4 ms·

Something tells me the average American who moves from a mass-transit city to a car-centric city is happier than someone from a car-centric city that moves to a

Something tells me the average American who moves from a mass-transit city to a car-centric city is happier than someone from a car-centric city that moves to a mass-transit city. People are allowed to like different lifestyles than you without being victims of Stockholm syndrome.

supertrope 6y ago
The US government subsidizes houses in suburbs by guaranteeing mortgages and building toll free highways. Apartments are literally illegal to build in many areas (restrictive zoning). Property developers are mandated to include ample free parking. So in many places you are not allowed to have a different lifestyle than drive everywhere.
- quantumwannabe 6y ago
  First off, you get all the same mortgage benefits with a condo or townhouse; those benefits are not just for single family houses [1]. The Seattle area has an urban growth boundary [2, see the red line] that effectively bans construction of new single family housing. The Seattle government also makes it impossible to get a project approved if it has "too many" parking spots and the the vast majority of the transit system is not paid for by its riders: Sound Transit, Seattle's train and express buses, has around 30-40% farebox recovery of operating costs, and capital costs are fully subsidized [3, Page 8]. King County Metro, the bus system, has a farebox recovery of around 25%, again with capital costs being fully subsidized [4, last graph]. User fees (tolls, car registration, gas taxes, etc.) pay a far larger percentage of roads than this: Washington collects 63.5% of road spending from user fees, which is a figure that includes both capital (new roads) and operational (maintenance on existing roads) costs [5]. So someone living in the Seattle area who wants to have a "different lifestyle" has to pay to subsidize the government's preferred lifestyle. Seattle isn't the only region with a strong bias towards transit (especially with new development), so generalizing across the entire country isn't helpful as different areas have very different urban planning cultures. [1] https://www.irs.gov/publications/p530 https://www.irs.gov/publications/p530 [2] https://www.kingcounty.gov/property/permits/codes/growth/GMPC/~/media/property/permits/documents/GrowthManagement/CPP_ugb_gmpc_Map.ashx https://www.kingcounty.gov/property/permits/codes/growth/GMP... [3] https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2018-fare-revenue-report.pdf https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2... [4] https://kingcounty.gov/depts/transportation/metro/about/accountability-center/performance/financial/annual.aspx https://kingcounty.gov/depts/transportation/metro/about/acco... [5] https://taxfoundation.org/states-road-funding-2019/ https://taxfoundation.org/states-road-funding-2019/
tolbish 6y ago
Most Americans don't really have a choice. Even the most transit-friendly American cities like Seattle were created with job sites that lie in isolated hovels outside of denser areas. And changing this requires planning across multiple industries, not just the efforts of a couple companies.
- quantumwannabe 6y ago
  Funny you should mention Seattle as it is possible the worst city I have ever lived in with regards to infrastructure, both in terms of amount per capita and maintenance. Most of its white collar jobs are concentrated in one small area (in contrast to other regions which are more distributed) and it has the infrastructure of a much smaller city. The local government believes in only expanding transit infrastructure while leaving roads and bridges to rot, and so far their actions haven't improved travel times at all but they do certainly cost an enormous amount: the most recent ballot proposition allocated almost a billion dollars per mile of rail. I've found this urban design has created isolated neighborhoods where people without cars refuse to travel more than a mile away from home. An example that comes to mind is friends living in Capitol Hill refusing to visit any restaurant in Fremont, a distance of around 3.5 miles with both locations being located directly on highly trafficked bus lines, but if offered a ride (in a car) they would come. For comparison, when in the car-centric cities I lived in, people were willing to travel anywhere in the metro area. Now this is just a few pieces of anecdotal evidence, and you may reply with examples of people who behave completely differently, but it's no better to assume that everyone hates driving and living less dense areas just because you personally dislike them. I prefer living in an area that doesn't hate cars with a passion, and I'm far from the only one who thinks so.
  - runarberg 6y ago
    The bus network in Seattle is completely busted. Try riding a bus from Bellevue to the International District on a game night before covid. There is simply not room for more people on the busses, nor is there room for more busses on the Third. Seattle needed this extra rail like 20 years ago. But I think you are wrong about the focus here. They just opened the downtown tunnel recently, and they are opting to fix the West Seattle bridge even though they won’t be able to fit a train to it. They are also fixing the 520 bridge to Kirkland without a train line. And all the roro ferries have significantly more frequency then the walk on ferries (except for West Seattle). So cars definitely still weigh heavily for the city planners

supertrope 6y ago

The US government subsidizes houses in suburbs by guaranteeing mortgages and building toll free highways. Apartments are literally illegal to build in many areas (restrictive zoning). Property developers are mandated to include ample free parking. So in many places you are not allowed to have a different lifestyle than drive everywhere.

quantumwannabe 6y ago
First off, you get all the same mortgage benefits with a condo or townhouse; those benefits are not just for single family houses [1]. The Seattle area has an urban growth boundary [2, see the red line] that effectively bans construction of new single family housing. The Seattle government also makes it impossible to get a project approved if it has "too many" parking spots and the the vast majority of the transit system is not paid for by its riders: Sound Transit, Seattle's train and express buses, has around 30-40% farebox recovery of operating costs, and capital costs are fully subsidized [3, Page 8]. King County Metro, the bus system, has a farebox recovery of around 25%, again with capital costs being fully subsidized [4, last graph]. User fees (tolls, car registration, gas taxes, etc.) pay a far larger percentage of roads than this: Washington collects 63.5% of road spending from user fees, which is a figure that includes both capital (new roads) and operational (maintenance on existing roads) costs [5]. So someone living in the Seattle area who wants to have a "different lifestyle" has to pay to subsidize the government's preferred lifestyle. Seattle isn't the only region with a strong bias towards transit (especially with new development), so generalizing across the entire country isn't helpful as different areas have very different urban planning cultures. [1] https://www.irs.gov/publications/p530 https://www.irs.gov/publications/p530 [2] https://www.kingcounty.gov/property/permits/codes/growth/GMPC/~/media/property/permits/documents/GrowthManagement/CPP_ugb_gmpc_Map.ashx https://www.kingcounty.gov/property/permits/codes/growth/GMP... [3] https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2018-fare-revenue-report.pdf https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2... [4] https://kingcounty.gov/depts/transportation/metro/about/accountability-center/performance/financial/annual.aspx https://kingcounty.gov/depts/transportation/metro/about/acco... [5] https://taxfoundation.org/states-road-funding-2019/ https://taxfoundation.org/states-road-funding-2019/

tolbish 6y ago

Most Americans don't really have a choice. Even the most transit-friendly American cities like Seattle were created with job sites that lie in isolated hovels outside of denser areas. And changing this requires planning across multiple industries, not just the efforts of a couple companies.

quantumwannabe 6y ago
Funny you should mention Seattle as it is possible the worst city I have ever lived in with regards to infrastructure, both in terms of amount per capita and maintenance. Most of its white collar jobs are concentrated in one small area (in contrast to other regions which are more distributed) and it has the infrastructure of a much smaller city. The local government believes in only expanding transit infrastructure while leaving roads and bridges to rot, and so far their actions haven't improved travel times at all but they do certainly cost an enormous amount: the most recent ballot proposition allocated almost a billion dollars per mile of rail. I've found this urban design has created isolated neighborhoods where people without cars refuse to travel more than a mile away from home. An example that comes to mind is friends living in Capitol Hill refusing to visit any restaurant in Fremont, a distance of around 3.5 miles with both locations being located directly on highly trafficked bus lines, but if offered a ride (in a car) they would come. For comparison, when in the car-centric cities I lived in, people were willing to travel anywhere in the metro area. Now this is just a few pieces of anecdotal evidence, and you may reply with examples of people who behave completely differently, but it's no better to assume that everyone hates driving and living less dense areas just because you personally dislike them. I prefer living in an area that doesn't hate cars with a passion, and I'm far from the only one who thinks so.
- runarberg 6y ago
  The bus network in Seattle is completely busted. Try riding a bus from Bellevue to the International District on a game night before covid. There is simply not room for more people on the busses, nor is there room for more busses on the Third. Seattle needed this extra rail like 20 years ago. But I think you are wrong about the focus here. They just opened the downtown tunnel recently, and they are opting to fix the West Seattle bridge even though they won’t be able to fit a train to it. They are also fixing the 520 bridge to Kirkland without a train line. And all the roro ferries have significantly more frequency then the walk on ferries (except for West Seattle). So cars definitely still weigh heavily for the city planners