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I have heard it said that with public transit (including inter-city travel) service drives demand. Until you can rely on it for your commute people don't use it

I have heard it said that with public transit (including inter-city travel) service drives demand. Until you can rely on it for your commute people don't use it at all. For inter-city rail the "service" includes getting you to a location where you don't need to already magically have a car there to use. But I'm not so sure where this idea comes from, I've heard it said but not seen actual research. It seems simple, but you can't just take a high speed rail and put a stop in the middle of nowhere and expect a city to pop up. Clearly as in their example for Waterloo thoughtful service might drive demand but useless service not so much.

markus_zhang 5y ago
I'm not sure about inter-city travel because as you said the train can't just stop in the middle of no where. But I think it works for subways and buses, at least in China. China has a different model of city economic expansion and here is the basic idea: - Government identifies new areas to develop (they could be "out of city" but usually just suburbs/rural); - Public transits were developed to cover those lands before others move (so no malls, no hospitals, no residential buildings, etc.); - Because it takes a lot of time and money to develop public transit, city sometimes issue bonds; - Other buildings start to move in, usually starting from residential buildings and malls; - City expects the revenue and tax from newly developed lands to cover the cost of bonds This sort of "creates" new cities (actually they are called satellite cities) but I don't think it gets to extend very far.