6 ms·

> Most places in the US at least are not very livable without a car. Let me rephrase that for you: In most place in the US public transport is woefully under-f

> Most places in the US at least are not very livable without a car. Let me rephrase that for you: In most place in the US public transport is woefully under-funded, under-utilized, and overly stigmatized (as a thing only poor 'others' would use). That is changing, slowly, as places that basically gave up on public transport are discovering that less and less people in their cities want to own a car.

RightMillennial 9y ago
A better phrasing would be that in most places in the U.S. public transport simply does not exist. Not everyone lives in the heart of the city where it may be an option.
Lionsion 9y ago
US cities also tend to be more spread out, which also reduces the appeal of public transit. Contrast this to a Chinese city of the same size, which due to the fact that literally everyone lives in small apartments, is much more compact and easier to serve via public transport.
- CalRobert 9y ago
  "US cities also tend to be more spread out, which also reduces the appeal of public transit." Also could be US cities have no transit, requiring space-intensive auto infrastructure, so they're more spread out.
  - smallnamespace 9y ago
    History is path-dependent. At some point in our nation's history (namely right after WW2), it was decided that cars, suburbia, and the Interstate highway system was the way forward, and not dense, closely packed cities + public transport + more railways. Note that we might not think about this now, but cities before WW2 were often disease-ridden, filthy places. The antibiotic revolution did not really come into full swing until after the war. There were reasons people made those choices back then, and some of them we have forgotten since the problems they faced were mitigated. We're now revisiting whether that choice has outlived its usefulness, but if something took 50 years to build, you can bet replacing it will take just as long. China never had the luxury of making that choice during its development; it was either public transit or nothing.
    - CalRobert 9y ago
      We agree on all those points. All I was saying is that people say "cities are spread out so transit won't work" when often the very _reason_ cities are spread out is that they lacked transit, so huge amounts of land were given over to auto infrastructure. It's worth considering that it's self-reinforcing and the causality isn't one-way. Look at a big box store, for instance - most of the land is parking, not the store itself. A freeway interchange can take as much land as en entire neighborhood. Meanwhile you can have tens of thousands of people in a city centre all within walking distance of one another. But you can't do that if you pave over most of the land. Also, it's illegal in most of the US to build infrastructure that isn't suited to an auto-first lifestyle, mostly through parking minimums but also Level-of-service considerations that force large, wide streets. In California, SB827 just died a sad death. It would have allowed buildings up to 5 stories near high-frequency transit stops. Now those people who would have lived in those buildings will have to live farther from transit, so they'll drive. They'll need parking too, so we'll need to use land that would have gone to homes/businesses/etc for their parking. Also gas stations, more road capacity, etc. The homes they end up living in will be harder to reasonably serve with transit, because of course they're farther apart. Yet old neighborhoods near cities built _before_ those rules are often very expensive, suggesting that more people would like to live in them than are able to. The first thing that comes to mind is the nicer areas of Berkeley, or South Park, San Diego, for instance. It's funny you note railways though because they were largely the original enablers of sprawl (though I have no problem with railway-served suburbs! the problem is largely that we got rid of the rail service).
      - Lionsion 9y ago
        > All I was saying is that people say "cities are spread out so transit won't work" when often the very _reason_ cities are spread out is that they lacked transit, so huge amounts of land were given over to auto infrastructure. It's worth considering that it's self-reinforcing and the causality isn't one-way. IIRC, that's ahistorical and getting the causation backwards. American cities used to be denser with more public transit (e.g. trollies) before cars became common. The reason cities are spread out is cars enabled the residents to spread out, since that's what they wanted to do. That established a new pattern of development that makes density more difficult.
  - Lionsion 9y ago
    No, American cities are more spread out mainly because many Americans don't want to live in small apartments, and cars enabled that. Public transit is much less convenient and desirable when the 1) distance between adjacent stops is too large, 2) there are too many stops between different destinations, and/or 3) the stops at a particular location are too infrequent. I think all of those undesirable factors increase as density decreases. Using a personal car effectively reduces #1 to zero, #2 to zero, and increases #3 to infinity.
    - CalRobert 9y ago
      We completely agree. Cars did enable that. They also caused people (especially wealthy people) to push for the very things that cause lower density, because driving through high density areas is a pain. I mean, it's not even that complicated. I used to go to my planning board meetings every month. I won't deny an agenda; I rode my Brompton to them. At those meetings people said (paraphrased but close) "We need to limit density because of traffic". Unsurprisingly those neighborhoods have poor transit service. A shame, because in the example I think of there was once a rail line right through the neighborhood; it's what caused the neighborhood to get built in the first place. If only _I_ decide to start taking a helicopter to work it's fantastic. If it starts to become popular to do so it will be a hassle, so people might push for rules about minimum helipad counts for buildings and building density because having thousands of people commuting by helicopter causes loads of congestion. As a result of both of those things buildings will need to be even farther apart. In fact, it might push them so far apart that it's impractical to get between them via foot, transit, or maybe even car. As a result, everyone uses a helicopter to get anywhere now, except for the poor chumps who can't afford one and are stuck driving.
pdonis 9y ago
> In most place in the US public transport is woefully under-funded, under-utilized, and overly stigmatized You misspelled "in most places in the US public transport cannot meet people's needs". Yes, it can in inner cities, but most of the US is not inner cities.
- chillwaves 9y ago
  > According to new numbers just released from the U.S. Census Bureau, 80.7 percent of the U.S. population lived in urban areas as of the 2010 Census https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/03/us-urban-population-what-does-urban-really-mean/1589/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/03/us-urban-population-w... I assume that number has only gone up since 2010.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    The Census Bureau’s “urban” is “not rural.” Most people live in metro areas, but in suburban and exurban parts of those metro areas without the density to make public transit good enough to rely on.
  - pdonis 9y ago
    > 80.7 percent of the U.S. population lived in urban areas as of the 2010 Census "Urban areas" includes where I live, which is not dense enough for public transportation to work well. Reading the article you cited, it looks like about half of the population labeled "urban" by the Census Bureau lives in areas that are like mine (or even less dense).
    - chillwaves 9y ago
      > which is not dense enough for public transportation to work well You lose me here. I live in a major metro area and public transportation works fine, even out into the suburbs where it is not as dense, but the public transit spokes out to the major hubs and people drive to those transit stations and park for the day. Public transportation works for the vast majority of the country.
- 9y ago

RightMillennial 9y ago

A better phrasing would be that in most places in the U.S. public transport simply does not exist. Not everyone lives in the heart of the city where it may be an option.

Lionsion 9y ago

US cities also tend to be more spread out, which also reduces the appeal of public transit. Contrast this to a Chinese city of the same size, which due to the fact that literally everyone lives in small apartments, is much more compact and easier to serve via public transport.

CalRobert 9y ago
"US cities also tend to be more spread out, which also reduces the appeal of public transit." Also could be US cities have no transit, requiring space-intensive auto infrastructure, so they're more spread out.
- smallnamespace 9y ago
  History is path-dependent. At some point in our nation's history (namely right after WW2), it was decided that cars, suburbia, and the Interstate highway system was the way forward, and not dense, closely packed cities + public transport + more railways. Note that we might not think about this now, but cities before WW2 were often disease-ridden, filthy places. The antibiotic revolution did not really come into full swing until after the war. There were reasons people made those choices back then, and some of them we have forgotten since the problems they faced were mitigated. We're now revisiting whether that choice has outlived its usefulness, but if something took 50 years to build, you can bet replacing it will take just as long. China never had the luxury of making that choice during its development; it was either public transit or nothing.
  - CalRobert 9y ago
    We agree on all those points. All I was saying is that people say "cities are spread out so transit won't work" when often the very _reason_ cities are spread out is that they lacked transit, so huge amounts of land were given over to auto infrastructure. It's worth considering that it's self-reinforcing and the causality isn't one-way. Look at a big box store, for instance - most of the land is parking, not the store itself. A freeway interchange can take as much land as en entire neighborhood. Meanwhile you can have tens of thousands of people in a city centre all within walking distance of one another. But you can't do that if you pave over most of the land. Also, it's illegal in most of the US to build infrastructure that isn't suited to an auto-first lifestyle, mostly through parking minimums but also Level-of-service considerations that force large, wide streets. In California, SB827 just died a sad death. It would have allowed buildings up to 5 stories near high-frequency transit stops. Now those people who would have lived in those buildings will have to live farther from transit, so they'll drive. They'll need parking too, so we'll need to use land that would have gone to homes/businesses/etc for their parking. Also gas stations, more road capacity, etc. The homes they end up living in will be harder to reasonably serve with transit, because of course they're farther apart. Yet old neighborhoods near cities built _before_ those rules are often very expensive, suggesting that more people would like to live in them than are able to. The first thing that comes to mind is the nicer areas of Berkeley, or South Park, San Diego, for instance. It's funny you note railways though because they were largely the original enablers of sprawl (though I have no problem with railway-served suburbs! the problem is largely that we got rid of the rail service).
    - Lionsion 9y ago
      > All I was saying is that people say "cities are spread out so transit won't work" when often the very _reason_ cities are spread out is that they lacked transit, so huge amounts of land were given over to auto infrastructure. It's worth considering that it's self-reinforcing and the causality isn't one-way. IIRC, that's ahistorical and getting the causation backwards. American cities used to be denser with more public transit (e.g. trollies) before cars became common. The reason cities are spread out is cars enabled the residents to spread out, since that's what they wanted to do. That established a new pattern of development that makes density more difficult.
- Lionsion 9y ago
  No, American cities are more spread out mainly because many Americans don't want to live in small apartments, and cars enabled that. Public transit is much less convenient and desirable when the 1) distance between adjacent stops is too large, 2) there are too many stops between different destinations, and/or 3) the stops at a particular location are too infrequent. I think all of those undesirable factors increase as density decreases. Using a personal car effectively reduces #1 to zero, #2 to zero, and increases #3 to infinity.
  - CalRobert 9y ago
    We completely agree. Cars did enable that. They also caused people (especially wealthy people) to push for the very things that cause lower density, because driving through high density areas is a pain. I mean, it's not even that complicated. I used to go to my planning board meetings every month. I won't deny an agenda; I rode my Brompton to them. At those meetings people said (paraphrased but close) "We need to limit density because of traffic". Unsurprisingly those neighborhoods have poor transit service. A shame, because in the example I think of there was once a rail line right through the neighborhood; it's what caused the neighborhood to get built in the first place. If only _I_ decide to start taking a helicopter to work it's fantastic. If it starts to become popular to do so it will be a hassle, so people might push for rules about minimum helipad counts for buildings and building density because having thousands of people commuting by helicopter causes loads of congestion. As a result of both of those things buildings will need to be even farther apart. In fact, it might push them so far apart that it's impractical to get between them via foot, transit, or maybe even car. As a result, everyone uses a helicopter to get anywhere now, except for the poor chumps who can't afford one and are stuck driving.

pdonis 9y ago

> In most place in the US public transport is woefully under-funded, under-utilized, and overly stigmatized You misspelled "in most places in the US public transport cannot meet people's needs". Yes, it can in inner cities, but most of the US is not inner cities.

chillwaves 9y ago
> According to new numbers just released from the U.S. Census Bureau, 80.7 percent of the U.S. population lived in urban areas as of the 2010 Census https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/03/us-urban-population-what-does-urban-really-mean/1589/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/03/us-urban-population-w... I assume that number has only gone up since 2010.
- closeparen 9y ago
  The Census Bureau’s “urban” is “not rural.” Most people live in metro areas, but in suburban and exurban parts of those metro areas without the density to make public transit good enough to rely on.
- pdonis 9y ago
  > 80.7 percent of the U.S. population lived in urban areas as of the 2010 Census "Urban areas" includes where I live, which is not dense enough for public transportation to work well. Reading the article you cited, it looks like about half of the population labeled "urban" by the Census Bureau lives in areas that are like mine (or even less dense).
  - chillwaves 9y ago
    > which is not dense enough for public transportation to work well You lose me here. I live in a major metro area and public transportation works fine, even out into the suburbs where it is not as dense, but the public transit spokes out to the major hubs and people drive to those transit stations and park for the day. Public transportation works for the vast majority of the country.
9y ago