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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

#71

Post by clairity »

joey-bob wrote: post #56
bloomca wrote: post #27

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…

Where do you live in the US? It sounds like California, specifically the concrete desert of LA.

do you live in LA and know this firsthand or are you repeating a cliché?

i live in LA and walk often. it's great. the weather is awesome (60's and sunny today, in the middle of winter), i have dozens of good restaurants and cafes within walking distance, as is most of my shopping needs. parks, theaters, museums, bars, and other entertainment can be easily reached by walking. LA is a big city so not everything is right there, but everything i need day-to-day is.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#72

Post by njarboe »

I have never seen a train this empty during commute hours. An empty seat on each side of a person? Standing room only and packed like sardines is more realistic (and a needed density for economic viability of trains not subsidized by others).

BTW, cars are also a mode of "transit".

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#73

Post by bunderbunder »

kevindong wrote: post #59
bunderbunder wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related anecdote: I was recently looking at home prices in Chicago, and it seems that people place an enormous value on easy access to the train system. Just eyeballing it, it looked like a house that's less than 1 mile from the nearest train station commands about a $150-$200,000 premium over one that's more than 2 miles from the L.

Driving in downtown Chicago during rush hour is awful. I remember it taking something like 15 minutes just to move a handful of city blocks due to how backed up the on-ramp onto the highway was. Also, are you controlling for the housing type? Condos in high rises (which are much more expensive than detached single family detached) tend to be concentrated near the trains.

Yeah, this was just comparing within a specific kind of housing. So I didn't even compare 2 and 3-flat condos to high rise condos.

I would not drive to work just because the train isn't within walking distance, because, yeah, not worth the time and stress and expense. Having to take a bus or ride a bike to get to the nearest train station doesn't add that much time to a commute.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#74

Post by njarboe »

the_gastropod wrote: post #37
perennate wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (…

This is kind of a chicken-egg situation. You can't reach the high-density requirement when cars are the primary means of transportation. Cars are an extraordinarily low-density means of transportation. And some evidence, based on city age, seems to suggest that cities built with cars in mind (e.g., non-east coast cities in the U.S.) tend to sprawl quite a bit.

Isn't it wonderful how the car allowed a large number of families to own a home with a piece of land, yet have access to the amenities of a city? Nice and spread out living spaces with concentration for work and culture. Now we just need some tunnels or something to deal with the problems that fast above ground car transport causes (mostly noise, pollution, and using up precious surface land).

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#75

Post by joey-bob »

clairity wrote: post #71
joey-bob wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you live in the US? It sounds like California, specifically the concrete desert of LA.

do you live in LA and know this firsthand or are you repeating a cliché? i live in LA and walk often. it's great. the weather is awesome (60's and sunny today, in the middle of winter), i have dozens of good restaurants and cafes within walking distance, as is most of my shopping needs. parks, theaters, museums, bars, and other entertainment can be easily reached by walking. LA is a big city so not everything is righ…

I lived in San Diego, and would visit friends in LA somewhat frequently. My interpretation is based off of my experiences in the northern slice of the area, San Bernardino to Venice Beach. Also I had to drive through LA to go anywhere, which might have colored my experience a bit.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#76

Post by grawprog »

cgy1 wrote: post #45
grawprog wrote: post #26

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.

Off the top of my head, the reason is probably because there just isn't a critical mass of people heading in the other direction that would make financial sense for them to run trains/buses in that direction, not to mention the last mile problem of how to get to your job after you're dropped in the suburban transit center with no public transit available to get you from the transit center to your office.

No it's more things like plans to change the fare system to one based on distance travelled, changing bus schedules so they end up more filled up but no longer arrive at offices and businesses for a time when people typically begin work, increasing multiple zone fares while leaving single zone fares the same, new train and bus routes being put in to service already well serviced areas while ignoring outlying areas.

Back in 2001 or so the plan for the next train line was for a heavily underserviced area here. It was delayed and instead a line was put in in an area with multiple busses servicing it. They finally put the line they originally talked about around 2 or 3 years ago. But it still doesn't cover as much area as the original plans were and rather than putting new trains for this line like the did with the other one, they took some from the line that services the farther away areas.

There are two big rushes of people in both directions. The trains and busses are packed always. The only reason I can think of is because they know most people commuting to work on transit have no choice. Where has people taking one time short trips usually do and they're trying to incentivise them to take transit at the expense of commuters.

It also just so happens those areas tend to have a higher percentage of wealthier people living in the and members of the transit board.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#77

Post by njarboe »

marcosdumay wrote: post #15
JoshTriplett wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I'm also surprised at the two places I thought would have more public transport usage. Really, only 30% of NYC? Taxis don't count as "public transport" here.

I think the less ambiguous name is "collective transport". Taxis are public transport almost everywhere.

"collective transport" is a great name for it. Has the same root as collective farming and similar problems to that enterprise.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#78

Post by bluGill »

joey-bob wrote: post #70
scarejunba wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like practically anywhere in the country to be honest.

The only place where I've lived that didn't have yards, parks within walking distance, and could be considered overcrowded was in California. I briefly visited Dallas once, and I could see that as being similar.

There are parts of any city (including California cities) that are walkable. There are parts of any city that are not walkable (this includes Europe). In some areas the walkable area is pretty large, and others it is tiny.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#79

Post by dima55 »

joey-bob wrote: post #75
clairity wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you live in LA and know this firsthand or are you repeating a cliché? i live in LA and walk often. it's great. the weather is awesome (60's and sunny today, in the middle of winter), i have dozens of good restaurants and cafes within walking distance, as is most of my shopping needs. parks, theaters, museums, bars, and other entertainment can be easily reached by walking. LA is a big city so not everything is righ…

I lived in San Diego, and would visit friends in LA somewhat frequently. My interpretation is based off of my experiences in the northern slice of the area, San Bernardino to Venice Beach. Also I had to drive through LA to go anywhere, which might have colored my experience a bit.

Your interpretation is based on a slice that's 80 miles long, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you don't have a good sense of even that slice. LA is fantastic. There's plenty of suburbia to be sure, but living there is a choice some people make. Others make a different choice.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#80

Post by Kerrick »

benj111 wrote: post #44
perennate wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (…

The problem is, is that car orientated cities tend to grow out, rather than densify. So you never get the critical mass, where transit becomes required.

There are major exceptions to this, usually involving the city's potential expansion zone being bounded by water on multiple sides. Manhattan, San Francisco, and Seattle all have this feature -- and they've all developed into critical mass, where transit becomes required.
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