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You attract better-off consumers to transit just like any other thing, by making it more attractive than the alternatives. You do this by making it a good exper

You attract better-off consumers to transit just like any other thing, by making it more attractive than the alternatives. You do this by making it a good experience, making it convenient and making it affordable. You accomplish all these things primarily by funding it really well. With that last point in mind, diverting funding to some other parallel but not equal system simply muddles things. It decreases the amount of available funding for public transit and makes it harder to accomplish the main task of making public transit really good.

Kalium 10y ago
In most American towns and cities, public transit lost the competition for better-off consumers decades ago. It isn't a good experience, it isn't convenient, it isn't fast. The only advantage is that it costs less than owning a car... if you consider your time to be worth nothing. The majority of people in middle America whose lives are organized without any regard whatsoever for public transit are not interested in funding it "really well". They're accustomed to zipping across town in their car, directly to their destination. They pay, at most, $300-$400 out-of-pocket a month for a high degree of personal autonomy and a guarantee of never being panhandled or sexually assaulted as they transit to work and back, knowing that no matter how late they are out they can get home in a reasonable amount of time. Those are the people to whom public transit advocates must appeal. These are the affluent consumers that need to be attracted. These are the people to whom, in most of middle America, public transit sounds like hell. Once upon a time I lived in San Antonio, Texas. I figured I could get by without a car. There was a bus system. There was a stop right next to my place. It was reasonable, right? After a month of spending a minimum of three hours a day on the buses for twenty minutes of driving, I gave up and got a car so I could have all those hours of my life back. That's what results look like when things are "really well" funded. The city is too geographically sprawling for any remotely cost-effective public transit system to be competitive. In smaller towns, it's so much worse. It's difficult to conceive of any public transit system that can offer cost-effective and offer competitive service at a population density of 40 per square km. For most of these people, a parallel system can hardly be less useful than the buses they have.

Kalium 10y ago

In most American towns and cities, public transit lost the competition for better-off consumers decades ago. It isn't a good experience, it isn't convenient, it isn't fast. The only advantage is that it costs less than owning a car... if you consider your time to be worth nothing. The majority of people in middle America whose lives are organized without any regard whatsoever for public transit are not interested in funding it "really well". They're accustomed to zipping across town in their car, directly to their destination. They pay, at most, $300-$400 out-of-pocket a month for a high degree of personal autonomy and a guarantee of never being panhandled or sexually assaulted as they transit to work and back, knowing that no matter how late they are out they can get home in a reasonable amount of time. Those are the people to whom public transit advocates must appeal. These are the affluent consumers that need to be attracted. These are the people to whom, in most of middle America, public transit sounds like hell. Once upon a time I lived in San Antonio, Texas. I figured I could get by without a car. There was a bus system. There was a stop right next to my place. It was reasonable, right? After a month of spending a minimum of three hours a day on the buses for twenty minutes of driving, I gave up and got a car so I could have all those hours of my life back. That's what results look like when things are "really well" funded. The city is too geographically sprawling for any remotely cost-effective public transit system to be competitive. In smaller towns, it's so much worse. It's difficult to conceive of any public transit system that can offer cost-effective and offer competitive service at a population density of 40 per square km. For most of these people, a parallel system can hardly be less useful than the buses they have.