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Public transport in the US is, as a rule, wildly inferior to public transport in the rest of the OECD. But still, all things are relative, and the quality of pu
by nkoren 8y ago
Public transport in the US is, as a rule, wildly inferior to public transport in the rest of the OECD. But still, all things are relative, and the quality of public transport in the US is more or less on a gradient, with bigger cities generally better than smaller ones.
Another factor is that car ownership is much higher in the US (with the sole exception of NYC), so poor public transport impacts a smaller population. (In car-dependent societies, however, poor infrastructure and traffic congestion can have a similar impact -- limiting the effective "size" of the city -- so it's not like relying on cars lets one escape from this problem). Whereas in the UK, the low quality of public transport (outside of London) is not compensated for by comparably high levels of car ownership.
My company is working on urban-accessibility metrics that should make it much easier to have data-driven discussions about the correlation between transport networks and economics. Can't wait to show that off in a few months.
- kingosticks 8y agoWhat are we counting as high levels of car ownership? I always blindly assumed it was pretty high throughout the UK, for exactly the reason you give. I've no data, look forward to reading yours - thanks!
- nkoren 8y ago76% of UK households have a vehicle, as opposed to 91% of US households. More than vehicle-ownership, however, significantly higher petrol prices in the UK inhibit usage by a fair amount (2018 averages: $2.50/gal in the US, $7.00/gal in the UK). Finally, most US cities have much better-developed intra-urban motorway networks, rendering the car relatively more effective for commuting. UK urban roads saturate at lower volumes, on average. So the net result is that the while the UK population has moderately lower rates of actual car ownership -- actual spatial accessibility via the car, in generalised-cost terms (travel time * value-of-time + monetary cost), is substantially lower than in the US.