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Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

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Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#21

Post by i_cant_speel »

francisofascii wrote: post #13
soared wrote: post #6

These maps don't show a dam thing and the analysis is super weak. Its common sense that people in cities make more money and are more likely to walk to work. Then workers in rural areas drive alone to work and make less money. https://xkcd.com/1138/

Ironic that the people making more money walk, (which historically has been what poor people do). And the current poorer people use a privately owned transport vehicle. That would not be common sense to an American living more than 100 years ago. :)

I think it's along the lines of people with more money tend to live closer to downtown which means they are more likely to live in a walkable distance to work.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#23

Post by perennate »

closeparen wrote: post #12

Warning: speculation. Suppose that a city’s value and economy descend in large part from connectivity. A transit system is extremely useful at a few very specific points, but your connectedness drops off sharply as you get even a few blocks away from it, due to the extreme inefficiency of walking or (worse) waiting for a connecting bus. A road network’s utility is broad and diffuse, with gentle gradients of utility f…

Doesn't a transit system complement a road network?

Rapid transit serves the most trips when either the source or destination (or both) are in the urban center. The road network is typically most congested in the urban center. Thus, transit reduces congestion in the areas that would otherwise be most congested, making the road network more useful.

Perhaps "car-oriented cities" simply haven't yet reached the density (and size of the high-density area) where transit becomes necessary.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#24

Post by jacobolus »

closeparen wrote: post #12

Warning: speculation. Suppose that a city’s value and economy descend in large part from connectivity. A transit system is extremely useful at a few very specific points, but your connectedness drops off sharply as you get even a few blocks away from it, due to the extreme inefficiency of walking or (worse) waiting for a connecting bus. A road network’s utility is broad and diffuse, with gentle gradients of utility f…

More realistically: being able to live without a car is desirable for enough people and rare enough in the US that places where it is possible have their rents driven up by demand, pricing out the people who were living there before.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#25

Post by the_gastropod »

francisofascii wrote: post #13
soared wrote: post #6

These maps don't show a dam thing and the analysis is super weak. Its common sense that people in cities make more money and are more likely to walk to work. Then workers in rural areas drive alone to work and make less money. https://xkcd.com/1138/

Ironic that the people making more money walk, (which historically has been what poor people do). And the current poorer people use a privately owned transport vehicle. That would not be common sense to an American living more than 100 years ago. :)

It's not common sense today either. I don't think many people actually understand how expensive driving a car is. These expenses are both individual (maintenance, gas, insurance, tolls, tickets, etc.) and societal (greenhouse gas emissions, crashes, infrastructure like roads, bridges, and interstate exchanges, inefficient land use from parking, etc.)

I'm confident in the future we'll look back at how most Americans live today, and cringe at the massive inefficiency.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#26

Post by grawprog »

I'm not sure why but the transit system in my city seems to keep making decisions and changes that benefit people making short trips within the central areas while detrimenting those that use it to commute outwards to work. I'm not sure the reasoning for this. But every time the schedules or fares change it always becomes more difficult, takes longer and costs more to travel to outer areas.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#27

Post by bloomca »

I don't think there is such a great divide. The greater divide is between people who own a car (or cars) and who do not, however, seems for USA it is a divide between New York City and the rest of the country.

Also, I can comment on one thing I personally enjoy a lot – walking. I lived in many European cities, and recently moved to USA, so I can comment on it. To be able to walk, you need to live close enough to your work / some places of interest (like ~3–4 km is a threshold usually), the path should be interesting and beautiful.

USA fails miserably at "interesting and beautiful" part. Grid system makes it super boring, a lot of buildings are just a relatively small building and huge parking space around. There are no parks in between, no yards – moreover, you can bump into unsafe places!

Architecture (in downtowns) is straight up horrible (although it is subjective). So, after couple of walks I have no desire altogether to walk around anymore – it is dirty, ugly, in some places overcrowded (since everybody works at the same spot in the downtown and time, essentially).

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#28

Post by flyingpenguin »

sandworm101 wrote: post #7

>> "a smaller-than-average share of workers drives to work alone in more compact college towns" We all talk about trying to get people our of their cars, but imho isn't all about cities or even transport systems. Imho it is about jobs. The great divide is between those who work in places that support alternative to private vehicles and those that do not. If your employer wants you to work changing hours on short noti…

> Asking someone to show up an hour earlier than normal is difficult if that means they won't have a bus/train available.

I lived in Seoul for close to a year without a car. I never used a taxi and never looked up or planed my routes before I left home/work/shop/etc. The longest I remember waiting for a train/bus was around 4minutes. In this instance, I saw my bus pulling away as I was walking up. There was another of the same bus in line behind 3 other buses.

I have lived in Denver without a car for close to 4 years. I pay 4x as much in public transit fees, I know all train times and bus times by heart and I plan when I leave based on those times. I usually bike to/from the train because it is literally faster than the bus stop less than 100ft from my house.

We have a chicken and egg problem.

Edit: God I miss the trains in Seoul. I don't know if they had times but the rule seemed to be if a train was pulling out, you just had to wait for the next train to finish pulling in.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#29

Post by soared »

burlesona wrote: post #17
soared wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still doesn't provide any useful info. 70% of the map has no data, and it literally only shows urban vs. suburban vs. rural areas on every map.

I mean, it’s a map of commuting, so what else would it show?

My point is a map seems like a poor choice for the data. If half of your map is empty, and you’re really only showing a grouping of 3 categories, maybe use a graph or something else.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#30

Post by julienb_sea »

I find this interesting. Of my tech coworkers and friends in Seattle, its 50/50 on car ownership, but the vast majority do not commute to work by car. I personally drive, but that is due to circumstance where public transit is inconvenient for me and I can easily afford to drive and park downtown, saving me 30-45 min both directions. In my view, driving a car becomes much more necessary once you exit the 20-something tech stage of life and actually have a family to support and move around.

Also, unpopular opinion, public transit is only worthwhile for commuters. Shared uber/lyft is more efficient in pretty much all other situations, except for people wealthy enough to live in easy transit corridors. Subsidizing ride share infrastructure via uber/lyft would benefit a much broader class of people than investments in cute but pointless public transit like our Seattle streetcar.

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