On OPEC, Technology And Transportation...

cybrthng asks: "With prices of gas hitting above $2.00 a gallon in many areas and projected to rise more yet, how should we look at our commuting and travel needs? With OPEC limiting the supply, people traveling more and all this technology advancement wouldn't you think we would be able to come up with alternate ways to get around? How about public transportation? Safer places to keep your bike? Smarter drivers so people on motorized and non-motorized vehicles are not at such a risk. What would be the technological or even ethical solution to today's costs and problems with transportation? Let's unite and strategize for a few minutes on what is a huge part of daily life." Interesting question. I find that too many people drive in overcongested metropolitan areas due to the fact that the public transportation system just isn't sufficient for their needs. PT systems in many areas are nice, but it just plain sucks when you have to wait 30 minutes for the next train. Quite personally, I would just prefer to telecommute.

In Building Commute

[kneecap]

When my boss started the ISP I now work for, he lived in one of the apartments above the office for the first year or so, he now lives a couple of blocks away. I am tempted to move into one of the apartments after the events last week: A UPS failure, billing server's hard drive overheating, my speeding ticket in trying to get there quicky per a co-workers panic request; all three hours before I normally wake-up. I have thought about tele-commuting a couple of days a week, but one of my duties at work is user support via telephone. And the telcos has the opinion that my home should be in a different area code than my work, that is only half an hour away. But I am lucky, the speed limit on the interstate in this area is 75MPH and the traffic is light by the time I am to be at work (10am). As most techs that are on call after hours I can't depend on public transportation. My city just recently got a couple of bus routes and they go at the wrong time. Here in the west it is hard to use public transportation for all your transportation needs. I only live an hour from the nearest international airport, yet I pass more farms on my way to work than bus stops. Public transportation just isn't for everyone, just like isn't for everyone. Being with-in walking distance of work may be the only solution; a mile is within walking distance. We americans are just to atached to the freedom of using our own car.

Stop subsidizing the American automobile

[georgeha]

A lot of the problem is that American automobiles are subsidized [wicip.org] way more than public transportation is.

In 1995, this was estimated at $5,000 per family. [silcom.com]

If the true costs of the automobile was passed onto to the driving public, ie by paying for roads, parking garages, bridges and compensating for lost taxes not paid on highways and bridges, gas would probably cost $8.00 a gallon US, and public transportation would seem much more reasonable.

George

life without a car.

[cybrthng]

I ride my trusty Trek almost everywhere i go. The buses where i live are 1 an hour on each route, even further apart during non peak times. Most bus stops are non covered and costing from 1.10 to 3.45 each way, its not very economical for daily use.

What keeps towns from accepting people on bicycles? Why arent there more bike racks to lockup? What are commuter friendly towns? It looks like the big apple is (albeit not to clean nor safe at times) and Washington DC. DC seems to have the cleanest subway system i have ever seen, which is another factor in PT, how safe, how clean and how frequent the trips are. State college has a great, clean and frequent bus system. Anyone to write to that can help?

I make a great living, money is not a factor of why i dont want another car (gas, theft, insurance, loan interest, and i have all sorts of other gadgets and things i want to spend my money on besides another piece of metal that always has problems and seems to hold up a sign saying radomly break into me and cause my owner to have a living hell). I like riding my bike, i like being able to walk out to a subway and walk a block to where i want to be, i like catching the train to NYC and cabbing/subbing around town. For one, i save money, (parking is ridiculous), 2, less worries (will my car be there, will i get any tickets for whatever reason, is my insurance still valid, where is my insurance card, keys?).

I guess there are many reasons, but i find my life better spent and exponentially simpler without a car. (although very it is harder in some ways since i can't depend on pt...).

Re:Stop subsidizing the American automobile

[cybrthng]

That is a pretty informative article. Are there any other sites your aware of that would be good to forward to local government and state representatives as a means to help alleviate alot of the problems with public transportation? I cant bitch and moan all i want, but the more studies and historic/geographic data i can send, i feel the better i can represent myself. Plus it would just be interesting reading, as i may want to move to a place that better suits my needs, after all why should i be paying property taxes to subsidize new roads for the gas guzzling SUV's and monster trucks? I think it would be interesting to actually develop resoureces that break down how people are blindly paying for all this stuff no matter what they do (walk/ride/drive, how your income is being used to subsidize drivers if you aren't one.. etc... etc..)

Its gotta work before we will use it!

[bluGill]

I looked at using public transit one time. I was 20 minute to work, driving, or over an hour by bus. Even if the bus had gone by work more then 4 times in a day that was enough to kill the idea. I don't know when I get off work, last week I unexpectedly ended up working 2 hours latter then normal to take care of something that needed to be done now. If I had taken the bus in I would have been stuck at work all night.

Of course now I live out where I can smell fresh cut alfaha. To smell that twice a summer makes living downwind from a pig farm worth it. No bus service, but no different then when I was living in the city.

To put my complaint differently, public transportation needs to do more then go downtown. I need to give my kid a note of permission and tell him go visit grandma, and then go about my buisness, knowing the kid will be safe on the trip. (assuming grandma knows the kid is coming) But today the transit system assumes that I go home to work to the airport to work to home. And God help anyone who doesn't work downtown or wants to go anyplace else without a car.

I'd love to have good public transportation, but I've yet to hear of a plan that even in the best case would be one I'd consider using.

Re:Stop subsidizing the American automobile

[georgeha]

Ah, I dunno.

I did a quick and dirty google searched on automobile subsidies to find those two.

George

SkyTran alternative

[jegolf]

I would love to use public transportation if it 1) took me where I wanted to go, 2) was fast, 3) was cheap. In Phoenix we just decided on building a new lightrail system which does not satisfy any of those requirements for me. I won't use it, but this wouldn't bother me much except that I think an extremely good alternative is possible in some modifications of the plans and ideas expressed with SkyTran a personal mass transit system.

-- Jared
[e-mail]

Re:In Building Commute

[unitron]

An ISP right downstairs? I wish! Goodbye modem, hello fat pipe! Some guys have all the luck. :(

Re:Stop subsidizing the American automobile

[CharlieG]

The biggest reason you see such an investment in roads vs Public transport is that for MOST of the country (geographically) Public transport just doesn't pay.

If you look at the Coasts, it usually CAN pay, and in the cities, you CAN get a mass transit infrastructure. (New York being the extreme in the US). The west coast has NOT done as well this way (exception - San Francisco)

Suburbia is a marginal case, in that population densities just about pay for bus transit loads. These work best if there is one main hub where everyone is going. For Intrasuburb use, it doesn't pay. The general problem is that it takes something like 5-6 people (Minimum) on a bus going from point X to point Y for it to pay. Now, you try to get around this with Hub and spoke, but this has problems. A person, like it or not, is NOT going to walk much more than 1/4 mile or so, and many people can't walk that far. That means you have to have a bus route every 1/2, at worst (In bad weather/colder parts of the country, it has to be closer). Also, the ridership has to be high enough, to have a bus reach each place on the route no more than about once every 20 minutes (You'll find, looking at studies, once the average wait time gets above 10 minutes or so, your ridership drops)

So this means that you have to have 15 people per hour or more going down that route, the entire length (average), and the service HAS to run well into the night for people who get stuck at work. This requires a fairly high population density, and most suburbs don't have it.

The other problem with hub and spoke is this. Let's say we run a bus on each spoke every 20 minutes, and I want to go from spoke A to spoke B, 2 spokes over. I live 5 miles from the hub. I walk say, 5 minutes to the bus, wait 10 for the bus (remember, average wait is 1/2 the frequency - buses NEVER run on time),travel 7 minutes or so (probably longer, the bus has to make stops) to get to the hub, wait 10 minutes, travel 7 minutes to get to stop, and walk 5 minutes to the destination. That 2 mile trip took 45 minutes!

Rural is worse