7 ms·

Off-Peak Public Transport Usage

61 points by luu 7y ago

kccqzy 7y ago
> This strongly suggests that non-work public transportation usage is much higher in European than in American cities even when the usage level for work trips is comparable. Sounds about right. For work trips, the origin and destination are both predictable. I can carefully choose where to rent in order so that I would live conveniently close to a public transport stop. But for "fun" trips and anything else, there's a lot more spontaneity in the destination, often not served by public transport, so a car is still necessary.
Pfhreak 7y ago
> When there is a deficit, agencies cut there first, leading to frequency-ridership spirals in which lower frequency deters riders, justifying further cuts in service until little is left. I This is one of the things that drives me nuts the most about American attitudes towards public transportation -- that they must make a significant portion of their revenue from fares/ridership. If we think that large scale people moving is important to a healthy city, we should all be funding it, even if we're not all riding it. Everyone benefits when ridership is high -- businesses, other commuters, people who cannot afford cars, etc. Why do we always seem give transportation (or public housing, etc.) a heavy initial investment then immediately start neglecting it but tightening the purse strings. We're just making our initial investments that much less valuable.
- uoaei 7y ago
  You know the answer to that question but it bears repeating: Americans have a kneejerk aversion to any sort of taxes because they think they will never see the benefits. So these agencies are forced to fund themselves and/or look to the private sector for support.
  - xyzzyz 7y ago
    > Americans have a kneejerk aversion to any sort of taxes because they think they will never see the benefits. Close. It’s not that they think they will never see the benefits, but rather they know it. Look, here is a good example of what you and the parent suggest. The ST3 passed in the Seattle ballot, which promises expansion of the public transit network. The project includes light rail to my neighborhood, in about 20 minutes of walking distance from my home. However, the planned date for delivery of the project is 2035. Knowing the realities of public projects in the US, I don’t expect it before 2040s. I’ll be long retired by then. At the same time, the ST3 involved a tax increase, which for me means about $10,000 (today’s dollars, more in inflated ones) I’ll pay in additional tax before the construction is complete. In addition to that, since the farebox recovery is only around 30%, the city subsidies covers 70% of operational costs of public transit, and the subsidies come from my taxes too. To put it in concrete terms: assuming I use public transit only for commuting, annual fare costs would be $2.75248 = $1320, and so the whole operational costs apportioned to me would be $1320/0.3 = $4400, so the subsidy would be around $3000 per rider. Fortunately, only 10% of people in Seattle commute via public transit, so it roughly translates to $300/person/year now, which I’m paying to support public transit that I don’t even use. This number is so low only because the driving majority subsidizes the public transit riding few. Thus, since operational costs grow roughly linearly with the number of riders, if majority of people were using transit for commuting, the cost per resident would have to rise significantly. This would make my public transit costs significantly higher than my driving costs, with greatly reduced convenience. So why would I want to support public transit? The big issue here isn’t that public transit is always a bad idea, it’s just it’s a bad idea in places where government cannot do large projects quickly and cheaply, and cheaply operate them, which in 2020 is the whole US.
    - throwaheyy 7y ago
      You're ragging on public transit because you feel you have to pay for something you don't use. What about my taxes that go to paying for roads I don't drive on? There's no way the $~200 car registration is covering all the costs involved in maintaining an extensive road network. On top of that, while we’re counting up taxes I pay for which I do not receive a direct benefit: on the odd chance I did drive in my own neighborhood, why should I be paying taxes to subsidize all the roads in every other neighborhood. The point I’m making is: you can get as petty as you want in comparing what you pay with what you get, but in the long term, do you really want to live in a society that can’t have nice things because there’s one person who might just benefit slightly more from them than you can? Are Americans already so far down the road of considering public transit beneath them, that the only people who use it must not be able to afford cars, so it's not reducing car usage so it's OK to hate on?
  - mumblemumble 7y ago
    > Americans have a kneejerk aversion to any sort of taxes And how. My hometown is near a state line. There are somewhat lower - about 10¢ per gallon - gasoline taxes on the other side of the border. People will habitually make special trips to a gas station in the next town over - at a cost of half an hour of time (at least) and $2 worth of gasoline - in order to pay $1.50 less in taxes. To another state. That said, I'm not so sure about > because they think they will never see the benefits People don't seem to be quite so opposed to public spending on things like highways and airports. I would guess it's more that America's cherished spirit of individualism means that there's a greater tendency to oppose public spending that benefits society as a whole, but doesn't directly benefit oneself.
    - danans 7y ago
      > I would guess it's more that America's cherished spirit of individualism I suspect that the drive at the individual level to ... > directly benefit oneself. ... is universal. Germans, Swedes, Chinese - they're all just as self serving as Americans. In America, we've just built a mythology around that "cherished spirit" that often impedes us from doing common sense things like investing in comprehensive mass transit in places that it makes a lot of sense to do so. It doesn't hurt that the narrative of individualism has been very effectively used by the auto industry.
  - thomascgalvin 7y ago
    Americans have a kneejerk aversion to any sort of taxes because they have been conditioned to think that any sort of public good is communism, and therefore evil, and that they are therefore righteous for protesting against it. And they have been conditioned to accept certain exceptions, like the military, or corporate welfare. That is evidence that the problem could be corrected, with correct (and ubiquitous) messaging, but we are competing against fifty years of effort and most of the major media outlets.
- progval 7y ago
  > American attitudes towards public transportation Unfortunately, this is happening in France too. SNCF used to be publicly funded to manage all inter-city/town railways and trains, but is now privatised and expected to make a profit.
  - xvedejas 7y ago
    "Privatized and expected to make a profit" reads a lot more like Japanese transit to me, than it sounds like any American system I'm familiar with. I'm inclined to understand France as moving in a different (perhaps better) direction than the US is moving (or rather, is not moving). https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/10/why-tokyos-privately-owned-rail-systems-work-so-well/389/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/10/why-tokyos-pr...
- Larrikin 7y ago
  This has become my disillusion with most services in America, not just public transportation. Although public transportation serves as a good example. There is absolutely no reason the government can not provide an effective service that serves most people well, but there is a belief among the wealthy and those convinced they will be wealthy one day that nearly every single service the government provides is better provided by someone super wealthy running a for profit business. It would be fine if it was a truly competing view point. Bureaucracy can in impede fast growth to better ideas. But most of those people in the US decide that the best way to to prove their point and gain wealth is to purposefully implement bad policy so that the government isn't even a potential floor level competitor. Post offices around the world provide many services to their citizens including health insurance. Public transportation is a pleasure to use in Asia vs rush hour traffic even with crowding. Yet taxes in the US are extremely complicated and potentially expensive despite the government knowing all our nearly all the information needed to file for most citizens because corporations and those seeking to prove a point the government should not tax them have purposefully made it complicated and seek to make it complicated.
- rayiner 7y ago
  > Why do we always seem give transportation (or public housing, etc.) a heavy initial investment then immediately start neglecting it but tightening the purse strings. We don’t. New York’s operating budget per passenger is double London’s. (And also much more heavily subsidized. Tickets cover half of operating costs in New York, but all of operating costs in London.) Public transit advocates need to acknowledge the reality that one of the things killing public transit in the US is spending multiples of what other countries spend to get the same service. For what the second avenue subway is going to cost, France or London would have been able to build three more lines in Manhattan. American governments are selling Kias for the price of Bentley’s and transit advocates are stumped why the public isn’t interesting in buying.
  - taffer 7y ago
    > Tickets cover half of operating costs in New York, but all of operating costs in London. According to Wikipedia New York has a farebox recovery ratio of 47% and London has 65%.
Nerada 7y ago
I love when I come across sites like this, where someone is just so wholly knowledgeable and enthusiastic about something I would have dismissed as mundane.
monksy 7y ago
I wonder what this looks like for Chicago.
mjevans 7y ago
Frequency of service correlates with Freedom to do useful things with the service. Lack of frequent service or worse gaps in service mean that someone might have to drive or even worse suffer lost opportunity if they cannot drive/pay for a ride of some sort. Though I would prefer if transit had dedicated underground routes to insulate the noise and make service independent of the weather.
dweekly 7y ago
Possible alternate explanation: Americans, when not heading to work, get in their car for the pleasure of driving. Disproportionate US car ownership - even in areas with abundant public transport - might help support such a theory, as well as generally American attitudes towards driving being an expression of autonomy.
- herval 7y ago
  Germans are fairly well known for their love for cars, and a lot of folks have cars “for pleasure” (convertibles, sports cars, etc). Autobahns are also insanely fun - you can actually speed up that sport car, unlike here in the US of A. All anecdotal of course, but I would be surprised if that theory has any evidence to support it..
  - kube-system 7y ago
    They also have legal requirements for ownership which go way way beyond what most of the US does. I think part of their car culture can be attributed to self-selection bias.
    - herval 7y ago
      I come from a “third world” country, and gotta say the vehicles that are allowed to be put on the street here are shocking. Lost count on how many cars glued together with duct tape I’ve seen around - I’d be shocked if those are driven “for leasure”...
      - kube-system 7y ago
        Many are primary transportation for lower income people. But it's also not uncommon in some circles in the US to have a 'beater car', as an alternative to their typical transportation.
- kube-system 7y ago
  I definitely think some of the effects falls into “if you have the option, you might exercise upon it” effect. The US makes it easier for people to own a car as a non-primary form of transportation than much of Europe. Taxes, licensing, insurance, fuel, and used vehicle prices are all comparatively cheaper, and parking spaces are more abundant. Germany for example, requires more than 550 times the amount of automobile bodily injury insurance than my state here in the US. Pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to afford to have a car just sitting around for occasional use if I lived there.
ummwhat 7y ago
I'm skeptical for many reasons. First, where is he getting that car commuters outnumber rail commuters (just barely) in New York? Last I heard the split was 60/40 in favor of rail. Second, where did he get that it is unusual for management to not use a car? Rather famously Bloomberg himself used to commute to city Hall by subway. By the authors own admission, even the lawyers use the subway. New York doesn't have that weird anti-transit classism of the rest of the country. Third, what is meant by multi modal and why is it a relevant figure if merit. Fourth, he clearly used New York metro area, not the city proper in his calc. Can I get some footnotes on if the cross comparison did the same thing to other cities? Fifth, 10 min headways is exactly the threshold where you can just show up and not pre plan your trip. When you get to the station you will wait on average five min. Compare that to the amount of time spent looking for parking or waiting for an Uber. I am unsatisfied with the conclusion that of peak wait times are the reason for underutilization or that there even is an underutilization problem in the listed American cities.
- Symbiote 7y ago
  10 minute gaps sounds like a long gap for a city the size of New York. Most metro lines in London have 2½-5 minute gaps off-peak. 10 minutes is more like the waiting time for the next train from London to Birmingham, after the morning peak: https://traintimes.org.uk/london/birmingham/1000/monday https://traintimes.org.uk/london/birmingham/1000/monday
  - jkaptur 7y ago
    Many of those gaps take place at night. Last time I visited London, I was nastily surprised to find that the tube has a several hour gap during that time.
- resonantjacket5 7y ago
  I am not sure why you're skeptical about any of these stats. A visit to any modern metro system outside of America will reflect what Alon says. 10 min headways while decent in America is still kinda annoying. Note that the 10 min headways is really more like 15 when taking into account American transit's unreliability in actually adhering to the schedule. That being said, I don't think the lack of off-peak usage is because of low frequency, but rather lack of density on the suburban stations. If there's only offices at the core stations then people can only really use it for going to work.
lelandbatey 7y ago
Every time I have to sit and wait for the Seattle light rail (the red line) outside commuter hours this is what I think about. It's 3:30 pm right now in Seattle and the light rail is scheduled to come only every 12 minutes. I dream of the times this article quotes for Germany and France; 5 minutes between trains would be amazing!
- monksy 7y ago
  I dream of the London or Hong Kong peak train frequencys. 1-2 minutes between trains.
- Analemma_ 7y ago
  Normally the light rail is every 8 minutes outside rush hour; bear in mind, there’s a temporary disruption due to construction in the Chinatown station [0] It will be done by March. [0]: https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/service-alerts/link-trains-running-every-13-15-minutes-through-march-15 https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/service-alerts/lin...
- cookie_monsta 7y ago
  Does 7 minutes really make a difference? Presumably departure times are available in real time, meaning you could shave a few minutes off your time at the stop and spend them somewhere more pleasant
  - wott 7y ago
    It brings a completely different way of using the transport, in fact. When the period between 2 trains/buses/whatever is below 5 minutes, you don't check the timetables, you don't plan anything, you don't calculate anything, you just walk to the stop without thinking. When the period is 10 minutes or more, you handle it more like an intercity train, you check, you plan, you calculate. Or you don't and you wait, and wait, and wait. Personally, I don't have a problem with it, but it is a bit of an obsession of mine to plan and calculate everything... also I've lived most of my life in places where you'd be happy with a train, or a bus, every 2 hours (supposing there was a line). For people who have been accustomed to the comfort of mind of the first option, it is felt harder to switch to the second option. ------- But then there is the problem of transfers. There, low frequency strikes badly and there is nothing you can do about it, contrary to the first wait at the first stop. Personally, I had no problem with 15 minutes period buses, but the transfers were killing me, and it was getting much worse during low-activity times. Just a small-looking increase in the period has exponentially bad consequences. Less terrible, there is also the case when you have to arrive at a fixed time. Unless the arrival time matches, a low frequency forces you to start earlier. So, the time is wasted even if you calculated your first wait.
wott 7y ago
It is always difficult to compare such figures. Not only because of different geographic/demographic situations, but simply because of the figures themselves. First, there is the problem of being careful understanding which figure is given to you. For example, for Toulouse, he quoted 125.7 M metro+tram trips. But 125.7 M is not the number of trips, but the number of metro+tram "validations" (each time you transfer to another bus or metro line, it counts as an extra validation (yes, in this city, even between metro lines)). The total number of trips (132 M) is 30% lower than the total number of validation (188 M). There is no detailed by mode number of trips, so you cannot get the number of metro+tram trips. I guess the best you can do is apply the 30% discount to get an approximation of 88 M metro+tram trips [and I shouldn't even write that because that depends how we decide to count mixed-mode trips]. Then, there is the problem of deciding if some assumptions which are valid here are still valid there. He has decided to ignore bus network. Still in the case of Toulouse, the bus network usage is a bit bigger than one metro line, but the thing is that there are only 2 metro lines... Very roughly, each of (metro line 1), (metro line 2) and (bus network) is 1/3 of the total passengers. Worse, if you consider the number of kilometres ran, the bus network represents 73%! Now you may argue that most bus passengers transfer from or to the metro. It could be true. But that would only affect the relevance of the figure of trips/inhabitant. However if you want to talk about the quality of the service, the quality of the offer, I don't think you can neglect something that represents 1/3 of the passengers transported and almost 3/4 of the kilometres offer (those figures mean that the metro lines only cover a very small part of the territory, and that's indeed how it is, the bus network is 50 times longer than the metro network). The frequency and spread of the bus offer has to be taken into account, hasn't it? Maybe in other cities the bus network can be neglected, but I don't think it a good idea to neglect it by default. (One could add that in the case of Toulouse, the bus traffic has grown clearly and steadily, while the metro traffic plateaued years ago.) And at this point you fall back on the first difficulty I mentioned: how difficult it is to compare networks which grew differently and developed different structures.
pedantsamaritan 7y ago
I know NYC subway runs 24x7, while many other systems do not. I was curious on the actual number of trains. I made a bunch of assumptions, picked a city to compare NYC to (Berlin), and did some math. NYC Subway may run ~960 trains per week per line. Berlin s-bahn & u-bahn may run ~1270 trains per week per line. I am curious how other cities compare Assumptions: - u-bahn day peak = 5 hours @ 4min/train - u-bahn day = 8 hours @ 10min/train - u-bahn night = 8 hours @ 15min/train - u-bahn weekend = 24 hours @ 15min/train - s-bahn day peak = 5 hours @ 10min/train - s-bahn day = 9 hours @ 15min/train - s-bahn night = 7 hours @ 30min/train - s-bahn weekend = 24 hours @ 20min/train - nyc peak = 5 hours @ 10 min/train - nyc off-peak = 19 hours @ 10min/train - nyc weekend = 24 hours @ 12min/train
- laurencerowe 7y ago
  It's hard for NYC's subway to run at the frequencies others manage since the system has so many branches and reverse branches. In London I believe there are plans to split the Northern Line into two separate lines to enable running at higher frequencies. The Victoria Line now runs at 36 trains per hour at peak, 100sec/train. Conversely NYC can run trains all night because so much of the system is double tracked, letting them close one track each way for maintenance overnight.
tom_mellior 7y ago
I don't understand the point of giving a big table of numbers and then not doing any comparisons or calculations based on the data. Maybe it's just meant to make the whole article seem more scientific than the hand-waving that it really seems to be? Anyway, I can't say for any other cities, but a population figure of 3.7m for Vienna is ridiculously overblown. The actual figure is 1.9m for the city, Wikipedia gives 2.6m for the metro area. But even just the city itself is sprawling and very badly connected towards the outskirts, so even the 1.9m are very unevenly served. Also, it's not true of course that the French (and Germans, and Austrians) typically take their 5 weeks of vacation in a single block in the summer. That wouldn't leave any vacation time for the winter holidays, other school holidays, etc. Two-, maybe three-week blocks are much more typical in my experience.

61 points by luu 7y ago

> This strongly suggests that non-work public transportation usage is much higher in European than in American cities even when the usage level for work trips is comparable. Sounds about right. For work trips, the origin and destination are both predictable. I can carefully choose where to rent in order so that I would live conveniently close to a public transport stop. But for "fun" trips and anything else, there's a lot more spontaneity in the destination, often not served by public transport, so a car is still necessary.

Pfhreak 7y ago

> When there is a deficit, agencies cut there first, leading to frequency-ridership spirals in which lower frequency deters riders, justifying further cuts in service until little is left. I This is one of the things that drives me nuts the most about American attitudes towards public transportation -- that they must make a significant portion of their revenue from fares/ridership. If we think that large scale people moving is important to a healthy city, we should all be funding it, even if we're not all riding it. Everyone benefits when ridership is high -- businesses, other commuters, people who cannot afford cars, etc. Why do we always seem give transportation (or public housing, etc.) a heavy initial investment then immediately start neglecting it but tightening the purse strings. We're just making our initial investments that much less valuable.

uoaei 7y ago
You know the answer to that question but it bears repeating: Americans have a kneejerk aversion to any sort of taxes because they think they will never see the benefits. So these agencies are forced to fund themselves and/or look to the private sector for support.
- xyzzyz 7y ago
  > Americans have a kneejerk aversion to any sort of taxes because they think they will never see the benefits. Close. It’s not that they think they will never see the benefits, but rather they know it. Look, here is a good example of what you and the parent suggest. The ST3 passed in the Seattle ballot, which promises expansion of the public transit network. The project includes light rail to my neighborhood, in about 20 minutes of walking distance from my home. However, the planned date for delivery of the project is 2035. Knowing the realities of public projects in the US, I don’t expect it before 2040s. I’ll be long retired by then. At the same time, the ST3 involved a tax increase, which for me means about $10,000 (today’s dollars, more in inflated ones) I’ll pay in additional tax before the construction is complete. In addition to that, since the farebox recovery is only around 30%, the city subsidies covers 70% of operational costs of public transit, and the subsidies come from my taxes too. To put it in concrete terms: assuming I use public transit only for commuting, annual fare costs would be $2.75248 = $1320, and so the whole operational costs apportioned to me would be $1320/0.3 = $4400, so the subsidy would be around $3000 per rider. Fortunately, only 10% of people in Seattle commute via public transit, so it roughly translates to $300/person/year now, which I’m paying to support public transit that I don’t even use. This number is so low only because the driving majority subsidizes the public transit riding few. Thus, since operational costs grow roughly linearly with the number of riders, if majority of people were using transit for commuting, the cost per resident would have to rise significantly. This would make my public transit costs significantly higher than my driving costs, with greatly reduced convenience. So why would I want to support public transit? The big issue here isn’t that public transit is always a bad idea, it’s just it’s a bad idea in places where government cannot do large projects quickly and cheaply, and cheaply operate them, which in 2020 is the whole US.
  - throwaheyy 7y ago
    You're ragging on public transit because you feel you have to pay for something you don't use. What about my taxes that go to paying for roads I don't drive on? There's no way the $~200 car registration is covering all the costs involved in maintaining an extensive road network. On top of that, while we’re counting up taxes I pay for which I do not receive a direct benefit: on the odd chance I did drive in my own neighborhood, why should I be paying taxes to subsidize all the roads in every other neighborhood. The point I’m making is: you can get as petty as you want in comparing what you pay with what you get, but in the long term, do you really want to live in a society that can’t have nice things because there’s one person who might just benefit slightly more from them than you can? Are Americans already so far down the road of considering public transit beneath them, that the only people who use it must not be able to afford cars, so it's not reducing car usage so it's OK to hate on?
- mumblemumble 7y ago
  > Americans have a kneejerk aversion to any sort of taxes And how. My hometown is near a state line. There are somewhat lower - about 10¢ per gallon - gasoline taxes on the other side of the border. People will habitually make special trips to a gas station in the next town over - at a cost of half an hour of time (at least) and $2 worth of gasoline - in order to pay $1.50 less in taxes. To another state. That said, I'm not so sure about > because they think they will never see the benefits People don't seem to be quite so opposed to public spending on things like highways and airports. I would guess it's more that America's cherished spirit of individualism means that there's a greater tendency to oppose public spending that benefits society as a whole, but doesn't directly benefit oneself.
  - danans 7y ago
    > I would guess it's more that America's cherished spirit of individualism I suspect that the drive at the individual level to ... > directly benefit oneself. ... is universal. Germans, Swedes, Chinese - they're all just as self serving as Americans. In America, we've just built a mythology around that "cherished spirit" that often impedes us from doing common sense things like investing in comprehensive mass transit in places that it makes a lot of sense to do so. It doesn't hurt that the narrative of individualism has been very effectively used by the auto industry.
- thomascgalvin 7y ago
  Americans have a kneejerk aversion to any sort of taxes because they have been conditioned to think that any sort of public good is communism, and therefore evil, and that they are therefore righteous for protesting against it. And they have been conditioned to accept certain exceptions, like the military, or corporate welfare. That is evidence that the problem could be corrected, with correct (and ubiquitous) messaging, but we are competing against fifty years of effort and most of the major media outlets.
progval 7y ago
> American attitudes towards public transportation Unfortunately, this is happening in France too. SNCF used to be publicly funded to manage all inter-city/town railways and trains, but is now privatised and expected to make a profit.
- xvedejas 7y ago
  "Privatized and expected to make a profit" reads a lot more like Japanese transit to me, than it sounds like any American system I'm familiar with. I'm inclined to understand France as moving in a different (perhaps better) direction than the US is moving (or rather, is not moving). https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/10/why-tokyos-privately-owned-rail-systems-work-so-well/389/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/10/why-tokyos-pr...
Larrikin 7y ago
This has become my disillusion with most services in America, not just public transportation. Although public transportation serves as a good example. There is absolutely no reason the government can not provide an effective service that serves most people well, but there is a belief among the wealthy and those convinced they will be wealthy one day that nearly every single service the government provides is better provided by someone super wealthy running a for profit business. It would be fine if it was a truly competing view point. Bureaucracy can in impede fast growth to better ideas. But most of those people in the US decide that the best way to to prove their point and gain wealth is to purposefully implement bad policy so that the government isn't even a potential floor level competitor. Post offices around the world provide many services to their citizens including health insurance. Public transportation is a pleasure to use in Asia vs rush hour traffic even with crowding. Yet taxes in the US are extremely complicated and potentially expensive despite the government knowing all our nearly all the information needed to file for most citizens because corporations and those seeking to prove a point the government should not tax them have purposefully made it complicated and seek to make it complicated.
rayiner 7y ago
> Why do we always seem give transportation (or public housing, etc.) a heavy initial investment then immediately start neglecting it but tightening the purse strings. We don’t. New York’s operating budget per passenger is double London’s. (And also much more heavily subsidized. Tickets cover half of operating costs in New York, but all of operating costs in London.) Public transit advocates need to acknowledge the reality that one of the things killing public transit in the US is spending multiples of what other countries spend to get the same service. For what the second avenue subway is going to cost, France or London would have been able to build three more lines in Manhattan. American governments are selling Kias for the price of Bentley’s and transit advocates are stumped why the public isn’t interesting in buying.
- taffer 7y ago
  > Tickets cover half of operating costs in New York, but all of operating costs in London. According to Wikipedia New York has a farebox recovery ratio of 47% and London has 65%.

Nerada 7y ago

I love when I come across sites like this, where someone is just so wholly knowledgeable and enthusiastic about something I would have dismissed as mundane.

monksy 7y ago

I wonder what this looks like for Chicago.

mjevans 7y ago

Frequency of service correlates with Freedom to do useful things with the service. Lack of frequent service or worse gaps in service mean that someone might have to drive or even worse suffer lost opportunity if they cannot drive/pay for a ride of some sort. Though I would prefer if transit had dedicated underground routes to insulate the noise and make service independent of the weather.

dweekly 7y ago

Possible alternate explanation: Americans, when not heading to work, get in their car for the pleasure of driving. Disproportionate US car ownership - even in areas with abundant public transport - might help support such a theory, as well as generally American attitudes towards driving being an expression of autonomy.

herval 7y ago
Germans are fairly well known for their love for cars, and a lot of folks have cars “for pleasure” (convertibles, sports cars, etc). Autobahns are also insanely fun - you can actually speed up that sport car, unlike here in the US of A. All anecdotal of course, but I would be surprised if that theory has any evidence to support it..
- kube-system 7y ago
  They also have legal requirements for ownership which go way way beyond what most of the US does. I think part of their car culture can be attributed to self-selection bias.
  - herval 7y ago
    I come from a “third world” country, and gotta say the vehicles that are allowed to be put on the street here are shocking. Lost count on how many cars glued together with duct tape I’ve seen around - I’d be shocked if those are driven “for leasure”...
    - kube-system 7y ago
      Many are primary transportation for lower income people. But it's also not uncommon in some circles in the US to have a 'beater car', as an alternative to their typical transportation.
kube-system 7y ago
I definitely think some of the effects falls into “if you have the option, you might exercise upon it” effect. The US makes it easier for people to own a car as a non-primary form of transportation than much of Europe. Taxes, licensing, insurance, fuel, and used vehicle prices are all comparatively cheaper, and parking spaces are more abundant. Germany for example, requires more than 550 times the amount of automobile bodily injury insurance than my state here in the US. Pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to afford to have a car just sitting around for occasional use if I lived there.

ummwhat 7y ago

I'm skeptical for many reasons. First, where is he getting that car commuters outnumber rail commuters (just barely) in New York? Last I heard the split was 60/40 in favor of rail. Second, where did he get that it is unusual for management to not use a car? Rather famously Bloomberg himself used to commute to city Hall by subway. By the authors own admission, even the lawyers use the subway. New York doesn't have that weird anti-transit classism of the rest of the country. Third, what is meant by multi modal and why is it a relevant figure if merit. Fourth, he clearly used New York metro area, not the city proper in his calc. Can I get some footnotes on if the cross comparison did the same thing to other cities? Fifth, 10 min headways is exactly the threshold where you can just show up and not pre plan your trip. When you get to the station you will wait on average five min. Compare that to the amount of time spent looking for parking or waiting for an Uber. I am unsatisfied with the conclusion that of peak wait times are the reason for underutilization or that there even is an underutilization problem in the listed American cities.

Symbiote 7y ago
10 minute gaps sounds like a long gap for a city the size of New York. Most metro lines in London have 2½-5 minute gaps off-peak. 10 minutes is more like the waiting time for the next train from London to Birmingham, after the morning peak: https://traintimes.org.uk/london/birmingham/1000/monday https://traintimes.org.uk/london/birmingham/1000/monday
- jkaptur 7y ago
  Many of those gaps take place at night. Last time I visited London, I was nastily surprised to find that the tube has a several hour gap during that time.
resonantjacket5 7y ago
I am not sure why you're skeptical about any of these stats. A visit to any modern metro system outside of America will reflect what Alon says. 10 min headways while decent in America is still kinda annoying. Note that the 10 min headways is really more like 15 when taking into account American transit's unreliability in actually adhering to the schedule. That being said, I don't think the lack of off-peak usage is because of low frequency, but rather lack of density on the suburban stations. If there's only offices at the core stations then people can only really use it for going to work.

lelandbatey 7y ago

Every time I have to sit and wait for the Seattle light rail (the red line) outside commuter hours this is what I think about. It's 3:30 pm right now in Seattle and the light rail is scheduled to come only every 12 minutes. I dream of the times this article quotes for Germany and France; 5 minutes between trains would be amazing!

monksy 7y ago
I dream of the London or Hong Kong peak train frequencys. 1-2 minutes between trains.
Analemma_ 7y ago
Normally the light rail is every 8 minutes outside rush hour; bear in mind, there’s a temporary disruption due to construction in the Chinatown station [0] It will be done by March. [0]: https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/service-alerts/link-trains-running-every-13-15-minutes-through-march-15 https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/service-alerts/lin...
cookie_monsta 7y ago
Does 7 minutes really make a difference? Presumably departure times are available in real time, meaning you could shave a few minutes off your time at the stop and spend them somewhere more pleasant
- wott 7y ago
  It brings a completely different way of using the transport, in fact. When the period between 2 trains/buses/whatever is below 5 minutes, you don't check the timetables, you don't plan anything, you don't calculate anything, you just walk to the stop without thinking. When the period is 10 minutes or more, you handle it more like an intercity train, you check, you plan, you calculate. Or you don't and you wait, and wait, and wait. Personally, I don't have a problem with it, but it is a bit of an obsession of mine to plan and calculate everything... also I've lived most of my life in places where you'd be happy with a train, or a bus, every 2 hours (supposing there was a line). For people who have been accustomed to the comfort of mind of the first option, it is felt harder to switch to the second option. ------- But then there is the problem of transfers. There, low frequency strikes badly and there is nothing you can do about it, contrary to the first wait at the first stop. Personally, I had no problem with 15 minutes period buses, but the transfers were killing me, and it was getting much worse during low-activity times. Just a small-looking increase in the period has exponentially bad consequences. Less terrible, there is also the case when you have to arrive at a fixed time. Unless the arrival time matches, a low frequency forces you to start earlier. So, the time is wasted even if you calculated your first wait.

wott 7y ago

It is always difficult to compare such figures. Not only because of different geographic/demographic situations, but simply because of the figures themselves. First, there is the problem of being careful understanding which figure is given to you. For example, for Toulouse, he quoted 125.7 M metro+tram trips. But 125.7 M is not the number of trips, but the number of metro+tram "validations" (each time you transfer to another bus or metro line, it counts as an extra validation (yes, in this city, even between metro lines)). The total number of trips (132 M) is 30% lower than the total number of validation (188 M). There is no detailed by mode number of trips, so you cannot get the number of metro+tram trips. I guess the best you can do is apply the 30% discount to get an approximation of 88 M metro+tram trips [and I shouldn't even write that because that depends how we decide to count mixed-mode trips]. Then, there is the problem of deciding if some assumptions which are valid here are still valid there. He has decided to ignore bus network. Still in the case of Toulouse, the bus network usage is a bit bigger than one metro line, but the thing is that there are only 2 metro lines... Very roughly, each of (metro line 1), (metro line 2) and (bus network) is 1/3 of the total passengers. Worse, if you consider the number of kilometres ran, the bus network represents 73%! Now you may argue that most bus passengers transfer from or to the metro. It could be true. But that would only affect the relevance of the figure of trips/inhabitant. However if you want to talk about the quality of the service, the quality of the offer, I don't think you can neglect something that represents 1/3 of the passengers transported and almost 3/4 of the kilometres offer (those figures mean that the metro lines only cover a very small part of the territory, and that's indeed how it is, the bus network is 50 times longer than the metro network). The frequency and spread of the bus offer has to be taken into account, hasn't it? Maybe in other cities the bus network can be neglected, but I don't think it a good idea to neglect it by default. (One could add that in the case of Toulouse, the bus traffic has grown clearly and steadily, while the metro traffic plateaued years ago.) And at this point you fall back on the first difficulty I mentioned: how difficult it is to compare networks which grew differently and developed different structures.

pedantsamaritan 7y ago

I know NYC subway runs 24x7, while many other systems do not. I was curious on the actual number of trains. I made a bunch of assumptions, picked a city to compare NYC to (Berlin), and did some math. NYC Subway may run ~960 trains per week per line. Berlin s-bahn & u-bahn may run ~1270 trains per week per line. I am curious how other cities compare Assumptions: - u-bahn day peak = 5 hours @ 4min/train - u-bahn day = 8 hours @ 10min/train - u-bahn night = 8 hours @ 15min/train - u-bahn weekend = 24 hours @ 15min/train - s-bahn day peak = 5 hours @ 10min/train - s-bahn day = 9 hours @ 15min/train - s-bahn night = 7 hours @ 30min/train - s-bahn weekend = 24 hours @ 20min/train - nyc peak = 5 hours @ 10 min/train - nyc off-peak = 19 hours @ 10min/train - nyc weekend = 24 hours @ 12min/train

laurencerowe 7y ago
It's hard for NYC's subway to run at the frequencies others manage since the system has so many branches and reverse branches. In London I believe there are plans to split the Northern Line into two separate lines to enable running at higher frequencies. The Victoria Line now runs at 36 trains per hour at peak, 100sec/train. Conversely NYC can run trains all night because so much of the system is double tracked, letting them close one track each way for maintenance overnight.

tom_mellior 7y ago

I don't understand the point of giving a big table of numbers and then not doing any comparisons or calculations based on the data. Maybe it's just meant to make the whole article seem more scientific than the hand-waving that it really seems to be? Anyway, I can't say for any other cities, but a population figure of 3.7m for Vienna is ridiculously overblown. The actual figure is 1.9m for the city, Wikipedia gives 2.6m for the metro area. But even just the city itself is sprawling and very badly connected towards the outskirts, so even the 1.9m are very unevenly served. Also, it's not true of course that the French (and Germans, and Austrians) typically take their 5 weeks of vacation in a single block in the summer. That wouldn't leave any vacation time for the winter holidays, other school holidays, etc. Two-, maybe three-week blocks are much more typical in my experience.