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I’d be curious to see some of those aggregate statistics broken out. The idea that the average income of mass transit users is higher than that of drivers (pre

by JackFr 4y ago

I’d be curious to see some of those aggregate statistics broken out. The idea that the average income of mass transit users is higher than that of drivers (pre-pandemic) is counter intuitive. It’s most likely an artifact of the fact that salaries in NYC are high and the bulk of mass transit commuting was in/to/from NYC. I’d be curious to see the same statistics NYC-only and ex-NYC. I don’t have the data but could likely be https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox

acdha 4y ago
> The idea that the average income of mass transit users is higher than that of drivers (pre-pandemic) is counter intuitive. I don’t know about NYC but here in DC you’ll see the same argument made. The demographics of commuter rail and long-distance subway trips are more affluent because that’s who can live in those suburbs (federal government commuters also get subsidies which are appealing compared to the traffic), while bus ridership had a lot more poor and especially elderly people. Trying to come up with one policy for the average of all 3 systems is going to be misleading in every direction.