Roody

I know that my own state (Michigan) runs transit on a local or regional level, and I believe that all 50 states do the same. Typically, I think that state funds are distributed mainly through block grants to regional transit authorities or transit companies.

Also, I have read that Hawaii is overly dependant on cars and has very bad traffic congestion.

Pobble.808

Bad congestion on Oahu for sure. Whether it's "overly" car dependent is in the eye of the beholder I guess. My sense is that a lot of my fellow residents see the problem as being caused by an inadequate highway system rather than by too many cars. The city of Honolulu is making some efforts to make the streets more bike-friendly, but this won't affect all the folks stuck out on the freeway.

Roody

A lot of your fellow residents are pretty naive about th problm. I hope that you and other carfree/carlight people are trying to educate them about the absurdity of making more roads to solve the congestion problem. More roads inevitably leads to more driving and more cars, and very quickly you are worse off than you were in the first place.

"They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot."

Ekdog

Mainland Americans are always trotting out the excuse that the United States is just too large and spread out a country to be able to build and rely on mass transit like many European and Asian countries do. What's the excuse on Oahu for such over-reliance on the automobile?

Pobble.808

The Honolulu urban area occupies a relatively narrow corridor of land hemmed in by ocean and mountains. Building additional roads, even adding lanes to the existing freeway in some areas, is pretty much impossible and just about everybody realizes it.

The rail line currently under construction is supposed to be the closest thing to a solution, but even its proponents acknowledge that it won't end the congestion, it will simply provide another, more reliable way to get into and out of town. It will be interesting to see how many people actually ride it. My fear is that lots of people are hoping that everybody else will ride it and then they'll have the freeway all to themselves; if/when that doesn't happen the mood could get very ugly indeed. I hope I'm wrong!

Mobile 155

For the most part or the majority of Americans, the hope of any mass transit system is that someone else will use it so the 90+ percent that drive will have less trafic. Nothing new there.

himespau 

I don't get it. I love offloading the driving duties to someone else so I can sit back, put my headphones on and read. When I lived in Boston, it was my only real "me" time when I was free from work or family responsibilities. I miss it. The whole car thing doesn't make sense to me - my wife loves to drive, however.

B. Carfree

The only roads here across the river from you that are funded out of ODOT's budget are I-105, I-5, and a few miles of hwy 99. All of the rest of the roads are primarily funded by property taxes and a local road maintenance bond. Sure, there is a small slice from the state and feds, but not even all of that comes from "user fees". People seem to forget that locally built and maintained roads are the overwhelming majority of the road grid.

The "user fees" don't even pay for the (far too small) police presence on the state-owned roads. When our recently deposed Governor tried to move the OSP budget into the ODOT budget, there was such a hissy fit from the motor-heads that he withdrew his proposal forthwith.

Jim from Boston

I thought you did live in Boston, noting you are now in Louisville.

+10 to using mass transit in Boston, especially for me since I commute via subway and commuter rail (and cycling) in the reverse usual commuter direction in relatively empty passenger cars, and can bring my bike aboard.

ADDENDUM:

As to why you "don't get it," perhaps it is that you've experienced a pretty good (by American standards) mass transit system in a compact East Coast City. I grew up in the Motor City, and like many Midwest / Western cities, with lots of land, they expanded widely, permitted by the automobile, and mass transit lost out due to comfort and convenience. So now, many Americans just can't imagine traveling any way else.

My wife and I joke that it is a very Michiganian thing to get in the car for incredibly long drives like 24 hours to Florida, or three days to California. I was fortunate in my youth to learn of the alternatives.

himespau 

Yeah, I grew up in Michigan. Spent 12 years in East Lansing going to college. Their public transit system (CATA) was clean and took me where I wanted to go. Far out it wasn't super frequent, but it was my first experience with public transit, and I liked it. Wasn't too expensive. Of course, when I got my BS and an off campus apartment, I did the normal thing and bought a car which I had for most of my grad school. My last year I depended on CATA again and did OK (prices had gone up, service had gone down a bit over the course of 8 years and living at the end of a spoke rather than near a hub made getting to things a little more difficult). For a low density metropolitan area, it did the job.

Then I moved to Boston for 4-5 years, went car free and didn't miss a thing. Well, that's not quite true, often leaving when it was still dark out and coming home in the dark many days and travelling the green and red lines I missed sunlight of above ground, so I often sought out bus and shuttle routes which, while they may have taken a little longer, made me feel a bit more human by seeing the sky somehow. I can't really explain it. Then commuting by bike in the summer was really nice (though it brought out my aggressive side that I didn't know I had when I got angry at drivers and I'm sure it wasn't great for my blood pressure).

Now in Louisville, I'd love to commute via bike, but the most direct route is 13 miles each way (not a big deal I know but that's time away from my two small kids every day where now I get to spend the commute with them in the car while my wife and I trade off driving duties) and I have yet to find a way that doesn't involve long stretches of high volume 45+mph traffic on roads with no shoulders (and often wooded and curvy so no long sight lines).

Even growing up in Michigan, I was just never a big one for driving. I don't know if it was being a passenger in too many accidents as a kid or what, but the responsibility and need to be paying attention at all times when I'd rather be putting my attention to other things was just never fun for me. I never understood the appeal of "cruising" - though as an introvert/loner/whatever my lack of social awareness may have had something to do with that. The only time that I can say I ever really enjoyed driving was going up the west coast of the mitten and around the UP with my wife while camping when we were dating/first married. Lots of beautiful scenery and not too much other traffic. So yeah, even though I grew up in the car culture, I never got it and am kind of bummed to be back in it living in the unconnected suburbs.

Roody

Having a freeway on an island the size of Oahu shows just how absurd and extreme car culture is in the United States. First class stupidity! The whole freeway (H-1) is less than 30 miles long. Even if cars were able to drive the posted speeds (often impossible because of congestion), the time saved over ordinary city streets would be minimal. Apparently the freeway was gridlocked and obsolete before it was even built. They convert a lane into contraflow traffic every rush hour to try and lessen gridlock. Good luck Hawaii!

And to make it even stupider--there are two other freeways on Oahu!

Jim from Boston

Hi himespau,

Thanks for that nice reply. I grew up on the East Side of Detroit. I once posted to this Forum (to Roody) that Michiganians (and bicyclists) seem to always find each other, no matter what the circumstances. I did forget to mention “cruising” also as a peculiarity of the car culture.

Our only visit to the Lake Michigan Shoreline was a credit card tour from Charlevoix on Lake Huron up to Mackinac Island, around the tip of the Lower Peninsula to Harbor Springs, Petosky and Traverse City, then back across to Charlevoix. We even crossed a region written into some short stories by Ernest Hemingway. It was as you describe, scenic with low traffic. Michigan has a lot to offer cyclists, and even Detroit has a cycling culture.

Roody

I grew up in Highland Park, an epicenter of the auto industry, one block from Chrysler world headquarters and less than a mile from Ford's first assembly line. I was turned off to cars from an early age also, for reasons I don't fully understand. I didn't get my license until I was 19 and I was about 25 when I bought my first car. I did go "cruising" with my friends on Woodward Ave., but always as a passenger--usually in my friend's father's big ol' nasty Buick.

I live in Lansing, so I ride those CATA buses often. They are good transit by American standards--have even won awards--but need improvement to sustain a fully carfree, bus-dependent lifestyle.

Roody

Just quibbling, but Charlevoix is on the Lake Michigan side, near Harbor Springs, Petoskey and Traverse City. You probably meant to say Cheboygan, which is on Lake Huron?

Jim from Boston

You're right; that trip was almost 30 years ago. My parents had a cottage in Cheboygan, where we started.

Roody

It is a beautiful part of the world. Like you, I always enjoyed the Hemingway connection. We used to stop at the general store in Horton Bay to get ice cream, across the road from the Hemingway's cottage on Lake Charlevoix.

Pobble.808

Yeah, well, some of the folks sitting in traffic jams on the freeway probably think that it's absurd and stupid to use public funding for mass transit, let alone for cycling infrastructure, so there we are...

Dahon.Steve

This is true.

It costs the New York City MTA $4.23 per passenger to ride the subway that charges $2.50. If you buy a 10 trip ride, it brings it down to $1.78 and transfers are free!

I've said it before that Mexican Jitney vans provides poor quality service but it's better than nothing. It gives you an idea of how dirty and poor public transit becomes if the city and state do not fund it. There's really very little profit in moving passengers from point A to B. To do this cheaply, the Jitney has to be barely road worthy and dirty with a driver from Mexico who receives no pension, health insurance and maybe illegal.

People also seem to forget there are hundreds of thousands that are using "Unlmited" MetroCards or "Monthly" bus passes. During the weekends, anywhere from 30-70% of the bus riders are using their weekly monthly bus passes. Those rides are free and the bus company loses thousands of dollars on the weekend. I'm one of those passengers who rides for free on the weekends (with my bike) traveling 30 miles for $2.00!!

We have to look at it this way. If you want the bus to make a profit, it's going to cost about $6.00 dollars a ride. Rail service will be about three times as much.

RR3

My (socialistic) state is on the left side of the graph. Does more spending equal better bike roads?

Roody

This post reads like you would favor horrible, unsafe jitneys for part of the populace, and luxurious train service for the other part. I find that detestable. But you do bring up one reason that public transit is expensive: it must serve (or try to) all segments of the population in a fair and equal manner. This is crucial to our shared national goals, IMO, AKA the American Dream.

Dahon.Steve

I don't favor the jitney unless you have little or no public transit. I use the jitney as an example of how expensive it is to provide public transit and there is no way it can be profitable with a fare box charging under 2 dollars for five miles of service. It must be subsidized!

I actually used the jitneys last year during the snow storm! The bus and rail service was suspended but the Mexican jitney vans were still rolling in 6 - 12 inches of snow.

With Android apps, it doesn't make sense to use the jitney since I can time the regular bus to under 10 minutes.

Roody

Yes, and obviously the same people who oppose the subsidies for transit also favor the huge subsidies for cars and highways. And interesting to observe that very few policy makers favor the elimination of transit funding, regardless of their party or ideology. People who understand public policy almost always support public transit of some type or amount.