4 ms·

Why would you want a car there when you could, from anywhere, hop on a train or bus and get where you're going without having to worry about parking in the city

Why would you want a car there when you could, from anywhere, hop on a train or bus and get where you're going without having to worry about parking in the city?

davidw 17y ago
I don't know Houston very well but a cursory look at Google Maps indicates that it's extremely spread out, which would make what you describe difficult.
sokoloff 17y ago
Having your own car is extremely convenient. It can carry all your stuff and be reasonably secure against theft. If you're worried it's going to rain, toss an umbrella in the trunk. If it turns out not to rain, you didn't have to carry an umbrella all damn day, etc. In most Texas cities, there's ample easy and free/cheap parking. Parking in NYC or DC is a nightmare. Those two cities also have very high densities and reasonably good public transit systems. It seems there's a naturally inverse relationship between parking convenience and public transit convenience. I believe that's driven from environmental factors (cutting it back to only one factor, it's probably the cost of land as #1 driver). If your public transit system has to cover all of Dallas/Fort Worth at the same transit density/convenience as Manhattan is covered, you're going to spend an ENORMOUS amount of money on that infrastructure and that's not likely to be paid back by the moderate/low level of usage that would occur. (Because parking would still be plentiful and convenient in those cities...)
- elblanco 17y ago
  Plus to pay for a system like New York's or D.C.'s in Dallas, the fare would be astronomical, such that people simply wouldn't ride it.
  - maukdaddy 17y ago
    Most systems in the country have flat-fare daily, weekly, monthly passes. $5.75 for a daily pass here in Chicago. That is an AMAZING value considering that pass allows unlimited rides on trains and buses.
    - elblanco 17y ago
      Which is true. Don't know about Chicago's, but the ones I've seen have restrictions on time of usage, usually after rush-hour, which makes those types of fare systems unusable to the majority of riders. I can't remember if NYC also raises rates during rush hour, but D.C. does as well. I think I stopped taking the D.C. system when a single day's transit and parking started topping $13/day.

Why would you want a car there when you could, from anywhere, hop on a train or bus and get where you're going without having to worry about parking in the city?

davidw 17y ago

I don't know Houston very well but a cursory look at Google Maps indicates that it's extremely spread out, which would make what you describe difficult.

sokoloff 17y ago

Having your own car is extremely convenient. It can carry all your stuff and be reasonably secure against theft. If you're worried it's going to rain, toss an umbrella in the trunk. If it turns out not to rain, you didn't have to carry an umbrella all damn day, etc. In most Texas cities, there's ample easy and free/cheap parking. Parking in NYC or DC is a nightmare. Those two cities also have very high densities and reasonably good public transit systems. It seems there's a naturally inverse relationship between parking convenience and public transit convenience. I believe that's driven from environmental factors (cutting it back to only one factor, it's probably the cost of land as #1 driver). If your public transit system has to cover all of Dallas/Fort Worth at the same transit density/convenience as Manhattan is covered, you're going to spend an ENORMOUS amount of money on that infrastructure and that's not likely to be paid back by the moderate/low level of usage that would occur. (Because parking would still be plentiful and convenient in those cities...)

elblanco 17y ago
Plus to pay for a system like New York's or D.C.'s in Dallas, the fare would be astronomical, such that people simply wouldn't ride it.
- maukdaddy 17y ago
  Most systems in the country have flat-fare daily, weekly, monthly passes. $5.75 for a daily pass here in Chicago. That is an AMAZING value considering that pass allows unlimited rides on trains and buses.
  - elblanco 17y ago
    Which is true. Don't know about Chicago's, but the ones I've seen have restrictions on time of usage, usually after rush-hour, which makes those types of fare systems unusable to the majority of riders. I can't remember if NYC also raises rates during rush hour, but D.C. does as well. I think I stopped taking the D.C. system when a single day's transit and parking started topping $13/day.