Current Events > Why is American public transit so ****ty compared to Europe?

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.vox.com/2015/8/10/9118199/public-transportation-subway-buses

When you realize other countries do it better...

because much of the urbanization that happened in these countries far precedes the invention of the automobile
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because in the 60s and 70s America began to put everything into building roads and highways for cars where as europe developed public transit systems
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Automakers probably lobbied for roads and highways that favored cars so that they could make more money.
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I think a lot of it has to do with the size of the US. It is a very large country and, aside from a few major metropolitan cities, you aren't going to find a lot of public transit options that beat the convenience of personal transportation.
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>Asks "why is X crap?"

>Posts article entitled "The real reason X is crap"

Why ask if you already know?

Esrac posted...

I think a lot of it has to do with the size of the US. It is a very large country and, aside from a few major metropolitan cities, you aren't going to find a lot of public transit options that beat the convenience of personal transportation.

It's not just our size, it is 1) how urbanized we are and 2) how relatively small each of our cities are

that second part is especially important -- Canada and the US both have about 80% of their residents living in urban areas, but Toronto is half the size of NYC while Canada is 1/10 the size of the US. The UK is marginally more urbanized than we are, but London is bigger than NYC even as the UK is 1/5 our size
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We dont invest in infrastructure only when it breaks
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CADE FOSTER posted...

We dont invest in infrastructure only when it breaks

I read in a book once that there isn't enough material left for us to recreate the interstate highway system

'by the summer of 1962, about 12,500 miles of the system were open to traffic, and another 34 miles were opening, on average, every week. The economic impact of this effort was stunning. Each billion dollars spent on construction provided the equivalent of forty-eight thousand full-time jobs for a year and consumed an almost inconceivably vast pile of resources: sixteen million barrels of cement, more than half a million tons of steel, eighteen million pounds of explosives, 123 million gallons of petroleum products, and enough earth to bury New Jersey knee-deep. It also devoured seventy-six million tons of aggregate -- so much aggregate, some in the business have surmised, that the United States could not mine enough rock to rebuild the interstates today.'
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Balrog0 posted...

Esrac posted...

I think a lot of it has to do with the size of the US. It is a very large country and, aside from a few major metropolitan cities, you aren't going to find a lot of public transit options that beat the convenience of personal transportation.

It's not just our size, it is 1) how urbanized we are and 2) how relatively small each of our cities are

that second part is especially important -- Canada and the US both have about 80% of their residents living in urban areas, but Toronto is half the size of NYC while Canada is 1/10 the size of the US. The UK is marginally more urbanized than we are, but London is bigger than NYC even as the UK is 1/5 our size

I think it's not just how urbanized we are, but how urbanized we aren't. I know that sounds paradoxical, but I mean there is a lot of rural area in the US where public transportation isn't really feasible. Especially in the Midwest and the South. I like in Louisiana and there are a lot of small towns and even our cities aren't that big.

I think that also contributes to the value of personal transportation in the US.
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large land mass and wonky city structure.
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Oil industry
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Esrac posted...

I think it's not just how urbanized we are, but how urbanized we aren't. I know that sounds paradoxical, but I mean there is a lot of rural area in the US where public transportation isn't really feasible. Especially in the Midwest and the South. I like in Louisiana and there are a lot of small towns and even our cities aren't that big.

Louisiana has a fairly large share of its population that lives in urban areas, at least compared to my state of Arkansas

my point is that other countries have similar amounts or even more rural land than the US, the difference is how many people live in concentrated areas as a share of the total population. What is it that people say about Canada -- everyone lives within 20 miles of the US border or something? That's obviously not quite true but even though there aren't more canadians living in rural areas than there are us citizens living in rural areas, there is a big difference in how concentrated our urban areas are
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Even if America did have great public transit in every urban center, wed still have to be reliant on cars everywhere else. America is very spread out.
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I hear it's good in NYC.
Everywhere else is pretty shady.
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tag for checking it out when I get a chance
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blablablax17 posted...

I hear it's good in NYC.
Everywhere else is pretty shady.

NYC is only good compared to other transit in the USA, tbqh
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Why is transportation even a word? What is wrong with transport?
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