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GEddie
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Not to mention (current social-justice concerns notwithstanding) what is at all wrong with individualism, if you can live up to it?
We are not worker-bees in a 3000-mile-wide hive.
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We are not worker-bees in a 3000-mile-wide hive.
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Elizium23
Guest
I would invite you to read Rediscover Catholicism. Matthew Kelly explains at length why the spirit of the world can be described in terms of individualism, hedonism, and minimalism, and why these are all pernicious influences on faithful Christians.
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JimG
Guest
I can recall using the bus a lot back in my youth, taking the bus to work every day. That was because I didn’t have a car. And when I got my first full time job, I did a cost benefit analysis comparison of the cost of daily bus rides to the cost of a car. How soon would the car pay for itself? This was in the KC metro area, and at that time a lot of people used the bus. The cost of cars was expensive compared to income, and most families were one car families.
But the suburbs started growing; the buses did not go there, wages went up, but so did bus fare. And the additional travel time required by bus schedules and transfers is also a factor.
Without regard to individualism or hedonism, nothing is going to make mass transit cost effective if the population and the population density will not support it. But at my age, I would like a self driving car!
But the suburbs started growing; the buses did not go there, wages went up, but so did bus fare. And the additional travel time required by bus schedules and transfers is also a factor.
Without regard to individualism or hedonism, nothing is going to make mass transit cost effective if the population and the population density will not support it. But at my age, I would like a self driving car!
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Theo520
Guest
I’m guessing this thread is related to Obama’s $10/barrel oil tax, since the money is to fund big initiatives like high speed rail.
Somehow we need to do these projects with increased efficacy and accountability. Seattle is doing it’s best to emulate ‘The Big Dig’ and CA High Speed Rail is failing to deliver on it’s promises as well. Throwing Fed $ at it doesn’t fix the problems.
Somehow we need to do these projects with increased efficacy and accountability. Seattle is doing it’s best to emulate ‘The Big Dig’ and CA High Speed Rail is failing to deliver on it’s promises as well. Throwing Fed $ at it doesn’t fix the problems.
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Sunbreak
Guest
I don’t like to take mass transit because it’s not convenient and is time consuming. For example, to drive 12 miles to where I went to church, it took me 20 mins to 1/2 hour. By bus I would have to wait out in the cold and rain (no shelter), get on the bus, get off and wait for another one (again in the cold and rain) then get off again and wait some more in the cold and rain to take a third bus. All in all it would take about an hour and a half minimum to take the bus. By car I could also stop on the way back to get groceries (a slight deviation in route) and gas and do other errands. So going by bus is very inconvenient and time consuming.
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Padres1969
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Actually if the NIMBYs and other obstructionists would stop suing California High Speed Rail it would be doing just fine.
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TeilhardRocks
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Just because individuals live in the inner city in a poor neighborhood doesn’t necessarily mean that they are “low skill.” Growing up my family was considered one of the more wealthy families and just barely clung to middle class. In addition to my parents, there where plenty of people in the neighborhood that had skills: heating cooling, plumbing, accounting, nursing, teachers, machinists, etc. but there were limited jobs in the Detroit and it could be very difficult getting and keeping jobs in the suburbs.
You might be able to make the busses work but it takes a big chunk out of your time and even planning on the busses running late you can still end up late to work. When you are late to work you not only face losing your job but you also lose out on promotions. The lack of buss service also limits earning opportunities because sometimes there is no way to get to an early shift or home from a late shift. sometimes staying at work another 10 minutes means that you will miss one of your connections and add an hour to your commute home. Which means potentially paying babysitters or just missing out on family time.
The lack of transportation also contributes to the area being “low skill.” When it is near impossible to work out transportation to get to community colleges, training schools, apprenticeships it limits the number of people who can gain the skills.
As a side note having a car isn’t always the answer either. Cars are expensive especially when you are just starting out. The cost of the required car insurance is astronomical and you end up having to keep replacing different bits of your car to keep it going. If you buy a “better” used car and have to go through credit acceptance for the loan you are often paying higher interest than most credit cards.
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Usige
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What I meant was that mass transit, in of itself, does not reduce poverty. The transit would have to be useful to gain other opportunities.
My reference to little skill was really meant to reflect that mass transit will not make someone that dropped out of high school suddenly be an electrician, accountant or engineer. Even the ability to get to a trade school or community college is not going to solve the problem if the people don’t take the opportunity. Yes, mass transit might help some, but expending $6.5 billion (the estimated cost for Denver to put in light rail) is not going to lift tens of thousands out of poverty.
In some of the cases you mention mass transit isn’t going to help at all. If you live in a city that has no jobs, mass transit will not automatically revitalize the economy. Being able to move people from a poor neighborhood to closed factories or an inner city that is no longer economically viable isn’t going to fix anything. If businesses find access to mass transit as beneficial it can be a way to rejuvenate a city, but transit by itself doesn’t make an area desirable to build a business.
The above actually points out one of the potential problems with rail and subways. You assume long term transit from one area to another. If populations or economic activity shifts too far from those lines, you can have a situation where there is massive investment that links the people to places with no jobs or businesses without access to customers or workers.
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Usige
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That is the major reason I’ve never used it extensively. When I lived in SW Denver and worked in the SE part of town it would take me 25 - 40 minutes to drive to work depending on traffic. If I used buses and light rail it would take about 90 minutes. That includes walking 10 minutes to the bus stop and another 15 minutes from the stop to work. That assumes I didn’t miss a bus or connection.
The problem in Denver is everything flows towards down town Denver. If you need to go from east to west you normally have to go half way into Denver and come back out because it’s a hub and spoke with few cross town connections. Where I live now you would have to drive 15 - 20 minutes just to catch a bus. Since the nearest grocery store is 5+ miles away I need a car anyway (plus I would get nasty looks with groceries for a family of 9 on a bus
)I looked once and the cost of parking and a monthly transit pass was more than my insurance and gas each month to drive the whole way in. So the choice was easy for me. I could spend 2-3x more time away from my family on buses and trains or for the same cost drive my own vehicle,
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exnihilo
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I think everyone the world over would mostly prefer to have private individual transportation. Does anyone actually prefer fixed departure and arrival times, lack of privacy, transfers, or being squished by strangers? There is one positive aspect to mass transit and that is that you don’t have to do the actual work of driving. This would be a benefit to those who can’t do the work or who would like to spend their time doing something else. But even then most would prefer a private driver rather mass transit.
I think the reason you have the difference in mass transit usage in the US is simply economics. The US is more suburban and wealthier. The suburban nature makes mass transit less efficient. The individual wealth makes mass transit less of a necessity. Also the government has encouraged suburbanization and automobiles by its policies and subsidies.
Interestingly I live in a medium sized southern town. There is a bus service that is only used by the poorest citizens. But about a hundred years ago there was a streetcar system. The tracks were torn up or paved over once the automobile took off and people started moving further out.
I think the reason you have the difference in mass transit usage in the US is simply economics. The US is more suburban and wealthier. The suburban nature makes mass transit less efficient. The individual wealth makes mass transit less of a necessity. Also the government has encouraged suburbanization and automobiles by its policies and subsidies.
Interestingly I live in a medium sized southern town. There is a bus service that is only used by the poorest citizens. But about a hundred years ago there was a streetcar system. The tracks were torn up or paved over once the automobile took off and people started moving further out.
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Theo520
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I like what I’ve seen in other countries but I expect regulations are a huge obstacle to improved transit in the US.
Thailand allows motorcycle taxis and tuk tuks, great for quickly moving around a city. Uber is the closest thing we have, and big transpo is fighting it.
Instead of having only huge articulated buses that are mostly empty, block traffic, and stop too frequently, other countries use fast and agile mini buses to feed people into the main arteries. Only main arteries should run the big people mover buses.
The system strangles entrepreneurs that try fill gaps in our transpo system. See below article for an example
Chinatown Bus Pioneer Fung Wah Strangled by Federal Bureaucracy
Thailand allows motorcycle taxis and tuk tuks, great for quickly moving around a city. Uber is the closest thing we have, and big transpo is fighting it.
Instead of having only huge articulated buses that are mostly empty, block traffic, and stop too frequently, other countries use fast and agile mini buses to feed people into the main arteries. Only main arteries should run the big people mover buses.
The system strangles entrepreneurs that try fill gaps in our transpo system. See below article for an example
Chinatown Bus Pioneer Fung Wah Strangled by Federal Bureaucracy
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1ke
Guest
The high density population cities have mass transit.
Why does the US overall appear to lack public transit compared to Europe? Because it is so much larger than Europe. Go onto the Amtrack train website and put in some travel dates between Chicago and Los Angeles, it takes over 48 hours to travel and costs hundreds of dollars. Inter city train travel is crazy in the U.S., it makes no sense unless you are on the Eastern seaboard.
A drive through Kansas will show you why it isn’t desirable or feasible in lower density areas. Most cities have buses, at a minimum, but small towns and rural areas do not.
We live on 400 acres in a rural part of our state, what bus route would make sense out here?
Did you have a particular place in the U.S. in mind? You really cannot generalize about the U.S. New York, DC, Boston, Chicago, and other larger cities have rapid transit that millions use every day.
I would not ascribe such motives as they show a lack of understanding of the geography of the U.S. more than anything.I’m guessing it has something to do with rampant individualism and preferring to travel alone
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mikekle
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The US does need a nationwide high speed rail passenger service imo, it seems to work great in other countries, but for some reason, they dont like the idea of trains going 150-200 mph over long distances? Seems like it would work great here to me, but maybe they think it would draw too much business away from air travel?
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GEddie
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I would imagine that the authorities would love to take some pressure off the air transport system. The more folks stay on the ground, the fewer headaches with security, needs for airport refurbishment, ATC, etc.
The problem is that to go “150-200 mph”, you need a continent’s worth of new track. And you have to finance and lay at least a major part of the track before a single wheel turns.
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Inisfallen
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It could help. Here in New York City, we see the poor being pushed further and further out from the center of the city every day, as housing costs rise far, far faster than people’s incomes.
Eventually the poorer residents of this city end up living so far from where the jobs are (like in Far Rockaway, for example), or in areas that are poorly served by public transportation, that it becomes next to impossible to commute to work every day and still see one’s family.
Better mass transit would be good for all of us, but especially for the poor.
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Theo520
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It should also lead to higher salaries in the city.
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Ridgerunner
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Rail is still slow compared to flying. Really slow.
Trains back in the day of heavy rail use didn’t go 150 miles/hour, but they were still pretty fast. It was common for passenger trains to go 70 mph. But I recall reading an ad for a luxury, straight-through train from Chicago to San Francisco. You got on the train on Friday evening and “presto” you arrived in S.F. on Sunday. So cut that in half and it’s still slow.
I agree that urban sprawl makes mass transit impractical. It wasn’t just a matter of subsidies. I have a photograph of men digging the utility lines along my grandparents’ house. There was an army of them with picks and shovels. Water lines go deep and sewer lines go even deeper. Now, you take a backhoe and dig out in a morning what it would have taken those guys days to dig.
And too, the water towers are massively larger and higher, and the pressure is much greater. Developers can reach a lot farther out, more cheaply, than they could 100 years ago. If you look at old sections of almost any town, and you see that the houses are very close together. That’s largely because putting in utilities was so daunting.
People obviously prefer larger lots if they can get them. Stores are much larger and farther apart. I think it would be extremely difficult to establish effective mass transit in a lot of places. My brother lives in the Kansas side of Kansas City, and that widening of spaces has taken on proportions that surprised even me. Commercial establishments are on gigantic, heavily landscaped “lots” that are bigger than city blocks; acres and acres. Stores are in a different section altogether, with lots of space. The residential areas are miles from places where people work. The design, I guess, is to give a “wide open spaces” look to it; a more “natural” kind of environment, and they sure achieved it. If cars become too expensive to operate, there are going to be a lot of people on motorbikes because you couldn’t possibly get around in that place without individual transportation.
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Sarcelle
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Motorbikes in the winter? No thank you.
Your description of Kansas City seems to be that of a city designed around the automobile.
I guess I got spoiled living in places like Japan. I lived in the countryside outside of Tokyo but took the bullet train when I wanted to have my city fix. No need for a car but still free to go wherever I want.
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GEddie
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That works in a relatively small, overcrowded country. Not so much in NA.
The US once led the world in the quality of rail travel (just like until the 2000s, it led the world in quality of air travel). Not any more. The cities are just too far apart, and the land too uncrowded, to amortize the cost of thousands of miles of high-speed track.
Which is a shame, because there is a distance range (between 300 and 1000 miles) where rail at 150 mph could easily compete with air. The slower speed would be countered by central depot locations and less burdensome security levels.
But rail as it exists now (slower than driving, more expensive than air) just is never going to cut it.
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JimG
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A long time ago, I took a bus from Lawrence, Kansas to Kansas City Kansas, a distance of 30 miles. The trip took an hour and a half.
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