Some links I've seen promulgated recently

[conuly]

Communities Learn the Good Life Can Be a Killer

Cars Kill Cities

Both are filled with comments along the lines of "Public transportation in my area is terrible, therefore there is no possible way to make good public transportation, and if people wanted public transportation they'd take it instead of driving cars, so clearly they don't."

Aside from the fact that you can't buy what they don't sell (so you can't switch to good bus service if your area is invested in the idea that this is impossible and nobody wants it anyway), you have to love the narrow little assumption that because this person or that one hasn't seen something, it can't exist. You just want to pat them on their little heads! Twits.

Comments

[dragonwolf]

That comment reminds me of a little story thing in my textbook for the class I'm currently taking.

Basically, there's a city with a popular suburb. The suburb has a train that takes people into and out of the city at certain times. One of the times that the train doesn't stop in the suburb is 2:30, but a train does run through the suburb at that time, and the people would like it to stop. So, they petition the city council. They get something like 250 signatures (enough to show quite a bit of interest).

A few weeks later, they get a letter back from the city council, "we sent out an observation team on three different days and found that no one was at the stop at 2:30. Therefore, we've determined that there is not enough demand for a train stop at 2:30."

[codeman38]

I've just moved to Boston from rural Georgia. And I continue to be amazed at just what a good public transportation system is like... especially compared to, well, what we have in Georgia.

In Boston, not only do people regularly use public transit, but people actively want to use it as more than just a last resort. In large part, that's because it's timely, frequent, inexpensive ($60 a month for unlimited rides within metro Boston!), and serves a vast area.

In Athens, Georgia, people tend to look at public transit as a last-resort thing, mainly for people who have no other choice (e.g., due to poverty or disability). You're more or less expected to have a car to do anything useful, and outside of a limited area, everything is designed primarily for drivers at the expense of pedestrians.

And there's a vicious cycle involved with the latter: people don't use transit in Georgia because it's not reliable, it's infrequent, its service area is limited, and it's too expensive for what's actually offered. And the reason those are all the case is because there's not enough demand to justify them...

[dragonwolf]

That's the same here, in Columbus, Ohio. We have a bus system, but unless you're on/near the OSU campus and the main drags, it's all but worthless. Getting from one suburb to another requires going downtown (even if the suburbs are adjacent), and can take upwards of 2 hours to do the same by bus what a person with a car could do in 15 minutes (and the terrain and number of highways makes walking or biking questionable, at best, in most areas).

All the major commerce centers aren't really built for pedestrians (well, one is, at the core, but its expansions aren't), so you've got a few somewhat-pedestrian-friendly "hubs" that are also generally expensive to live in, and everything else requires a car.

[conuly]

you've got a few somewhat-pedestrian-friendly "hubs" that are also generally expensive to live in, and everything else requires a car.

So the people who need walking access most can afford it the least? What the hell?

[conuly]

And there's a vicious cycle involved with the latter: people don't use transit in Georgia because it's not reliable, it's infrequent, its service area is limited, and it's too expensive for what's actually offered. And the reason those are all the case is because there's not enough demand to justify them...

It's enough to make you wish for either peak oil or your own election as benevolent dictator....

[conuly]

Is that... a true story?

[rantinan.livejournal.com]

Suburban hell is the "good life" ?

So staying living in the city where i can walk everywhere most of the time and get public transport for hte rest.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Hell, we're not even "suburbia" out here West of Puget Sound - we're a handful of small cities, a scattering of small towns, connected by long twisty roads over the ridges and along the coasts (http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/road-trips/olympic-peninsula-washington-road-trip/).

It take forever to get anywhere even by car, let alone by bus, when there even IS a bus. Often there isn't any bus, or there is only one bus There and one bus Back Again each day, and if you start early enough, you might be able to make the comnnection. Once there was a railroad here, and we really need to have it back again.

Actually, what we need is light rail; passenger trains running between all our little towns; then we need enhanced bus service within the towns, so it's possible for a person without a car to actually commute to work, even on weekends. Part of the reason our economy here is so depressed, is because nobody can afford to GO anywhere.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

There is a great commuter train that runs to many places in this area, but not the places we need to go most of the time. We could save a fortune in gas prices.

[conuly]

General Motors deserves the blame, I'm sure.

[conuly]

Suburban hell is the "good life" ?

SOMEbody must've thought so!