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> And that seems to be politically unfeasible at the moment, for reasons that elude me. That's because you are looking from the outside in. Every person who h

> And that seems to be politically unfeasible at the moment, for reasons that elude me. That's because you are looking from the outside in. Every person who has grown up in the US has grown up in this situation. Having to drive nearly everywhere is our version of normal. Public transit in the US sucks. In practically every city that even has it, it's the worst way to get anywhere. It's often a last resort: a tool for the desperately poor. On top of that, most of the US is made up of small towns that public transit wouldn't make any sense for. A significant percentage of Americans must regularly travel between a major city and a small town. That means they must have a car, and a place in the city to park it. It's a fool's errand to convince most people that they should drive and take public transit all in one trip, even if it would save them time and gas. There is more to this situation than the vicious cycle that perpetuates it. If we can be clear about how we intend to accommodate that reality, we might be able to do something about it politically.

pharmakom 4y ago
The UK used to have rail links from all of the small villages into the cities. It was an expensive system, but now that has been ripped out for decades we can see that the alternative is far worse.
29083011397778 4y ago
> On top of that, most of the US is made up of small towns that public transit wouldn't make any sense for. A significant percentage of Americans must regularly travel between a major city and a small town. That means they must have a car, and a place in the city to park it. Hang on though: I can't tell my neighbouring city to push for more housing because, while I want to live there in the future, the people that live there now like their lack of housing. Similarly, why can't the people that currently live in the city tell their local politicians that spending all this space for parking the residents don't need is stupid?
- Avshalom 4y ago
  people commuting in is a large part of the work force in cities, tourism and generally shopping are important for their economies, also a lot of that parking space is needed by the residents because chicken/egg they all have cars too.
  - Scarblac 4y ago
    But why so much space... Why no high parking garages, or deep underground ones.
    - petre 4y ago
      Cheaper, easier. When the land becomes more expensive, it would be built up with offices and the parking space either dissapears or goes underground or high up.
    - ars 4y ago
      Why not? America is large, land is not really in short supply, except in dense cities.
    - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
      Because taking up more land is cheaper than building up thanks in large part to the various rules and regulations of municipalities and states. And in many places a parking garage is valued and taxed as a structure whereas a parking lot isn't. Prefab concrete parking garages are a thing the same way that prefab steel warehouse buildings are. The structure isn't that expensive over the life of the structure. It's the latent cost of building and owning a structure that pushes the economics in favor of parking lots. Ironically in a "you are the problem" sort of way, the demographics doing most of the complaining about parking lots and a general lack of density are the same demographics who are in favor of fine grained management and regulation of what people do on their land that causes this situation. You reap what you sow.
    - thomastjeffery 4y ago
      If you own a parking lot that is too small, you can go around booting or towing cars that "don't deserve" to take up your limited parking space. That can get you an awful lot of money, which can get you an awful lot of lobbying power. Big structures are expensive. Who is going to fund them save for the people who are incentivized not to?
- lozenge 4y ago
  They do need the space for parking, because they have to drive everywhere, because everything is so far apart, because so much space was given to parking...
  - ars 4y ago
    Everything is so far apart because America is very large, not because they spaced things out with parking lots. But it does sound funny to make that the reason. "Yup, this big country was spread out by parking lots."
    - travisd 4y ago
      We’re not talking about why Seattle is far from Miami. American city sprawl is largely a recent phenomenon (post WWII) and was enabled by the rise of the personal automobile. Even the sprawl-iest of cities (Houston, TX) used to be respectably dense and walkable. The need for a car to achieve basic needs (groceries, school, work) is a phenomenon well less than 100 years old. America has this problem in part because it’s much younger than a lot of European cities, but it’s certainly not purely a function of topography.
cafard 4y ago
Most of the US geographically or demographically? I will say that public transit in the US could be a lot better. However, over about forty years it has largely been how I got to work. (Washington, DC, area.)
nec4b 4y ago
>> On top of that, most of the US is made up of small towns that public transit wouldn't make any sense for. And you think other other countries are not the same?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rayrey 4y ago
  Not with the distances we have in the US
  - nec4b 4y ago
    Distances really don't have anything to do with it. If a town is too small to have public transport, it's simply too small. It's the same for the smallest European countries as it is for the US.
    - thomastjeffery 4y ago
      That can still allow for mediocre public transit. A bus that only stops every 3 hours can still be a workable commute, but not if you must travel 1-2 hours each way.
      - yunwal 4y ago
        No one ends up using “every-3-hours” routes in day-to-day life. Every 3 hours can work for the tourist who doesn’t want to rent a car, but people with jobs won’t accept that if they miss the bus, the next one is in 3 hours. These routes effectively become useless and contribute to the narrative that public transit isn’t practical.
brewdad 4y ago
I can easily see a future in the US where the car is the next "crisis" like the housing crisis today. Auto manufacturers aren't in a hurry to ramp up production to pre-pandemic levels because they can earn record margins at their current levels. Dealers love it because they can sell pretty much everything above MSRP. It's become nearly impossible to find a basic new car as everything has shifted to crossovers and SUVs/light trucks. The story the other day about GM dropping CarPlay and AA support was alarming for their reason why. They want to know everything about how you use your car, so they can make you "subscribe" to things like climate control and power seats/windows. The future of the automotive industry in consumer hostile. In another decade or so, it's going to be really hard to find parts for the "dumb" cars of old and Americans are going to be screwed.
Moldoteck 4y ago
I'm not saying it's possible for US, but Switzerland managed to route trains&busses to some really remote and low density villages
- rayrey 4y ago
  Switzerland is smaller than some US counties.
  - Moldoteck 4y ago
    and it still has routes going to small vilages, so point stands. also japan afaik also has good infra and is bigger than switzerland
throwbadubadu 4y ago
You summed up all the problems pretty well and make them sound like justification for why it's right and without alternative, which is the biggest problem (:
- thomastjeffery 4y ago
  If the proposed alternative is "be like the UK", we had better recognize how that's a bad fit. I can dream all day about having enough buses and trains to replace 90% of city commutes. That dream includes more work than simply emulating an island nation's infrastructure.
  - throwbadubadu 4y ago
    No, please not.. still there are more alternatives then the US and UK... even some pretty comparable to the "space-distribution" of.the US for these regards.. just try looking for them ;)
_8j50 4y ago
You're mixing up suburbs with small towns. If it is within driving range of a big city downtown then even if it is its own municipality, it is part of the greater metropolitan area of the big city. Suburbs became a thing after the car industry worked very hard to make sure subways and train cars can't be used. And this was also after the great interstate highway project and explicit city planning meant to mitigate the fallout of a nuclear attack by having a huge urban sprawl. All of this in the 50s and 60s. What outsiders don't see is the massive scope and efficiency of the US interstate highway system which is the artery of the US economy. Discussions about public transport don't consider freight. You can't have freight trains to every big store and warehouse but you can get 18wheelers from any part of america to any other part of america (continental) within a day or two at most. At the same time, explicit effort was made to make cities difficult to drive or bike in. A lot of this again goes back to the sentiment of the 50-60s where "white flight" was still a big deal and making suburbs inaccessible to certain types of people who live in cities but occupy the lowest social classes was also important. It's expensive to be poor but cars means mandatory insurance and car payments, gas, repair bills and parking fees. And if you manage to overcome all that, cops can pull you over and search you without a warrant because you are driving and of course traffic fees and all that is nothing compared to one's safety. Childcare, food or rent? Which one should you sacrifice for that court fee? And somehow you must maintain mental fortitude to not use drugs or alcohol to cope with all that stress. Take out cars and suddenly so many problems are solved (including crime rates). My point is, much of this is by design decisions made at a different time and era and the hostility is intentional. It is possible to have both a walkable and drivable city with much less parking lots, especially by having less single family housing concentrations (condos instead of large communities of houses that require cars to access).
- throw_away1525 4y ago
  Do you think we don't have 18 wheelers and highways in Europe?
  - _8j50 4y ago
    Not at the scale or efficiency if the US. No country has. My point was you can also be pedestrian friendly like europe without going full on amsterdam.

pharmakom 4y ago

The UK used to have rail links from all of the small villages into the cities. It was an expensive system, but now that has been ripped out for decades we can see that the alternative is far worse.

29083011397778 4y ago

> On top of that, most of the US is made up of small towns that public transit wouldn't make any sense for. A significant percentage of Americans must regularly travel between a major city and a small town. That means they must have a car, and a place in the city to park it. Hang on though: I can't tell my neighbouring city to push for more housing because, while I want to live there in the future, the people that live there now like their lack of housing. Similarly, why can't the people that currently live in the city tell their local politicians that spending all this space for parking the residents don't need is stupid?

Avshalom 4y ago
people commuting in is a large part of the work force in cities, tourism and generally shopping are important for their economies, also a lot of that parking space is needed by the residents because chicken/egg they all have cars too.
- Scarblac 4y ago
  But why so much space... Why no high parking garages, or deep underground ones.
  - petre 4y ago
    Cheaper, easier. When the land becomes more expensive, it would be built up with offices and the parking space either dissapears or goes underground or high up.
  - ars 4y ago
    Why not? America is large, land is not really in short supply, except in dense cities.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    Because taking up more land is cheaper than building up thanks in large part to the various rules and regulations of municipalities and states. And in many places a parking garage is valued and taxed as a structure whereas a parking lot isn't. Prefab concrete parking garages are a thing the same way that prefab steel warehouse buildings are. The structure isn't that expensive over the life of the structure. It's the latent cost of building and owning a structure that pushes the economics in favor of parking lots. Ironically in a "you are the problem" sort of way, the demographics doing most of the complaining about parking lots and a general lack of density are the same demographics who are in favor of fine grained management and regulation of what people do on their land that causes this situation. You reap what you sow.
  - thomastjeffery 4y ago
    If you own a parking lot that is too small, you can go around booting or towing cars that "don't deserve" to take up your limited parking space. That can get you an awful lot of money, which can get you an awful lot of lobbying power. Big structures are expensive. Who is going to fund them save for the people who are incentivized not to?
lozenge 4y ago
They do need the space for parking, because they have to drive everywhere, because everything is so far apart, because so much space was given to parking...
- ars 4y ago
  Everything is so far apart because America is very large, not because they spaced things out with parking lots. But it does sound funny to make that the reason. "Yup, this big country was spread out by parking lots."
  - travisd 4y ago
    We’re not talking about why Seattle is far from Miami. American city sprawl is largely a recent phenomenon (post WWII) and was enabled by the rise of the personal automobile. Even the sprawl-iest of cities (Houston, TX) used to be respectably dense and walkable. The need for a car to achieve basic needs (groceries, school, work) is a phenomenon well less than 100 years old. America has this problem in part because it’s much younger than a lot of European cities, but it’s certainly not purely a function of topography.

cafard 4y ago

Most of the US geographically or demographically? I will say that public transit in the US could be a lot better. However, over about forty years it has largely been how I got to work. (Washington, DC, area.)

nec4b 4y ago

>> On top of that, most of the US is made up of small towns that public transit wouldn't make any sense for. And you think other other countries are not the same?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rayrey 4y ago
Not with the distances we have in the US
- nec4b 4y ago
  Distances really don't have anything to do with it. If a town is too small to have public transport, it's simply too small. It's the same for the smallest European countries as it is for the US.
  - thomastjeffery 4y ago
    That can still allow for mediocre public transit. A bus that only stops every 3 hours can still be a workable commute, but not if you must travel 1-2 hours each way.
    - yunwal 4y ago
      No one ends up using “every-3-hours” routes in day-to-day life. Every 3 hours can work for the tourist who doesn’t want to rent a car, but people with jobs won’t accept that if they miss the bus, the next one is in 3 hours. These routes effectively become useless and contribute to the narrative that public transit isn’t practical.

brewdad 4y ago

I can easily see a future in the US where the car is the next "crisis" like the housing crisis today. Auto manufacturers aren't in a hurry to ramp up production to pre-pandemic levels because they can earn record margins at their current levels. Dealers love it because they can sell pretty much everything above MSRP. It's become nearly impossible to find a basic new car as everything has shifted to crossovers and SUVs/light trucks. The story the other day about GM dropping CarPlay and AA support was alarming for their reason why. They want to know everything about how you use your car, so they can make you "subscribe" to things like climate control and power seats/windows. The future of the automotive industry in consumer hostile. In another decade or so, it's going to be really hard to find parts for the "dumb" cars of old and Americans are going to be screwed.

Moldoteck 4y ago

I'm not saying it's possible for US, but Switzerland managed to route trains&busses to some really remote and low density villages

rayrey 4y ago
Switzerland is smaller than some US counties.
- Moldoteck 4y ago
  and it still has routes going to small vilages, so point stands. also japan afaik also has good infra and is bigger than switzerland

throwbadubadu 4y ago

You summed up all the problems pretty well and make them sound like justification for why it's right and without alternative, which is the biggest problem (:

thomastjeffery 4y ago
If the proposed alternative is "be like the UK", we had better recognize how that's a bad fit. I can dream all day about having enough buses and trains to replace 90% of city commutes. That dream includes more work than simply emulating an island nation's infrastructure.
- throwbadubadu 4y ago
  No, please not.. still there are more alternatives then the US and UK... even some pretty comparable to the "space-distribution" of.the US for these regards.. just try looking for them ;)

_8j50 4y ago

You're mixing up suburbs with small towns. If it is within driving range of a big city downtown then even if it is its own municipality, it is part of the greater metropolitan area of the big city. Suburbs became a thing after the car industry worked very hard to make sure subways and train cars can't be used. And this was also after the great interstate highway project and explicit city planning meant to mitigate the fallout of a nuclear attack by having a huge urban sprawl. All of this in the 50s and 60s. What outsiders don't see is the massive scope and efficiency of the US interstate highway system which is the artery of the US economy. Discussions about public transport don't consider freight. You can't have freight trains to every big store and warehouse but you can get 18wheelers from any part of america to any other part of america (continental) within a day or two at most. At the same time, explicit effort was made to make cities difficult to drive or bike in. A lot of this again goes back to the sentiment of the 50-60s where "white flight" was still a big deal and making suburbs inaccessible to certain types of people who live in cities but occupy the lowest social classes was also important. It's expensive to be poor but cars means mandatory insurance and car payments, gas, repair bills and parking fees. And if you manage to overcome all that, cops can pull you over and search you without a warrant because you are driving and of course traffic fees and all that is nothing compared to one's safety. Childcare, food or rent? Which one should you sacrifice for that court fee? And somehow you must maintain mental fortitude to not use drugs or alcohol to cope with all that stress. Take out cars and suddenly so many problems are solved (including crime rates). My point is, much of this is by design decisions made at a different time and era and the hostility is intentional. It is possible to have both a walkable and drivable city with much less parking lots, especially by having less single family housing concentrations (condos instead of large communities of houses that require cars to access).

throw_away1525 4y ago
Do you think we don't have 18 wheelers and highways in Europe?
- _8j50 4y ago
  Not at the scale or efficiency if the US. No country has. My point was you can also be pedestrian friendly like europe without going full on amsterdam.