rush hour trains that come in from Westchester have a crap-ton of riders with bank accounts that have more zeroes than a sleeve of Oreos. One look at the parking lots at the stations is all you need to see that.
NYC I have no doubt is the exception.
You just described a lot of low density midwest cities. Buses that run every hour and have excruciatingly long loops. It’s the hallmark of a city that is car dependent but has a bus system that manages to inconvenience everyone, especially those that depend on it.
I’ve taken mass transit in many cities. Homeless and tweakers will always be there. However, in the more dense areas, they get crowded out by normal commuters and don’t get noticed.
I don’t know about the other stuff, but “having to leave work at a specific time to…” is a giant plus in my book.
The best solution to homeless people in public transportation is, surprisingly, to outnumber them until they get housed. They take refuge in public transportation because it’s mostly empty and protected from the weather.
“the bill apparently came to a mighty $64 billion a year”
I see a very simple solution to this… make vehicle registration fees cover the cost. And base the fee on the vehicle’s footprint and add a surcharge on any vehicle above a certain weight limit and add another surcharge for vehicles and trailers with tandem axles that are known to cause more wear and damage to roads.
Don’t forget pedestrian crash test standards!
This. I for one would like to see pedestrians required to have substantial crumple zones so I don’t injure myself or damage my car when I hit them.
The average American has significant crumple zones around their midsection. Unfortunately, the engineers haven’t figured out how to extend that protection to other vital areas.
This doesn’t include Mass Excise Tax on vehicles, which more than makes up the difference. Unless that figure is in the Owning costs bucket. But ya think they would break it out to consider it in the graph comparing public expenditures. Either way lazy garbage study.
Excise tax doesn’t even come close to covering it. Also excise tax goes to the town, so none of it goes to state roads or highways.
But it’s relevant in the topic of total vehicle costs. Excise taxes collected by the town just lowers the amount the state has to give the town. Excise is supposed to cover local roads but they use it for other things. But Mass is just a giant General Fund of taxes and they do whatever they want with the money, Mass pays prolly more per mile for their roads and they are garbage done by corrupt construction companies. Excess lottery profits based on a 40yr rule just go into the general fund and not towards schools or education, so yeah taxes or fees paid in MA just go wherever they want.
I’m from the “rust belt,” and live there now, but I have a lot of family that has relocated to Massachusetts. Mass roads are immaculate compared to other US places with similar climates. Are there potholes everywhere? Yes. But that’s the inescapable freeze/thaw cycle. At least they’re small enough to ignore.
> I yearn to live somewhere I can walk to get a coffee instead of having to drive for ten minutes and go through four traffic lights.
Is both exactly how I feel and an eerily accurate description of what it takes for me to get to the nearest shop. Despite being a dyed in the wool misanthrope, I bought as close into town as I could in hopes of at least biking some places. Turns out the “greenways” are conveniently overlaid with half-miles of regular-ass road.
I road-cycle too, so don’t fetch up the fainting couch just yet, but it was frustrating to find that my greenways commute was actually one half roads. Poor planning on my part, but my investigations when shopping for the house didn’t show this out. Oh well; that job is long gone.
When I moved into my current house, it was the first time I lived more than five minutes from a freeway on-ramp since I’d started driving. The 10 to 12 minutes through medium traffic and a number of lights to the urban Interstate meant that I had to husband the energy to go to Costco and almost always went after work when I was already downtown and thus a couple of minutes from the highway. The distance I’m willing to drive to do something shrank drastically, and the only time I was willing to drive more than ten minutes was to cross the river to see my parents (which took 22 minutes per Google, as the tunnel was pretty close and fed into an expressway which led to a freeway.) I have bike lanes and low-traffic streets (pre-World War One grid layout), so bike commuting downtown would have been no problem if I wasn’t running late, but I usually was, so.…
That’s a rather staggering price tag. I don’t have the expertise to evaluate this study, but I’m sure someone here does, and I hope they’ll comment on it.
I’m sure plenty of people who lack the expertise to evaluate this study will also comment. 🙂
Perhaps next the author could study the relationship between initially promised schedules and budgets for public transportation projects vs their as-built realities.
That’s less of a “gotcha” when you realize the same issues can be raised about road and highway projects… which contribute to the public cost of car use.
Sure, publish those too. Let’s see the data about which one costs more.
We very clearly build roads more efficiently than we build rail in this country, though we’re bad at doing both. Still, the societal benefits of having rail (I live walking distance to both an Amtrak and a regional rail station) outweigh the costs. Ideally, we’d just be less shitty at building rail.
Given the realities of building rail, I can’t agree with this. In an ideal world, maybe. But Americans need to stop imagining us as Europe. We aren’t.
I feel like “let’s be 30% more efficient with allocation and cost overruns related to transit projects” isn’t a wild European dream.
I feel like the east coast from Boston to DC has become kinda Europe-like. The particular project to link North and South Stations in Boston makes sense. They are 1.2 miles apart and walking is currently the best option, and not a nice one.
I live on the edge of a rural area and have commuted to Boston via train for over 20 years. My encounters commuting have been no better or worse than my encounters in the local Walmart.
Car companies would rather us build roads than rail. Weird how obstacles seemingly fall away when it’s “just one more lane” but vaporware like the hyperloop pops up when it’s time to build high speed rail.
They want you to be car dependent.
And to think 160 years ago, we built rail from coast to coast.
To put in language you can understand:
Drug (road) addicts have more practice placing a needle in their veins (building more roads) than working a job that creates value for society (building transit). Doesn’t mean we should keep enabling them.
I love cars but hate commuting in them. Wish I could live in a place where cars were for the weekend.
It would be great if we could reserve our cars for things transit just can’t do. A good transit system with walkable/bikeable infrastructure could get most of us to and from work and let us run most of our errands efficiently, safely, cheaply, and easily. Then we can save our private vehicles for the fun weekend drives, roadtrips, trailer hauling, etc.
and heavy-duty shopping in my experience