Spld cyclist

I don't think my post was political or off-topic. The thread is about a demographic trend (Millennials buying fewer cars), the reasons for that, and if it will hold up over time. A key to analyzing that trend is to examine whether people are moving to the city and staying there. You think everyone will move out and buy two cars. I don't necessarily agree, and described my personal situation to support my opinion. Are you annoyed because I didn't agree with you?

wahoonc

I have seen an interesting concept... In Charleston, SC area they have a park and ride with express buses, ditto outside of the DC area. They are using the long haul interstate type buses with the cargo compartments, versus the typical city bus with no cargo compartments for the park and rides. That might solve part of the dilemma, however you will still have the issue of trying to schlep the heavy or bulky item from the bus stop to it's final location.

Aaron

mrtuttle04

That's funny I thought this thread was about why millennials do not own cars. You miss my point so I will make it a little clearer. Some of them do not own cars because they live in the city where everything is close; as life situation chages, they will buy a car. I know quite a few millennials and they alomost all of them own cars...but then I live in an area that is very impractical if not impossible to live car free.

MEversbergII

I was thinking about this thread last night when talking with the other half. We've talked about having one kid at some point in the future when my career's more stable and we have a stable place to live. We had discussed moving to the city at some point as I've been in ruro-suburbia my whole life and am always impressed when I visit cities (even smaller ones like Baltimore). I can't for the life of me figure out why, if you live in one, you'd move OUT when you had a child. That seems backwards. Cities offer more opportunities for kids, I'd think. Certainly more than I had. Hell, I'd rather they be running about in the city having their little adventures instead of being stuck at home all day.

Schools are bad all over the US; at least in cities you'd probably have a better shot at finding alternatives.

M.

Spld cyclist

I completely understood your point before, and I agree that many young people move out of the city and when they have kids. My counterpoint is that this tendency may be changing. There is renewed interest in the benefits of living in cities, and we may find that many people will move into cities, stay there to raise their kids, and buy fewer cars. There are hopeful signs that this is actually happening. You may not know anyone who has done this or will do so. I happen to know people that are doing so, and others who moved to the suburbs but regretted that their hand was forced by the state of schools in center cities.

Spld cyclist

I agree with most of this. My wife and I grew up going to thorougly mediocre small-town schools. I think students who are bright and motivated can learn fine in that type of environment. It hasn't been a problem for us. The issue with many of the schools in my city is gang activity. I don't want my kids to have to deal with that.

MEversbergII

Good point. I am starting an IT career on a military base (corporate contractor) and I got really lucky - a house worth not very much very close to the base. With any luck it will be mine by the end of the month. A 30 year nets me less than 600 / month in payments, so once my career really kicks off I should be pretty capable paying it off much, much faster (780/mo brings it to under 15 years - I currently pay nearly 1k in rent!). It's even "downtown", which is as city as I can get so far. While it is within walking distance of an elementary school (baseball throwing distance, even), the high school was always notorious. No idea where the middle school(s?) even are. I'm concerned about the kind of people any potential offspring might be exposed to. Homeschool is probably a good idea once they hit high school age, though I'm also tempted to give them a hard push to taking the GED at 16 and getting the hell out - which is what I'd wanted to do when I was that age. The last two years of high school are an extreme waste. I know lots of guys who did well in high school, then ended up repeating the exact courses as "prereq's" when they got to community college...

M.

Spld cyclist

In our case, the neighborhood elementary school is pretty good, so we would have been fine through fifth grade. Our older girl attended there through 4th grade. Middle schools here are tough. We would have considered at least one of the high schools (out of four).

Our younger daughter won the lottery and got into a K-12 charter school for kindergarten. It's pretty good academically and they run a really tight ship. If your kid doesn't win the lottery, they get put on a waiting list (which is a long list). When a younger sibling gets in, older siblings get bumped up the list, and so our older girl was able to start in the 5th grade.

My wife was a social worker who used to do mental/behavioral health work with kids. She thinks that middle school is the hardest time for kids in general. That, combined with the state of middle schools here, might have left us with homeschooling during the middle school years and then trying our luck with the high school. Luckily, we didn't have to cross that bridge. There is also an expensive private school and Catholic school. We might have been able to pay school tuition and scrape by.

So anyway, there are sometimes ways to get by, but no one should have to face those kinds of choices. Sorry if that last statement is too "political" for some.

MEversbergII

Middle school is where just about everything fell apart for me, so I don't think you're too outlandish there. The high school I went to is about 12 miles, I think, from where I live now, but isn't the one any theoretical kids would be going to. May well bite the bullet and get a car then, just drive them up in the AM.

Another problem about GEDing them out or homeschooling is what if they're the friend-making type? Not everyone can easily deal with suddenly being cut off like that.

M.

contango 

If you're hauling heavy stuff you have to carry it at least some way unless the shop can deliver or you can drive your car right outside (not always possible in big cities), and unless you can park right outside your house (again, not always possible in big cities).

My main concern with carrying stuff on public transport isn't so much heavy stuff (I'm big and ugly enough to haul heavy things) but with fragile stuff. The last thing I want is for someone to just chuck their stuff on top of mine and break it, or a baggage handler to throw it on the pile assuming it's made of rocks when it's really made of glass.

When public transport starts and finishes reasonably close to where you start and finish your journey it can work very well. The trouble is when one or more of the legs are inordinately long. I always think of a friend who lives about 35 miles away from me. By car it's a little under an hour door-to-door (using a longer route that takes in primarily fast roads). By public transport you'd be doing extremely well to get there in less than two hours, not least because from the far point you've got a 20 minute walk and you can easily look at losing another 20-30 minutes waiting while you change trains. By public transport alone I'd reckon it would take 2.5 hours.

By a combination of public transport and bicycle (ride about 5 miles to avoid the first train leg and the wait, then ride from the end station) it's maybe 1:45, and by bike alone it usually takes me about 2:15. So the easiest solution by far is the car, if I'm not travelling alone the car wins by a wider margin (my wife wouldn't ride that trip, and obviously by train she'd need another ticket), and if all I'm going to save by taking the train is half an hour (less if the trains are delayed) I might as well cycle as pay for a train ticket. It's pretty sad when it's faster to cycle than take the train.

gerv 

On the contrary. I really love making such discoveries.

blacksapphire08

The first 1.5 miles is a 4 lane highway but the rest is a very narrow 2 lane road with heavy traffic. There are no shoulders and part of it narrows to about 1.5 lanes. I would love to ride to work if i didnt feel like i was in danger of being crushed by a semi. For now I ride to the grocery store and considered picking up a pizza but theres no place to put it lol.

contango 

It doesn't say much for public transport when I can cover 35 miles faster on a bicycle than I can on the train.

wahoonc

Sounds like what we have around here... except I start with the two lane roads. Some times of the day are better than others, but that doesn't help if you have to travel at a certain time.

Aaron

gerv 

On the flip side it does indicate you are in stellar health.

Roody

Wasn't there a race in Los Angeles where a bike beat a race car and a plane?

hotcore

Sadly, it takes nearly 5 hours for an approximately 40 mile round trip via public transit 'round these parts.

Roody

Where's that?

contango 

I wouldn't say stellar health, I'm still probably 40-50 pounds overweight. It's just that public transport works spectacularly badly unless you're going along predefined routes - as soon as you want to go from one radial to another you end up dealing with some derivative of going towards the centre, waiting forever to change, then going out again. Throw in walking time at either end of the journey and everything ramps up surprisingly fast.

Mvcrash

I'm not sure the statistics are based in good research, but I could be wrong. I have a 25 and 22 year old neither of which owns a car. Me, I own mine, my wifes, my "baby boomer I am cool cars" of which there are 2 and I own the two cars my kids DRIVE. They don't own them, were not with me when they were purchased and don't pay their insurance. I have many friends whose kids are in the same boat.
I wonder how those circumstances were accounted for in the statistics.

gerv 

Hmm... I imagine there's a lot of this going on. I know I did the same thing with my children... gave them one of our two cars (when we had two...)... while I rode a bike.

I'm not going to attempt to offer you any advise, but in my personal circumstance, had I been car free or a member of a one-car family, my children might have grown up a bit quicker... Sorry kids.. we only have one car and we don't have anything we can loan you on a long-term basis...

Just saying.

Roody

There are statistics on both car ownership and on miles driven. Sounds like you want to compare the two. You own six cars, which seems rather a lot.

Mvcrash

What is going on is simply I spoil my children. I won't argue the virtues/draw backs of this but I will say they are good kids, work hard and I'm proud of their academic achievements.

Thanks for the answer on the stats. I was just wondering about the research.

kookaburra1701

I remember that, I think it was when the Burbank bike path along the aqueduct opened?

metro2005

Where i live we have a pretty good public transport system and even here (most densely populated area of the Netherlands) its faster to bike somewhere than to take the train most of the time.
Last time i took the train it took 2 hours to cover 50 kilometers (30 miles). I could have riden that distance on my bike in the same time and thats pretty sad.