Evidence in the form of statistics, showing America may well be absolutely ready for more mass transit even, one day soon? in Kansas City:
"The U.S. fleet has apparently peaked and started to decline. In 2009, the 14 million cars scrapped exceeded the 10 million new cars sold, shrinking the U.S. fleet by 4 million, or nearly 2 percent in one year."
We've got fewer cars due, at least in part, to the worst recession in seventy years.
More:
"With four out of five Americans now living in cities, the growth in urban car numbers at some point provides just the opposite: immobility. The Texas Transportation Institute reports that U.S. congestion costs, including fuel wasted and time lost, climbed from $17 billion in 1982 to $87 billion in 2007."
"Economic uncertainty makes some consumers reluctant to undertake the long-term debt associated with buying new cars. In tight economic circumstances, families are living with two cars instead of three, or one car instead of two. Some are dispensing with the car altogether. In Washington, D.C., with a well-developed transit system, only 63 percent of households own a car."
So the young people, the next generations of Americans, seem much more likely to share transportation. And if oil goes up as it is expected to do? All the more likely to push them to share even more trips to and from work and around town.
"Perhaps the most fundamental social trend affecting the future of the automobile is the declining interest in cars among young people. For those who grew up a half-century ago in a country that was still heavily rural, getting a driver's license and a car or a pickup was a rite of passage. Getting other teenagers into a car and driving around was a popular pastime."
"In contrast, many of today's young people living in a more urban society learn to live without cars. They socialize on the Internet and on smart phones, not in cars. Many do not even bother to get a driver's license. This helps explain why, despite the largest U.S. teenage population ever, the number of teenagers with licenses, which peaked at 12 million in 1978, is now under 10 million. If this trend continues, the number of potential young car-buyers will continue to decline."
Check this out:
"The United States is entering a new era, evolving from a car-dominated transport system to one that is much more diversified. As noted, this transition is driven by market saturation, economic trends, environmental concerns, and by a cultural shift away from cars that is most pronounced among young people. As this evolution proceeds, it will affect virtually every facet of life."
With all this, it looks much more like Clay Chastain (I loathe to even mention his name) would love this data.
God help us, we may get that clown back still more.
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Why do we want mass transit? The usual answer is energy, pollution and congestion.
Mass transit based on electricity probably pollutes less than private cars. Overall, mass transit uses just about the same amount of energy per passenger, regardless of type--I was very surprised when multiple sources confirmed this. I don't think this ratio is going to get better--the efficiency of cars is increasing faster than transit.
(Google on something like "public transit efficiency")
Is there any place in the US where mass transit is not heavily subsidized? In many places (I think most, but I'm too lazy to look it up) fares account for less than half of the operating costs, and in some cases barely cover the cost of collecting the fares.
Mass transit is also used as a weapon--Locally there have been several businesses wanting an upscale image who resist having nearby transit stops--this minimizes the number of undesirables.
Transit does reduce congestion, but I wonder what could be done if similar resources were spent in other ways?
Since the automobile industry crushed mass transit (trollies, etc.) from the middle of the last century onward, here in the States, naturally Americans have not used it nearly as much. We have preferred to ride, single-person to a car, mostly, wherever we go, virtually. We all know that so naturally ridership is ridiculously low. This data, however, points to the possibility that perhaps we're changing--or young people, anyway.
As to your question: "I wonder what could be done if similar resources were spent in other ways?", the answer there lies in the heavy, heavy resources now spent on our highway and roads systems. They get many billions of dollars per year, of course, and no one ever mentions the cost to our society of those systems, and how they don't pay us any return.
I'm not advocating for it here, though I am a proponent. I'm just saying that trends may be taking the country in different directions in the future.
"don't pay us any return"? Charitably that is a significant exaggeration.
We have to have a road network of some sort--the city needs delivery even if people can all take the train, and much of the US is too sparsely populated for public transit to work. Essentially the only "road need" that public transport can reduce is the number of extra lanes in city freeways.
I've had experience with transit systems in Chicago (although decades ago) and NYC. I never experienced low ridership, but they are still heavily subsidized.
Mass Transit is probably essential for huge cities due to congestion. The argument is a lot weaker for mid-sized cities--Congestion is less of an issue, and the environmental and energy impact are minimal unless everyone conforms.
okay, admittedly, I phrased that poorly.
Yes, the insanely expensive highway gives us a return of a sort, with transportation, etc., but the fact still remains that the entire system has huge costs and no one expects to "run a profit" from it, per se. It's a black hole of cost and costs.
This study seems to suggest, I think, that we might be on the way to everyone "conforming" to use it, especially if (when?) the price of oil and gasoline shoots up as is predicted.
Light rail through parts of Kansas City does seem like it could work while more and better trains from New York to Chicago, Chicago to St. Louis and Kansas City, Kansas City to Denver, Denver to LA, etc., also seem intelligent and effective and of some possible benefit to us.
High speed trains are in use through most of the rest of the developed world and it seems its time should have come for the US, as well, for all their benefits.
The amount of capitol required for high speed trains would be extreme--almost as much as occupying a foreign country for a year or two....Gotta have priorities...
More seriously, there's no way high speed rail would make economic sense except possibly in the densest parts of the US. Not that lack of sense makes a difference, see "occupying foreign countries"...
Terrific idea. Here's what we do--get out of the two countries we're occupying (Iraq and Afghanistan), come home and pay for both education and mass transit. Then, while we're at it, go all "conservative" on them and get out of Okinawa, Japan, Germany and Italy, at least, bring all those American soldiers and all the materiel we can, home, and add on that savings. Then, to top it all off, cut the military/DoD budget from $711 trillion/year to half that, at least, so we're still the largest military spender in the world, but not by 2, and spend all that money on the American people, too, instead of on bombs and foreign countries.
Problems solved.
(like any of that could or would happen)
Have a great day. Think happy thoughts.
I quite hope KC never gets light rail. Why? Because that is more funding for Metrolink. Besides, rail in KC wouldn't work, ya'll don't have anything worth visiting.
Right.
We don't have the River Market.
Or the Arabian Museum.
Or our Union Station.
Or the Crown Center Complex.
Or Westport.
Or The Country Club Plaza.
Or The Kemper Museum.
Or the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Or the Block Gallery of Contemporary Art.
Or Brookside.
And you definitely shouldn't have mass transit from the airport into the city.
Absolutely.
I can see you know just what you're talking about.
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