Educate me on Public Transportation!

What's to educate you on?

1. Do you own a car?
2. Is it in good working order?

If the answer to those 2 questions is yes then you know all you need to know about public transportation.

 

The DC metro works for some. It works best when you have high density housing and high density work places. DC has some high density housing areas, but the metro goes into a lot of place that are not. I have seen them starting to build more high density housing near some of the metros. It may take time to build out the housing and workplaces, but in the end, it is probably better than continuing the sprawl and building 16 lane wide highways. The metro also has long enough hours so that you don't have to worry about working late. When you start talking commuter trains, those get harder to deal with when you might be working overtime.

Don't forget most driving is "subsidized" as well in the form of building and maintaining roads for you to drive on, although you could argue gasoline taxes pay for that.

 

It should be free because it is the commie way. Also if you don't work you need someone else to foot the bill.

In some areas it makes sense in MANY instances it is a boondoggle. I remember Detriot having the rail that went no where downtown. However if you wanted to take a bus from the city to the burbs the two systems did not connect. Typical of many systems I have seen. In contrast I have ridden the metro in DC a bunch and it met a lot of my needs while in town. Had to bring a car twice so I could go to surrounding areas for other meetings also though.

 

Yes, some would argue.

High density in itself can make tranportation obsolete. However, it does not come without its risk/consequence. Urban sprawl was, in part, a response to high density and taxation associate with maintenance of such system. Taxation remains a main reason behind relocation.

The main issue that challenge us, beside geospatial design of cities is that a good number of folks generally do not work/live in the same city/town/place. This is what really ads to congestion.

I still believe feeder lines to suburbia is a good thing. But no guarantee.

 

Generally agree but I doubt that today's lanscape of Chicago (Greater Chicago) is what it was back in the 1950's. Any system would be challenged to keep up with urban sprawl and population growth.

I visit Kankakee on business. The last time that I visited, I had to take a flight out of Chicago. I was able to secure a rride there but the return trip was via taxi, very costly. If I did not have two suit cases, I would have probably taken the line that extends South towards Kankakee. I know if does not make quite there but close enough. Next time.

 

Public transit works well in pedestrian centric cities. Most US cities have experienced the majority of their growth in the automobile era. European cities were largely established way the hell back when. New York is confined by water so the density is very high. Atlanta has sprawled to a metro area of over 100 miles from one edge to the other

Large concentration of people in an area where cars are a PITA = yay public trans. Public Trans in an area where people have to commute to the nearest station = why bother.

 

Public transportation works for most but not for everyone.

 

Public transit sucks in Austin for this very reason.

 

New York (Manhattan to be exact) is the exception, not the rule. Nearly every other major city in the US is designed around the automobile while NYC was big before cars even existed. You'll never be able to design a public transit system that works well enough for mass use in a city that was designed for a car. It's not dense enough, everything is so spread out.

One thing that "might" work, would be mini public transits, centered around small areas of business/jobs. You could drive to a central location, then take the bus/tram around the downtown, then go back to your car and drive somewhere else at the end of the day. That way you're not fighting traffic and parking all day.

 

Public transportation doesn't suck in Philadelphia or Montreal either...

 

In 2010 over 80% of the US population lived in areas defined as urban vs rural, so most, in terms of total population, my be accurate in terms of access. "Works" is not universal and there are huge regions where it makes no sense at all.

I have no experience with anything other than government or authority based transit. I would hate to be at the mercy of either for travel.

 

Could not agree more.

A simple "bullseye" design** with a train system would work really well for most cities, but it's not cheap to plan that after a city has been developed.

what I mean by bullseye design is trains running in concentric circles with North and Southbound trains dissecting the city into quadrants. the track map ends up looking like this:



Retrofitting public transportation is a huge headache, and hampers its efficiency tremendously.

 

How so?

 

Not necessarily true. I own a car that's in good working order, but I also live next to a busway that gets me downtown more quickly and cheaply (when parking is factored in) than driving. Sometimes I choose that option.

 

But that would put me somewhere crowded and possibly around a large group of people that would just irritate the shit out of me. So I just won't go there. So far in life there is nothing in the heart of Atlanta that I feel I am missing out on.

 

No complaints from here in The Netherlands....I can even take my bike so I can have wheels once I reach my stop

 

I ran for city council here in Colorado Springs and our buses cruise around empty most of the time. There was a big cry for improved public transportation and it commonly came up in debates. I was the one candidate who shied away from this movement. It all comes down to one key metric in my mind. Density.

Higher density=more PT use
lower density=less PT use

 

I don't hear many complaint in the Mall of the Americas either.

 

The design basis was security/safety, thus the wagon wheel: center of town for government and the rich. The poorer, the further out of the center. All farm land was outside the circle/wheel of protection.

The US was primarily build along an axis/boulevard. Land/Farm ownership was more distributed so folks bought, farmed, and live in the same place.

Just before I left Cuba, the local authorities were moving individuals that were farming (government land) but lived in houses in the same land to mid to high rise buiding and then shipping them to the farm lands daily with return trip. Public tranportation worked well, in this case.

 

If you must have public transportation, busses make more sense. Little infrastructure and infinitely adjustable as to schedules, routes and equipment. No property seized, no tunnels to build, and much cheaper to run.
Trains make sense in limited areas, such as NYC, but even there they are an incredible waste of money. The people that love them would change their mind if they had to pay the actual cost of the ride. Who doesn't love free shit that makes thei life easier?