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>A century ago, captains of industry and their allies in government >launched a social experiment in urban America: >the abandonment of mass transit in favor

by dexen 8y ago

>A century ago, captains of industry and their allies in government >launched a social experiment in urban America: >the abandonment of mass transit in favor of a new personal technology, the private automobile. Way to start with a false premise. Before the automobile took over, overwhelming majority of traffic - both personal and commercial - was either by foot, on horseback, or on a horse drawn carriage. There's a reason "horseless carriage" is how the early cars were used, perceived, and legislated. "Mass transit" was a limited thing mostly between cities - train and horse carriages, and in very limited numbers as inner city trams and metro. Going both by historical accounts, and by period photos, a tram or metro were not the default commute mode for most of workers. If anything, the mass transit - tram and bus - exploded in range and popularity thanks to the availability of cheap technologies popularized by the car.

valuearb 8y ago
And if the car had never been invented, we’d bemoan the “health disaster” that is mass transit and how many people and kids it kills.
- pjc50 8y ago
  Which sort of mass transit and how many people does it kill, and how many of those are suicides?
  - C1sc0cat 8y ago
    Horses and horse drawn transport generated an huge amount of horse poo and was a major health risk also horse riding is dangerous.
    - Steltek 8y ago
      The comment was talking about the "danger" of mass transit, not horses.
      - C1sc0cat 8y ago
        I think it was mass transit prior to cars they where talking about.
        pjc50 8y ago
        There was a good period of time where trains, trams, and underground trains (from 1863!) were available as "mass transit", while cars were either not invented or rare luxuries. I don't think it makes sense to include horses in that.
  - valuearb 8y ago
    How many pedestrian/car deaths are suicides? I understand that overall mass transit is safer, but it still kills people. Without cars you'd have far more people biking, walking, etc and there are deaths associated with that. If we switched to mass transit entirely and it saved 20,000 lives per year, the US death rate would fall from 2.74 million deaths per year to 2.72 million deaths per year. And our cities would become mega-metropolises, and crime rates would likely increase (killing a few more of the people we saved). I'm sure in that world there would be enough other bad side affects that a lawyer could write a similar document about the ills of mass transit affecting health, race relations, personal safety, etc. And we'd give up a huge amount of persona freedom. Through out most of known human history anyone who wasn't rich was unable to travel more than a few miles from their birth place, without joining an army that is. The car opened up the world for everyone to travel anywhere in this country.
pjc50 8y ago
Could you be clearer about what kind of time frame and locality you're talking about here? > tram and bus - exploded in range and popularity thanks to the availability of cheap technologies popularized by the car. A lot of people would argue the opposite, see e.g. the alleged GM "streetcar conspiracy". That was in the postwar timeframe when personal car ownership and transitless suburbs took off.
- dexen 8y ago
  >Could you be clearer about what kind of time frame and locality you're talking about here? I'm thinking of the "A century ago" period, in concert with what the article starts off with. My perspective is primarily european cities of 200'000+ [1] inhabitants during the early XX century, as that's what I'm most familiar with. Going by the two cities I spent my formative years in, the local mass transportation networks - tram and bus - were built out to great effect as part of, and thanks to, the general city rebuild spurred by the improving car availability and use in early (pre-war) XX century. >GM's "streetcar conspiracy" Salient point, however that happened decades after both the automobile traffic, and the modern mass transport were built out, established, and went through decades of use. [1] back then that was a sizeable city
agumonkey 8y ago
self-horsing vehicles are now replaced by autoautomobiles
usrusr 8y ago
Between horse and automobile, the safety bicycle was the dominant mode of urban transport, by a huge margin.

by dexen 8y ago

valuearb 8y ago

And if the car had never been invented, we’d bemoan the “health disaster” that is mass transit and how many people and kids it kills.

pjc50 8y ago
Which sort of mass transit and how many people does it kill, and how many of those are suicides?
- C1sc0cat 8y ago
  Horses and horse drawn transport generated an huge amount of horse poo and was a major health risk also horse riding is dangerous.
  - Steltek 8y ago
    The comment was talking about the "danger" of mass transit, not horses.
    - C1sc0cat 8y ago
      I think it was mass transit prior to cars they where talking about.
      - pjc50 8y ago
        There was a good period of time where trains, trams, and underground trains (from 1863!) were available as "mass transit", while cars were either not invented or rare luxuries. I don't think it makes sense to include horses in that.
- valuearb 8y ago
  How many pedestrian/car deaths are suicides? I understand that overall mass transit is safer, but it still kills people. Without cars you'd have far more people biking, walking, etc and there are deaths associated with that. If we switched to mass transit entirely and it saved 20,000 lives per year, the US death rate would fall from 2.74 million deaths per year to 2.72 million deaths per year. And our cities would become mega-metropolises, and crime rates would likely increase (killing a few more of the people we saved). I'm sure in that world there would be enough other bad side affects that a lawyer could write a similar document about the ills of mass transit affecting health, race relations, personal safety, etc. And we'd give up a huge amount of persona freedom. Through out most of known human history anyone who wasn't rich was unable to travel more than a few miles from their birth place, without joining an army that is. The car opened up the world for everyone to travel anywhere in this country.

pjc50 8y ago

Could you be clearer about what kind of time frame and locality you're talking about here? > tram and bus - exploded in range and popularity thanks to the availability of cheap technologies popularized by the car. A lot of people would argue the opposite, see e.g. the alleged GM "streetcar conspiracy". That was in the postwar timeframe when personal car ownership and transitless suburbs took off.

dexen 8y ago
>Could you be clearer about what kind of time frame and locality you're talking about here? I'm thinking of the "A century ago" period, in concert with what the article starts off with. My perspective is primarily european cities of 200'000+ [1] inhabitants during the early XX century, as that's what I'm most familiar with. Going by the two cities I spent my formative years in, the local mass transportation networks - tram and bus - were built out to great effect as part of, and thanks to, the general city rebuild spurred by the improving car availability and use in early (pre-war) XX century. >GM's "streetcar conspiracy" Salient point, however that happened decades after both the automobile traffic, and the modern mass transport were built out, established, and went through decades of use. [1] back then that was a sizeable city

agumonkey 8y ago

self-horsing vehicles are now replaced by autoautomobiles

usrusr 8y ago

Between horse and automobile, the safety bicycle was the dominant mode of urban transport, by a huge margin.