tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post2569126916962338902..comments2024-02-01T04:37:41.878-05:00Comments on Cap'n Transit Rides Again: A regional perspective on inefficient transportationCap'n Transithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17057887736728828646noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post-19579265755153894462011-01-13T18:26:45.169-05:002011-01-13T18:26:45.169-05:00George, a couple of comments.
First, in recent el...George, a couple of comments.<br /><br />First, in recent elections in the US, 77% of all voters voted to support transit. A majority of those voters live in the suburbs.<br /><br />Second, density means many things. Compare downtown St. Louis and downtown Daejeon, South Korea, two cities of comparable size. Downtown St. Louis is sunless concrete while there is a apartment complex with a private forest near downtown Daejeon. If you gave the people who live in those apartments the choice between living in a high-rise or a single family home, they would choose the single-family home. But they like that there kids can walk to two different elementary schools. They like that they can walk to work. They like that they can walk to shops and to the baseball park. They like that you can get the best fruit in Korea at their farmer's market. And they love having their own forest.<br /><br />Third, people in transit friendly counties own cars. A greater percentage of people in Copenhagen own cars than do New Yorkers. Same for Paris. I believe that one of the purposes of our transportation policies is to force people to drive. On of the reasons that I believe this is the belief that if we change policies, we would be forcing people to do something else.Helen Bushnellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14177708490995175178noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post-35697125950921783272011-01-12T03:06:26.359-05:002011-01-12T03:06:26.359-05:00The biggest efficiency difference between cars and...The biggest efficiency difference between cars and transit isn't the amount of metal per amount of human. It's that steel-on-steel has a much lower rolling friction coefficient than tires-on-asphalt, and transit vehicles have less frontal cross-section area than cars relative to vehicle mass. NYCT manages to have nearly trivial per-capita energy consumption even though at average occupancy, it has a ton and a quarter of train mass per rider.<br /><br />That aside, you're totally right about cutting VMT leading to cuts in traffic fatalities - in fact, that's the only thing that does. But replacing the LIE with a train line is not the first place to start (nor any place unless said train line goes to Manhattan). It's the most important to restrain travel growth in the suburbs, not in the city, where driving is already strictly for masochists.Alon Levyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12195377309045184452noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post-21548255243473043072011-01-11T21:54:33.043-05:002011-01-11T21:54:33.043-05:00Yes, George, I've covered that in fairly exten...Yes, George, I've covered that in fairly extensive detail:<br /><a href="http://capntransit.blogspot.com/2010/04/giving-people-what-they-want.html" rel="nofollow">Giving people what they want</a><br /><a href="http://capntransit.blogspot.com/2010/04/what-people-want.html" rel="nofollow">What people want</a><br /><a href="http://capntransit.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-dont-want-to-take-your-car-away.html" rel="nofollow">I don't want to take your car away</a><br /><br />People think that cars will bring them all kinds of good things. They're mostly wrong. Cars are unsustainable, and the more people we get to give them up sooner rather than later, the better off we'll be. Any suggestions you might have would be welcome.<br /><br />Just because I think it's good for people to give up their cars doesn't mean I'm judging any individual person who hasn't given theirs up yet.Cap'n Transithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17057887736728828646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5862444008740250372.post-34012157453782351672011-01-11T21:12:53.019-05:002011-01-11T21:12:53.019-05:00The problem is that when you build transit in an a...The problem is that when you build transit in an area, it densifies, and some people simply don't want densification. <br /> That is why people move out to the suburbs, so they can escape all of the (often perceived) problems that come with densifications, including more traffic (a less dense area might have more traffic per capita, but it still has less traffic overall) and higher crime.<br /> In short, you may be able to convince some people to give up their cars and move to a more dense area (or stay in an area after it densifies), but there are a high percentage of people living in the suburbs who will oppose any large transit expansion.<br /> Even in urban areas, there are people who have good reasons for owning a car. For example, my family used to live in Brooklyn owned a car, but my father worked in the middle of nowhere in Westchester (and, before you say anything, it was a huge reservior, so there really was no way you could have the ridership to support a transit line). Now, we live in Staten Island and, because of the fact that we were used to having a car, we decided to keep a car, along with the associated expenses.<br /> For the record, although we do have a car, my family has a long history of non-car-ownership. The only reason we got a car was because we worked in a place in the middle of nowhere (and couldn't live near there because of NYC's residency law for civil servants) and got used to the convenience of a car (plus, he works in Staten Island now, so, even if we still lived in a more urban area, a car would still be necessary to avoid the long commute)<br /> Still, at least we only have 1 car and use public transportation when it isn't available (about 40-45% of all Staten Island households have 2 or more cars)George Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15288033149559815848noreply@blogger.com