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Why Is American Mass Transit So Bad? It's a Long Story. (citylab.com)
Jonathan English, writing for City Lab: One hundred years ago, the United States had a public transportation system that was the envy of the world. Today, outside a few major urban centers, it is barely on life support. Even in New York City, subway ridership is well below its 1946 peak. Annual per capita transit trips in the U.S. plummeted from 115.8 in 1950 to 36.1 in 1970, where they have roughly remained since, even as population has grown.
This has not happened in much of the rest of the world. While a decline in transit use in the face of fierce competition from the private automobile throughout the 20th century was inevitable, near-total collapse was not. At the turn of the 20th century, when transit companies' only competition were the legs of a person or a horse, they worked reasonably well, even if they faced challenges. Once cars arrived, nearly every U.S. transit agency slashed service to cut costs, instead of improving service to stay competitive. This drove even more riders away, producing a vicious cycle that led to the point where today, few Americans with a viable alternative ride buses or trains.
Now, when the federal government steps in to provide funding, it is limited to big capital projects. (Under the Trump administration, even those funds are in question.) Operations -- the actual running of buses and trains frequently enough to appeal to people with an alternative -- are perpetually starved for cash. Even transit advocates have internalized the idea that transit cannot be successful outside the highest-density urban centers. And it very rarely is.
This has not happened in much of the rest of the world. While a decline in transit use in the face of fierce competition from the private automobile throughout the 20th century was inevitable, near-total collapse was not. At the turn of the 20th century, when transit companies' only competition were the legs of a person or a horse, they worked reasonably well, even if they faced challenges. Once cars arrived, nearly every U.S. transit agency slashed service to cut costs, instead of improving service to stay competitive. This drove even more riders away, producing a vicious cycle that led to the point where today, few Americans with a viable alternative ride buses or trains.
Now, when the federal government steps in to provide funding, it is limited to big capital projects. (Under the Trump administration, even those funds are in question.) Operations -- the actual running of buses and trains frequently enough to appeal to people with an alternative -- are perpetually starved for cash. Even transit advocates have internalized the idea that transit cannot be successful outside the highest-density urban centers. And it very rarely is.
Powerful people don't use mass transit, therefore there is no priority on mass transit.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
They are behind it for decades.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...
I live outside of Los Angeles. In my case, there's a rail station about five miles from my house. There is also a train station a block from my office. I *could* ride a bike there and then take a train. I honestly would like to. However, the total commute by car is about 40 minutes (17 miles) door-to-door. The MINIMUM commute by rail would be three hours door to door.
Thanks, I'll take my car.
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Many US cities had streetcar lines up until the 50s/60s. They were by and large privately owned, later bought by GM/Firestone, and went bust to be replaced by busses, which required tires. So the cities tore out miles and miles of track.
Stupid right? It's a failure of government that just wanted to move on to cars, and didn't see any value in buying this infrastructure (already on the publicly owned and maintained streets).
The US has long had this fantasy that everything can just be done by private enterprise. For some things it's true. I'm not a fan of government telecom owned telecom monopolies or the government owned energy monopoly in Mexico. But some things provide positive externalities like transit, or roads or bridges really should be owned and operated by the government.
Most other countries figured this out long ago. We still thought we could give short shrify to transit, and hope people just get along with cars, and move further and further away (some weird obsession with wanting more property).
When I was a teenager in NYC, one could walk up to a subway platform and count on a train showing up in 3-5 minutes.
Today, that time is more like 10-30 minutes, depending on how broke the MTA is from it's monthly pension obligations that month.
The reasons ridership is down is because it's faster to simply walk or to take a cab.
Mass transit suffers from the Amtrak problem. It is unable to provide adequate service because 80% of its budget is spend paying the unsustainable pension promises of yesteryear, and paying absurd salaries to current employees. Seriously, clerks working in MTA token booths get a compensation package worth well in excess of $100K per year, just to change US currency into subway tokens.
Fix that problem, and you fix mass transit.
Most large European cities were large long before the advent of the automobile. This meant their transit infrastructure was designed at most for horse and buggy. To build roads to accommodate automobiles would mean tearing down buildings to widen roads. America by contrast grew up with automobiles and wide open spaces so except for the North East coastal cities the roads are at least big enough for most passenger cars. Several other factors contributed to make mass transit less of a necessity leading to low ridership.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
We are told we need single-family houses to make us happy and wealthy - so we buy single-family houses. We are told we need cars to make us happy and productive - so we buy cars.
Mass transit has no effective marketing. It's just there, like municipal water service. You can use it or ignore it. And as we keep telling people that the "good life" is outside the city - and hence outside the reach of many transit systems - they don't invest the effort in using them.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I work with transit agencies, city planners, major employers, and the commuters themselves. Here's what I know to be the causes:
1. Low population density - If you go to the denser parts of LA, you get good transit. Same with SF, NYC, etc. If you head out to the land of single-family homes, population density drops to the point where you need massive subsidies to keep a route going. But then, you're fighting against...
2. Suburban Road Network Design - When you have mile-long block-faces along arterials, you guarantee that transit riders will need to walk .5-.75 miles on average to a bus route... not even likely the route they need. Then there's the whole issue of...
3. People Don't Live Near Work - Most people have to balance housing affordability, proximity to work, and living in a home they like. Part of that is because those who can afford to buy a home typically want a back yard, front yard, and a two car garage (see #s 1 and 2) and the other part is that given the demand to live near major work centers, the cost per square foot to live near work is pretty damn high. And then there's the issue of people buying up homes for investment (rentals) instead of living in them thereby exasperating the "drive til you qualify" problem, but that's a whole other discussion.
4. Free parking and ignorance of the cost of commutes - People don't want to pay for public transit they're not using, so they vote down funding. That increases user fees and thus makes it unattractive to use because most people don't have separate parking fees. Instead, employers underpay their workers to fund parking costs. Moreover, people assume that "gas need to be bought" so they don't factor the cost of fuel into their commutes and thus can't accurately compare the cost of a monthly transit pass to the cost of a drive-alone commute.
5. Transit Fare Interoperability - Transit systems are typically city-wide or county-wide. Very few cross county jurisdictional boundaries. They are thus, in effect, silo'd. They have their own fare/rate structure (cost per boarding, discounts for multi-boarding passes), pass structure (monthly passes vs. 30-day passes), and absent a multi-jurisdictional agreement (Like Clipper in the Bay Area), many people need to purchase and maintain multiple bus passes for daily commutes. State SHOULD pass laws that require that each county get onboard with multi-jurisdictional pass/pricing schemes by 202X and then set another deadline to have groups of neighboring counties merge their pass/pricing schema until we have statewide transit passes. After all, it has taken over 20 years for the SF Bay area Clipper Card to get to where it is and it still only includes 22 of the local transit agencies. There are over 164 transit agencies in California alone.
I could go on....
My employer is willing to deduct the cost of a monthly transit pass (in Portland, OR) from my check *pre-tax*, so they are showing their support by offering this incentive and convenience. (The pass arrives by mail each month)
That pass is good for; bus lines, train lines, streetcars, and the buses that run between Portland and Vancouver. It's quite convenient. (easy)
That ease of access should never be underestimated. Even though I got the pass for commuting to work, I have used it to travel to concert venues - I then don't experience that right-after-the-concert-crush of people trying to drive out of a huge parking lot.
Yes, using transit takes longer. There are many instances where I would not dream of using it because of the total transit time involved. But for a lot of reasonably-short-distance travel, it's great.
If more employers installed more bike racks, offered convenience in buying transit passes, encouraged telecommuting, etc. we would all benefit in many (some subtle) ways.
Mass transit can compete with personal transport just fine.
Look at Japan. Train stations are major hubs. They often build a shopping centre on top of the station, and offices around it. Bus companies link up to get people further out. Any new development makes sure it has regular bus/real links and sells that as a benefit of living there - sail past the people stuck in their cars on congested roads with a rail track or purpose built bus lane.
The mistake other countries make is trying to graft on public transport later. Train companies in particular miss a trick by not using the land the station is built on for 10 floors of retail too.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
When I travel in Europe I never use a car. It's really rather liberating and I can stay longer because I'm spending less money. (Admitted minor point)
After that, I spent a good while being lower income when I was younger. Oh lord would it have been nice to live in a country where public transportation was widely available and I didn't have to spend such a significant portion of my income on a car and all of it's associated bills. When I go shopping or out to eat literally anywhere the vast majority of those people operating those stores are in the exact same boat as I was back then. The extra money saved by these masses would likely be spent elsewhere contributing far more to job growth then buying and maintaining a car whose construction is largely automated.
And then after that, I remember when I had to commute by car at a slightly older age. What a garbage fest it is commuting by car. I'd have a traded a slightly longer commute by mass transit where I could read, work, or just plane space out the entire time over stop and go traffic where I'm just stuck sitting there having to focus on the road.
And then after that, in all my travels in the US, our highways are never wide enough during high traffic periods and likely never will be under our current transportation model.
In summary, a car is a major expense for most Americans. Sure the convenience of car ownership is nice and I currently thoroughly enjoy it but for many Americans it's an absolute burden.
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