[KLUG Members] Comments on Mass Transit, and related folly

[Robert G. Brown]

On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 07:10:47 -0800, Rusty Yonkers wrote:

>> rationality. There's also a sort of network effect. I can't rely
>> on mass-transit here, because it's too infrequent and unreliable to
>> support the activities I need to do.

>In Grand Rapids mass transit is way to sporadic and limited in where
>it goes to be effective.  Often certain bus runs are only available
>once an hour, and many places are at least a half mile from the
>nearest stop.  I live in Sparta (north of Grand Rapids) and there is
>not even bus service between Sparta and GR.

When I said "network effect", I mean that it is something of a vicious
circle, a negative feedback loop, a downward spiral. I can't really use
the current "mass-transit system" here (Kalamazoo/Portage), and presumably
a lot of other people can't, and for the same reasons, it's inadequate.
Since demand is low, service is cut back, and often it becomes more ex-
pensive... both of which reduce ridership further. Clearly, this is a
system in free-fall...collapse. It may also be a case where market eco-
nomics actually works against the interests of almost everyone involved.

It that necessary, or desirable? Maybe the population density of the 
area is, on average, too low to matter.. I get a bit tired of poor traffic
handling and jams around here now, and I am OK driving in Manhattan, 
although I didn't do it often.

Developing a good mass-transit system is usually not something done by
entrepreneurs and risk-takers, but rather as a public infrastructure 
investment. Planned out and cost justified on such a basis, pay very 
large returns for the prosperity of an area in general.

>We also do not pack the people in like rats like cities like New York.
I'm from the New York area, and we do NOT "pack the people in like rats".
If we did, the ASPCA would get after the Transit Authority for being
unkind to rats! :)

You're mistaking this experience for something negative. I can assure 
you it is not, it's merely another way New Yorkers experience togetherness.

>(I think this is one of the reasons crime is lower too!!).  
Crime in NYC is way down over the last 15 years.

>Many people like Europeans do not understand America and the car here 
>because they think of a country as something that you can drive across
>in a couple of hours not a week or more.
Actually, some of my best friends are Europeans, and in many cases their
lack of understand is far deeper than this. On the whole, many Europeans 
are fascinated by what happens here, even if they sometimes find it brash,
silly, or repellent.

>Part of the reason many people live in places like GR
>is because things are spread out.  Spread out means mass transit does
>not work so well though!  It is more about geography and economics
>than peoples desire to ride a bus.

Actually, it is about ALL of these things, and no one individual (which is 
where we started with this) can break the cycle. Also, mass transit can be 
tuned to low-density or even rural areas so that it is useful. One example
is suburban and rural New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania, where people are 
motivated to drive to a "transportation center" and take a bus or train 
from there into a city. This has most of the good economics of mass transit,
avoids much of the congestion and gratuitous gas consumption and pollution 
of car-based commuters, and reduces the construction and maintenance required
to maintain the required amount of roadbed.

>I have gone to downtown Chicago with a car and it is no wonder people 
>o not drive down there.  Just go into a downtown Chicago parking ramp 
>once and you will see the drastic difference between big citys and GR 
>or Kazoo....
Chicago is an EASY place compared to New York, Philadelphia, Boston, 
London, Rome, or Moscow. There are good reasons that urban planners and 
traffic managers want to discourage the use of single-passenger automobiles
in central cities; you've touched on a few of them here.

							Regards,
							---> RGB <---