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Public Transit Demand: Chicken or Egg?

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Public Transit Demand: Chicken or Egg?

Old 09-05-14, 08:21 AM
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Public Transit Demand: Chicken or Egg?

Even if you cycle exclusively for transportation, public transit use facilitates bikability and walkability in public and corporate planning. For this reason, balancing public transit with personal automobile usage on public roads is a critical component of facilitating and normalizing cycling and walking as common ways of getting around.

Public transportation demand is a chicken-and-egg problem, though. In areas where public transit is lacking or schedules and routes discourage it as a choice, driving tends to be viewed as an exclusive possibility for serious mobility. Lack of demand for public transit is a side-effect. Taking the bus is not even an option that most people consider before jumping in the car, let alone an appealing one.

When local government makes an effort to improve transit services to grow ridership, the public is often slow to warm up to the idea and this gives critics a window to complain about public money being spent on services for which demand is lacking. Ironically, such critics sometimes suggest that private business is more effective and efficient than government yet these same critics would complain even more if public transit was promoted and market-positioned as aggressively as many new or existing products are.

Part of what seems to impede transit services from taking root is that government regulations to effectively steer a significant proportion of the population into using it would be viewed as an assault on freedom. This is ironic considering that employers can 'provide' health insurance for employees and come across as generous while if the government mandates it, the public protests. If employers would generously 'provide' transit services for their employees in lieu of parking or as part of employer-provided discount car-insurance, would employees more gladly accept the ride?

What other ways might transit-demand be stimulated? By creating car-free zones where users must park and take buses/trams to enter? Amusement park visitors seem more than content to enter parks this way so why not other areas?
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Old 09-05-14, 08:16 PM
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Originally Posted by tandempower
What other ways might transit-demand be stimulated?
Years ago, Union City New Jersey had a horrible situation with regards to public transit. It is one of the most concentrated cities in New Jersey yet bus service during the weekend was once per hour! The city then allowed the Mexican Jitney vans to provide service and now you can catch one every 10 - 15 minutes.

If the city does not want to spend money to subsidize professional bus service, then Mexican jitney vans should be allowed to compete for passengers. Once you have these vans in service, more people will want and vote for public transit. Getting people used to transit, even it's a dirty jitney van will enforce new carfree behaviors.

I've seen this first hand with lightrail.
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Old 09-05-14, 08:52 PM
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I don't think that you can meaningfully discuss public transit in the abstract. What works in one city won't necessarily work in another, with the density of the city being a critical factor. You also can't hand wave away the tremendously expensive upfront cost of something like light rail.

And, as far as I can tell, public transportation is only really successful where driving (including parking) is particularly inconvenient.

It takes me 25 minutes to drive to work. If I take the bus, (which is convenient to my house, and runs twice per hour) it takes me 40 minutes; cost is $1.75 one way. (Biking takes 50 minutes).

So the value proposition isn't that great, it takes more time, and it's less flexible if I want to stay after work or do errands on the way home.

Note, too, that if I miss the 7:30 bus, I could drive to work before the next bus arrives (and the schedule creates its own inefficiencies - if I'm ready to leave at 7:15, I can't; I still have to wait until 7:30).

And our bus system is very much of a hub-and-spoke design: good for getting to and from work, particularly if you work downtown, but not necessarily good for going across town or visiting anyone who doesn't live downtown or on the same spoke.

I think that these factors, more than anything else, tend to mitigate against greater public acceptance of public transportation in a lot of newer cities.

Later this year, my city is rolling out an electric car share service, which I'm looking forward to. Unfortunately, they haven't set the price yet; but it may provide a better model for non-dense midsized cities.
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Old 09-06-14, 06:06 AM
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Originally Posted by alhedges
And, as far as I can tell, public transportation is only really successful where driving (including parking) is particularly inconvenient.
What does "successful" mean? That it exists and people use it? Besides convenience, you also have economic drivers. In my area many people use public transportation and would probably rather not because they can't afford cars. The rail takes people to the outskirts of the city where they have jobs. There's also a sort of stigma that goes with using public transportation - not a dramatic one. But it's a factor. Many people seem to perceive using public transport as something for poor people.

If you introduce buffers where cars can't go then using public transport can actually save time. But how do you do that in the face of the public outrage that comes from people that already go to these places in their cars? Without that, public transport is for poor people or people with environmental concerns that do it out of a sense of responsibility. There's also people that use up some extra time on public transport, but spend that time reading, emailing with friends, etc. and do in fact prefer that way of getting around because driving takes constant attention. But that's a small segment of the population at large.
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Old 09-06-14, 09:19 AM
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Originally Posted by Dahon.Steve
If the city does not want to spend money to subsidize professional bus service, then Mexican jitney vans should be allowed to compete for passengers. Once you have these vans in service, more people will want and vote for public transit. Getting people used to transit, even it's a dirty jitney van will enforce new carfree behaviors.

I've seen this first hand with lightrail.
This is a good idea. Idk about the 'dirty' part but if something like Uber was allowed for shuttle-vans and the like, flexible routing could provide some of the same efficiency-gains of busing without the inefficiency of fixed routes and partially-filled buses. I have been skeptical of ride-sharing systems like Uber because I'm afraid they would encourage more motor-traffic congestion but if the vehicles were larger and used efficiently, they might be a good complement to more popular fixed-route large-bus lines.

Originally Posted by alhedges
I don't think that you can meaningfully discuss public transit in the abstract. What works in one city won't necessarily work in another, with the density of the city being a critical factor. You also can't hand wave away the tremendously expensive upfront cost of something like light rail.
I agree. I think light rail is a solution to the status-problem of busing. I'm sure you are right that localities have nuances that make them unique cases, as with individuals/families within localities, but it obfuscates the discussion to defer it to the local level. What's more, those who resist and even fight against growth in public transit do not limit themselves to their local communities, so deferring to the local level is essentially feeding the sheep to wolves who will gladly devour them.

And, as far as I can tell, public transportation is only really successful where driving (including parking) is particularly inconvenient.
This is the huge issue. Driving IS most convenient below a certain threshhold of population and sprawl. The convenience and efficiency fades, however, as the city grows. Then, the more the city has grown, the more difficult it is for public transit and cycling to grow as relief for the impending sprawl-congestion.

In other words, the longer people wait to grow transit and cycling as relief for automotive congestion, the harder it gets for individuals to make the choice. So the challenge is finding a way to get enough people to adopt transit and cycling at a point in city-growth before sprawl-expansion so that the sprawl-expansion can be prevented by forms of growth that don't add to sprawl and automobile dependency.

It takes me 25 minutes to drive to work. If I take the bus, (which is convenient to my house, and runs twice per hour) it takes me 40 minutes; cost is $1.75 one way. (Biking takes 50 minutes).

So the value proposition isn't that great, it takes more time, and it's less flexible if I want to stay after work or do errands on the way home.

Note, too, that if I miss the 7:30 bus, I could drive to work before the next bus arrives (and the schedule creates its own inefficiencies - if I'm ready to leave at 7:15, I can't; I still have to wait until 7:30).
I'm pretty sure everyone who drives sees it the same way.

And our bus system is very much of a hub-and-spoke design: good for getting to and from work, particularly if you work downtown, but not necessarily good for going across town or visiting anyone who doesn't live downtown or on the same spoke.

I think that these factors, more than anything else, tend to mitigate against greater public acceptance of public transportation in a lot of newer cities
Could you go as far as to say that cities are practically designed to limit public transit use so that automobile ownership and driving is positioned as a premium mode of transportation? It's like transit is basic cable and driving gets you to the premium channels. Local governments no more want to make public transit comprehensive than cable companies want to include premium channels in the basic cable package. Doing so would reduce automotive business.

This is a problem because it practically guarantees sprawl-growth, which gradually creates worse economic consequences than automotive business losses.

Later this year, my city is rolling out an electric car share service, which I'm looking forward to. Unfortunately, they haven't set the price yet; but it may provide a better model for non-dense midsized cities.
I was optimistic about car-sharing at first but I think public transit, sprawl-reduction, and more bike transit does more to reduce traffic, bustle, and the seas of cars everywhere that come with most people relying on driving.

Originally Posted by Walter S
What does "successful" mean? That it exists and people use it? Besides convenience, you also have economic drivers. In my area many people use public transportation and would probably rather not because they can't afford cars. The rail takes people to the outskirts of the city where they have jobs. There's also a sort of stigma that goes with using public transportation - not a dramatic one. But it's a factor. Many people seem to perceive using public transport as something for poor people.
These are all reasons why the public resists public transit. At what point do you give in and accept inherently unsustainable growth patterns though? It's like planning death as the culmination of a long-term strategy to live off debt without repayment.

If you introduce buffers where cars can't go then using public transport can actually save time. But how do you do that in the face of the public outrage that comes from people that already go to these places in their cars? Without that, public transport is for poor people or people with environmental concerns that do it out of a sense of responsibility. There's also people that use up some extra time on public transport, but spend that time reading, emailing with friends, etc. and do in fact prefer that way of getting around because driving takes constant attention. But that's a small segment of the population at large.
Certain campuses get away with restricting driving, e.g. amusement parks and universities. They also get away with charging high parking fees and tolls to enter their road networks. Local governments are under the *** to keep public roads free and car-friendly, for the most part, because of majoritarianism mainly because the public has proved its ability to block out concern for the long term consequences of unsustainable growth in favor of narrow short-term concerns like continuing to drive the same way they did yesterday and to be able to afford the costs that come with driving.

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Old 09-06-14, 01:43 PM
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At what point do you give in and accept inherently unsustainable growth patterns though?
I'm all for it. And already have in many ways. Unfortunately I'm in the minority. I'm not sure it will happen in general until it has to, and becomes a more urgent and difficult process.
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Old 09-06-14, 04:23 PM
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Originally Posted by tandempower

I'm pretty sure everyone who drives sees it the same way.
Well, no, not at all. Driving in Chicago during the week takes significantly longer than using public transport, and - because parking costs ~$25+ - it is significantly more expensive.


I was optimistic about car-sharing at first but I think public transit, sprawl-reduction, and more bike transit does more to reduce traffic, bustle, and the seas of cars everywhere that come with most people relying on driving.
You might be right in general - but car sharing has the significant advantage that the taxpayers don't have to spend billions of dollars for it. It also makes being bike free easier because you can use the car in those cases where biking wouldn't be convenient - hauling home 50 lb bags of planting soil or whatever.

For me, it would increase the number of times I can bike to work easily. If I have a meeting in the morning for which I need to wear a suit, I tend to just take the car; with the car share, I can drive in but bike home.


These are all reasons why the public resists public transit. At what point do you give in and accept inherently unsustainable growth patterns though? It's like planning death as the culmination of a long-term strategy to live off debt without repayment.
The public resists public transit because - in many places - it will be very expensive and provide worse service. The light rail that my city periodically discusses would cost $1.75 billion (assuming no cost overruns); the city's budget is only $1B annually. Although the proponents hope to recoup 25% of the cost through rider fees, predicting how many people would actually use it is completely speculative.

And I'm not sure how public transit will prevent "inherently unsustainable growth patterns" - I'm not completely sure what patterns you mean. But public transit doesn't stop sprawl; in many cases it enables it, as its main use is often to bring workers into the center city from the suburbs. I.e., it makes it easier for people to not live in the city.
Certain campuses get away with restricting driving, e.g. amusement parks and universities. They also get away with charging high parking fees and tolls to enter their road networks.
Sure, but these campuses also provide on-campus housing. What they're not doing is building a trolley system out to distant apartment complexes. And the reason that the campuses limit driving is generally due to the difficulty of parking on campus and the overall high density of the campus generally.
Local governments are under the *** to keep public roads free and car-friendly, for the most part, because of majoritarianism mainly because the public has proved its ability to block out concern for the long term consequences of unsustainable growth in favor of narrow short-term concerns like continuing to drive the same way they did yesterday and to be able to afford the costs that come with driving.
You say majoritarianism like it is a bad thing. Please explain a better way of spending tax money. Dictatorship?
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Old 09-06-14, 05:21 PM
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Originally Posted by alhedges
You might be right in general - but car sharing has the significant advantage that the taxpayers don't have to spend billions of dollars for it. It also makes being bike free easier because you can use the car in those cases where biking wouldn't be convenient - hauling home 50 lb bags of planting soil or whatever.

For me, it would increase the number of times I can bike to work easily. If I have a meeting in the morning for which I need to wear a suit, I tend to just take the car; with the car share, I can drive in but bike home.
I see your points here but what about the need to reduce parking and the seas of cars that fills roads and parking lots and demand more lanes and longer distances between destinations? Sprawl really comes down to including room for cars in any and all developed land. How do car-sharing and ride-sharing change that unless a significant number of people forgo automobile ownership? I think the whole problem would be solved if local governments zoned a certain amount of parking spots and no more. Then people could choose EITHER car-sharing/ride-sharing OR personal auto ownership but not both. Even then, there still might be too many cars to prevent sprawl and facilitate transit and bike commuting.

The public resists public transit because - in many places - it will be very expensive and provide worse service. The light rail that my city periodically discusses would cost $1.75 billion (assuming no cost overruns); the city's budget is only $1B annually. Although the proponents hope to recoup 25% of the cost through rider fees, predicting how many people would actually use it is completely speculative.
Right, but this is also a chicken-egg problem, or rather a catch-22. People don't like buses because they associate them with low status and poverty. Then if you propose a high-status transit alternative that costs more, people complain that they're too poor (publicly) to afford it. So either accept a low-cost bus system and use it or pay for a transit system you will use; don't reject one because it's too cheap and then reject the other because it is too expensive (not you personally, of course, I'm just using a generalized 'you' here - sorry if it sounds like a personal attack).

And I'm not sure how public transit will prevent "inherently unsustainable growth patterns" - I'm not completely sure what patterns you mean. But public transit doesn't stop sprawl; in many cases it enables it, as its main use is often to bring workers into the center city from the suburbs. I.e., it makes it easier for people to not live in the city.
The patterns I mean are patterns of living that require the ability to drive on demand, park close to the destination, travel unbikably long distances between destinations, create bus routes that have to be long with many stops that make it extremely time-consuming to take the bus relative to driving.

Public transit should reduce sprawl if as many or more people use it than driving. Destinations would have half the parking area and would cluster around transit stops for convenience. Cities would subdivide into primary and secondary zones where people would tend to prefer to operate within their primary zone and would only invest time in traveling to their secondary zones for special reasons. Longer distance buses might be used to get to work and back if you lived far from your job but you would tend to just take the bus back to your primary zone after work and then take local buses or bike or walk around to do shopping, recreation, leisure activities, etc.

Sure, but these campuses also provide on-campus housing. What they're not doing is building a trolley system out to distant apartment complexes. And the reason that the campuses limit driving is generally due to the difficulty of parking on campus and the overall high density of the campus generally.
Distant residential areas should be mixed-use areas with shopping and amenities. Limited parking is part and parcel of sprawl-reduction. It shouldn't just be amusement parks and universities that restrict parking/driving and ensure adequate transit availability. Municipalities and communities can do it too. Why not?

You say majoritarianism like it is a bad thing. Please explain a better way of spending tax money. Dictatorship?
Popular democracy is based on the idea that people will reason with each other and agree on reasonable policies. It is not supposed to be a means of building up the power of one team against others and forcing the majority will on everyone just because they can outvote minorities.

If majoritarian automotivism continues to avert growth of public transit and bike commuting as transportation options, cities are going to keep getting worse, I challenge anyone to produce a model of a driving-dependent area whose population can expand sustainably without it eventually resulting in congestion, diminished quality of life, and people moving to other areas because commuting grows too time-consuming and tedious.

The dream of sustainable automotivism hinges on population growth leveling off and even then sprawl alienates people from the natural activities of walking and biking around to accomplish mundane life activities. There's a documentary on youtube made in the 1950s by the auto industry celebrating the achievement of 1 car for every 3 citizens, and there were only 50million citizens. That might have been a sustainable and pleasant model but population grew, the car population grew to more than 1 for every 1 person. The roads grew, parking lots grew, highways grew, inner cities become blighted areas of high motor-traffic. Growth turned out to be unsustainable.

If the population would have grown through bike commuting and transit and the number of cars, parking, highways, road lanes, etc. remained about the same, would the prospect of future growth be as bleak and disturbing as it is today?
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Old 09-07-14, 11:39 AM
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I've lived in the outskirts of Tokyo, and they have one of the best mass transit systems anywhere in the world there AND...almost everybody uses it. There's no stigma involved with it and you'll see plenty of salarymen with suits and briefcases on the train.

It's got three things going for it that I've never seen together in the US.
1) It's safe. Japan in general is extremely safe. You won't get mugged or assaulted waiting for a bus after dark there. This goes a very long way in getting people out of their cars, particularly women and children. If you have street thugs or the homeless hanging around at a bus stop or on the bus itself, you are likely going to scare away most of your potential passengers.
2) It's faster than going by car. The trains arrive every 5 minutes or so. You don't even bother with a schedule. Plus, parking and driving around Tokyo is often slow and difficult, (and nerve wracking).
3) It's cheaper than going by car. Gas, parking and cars in general are very expensive in Japan.

Where I live, (Tacoma), public transit has none of these three attributes. Even in Japan, once you get out of the city and into the countryside you notice that cars become the primary means of transportation.

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Old 09-07-14, 09:59 PM
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The best way to increase ridership on public transit is to provide more frequent service. Buses and light rail should run every 5 to 20 minutes to get big increases. A bus that runs frequently is almost as fst as a car, and frequent service minimizes those unproductive waits for the bus.

The second best way toincrese transit use is to give up the foolish hub-and-spoke route patterns in favor of routes that actually connect destinations directly.

What Really Matters for Increasing Transit Ridership - CityLab
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Old 09-08-14, 09:36 AM
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All this discussion of the problems of public transit make me wonder if there is anything in the ideas of Gary Stark's PRT and others promoting radically different systems that would make sense or whether they would just open up another set of problems.

I saw a thread on it from a while back but a search didn't turn up what I was reading.

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Old 09-08-14, 09:56 AM
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Who is Gary STark and what is PRT?
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Old 09-08-14, 11:55 AM
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Originally Posted by ironwood
Who is Gary STark and what is PRT?
This. PRTProject.com - Introduction
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Old 09-09-14, 09:31 AM
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Originally Posted by dwbstr
All this discussion of the problems of public transit make me wonder if there is anything in the ideas of Gary Stark's PRT and others promoting radically different systems that would make sense or whether they would just open up another set of problems.

I saw a thread on it from a while back but a search didn't turn up what I was reading.
I think the proposal to replace all cars with public transit would be too radical to be popular. Using public transit to reduce road congestion and sprawl is a more conservative prospect, yet how many people still react against it as if it was something out of 1984?

The conformity vs. diversity contrast of this picture from the prt website seems like it would terrorize people into worshipping existing auto-dominance purely out of individualism:
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Old 09-09-14, 09:50 AM
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Originally Posted by Roody
The best way to increase ridership on public transit is to provide more frequent service. Buses and light rail should run every 5 to 20 minutes to get big increases. A bus that runs frequently is almost as fst as a car, and frequent service minimizes those unproductive waits for the bus.

The second best way toincrese transit use is to give up the foolish hub-and-spoke route patterns in favor of routes that actually connect destinations directly.

What Really Matters for Increasing Transit Ridership - CityLab
Nice article, Roody. Thanks. I don't see why employment-oriented transit can't complement and promote anti-sprawl reforms. The logical consequence of providing transit to the densest employment areas is that more auxiliary retail should emerge within walking distance of where people are employed. In this way, people could do shopping or engage in leisure activities after work before catching a bus home (provided buses continue to run into the evening).

In sprawling areas, I think anti-sprawl reforms need to be focussed on encouraging more mixed-use development that reduce the need for cross-town commuting. If cross-town traffic isn't thinning as a result of such reforms, the question is why people aren't moving closer to work or working closer to home. Obviously many people have reasons to live or work somewhere that outweigh reducing their commute distance, but many of those people could be served by more direct transit routing between their home neighborhood and where they work.

Another reason I've heard as to why people would prefer to avoid transit even if there was a more direct route between home and work is that they want the freedom to drive around wherever they want to go during breaks and after work. Maybe more frequent buses/shuttles would solve this, idk. I think you would have to find a way to research where individuals drive during breaks and after work to determine routing that would satisfy people.

To some extent, I think people need to adapt their lifestyles a bit instead of expecting transit to provide them all the convenience and freedom of driving. The problem here is that everyone who bikes or takes transit reduces the number of cars on the roads so it only takes so many people doing this before everyone else looks at the roads and thinks, "hey, traffic isn't too bad - I think I'd rather drive than wait on a bus."

The real challenge is to get a large proportion of people in the habit of taking a bus/shuttle to work so that they'll stick with it long enough to reform city planning and for developers to think in terms of multi-modal-friendly geography.
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Old 09-09-14, 12:58 PM
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Originally Posted by tandempower
I think the proposal to replace all cars with public transit would be too radical to be popular. Using public transit to reduce road congestion and sprawl is a more conservative prospect, yet how many people still react against it as if it was something out of 1984?

The conformity vs. diversity contrast of this picture from the prt website seems like it would terrorize people into worshipping existing auto-dominance purely out of individualism:
I'll try not to get too far off topic. One thing that could terrorize people just as much as that is the fear of getting left behind economically. If after it were proven on a small scale test, some large city where they have major traffic problems, Mumbai for instance, tried it and proved that conversion is not too difficult or expensive and that it has real economic benefits, America might be convinced to try it too and find that rather than stifling individuality it is liberating. How much diversity do the people on the right side of that picture really have at that point anyway.
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Old 09-09-14, 04:06 PM
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Originally Posted by dwbstr
I'll try not to get too far off topic. One thing that could terrorize people just as much as that is the fear of getting left behind economically. If after it were proven on a small scale test, some large city where they have major traffic problems, Mumbai for instance, tried it and proved that conversion is not too difficult or expensive and that it has real economic benefits, America might be convinced to try it too and find that rather than stifling individuality it is liberating. How much diversity do the people on the right side of that picture really have at that point anyway.
If Mumbai adopts this system and sets an example for the world, great! In the mean time, I think there are other ways to stimulate an increase in public transit utilization that don't boil down to an all-or-nothing replacement of all personal automobiles with something else.

What this kind of all-or-nothing proposal essentially says is that if people aren't willing to get extremely radical with change, there is no other option so they might as well just not change anything at all. There doesn't need to be a revolution. Just a growing segment of public transit usage and bicycling.
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Old 09-10-14, 09:20 AM
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Originally Posted by tandempower
If Mumbai adopts this system and sets an example for the world, great! In the mean time, I think there are other ways to stimulate an increase in public transit utilization that don't boil down to an all-or-nothing replacement of all personal automobiles with something else.

What this kind of all-or-nothing proposal essentially says is that if people aren't willing to get extremely radical with change, there is no other option so they might as well just not change anything at all. There doesn't need to be a revolution. Just a growing segment of public transit usage and bicycling.

I don't think there is much danger of the people or city planners taking the PRT or similar proposals seriously unless they are forced to. Given the public's love of the automobile, they would really want something less radical to work.

That said, someplace like Mumbai would be the severest possible test of a radical car free public transit system. I gather the main reason for India's very many traffic fatalities is with their high population density , including very many pedestrians and cyclists, and less infrastructure there is much competition for road space and not so much compliance with traffic laws. People just walk, ride and drive more assertively there. I may be wrong. That's just the impression I get. They might be more willing to try such a system because they have already accepted public transit much more than we have. In fact, conventional public transit there may have reached it's practical limits. The problem is, with their collision avoidance radar and computers programmed not to drive assertively, the automated streetcars may lose the competition for the roads and be slowed to a crawl.
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Old 09-10-14, 10:37 PM
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Originally Posted by dwbstr
I don't think there is much danger of the people or city planners taking the PRT or similar proposals seriously unless they are forced to. Given the public's love of the automobile, they would really want something less radical to work.
Personally, I don't see much benefit to PRT instead of personal car ownership. I think the total size of the vehicle fleet would be the same, and total miles traveled would be the same or greater. There would also be a greater concentration of wealth in corporations, since companies would own the vehicles rather than individuals. I don't necessarily see that as a good thing.
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Old 09-11-14, 03:43 AM
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Old 09-11-14, 03:44 PM
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Originally Posted by Roody
Personally, I don't see much benefit to PRT instead of personal car ownership. I think the total size of the vehicle fleet would be the same, and total miles traveled would be the same or greater. There would also be a greater concentration of wealth in corporations, since companies would own the vehicles rather than individuals. I don't necessarily see that as a good thing.
Since they only have to have enough of the small streetcars to meet the city's peak demand, rather than each car-owning household's, the size of the vehicle fleet would be substantially smaller. Since each streetcar doesn't have to carry its own power source and doesn't have to be built to protect its occupants in case of a crash, they would be much lighter and, I assume, much cheaper to build and operate . I don't know whether corporations or cities would own the cars but owning cars doesn't increase an individual's or corporation's wealth since wealth must be exchanged to buy them. If it reduces the cost and increases the convenience of travel in the cities the individual will benefit financially and in other ways. That assumes that the city will see that whoever has the monopoly charges a fair price for the service. AFAIK it's only theoretical that PRT will work at all, much less that it will work better than other possible solutions to promoting public transit.
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Old 09-12-14, 04:12 PM
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Originally Posted by dwbstr
AFAIK it's only theoretical that PRT will work at all, much less that it will work better than other possible solutions to promoting public transit.
It's the kind of thing that would be really interesting to have in a city built from scratch or from an abandoned area. The good thing about buses and smaller transit shuttles is that they can easily drive between a car-free/car-light area and other areas. The prt system has to have tracks wherever it goes and they go on existing lanes so if no lanes are left for other vehicles, operators of those other types of vehicles are going to feel crowded out.

It bothers me when people suggest that bicycles crowd out cars in this way because it's not like anyone is suggesting converting ALL travel lanes into bike lanes, only the outermost one. With PRT, you could convert an abandoned area into a car-free zone with only PRT and bike lanes, as long as there is some public transit connectivity with other areas, such as bus or train lines. I would guess the area would become a very popular residential or mixed-use area, unless the taxes and fees were too much of a deterrent to people buying in.

The ideal would be to set up a PRT factory in an abandoned area of, say, Detroit and using the business revenues to fund people buying into and refurbishing the area. The problem is that to fund the factory, you'd probably need a broader client base than just the people working for the PRT factory, unless the investors are willing to refurbish the area as part of their initial investment, in hopes that the system could be marketed to other cities with similar areas open to a car-free makeover.

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Old 09-12-14, 07:47 PM
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Originally Posted by alhedges
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Old 09-12-14, 08:28 PM
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Originally Posted by tandempower
Nice article, Roody. Thanks. I don't see why employment-oriented transit can't complement and promote anti-sprawl reforms. The logical consequence of providing transit to the densest employment areas is that more auxiliary retail should emerge within walking distance of where people are employed. In this way, people could do shopping or engage in leisure activities after work before catching a bus home (provided buses continue to run into the evening).
What exactly is walking distance? As near as I can tell walking distance in America is about the length of one building, which kind of kills off getting people to leave their cars behind and willingly face a walk the length of two buildings. Sure, once they're fit enough to see how trivial it is to walk a few miles the problem is solved, but they won't get fit until they walk. Another catch-22.
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Old 09-12-14, 08:55 PM
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I'm not an expert. All I know about PRT is what is on the site I linked to and where the links there led. It just struck me as a good idea.

Even though a practical PRT system can only be car free, other forms of public transit, particularly trains, would still be needed to connect to the outside. Trains would still penetrate into a PRT area and can move a lot of people faster than a PRT system. Trains have always had a last mile problem and a PRT can go a long way to solving it. People using cars outside and PRT inside on a regular basis doesn't sound very practical. Maybe this could speed up the change. They say the popularity of the automobile peaked years ago. The century of the car has ended. They will still be around, like trains are still around, but they will not dominate our culture the way they do much longer.

Freight is another issue. Banning cars means banning trucks too. A lot of our freight now goes by truck. Trains could pick up some of the slack but they still have the last mile problem. A lot of factories and warehouses don't have a railroad siding. I suppose the PRT could be helpful there too. The site mentioned piggyback might be possible but I think rather than the whole PRT car, something like those storage pods you can get could be stacked on flatcars like containers on ships and offloaded onto some kind of flatbed PRT cars. That would use less cars and keep a better load density on the trains. Even so, we might need some highways to let trucks in to get to the industrial islands within the city. Once in the city, they could be separated from the PRT by grade (expensive) or time (inconvenient).

Most of this is my speculation, not theirs. How and where it could be done is beyond me but if it does happen in Detroit it will change the city in more ways than one. If it works very well the auto industry will take another big hit. I don't know whether a PRT industry could be enough to make up for it. Getting a jump on the rest of the country if the system is as beneficial as the designer claims just might be.
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