Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

citylab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 201 posts

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#81

Post by kaybe »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #42
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…

I too enjoy walking around European cites much more than US cities. On a Brussels trip I commented on how interesting and winding the streets were to a family friend, she pointed out that it made it harder for tanks to drive through a city. That matter of fact response brought into sharp focus the disparity between cites that had been rebuilt several times and those which haven't. There was also the adaptation from c…

There are more reasons:

- For pre-tank times, makes it a lot harder for strangers (e.g. intruding enemies) to get oriented.

- For more modern neighborhoods, make the roads confusing so cars won't take a shortcut through and bypass the main road. (--> keep unnecessary cars out of living areas since they are dangerous to kids on the street and the noise and air pollution is bad)

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#82

Post by the_gastropod »

njarboe wrote: post #74
the_gastropod wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Is that true? The U.S. doesn't have a particularly high percentage of home ownership (64.5%) compared to other countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_owne...

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#83

Post by JackFr »

bobthepanda wrote: post #68
briandear wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walking, public transport and biking are orders of magnitude more inefficient if you have kids or have to transport anything bigger than a backpack.

As someone who grew up in New York, kids are actually much easier with walking, public transport, and biking. I was able to go out to school, head to team sports, go to restaurants and shopping, hang out with friends, etc. all independently. When I went to college, all of my suburban friends hadn't done too much of any of that, because being in the suburbs before driving age requires a parent available to be your cha…

As someone who raised three children in Manhattan, walking and public transit are fine with small children. Biking, while a great source of recreation, is simply not an option for transportation with small children. And the ability to fall back on a cabs or Uber on rare occasions is also sometimes necessary.

That being said, at an older age, I never had to take my children anywhere. Like you said, they walked, rode or took public transport.

Finally in my experience, city kids are just as prone to underage drinking as their suburban counterparts, possibly moreso because of the increased opportunity. What they don't do however, is drink and drive.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#84

Post by skizm »

More than 50% of commuters drive to work alone in NYC? That seems insane to me. I don't know or know of a single person that drives to work in NYC. Tolls and parking alone would eat around $10k per year, plus even if it was free the traffic seems to make it not worth it when compared to subways. Also, if you're willing to shell out the money to drive, why not just take a cab or uber at that point?

Is there some large subset of workers I'm not seeing that it would be more economic / convenient to drive into or around the city on a daily basis? (truck drivers / cab drivers / uber drivers don't count I wouldn't think?)

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#85

Post by kaybe »

jpindar wrote: post #69
johngorse wrote: post #54

Why do people with car drive alone to work? There is a big chance that someone from your neighborhood is going at least in your direction. We practice co-driving in Europe all the time.

We call it carpooling, and it's not that uncommon, I've done it. Some highways have special "High Occupancy Vehicle" lanes to encourage it.

May I point to this corresponding mode of transport for car-less people:

http://slug-lines.com/

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#86

Post by joey-bob »

dima55 wrote: post #79
joey-bob wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I suppose you are correct. Similar to the original comment, who was shocked coming from a European perspective to US, I was a bit shocked coming from an East Coast perspective, and have made too broad a generalization. What areas would you suggest I visit in the future?

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#87

Post by bluGill »

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.

You cannot actually say that. non car oriented cities have been growing for hundreds of years, while car oriented cities only for about 80. You could well be right, but we will all be dead before we can actually state it with confidence.

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#88

Post by pedantsamaritan »

the_gastropod wrote: post #43
curtis wrote: post #31

> We are cleaving into two nations—one where daily life revolves around the car, and the other where the car is receding in favor of walking, biking, and transit. Walking, biking, and transit are not actually the same thing, except that they are "not driving". So it's more accurate to say that there are two kinds of commuters, those that take cars and those that don't. There's absolutely nothing new about this though…

Ignoring all the other problems, like car crashes, urban land-use, infrastructure spending to support them, etc, their emissions alone should be a clear moral issue when talking about cars. When the alternatives (walking, public transit, and bicycling) are orders of magnitude more efficient, it's absolutely a moral issue.

From the math I've seen, bicycling is 1 order of magnitude lower CO2 emission than driving. Here is one source https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/how-much-co2-does-cycli...

I was surprised it wasn't a bigger difference myself.

It also appears buses are in the 1 order of magnitude range: http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/dwhs/info/Pages/OzonePublicTra..., https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2012/11/can-we-please...

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#89

Post by so33 »

njarboe wrote: post #74
the_gastropod wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

>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?

That was an illusion. House prices are soaring in the inner suburbs (case in point: the Bay Area) to the point of complete unaffordability, forcing people out further and further from where they work and, consequently, creating situations where commuters drive for hours every day because there is no other choice.

To drive to the city, you have to find a place to park your car. As more people want to drive to access the amenities of a city (and they have to, because they might live more than an hour away as they can’t afford anything closer), they will need to pay more and more to park, because of the costs of real estate.

And tunnels are no panacea. The congestion created by single occupancy trips created by people who might be living an hour or more away from their destination will persist.

Density would go a long way to solving some of these problems. Simple things from lowering minimum lot sizes, to mid size apartments and condos, would increase access to home ownership. But we can’t have anything lowering those property prices, can we?

Re: Great Divide in How Americans Commute to Work

#90

Post by clairity »

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.

gotcha. san diego is probably the only place with better weather, if that's possible, and seemingly with more intermingled trees (a good portion of LA's trees are in the hills dividing the valleys and basins).

venice is super-walkable, and i'd guess it's better to live in the venice/santa monica bubble without a car than with, because getting out of the westside is awful by car for large parts of the day. within the bubble you can walk, bike, run, skate or scooter to just about anything you need.

but outside of LA proper, it's true that san bernardino, the inland empire, and the san fernando and san gabriel valleys generally are car-oriented, and it's unwieldy to live in those areas without a car (although there are pocket exceptions, particularly in the valleys).

Post reply on HN