patrick.net

michaelsch says

Tenouncetrout says

But every job requires a car. Do you really expect people with means of transportation to take the Bus?

Nope.
My office is in old town Pasadena, I rent in South Pasadena (2.5 miles from it). It’s 40 minute walk, or
for lazy me - 7 min walk + 5-10 min waiting + 10 min bus ride +3 min walk = 25-30 min.
or 15-20 min driving (which includes getting into car, driving, parking and walking to the office).
Driving is the most expensive, unpleasant, and by far most unhealthy option.
I only do it once or twice a month. 99% of my driving is done on weekends and vacations.

South Pas is very nice....prices have held up there very well also. I love the Farmer's Market at the Mission Street light rail station on Thursdays. Nice atmosphere and lots of friendly people there. I take the light rail 2 stops down from Del Mar Station and it seems like most folks at the Farmer's Market either walk or take public transportation.

The original posters idea is that every store must pay and maintain their own parking lots. If you're a Costco/Safeway/Sears/Walmart, you're most likely going to have 10X the size of your building, just for parking. If you didn't have to lease *ALL* that land, pay to clean it, and maintain it, how much would goods be inside? If you forced people to pay for parking instead, how much could you lower your costs?

I'm guessing not by much, otherwise we would see cheap places, lowering their prices and tossing in a "parking" fee. If you don't want to use their parking, use street, buses, walk there, etc. Since we don't see that, it's likely not a huge burdeon. I can't see walmart not finding a way to eek out an extra 2% savings.

For the comment on electricity to charge cars, that is easy. We have enough "night time" electricity to charge 85% of our current cars on the road, if they were converted to electric over night. Charging during the day would be a no-no, unless you absolutely had to have it. All of these electric cars get plugged in and don't start charging until the power rates are lower. Where you could see a decent drop in your power bill, is if you had a 100% electric vehicle that would power the grid during the day, and charge at night. Essentially, you come home from work, turn on the a/c, stove, tv, etc and it draws power from your car. When night time rolls around and your batteries are near empty, they are fully recharged at the super low night time rate.

Yes!

If everybody realized their home economics should be treated as a business, they would do better.

It may be GREEN but to us it is just a much better lifestyle worth working toward if you are not yet off the corp. grid.

Mary Kay at PersonalSecurityZone.com

Intriguing post. I have a car, but mostly I walk or ride the bus. So in some sense, I am subsidizing other people's free parking when I walk to the grocery store.

But why does the grocery store offer free parking? It's not a vast right-wing conspiracy. Really, it's just business: People buy more stuff if they don't have to walk home with it. They just load up their carts, and so they get everything that looks good; then it all fits in the car. So it's great for business to make it convenient for people to buy too much stuff.

That doesn't mean that it provides the best value to the customers--businesses usually don't try to do that. They try to maximize profits. And one of the easiest ways to increase profits is to get people to buy more stuff by making it easy for them to do so.

Personally, I made the mistake once of picking up 50 pounds of flour at the grocery store 2 blocks away, and then walking home with it. I won't be doing that again anytime soon.

Tenouncetrout says

michaelsch says

My office is in old town Pasadena,

So what you are really saying, is you would like communities around the country, take a more preservation and a Utopian approach to neighborhoods, in more townships around the country.

I never mentioned "mare preservation etc.. Where did you get this?

Because it happens to work in your gem, of town that happens to have jobs down the street.

Being a renter I always was free to move to a reasonable neighborhood close to my current work-place that's all.

But is it realistic to honestly think that every town in America has to follow that model? What about the people that service the Farmers, or the Farmers them selves, how do they get to market and connect the ends of their commerce Dots?

If you are a farmer or similar or provide services in the country, of course you better have your own house and yard and car, and truck, and whatever you need. But, if you keep an urban job, better live urban life.

80% of Americans don't get it. They prefer suburbs and exurbs with their own cars to go literally everywhere.

In a way, I'm glad they do, otherwise I would have to pay much higher rent, the same way you should be glad there are enough idiots buying $20k-$30k new cars to provide you with reliable used ones under $5k.

michaelsch,

I'm descended from multi-generations of Oklahoma wheat farmers.

Some of them, including my grandfather, lived in town. LIved in town so the kids could walk to school and the spouse could walk to shopping and work. The family vehicle, the truck, was multipurpose commute out to the acreage and utility vehicle on the job. Even kept a few cattle out there on someone's pastureland. A percentage of the farmers, particularly the ones who farmed at night and had day jobs, lived in town, still do. Farmers who live in the country or who have garages or other space out would share their spaces to park/store equipment, sometimes for some small rent or else some other consideration.

When they got some extra money, because after all the spouse lived in town and could manage to walk to work for a cash job after the kids started attending school, they were able to get a sedan, for weekend trips or whatever.

10 ounce,

every town in America can follow any model it wants to.

If they wanna totally depend on affordable gasoline, or the 40K or whatever to get an electric car, or leaders like Pappy Bush to make war for petrol, or companies like BP to mine it in our wetlands, or the ability of its residents to spend a lot of money on a depreciating vehicle (or high maintenance cost on an already depreciated vehicle) instead of using it for investing or nicer housing or tuition or even frivolity; if they wanna depend on all their residents and workers being able to maintain, operate, insure, fuel and drive a vehicle, (even if they get a medical diagnosis where they cannot drive) to maintain their town as an ongoing entity, more power to 'em.

I don’t pay to park period, That’s what I pay taxes for.
I damn sure ain’t paying to park where I work.

If you're not paying the costs associated with your parking space, then who is? Somebody owns that space and has to maintain it.

Why should your employer provide this to you for free? The cost of parking should be borne by all employees or taxpayers equally, regardless of their ability to make use of parking, and those who want parking should have it, at no cost to them? "To each according to their needs"?

Communism doesn't work, and never has.

And I’m sorry you lost your license, your car got repoed or you can’t afford gas anymore.

There's no license to lose or car to get repoed. If you'd read my post, you would see that my eyesight isn't good enough to drive a car safely.

But every job requires a car. Do you really expect people with means of transportation to take the Bus?

"Every job requires a car" ... can be said with impunity, while "every employee must be white" is an assault on modern sensibility. What gives you the right to make a statement as bigoted as the hypothetical second one? They both exclude capable people from the workplace and from society due to something they were born with.

@Hyperbole -- I agree on the point that the stores want people to buy more. But they could do the same thing by offering free delivery for large purchases. My local supermarket (in Tokyo, where there's no parking, and there are many elderly who can't even walk there) offers this service. They could never sell 50 pounds of flour if they didn't offer this, and your supermarket would be able to sell such quantities to everyone (not just the drivers) if they did too.

One of the other things Shoup mentions in his book is that town ordinances often mandate certain amounts of parking.

Mandatory parking in residential areas also means that stores, residences, and workplaces are further apart than they should be. I'm not finished with the book yet, but I hope he also touches on the loss of community that comes from mandating lower population density.

if they wanna depend on all their residents and workers being able to maintain, operate, insure, fuel and drive a vehicle, (even if they get a medical diagnosis where they cannot drive) to maintain their town as an ongoing entity, more power to ‘em.

@Sybrib -- It's easy to say "more power to" a society like that if it's possible for you to join it. How would you feel if your job relocated to a community that you weren't permitted to live in (for whatever reason), and you had to quit your job?

It baffles me how the political correctness movement and movements to empower minorities and handicapped people overlook automobile centrism so totally.

At a typical shopping center or place of employment, the best parking spaces will be reserved for the physically handicapped, so that they don't have to endure walking that last 100-200 feet from their parking space to the store. But these people can easily drive however many miles it might be from their homes to the parking lot!

Contrast that with the person who's fully capable of walking that 100 feet, but can't take an automobile to the store to begin with. Society does nothing for that person. Is that person's "handicap" not in fact greater than the handicaps that we recognize in law and in custom?

Michinaga says

I don’t pay to park period, That’s what I pay taxes for.
I damn sure ain’t paying to park where I work.

If you’re not paying the costs associated with your parking space, then who is? Somebody owns that space and has to maintain it.

Oh brother, do you carry the chair you sit in every where you go? Bring a fork and plate to the diner? Bring your own Grocery bags to the Groce...ery...stor...

Oh never mind, I forgot I'm conversing with smug Californians, that don't feel they are worthy of any damn thing but taxes, and a short list of Liberties.

Oh brother, do you carry the chair you sit in every where you go? Bring a fork and plate to the diner? Bring your own Grocery bags to the Groce…ery…stor…

TOT, you're mising the point. No one is legally barred from sitting in a chair or making use of a fork and plate like they are with automobiles.

You see parking as a tiny, insignificant cost, on the order of restaurant cutlery; it's not.

Here's a cutlery analogy for you. Imagine you work for a company that has a sumptuous "free" cafeteria that's run by Asians and the delicious traditional food has to be eaten with chopsticks. The funds to run the cafeteria come out of the company coffers, but only chopstick-users are allowed to enter.

And then another rule is enacted that says that non-Asians like yourself are banned from picking up a pair of chopsticks and learning to use them. (OK, so this is unrealistic. Just bear with me.)

How do you feel about the cafeteria now?

This is how people unable to drive feel about automobile-centric communities and companies.

(And I actually do bring my own bag to the grocery store, because they knock 5 cents off your purcahse price if you save them a bag by doing so. But I'm happy to pay full price if I can't be bothered to bring my bag.)

Michinaga, sorry to hear that your eyesight is not good enoungh to drive. The thing is you're in Japan, and we're in US. Our situation is greatly differ from each other and thus, expect different answers and little misunderstanding since we've never experienced some of those situations here in US. Yeah, I heard something about it. Customers in some countries have pay for plastic bag in the grocery. That's just plain simple outrageous in US, while it's a simple reality in Japan.

But at least, you're lucky to live in Tokyo where public transportation options are abundant. Imagine if you live in rural area and have to commute to Tokyo everyday, and there's no sincancen station near you. You're pretty much screwed w/o a car.

US is simply little too big and wide to live without a car. You can be screwed even with a car. Not too often though.

I knew this guy who commute to washington DC from Pittsburgh PA. It took 3 hours to drive, and he did that for 3 years. Then he rented apartment in DC, commute from there, go back to Pittsburgh at weekend. I'd say, what the hell, just move here or get a job in Pittsburgh. He can't do that for some reason I don't know. A couple live in Martinsburgh WV, commute to DC everyday. It's like a 60 miles, so they had to wake up early, get their sleepy asses to the car and start hit the road before the beltway gets bumper to bumper.

Ok, screw them. It's fine to me if that's what they have to do for whatever reason they choose.
To me, I got my part of problem too. I can drive, but the wife can't due to some medical issues. She has to commute DC everyday for work, and public transportation is her only option. So, "within walking distance to the public transportation" is the critical concern to me when I look for the place to live. I had to let lots of good deals slip away from me due to the reason alone. I hated condo, I wanted to have SFH with backyard. I worked and saved like hell for years, and finally able to afford a SFH in location where I wanted to live, but I am seriously considering condo right next to subway station. That's freakin WTH situation. Did I say I hate train noise too?

There're plenty of ackward situations when you look arround. Many people got some sort of situation, disability, unaffordability or reason that prevent them do something. But the thing is, who cares? That's their problem. Do they give you a rat ass about your situation? Not really. When that happens in national level, shame indeed. But not sure what they can do about it.

Hey drivers pay for it, Please stop yer Liberal self absorbed lies.
I know it makes you sound hip and smart, but only because those people that think so, don't bother to check.

Florida registered Cars in 2008 = 15,000,000
Florida Registration fees on average = $50.00
Revenue Florida receives each year for road upkeep and repair = $750,000,000

Now mind you that's just one year.

In three years Florida has collected 2,250,000,000. This doesn't include, Fines and Tolls revenue, which I bet shadows that by many 0's.

I expect triple that in California, how many fees do you have?

Michinaga says

And then another rule is enacted that says that non-Asians like yourself are banned from picking up a pair of chopsticks and learning to use them. (OK, so this is unrealistic. Just bear with me.)

I would use my Chop sticks and pick that person's eyes out with them, and dip them in my Soy sauce, pickled ginger, Wasabi, and Sarichi sauce. Some of us Non Asians will try anything if you put enough yum on it.

SO your In Japan. Those Asian island countries the biggest expense next to drinking, is driving.
I bet it costs hundreds if not thousands for yearly car registrations, and they pay heavy for every where they park.

I don't drive at all, never learned. Grew up taking mass transit and still do. It depends on where you live, I'm sure. Some cities we've lived in that had few or no mass transit routes, I was at a real disadvantage and/or we had to drive everywhere.

In my case it is really no more expensive to live in the city than out a ways, (just comparing rents/house prices). We do not live in a downtown luxury townhouse or anything, just a regular neighborhood in the city. I'm near several really useful bus routes, and can get pretty much anywhere I want to go by bus/train, and I can walk to most ordinary errands like the grocery store. I have a personal shopping cart so I can haul a lot of groceries. Walking is good exercise.

My spouse started taking the bus to work instead of driving which saves us about $200 mo in gas alone, compared to when we lived in a city with no mass transit. Plus, the savings is even more when you consider we have less wear and tear on the car. High cost maintenance/repairs will be put off for years compared to how soon it'd be necessary if we drove every day.

So, for driving to make more economic sense, we'd have to find a house to rent or buy that would represent a monthy savings, when you added up all considerations, of probably $300 a month. We could not get a house like we're renting now for $300 less. And, if such a house existed I bet it would not be near all the conveniences, so it'd probably have to be more than $300 mo less to really make sense.

sybrib says

michaelsch,
I’m descended from multi-generations of Oklahoma wheat farmers.
Some of them, including my grandfather, lived in town. LIved in town so the kids could walk to school and the spouse could walk to shopping and work. The family vehicle, the truck, was multipurpose commute out to the acreage and utility vehicle on the job. Even kept a few cattle out there on someone’s pastureland. A percentage of the farmers, particularly the ones who farmed at night and had day jobs, lived in town, still do. Farmers who live in the country or who have garages or other space out would share their spaces to park/store equipment, sometimes for some small rent or else some other consideration.
When they got some extra money, because after all the spouse lived in town and could manage to walk to work for a cash job after the kids started attending school, they were able to get a sedan, for weekend trips or whatever.

OK, but I'm not talking about people living in small towns and doing some farming or forestry or any such work. Of course when living in small towns it makes sense to have a single family house with large yard and do at least some gardening and to have cars and trucks. But how many Americans today live outside huge metropolitan areas? 10%? For sure, not more than 15%. Sure enough more in Oklahoma, so what?

There are almost 20 million people living in Southern California. How many of them do any open space work? May be 1 million, and most of those are illegal immigrants. For the rest cars and SUVs are just for commute. BTW, before 2006 MOST of cars on the road here were SUVs. You know why? Because they were subsidized as agricultural vehicles.

John Bailo says

Non-car living is an expensive boutique lifestyle. The dwindling number of urbanites who want to live in the few remaining high density downtowns use every trick in the book to tax the rest of us to fund their decadent lifestyle. Light rail, trolleys, infrastructure — every tax-laden scam imaginable is used under the banner of some phony Green or Environmental label.
Low density suburbs are cleaner, more environmental, and more efficient for the transport of goods than any city. The use of the car to make the last mile is FAR more efficient than cramming in goods on trucks to tiny charcuteries in Manhattan.

Pure nonsense. Have you been to so called Inland Empire? There are about 4 million people living there. It's not cleaner than even Downtown LA not mentioning places like Pasadena. With the exception of Detroit and Kansas city I think all American inner cities nowadays are cleaner than many large suburbs around them.

michaelsch,

maybe you missed my point. Yes, a truck is a necessity to be a farmer. But just for the commercial aspect of farming. As a matter of fact, a small farmer's pickup truck in OKla used to be licensed as a commercial vehicle (maybe it still is?). But a farmer who lives in town doesn't need any other wheels.

When I was looking for a home to buy and live in during the 1980's, being in walking distance to public transit was a requirement for me, even though I commuted to my job in at car at the time.... because you just never know what can happen to make driving impractical. What has happened in the past 20 years was that driving has become more expensive, traffic has got worse, and public transit schedules have become more convenient: it is actually faster (and cheaper) than driving now.

10 ounce,

my California registration, including recent price increases, is about $400 per year on the 2008 model, $300 per year on the 2006 model, $125 on the year 2001 model and about $100 per year on the 2000 model. These are fixed costs and are negligible compared to the variable costs of operating the vehicles, which averages about 27 cents per mile. Turns out that the Prius is no cheaper per mile than the non-hybrid Camry, because an honest costing of it will amortize the $4000 replacment cost of the battery over the expected lifetime. (The Prius, even though it is Hip and Cool, is a stupid concept).

But with my transit pass, the variable cost of my public transit commute is about 8 cents per mile.

You can sticks and stones all you want about the registration cost in California, but if you do the math, the variable costs of fuel (that we make war for, and that we pollute the Gulf for), and the maintenace of the vehicle, swamps out the fixed cost of the registration, whether it's in low-cost Florida or high-cost Cal.

Michigana,

Yes, "more power to them".

Those people are becoming slaves of their possessions and are tended to be paranoid about....

...gas prices .... the traffic ...... the car breaking down....... etc.

People drive cars because mass transit is often inconvenient or non-existent. In many suburuban communities, the trains and busses only run once an hour in between the AM and PM rush hours. Miss the train by 3 minutues? I hope you have a book to read because you have a logn wait ahead of you. And don't think that your wait will only be 57 minutues long because if there is a delay, you could easily wait an hour and 20 minutues.

This is true. I have access now to decent mass transit but that's not always been the case. Using mass transit requires more planning but it sure makes you punctual.

Cities often cut mass transit funding at exactly the time when more/better transit is needed. Like when gas goes up or the economy tanks.

For those unfortunate people who've lost their middle finger to amputation, they can't drive at all and must rely on transit. ;-)

HousingWatcher says

People drive cars because mass transit is often inconvenient or non-existent. In many suburuban communities, the trains and busses only run once an hour in between the AM and PM rush hours. Miss the train by 3 minutues? I hope you have a book to read because you have a logn wait ahead of you. And don’t think that your wait will only be 57 minutues long because if there is a delay, you could easily wait an hour and 20 minutues.

Mass transit makes little sense, since employers over the course of a few years always move to another location. This has been true time and time again in the Bay Area. Add to that the high count of employers failures and M&A activity, mass transit becomes fruitless local government spending over the long run. It doesnt pay!

Of course some people around here really over do it, with SUVs and Benzs, guzzeling gas like drunken sailors. But that is elitist egos gone amoke.

Most mass transit is poor in most cities, which leads us to require a car. Once we have a car, then 1 mile or 5 miles makes almost no difference. 5 miles to 10 miles, well how much difference does that make? The hurdle is getting the car, once that has been done, it's pretty hard to justify mass transit, unless you're in NY, or some European cities.

It is a lot easier to clean up 1 city block that as hundreds of people on it, than to keep the 5 miles to a suburb clean + keep the entire suburb clean. Cleaning up garbage strewn all over the place over a 5 mile stretch isn't easy. Hauling water out there, creating roads, handling sewage from all these random suburbs isn't cheap, friendly or easy either.

As far as hybrids, they are already showing to have low maintenance costs, with a 10 year battery warranty. Average car in the US lasts 17 years now. So one replacement might be necessary. Cost might be high for that single item, but the savings in having a simpler car are likely to make up for it. Brakes needing replacement, mufflers, engine issues. Small engines running at a constant rate run forever, and that is what a hybrid offers. Not to mention, even without the batteries, many of these cars get amazing mileage.

sybrib says

You can sticks and stones all you want about the registration cost in California, but if you do the math, the variable costs of fuel (that we make war for, and that we pollute the Gulf for), and the maintenace of the vehicle, swamps out the fixed cost of the registration, whether it’s in low-cost Florida or high-cost Cal.

Oil doesn't pollute the water, greed pollutes the water.

This fault for this lies in everyone that ever partook in the following.

Investors jacking the cost of Commodities even though fundamentally the "Supply and Demand" didn't demand it.

California Liberals enforcing the investors case, by politicizing the "Fossil Fuel" Armageddon farce.

Oil Companies obliging both by making stock disappear.

Politicians, using misleading data from all parties to show we are low on Oil supply and need to Drill somewhere anywhere now!

Energy investors giving the Oil companies gobs and gobs of money to drill more precarious locations. Along with all of the factors fraudulently rewarding them handsomely for their efforts.

If it was a perfect world of electric cars, then there would probably be billions of gallons of Battery Acid in the Gulf or somewhere.

Fault "lies" with all them, but not with solo commuters who drive too-big cars that burn too much petrol to their too big home that use too much utilities in communities that are too far away.

Righhhhhht.

sybrib says

Fault “lies” with all them, but not with solo commuters who drive too-big cars that burn too much petrol to their too big home that use too much utilities in communities that are too far away.
Righhhhhht.

Errr... sorry sybrib. That guy looks like a hired driver rather than home owner. Of course, it depends on how big is too big though.

I used to had no probelm taking bus when the bus is the only bus in the town when I was in rural PA back in 1995. Now I got tens of them and I don't even know where half of them are going.

And another pissing off news got announced today. DC metro approved fare increase today. I think it's like 50cents plus another 20cents at peak hours. Sad thing is that today is the one year anniversity of horrible metro train accident happened to kill 9 people. That's the kind of gut DC mass transit has.

Kennedy,

Your way of looking at the cost of driving is not representative of reality. There are fixed costs and variable costs. As you point out, the purchase price threshold, after it is crossed, is no longer an out of pocket expense, so you can ignore it if you want to think of it that way. Edmunds.com calls it depreciation, and has a cost per mileage associated with it. Registration is a fixed cost. A portion of the insurance is a fixed cost, but if you drive under a certain number of miles per year you can get a lower premium, so there is a fixed cost portion and a variable cost portion.

Then there's the fuel and maintenance/repair, unless your mommy or daddy is paying for your transportation for you, every mile you drive your vehicle you incur those costs, even if you think you don't.

My Camry, built in Ohio by Americans, according to Edmunds has a variable cost per mile to operate of 26.7 cents per mile not including gasoline, which is easy to figure on your own. I think their maintenance plus repair cost is a little bit high, I think mine is more like 12 cents per mile, plus about 15 cents per mile for fuel. So it costs me 27 cents per mile to drive to work, versus 8 cents per mile to take transit with the monthly fare pass. And on my commute, because of the congestion, transit is a few minutes shorter than driving.

http://www.edmunds.com/apps/cto/intro.do

http://www.edmunds.com/apps/cto/intro.do

pkennedy says

Most mass transit is poor in most cities, which leads us to require a car.

I don't think the cause and effect works that way. The cause was the way cities were planned and built.

When cities are planned as sprawling suburbs, with remote retail centers to serve daily needs, mass transit makes no sense. Even if you took away everybody's car, and started from scratch. There is no mass transit system that exists that can serve a disperse population with high frequency economically.

In dense urban centers it's the opposite. It makes little sense to form a transportation system around private automobiles. They just sit around taking up precious space 95% of the time, and the traffic is hellish with everybody in a car. Wise, high density cities like Hong Kong and Singapore have fantastic mass transit systems (HK even has a a public escalator about 1km long)

Mark,

I live in one of those sprawling suburbs you mentioned. But, I live in walking distance to a major hub for the buses, and two long blocks from an express bus. Express bus uses the carpool lanes, and also has some kind of transponder that can remotely change the traffic lights head, making the solo drivers queue even longer at the traffic light (but, if you are driving in the direction of the express bus, stay close behind them astride in the center (non-carpool) lane, because then you will miss most of the lights).

So my point is that not all of the suburban sprawl is impossible without a car.

@sybrib

I agree with your assessment of deprecation. However, if you drive 1000 miles a year, or 5000 miles a year, the cost difference is negligible. If you drive 1000 miles a year, your deprecation is going to be very high, you'll be selling a 5 year old car with "less" miles on it, but that doesn't make it hugely more valuable. Also, many of the mechanical issues arise from cold starts, so driving 3 miles 300 times is nearly thesame as driving 50 miles 300 times.

My main point was that once you own the car, your costs are pretty much fixed. Edmunds assumes you're driving like a "normal" American. X miles to work, X miles back. X on weekends, etc. And your premium on insurance might change, but going from 10,000 miles a year to 25,000 doesn't change it by much. Maybe 15-20%? I think mine was like 5% but definitely not 250%.

If you look at the cost of driving vs taking a bus (once you own a car) it's pretty minimal. If your car is sitting at your house, it's depreciating. If you don't drive it tomorrow, you're still paying for insurance on it. It's still going to go down in value. If you don't drive it one day for 10 miles, it's unlikely you're "saving" that $2.70 in cost. More likely you're saving like $1.50-$2.00.

If your options are to take a bus 10 miles for $2.50, or drive for approximately $2.50, it's a no brainer. If you didn't have a car, and your options where to buy a car, or take the bus, it becomes a no brainer as well.

@markinsf
Well most cities were decently compact before cars, the car allowed us to move to the suburbs. If we had horse and carriages, we wouldn't get putting 30 miles between us and work. Once we force ourselves to get a car, then the distance between work starts to become moot like I was saying.

Some cities could have better rapid transit. I just can't believe Bart/Caltrain in the bay area are the best way to move up and down the peninsula. I know many people who take them, but many more would use the system if it worked a little better. If they could actually move people at a decent speed and not take 2 hours to go up and down the entire peninsula it would be great.

Kennedy,

My cost is 15 cents per mile for fuel and I reckon, 12 cents per mile for maintenance, not the 26 cents Edmunds says. The bus is 8 cents per mile.

And because of the traffic, the bus is faster.

It IS a no brainer.

WIthout driving to work every day my mileage went below the 7500/year (I think it was 6800 miles last year) which took about $250 off the annual premium.

sybrib says

I live in walking distance to a major hub for the buses....So my point is that not all of the suburban sprawl is impossible without a car.

I used to commute by Caltrain from San Mateo to San Francisco, with about 1/2 mile on each side, so I understand what you're saying.

But for MOST people living in suburbs, commuting by mass transit is not practical. And for things like eating out, shopping, going out on the town, and other activities walking and transit are not really even seriously considered in the suburbs.

So, I have to disagree. It is impossible to live without a car in the suburbs, unless you want to confine your life to work and home, and you're in walking distance to mass transit for a work commute on both sides.

America is simply the car culture of the world, we build the first car, build a network of highways to connect north to the south, east to west and barely tax anything associated with it from free roads, low tax/fees, cheap gas and free parking. This culture requires us to expand our borders even further and result in the suburbs we see today.

According to wiki, there is now more than 250M vehicle registered in the US. The US population is 300M+ people so that is 5 cars for every 6 adult, child, and elderly. An average household owns more than 2 vehicle. That pretty indicates that Most people cannot survive without their cars. This has become a necessity not a choice.

Most big cities have some form of mass transportation system that centralize to downtown. 70% of BART commuters travel through Embaracadero, Montgomery, Civic Center, Powell. Without that core, BART is pretty much useless. The ferry, local bus and intercounty bus are the same way. Trying to connect from one suburb to another is an absolute money losing disaster. Someone mentioned it costs only 8 cents a mile to travel by public transportation, but that doesn't even consider the effect of gas tax, sales tax that goes into the bus system to make that happen. I think fares make up only 30% of the revenue as the rest is subsidized by taxes and fees.

San Francisco is fortunate to have three main core, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. But nevertheless, public transit is money losing without subsidy. Unfortunately, unless you plan to just go to downtown in daylight hours and nowhere else, not having a car will really suck. We have so many people with cars on the road that unless you're at an airport or outside a busy hotel or very late outside some bar/club, you will not see a taxi. Los Angeles does not have an effective transit system because there is no identifyble core, people just go north, south, east, west and there is no network.

For those that voted for the train to be built from SD to LA to SF, it would be a guaranteed financial disaster. I doubt the state can finance the thing wth bond money with future revenues tied to the system. The problem with LA is once you get to LA or SF via train, now what? you'll need to rent a car anyway to go to where you need to go. This is unlike Japan where you are connected from network to network to take you where you need to go and cut out the car altogether.

The bus depends on how far you're going. In the bay area, I believe it's about $2.50 now each way. To get 8 cents a mile, you would need to travel just over 30 miles by bus!

Some transit isn't profitable, but some of it is. NY has a great system that's been paid for. The system is just filled with excess and waste unfortunately. My favorite bus system that I saw was in a small city in Turkey, where they had a "bus" route with essentially taxis. You would flag them down, they would pick you up, you would let them know when to let you off. There were of course up to 4-5 passengers in the car with you, doing the same thing. Convince and efficient. Brazil had similar situation with mini buses that would fill up and then simply not stop until they reached the next city/area, where people where to be let off, and they could just hum along.

I agree with LA. SF has it a little better because BART essentially covers the main routes, it's just not that fast I find. Perhaps if I had to do that commute every day I would love it. I'm just adverse to commutes :)

Many of the little cities/suburbs around here are fully contained, so if you didn't have a car you could survive. Work/Home, yes. Movies, restaurants, and entertainment are all provided in most of these cities as well. Of course no car and no where NEAR the nearest city center is useless. If you're living anywhere along the BART line (which you would need to, to live car free), it basically passes through the heart of every city, so you're likely near some small city center as well.

Exactly agree with original post. Our society is SO oriented around automobiles, it defacto discriminates against the "auto-challenged". I live in Davis California which refers to itself as the "bike capitol" and it's quite a nice place to live. I can get most anywhere that matters by bike in town, and my daily commute includes a bike trailer so I can drop my toddler off at daycare. Without looking at the statistics there seems quite a lower obesity level here as well.

SF ace says

we build the first car,

LOL, folks keep repeating this mantra again and again.

First car (in modern sense, there were some French built vehicle with steam engine before) was built by engineer Benz in German factory owned by Daimler and was called Mercedes after Daimler's daughter.

I believe first mass production line of cars though was in the US.

Big difference of course! But the gist is we became very dependent on cars very fast.

SF ace says

Los Angeles does not have an effective transit system because there is no identifyble core, people just go north, south, east, west and there is no network.
For those that voted for the train to be built from SD to LA to SF, it would be a guaranteed financial disaster. I doubt the state can finance the thing wth bond money with future revenues tied to the system. The problem with LA is once you get to LA or SF via train, now what? you’ll need to rent a car anyway to go to where you need to go. This is unlike Japan where you are connected from network to network to take you where you need to go and cut out the car altogether.

LA is much better now, Rapid Metro buses helped a lot. They stop only every 1/2 mile to a mile. Depending on a route it makes sense to use them for a ride of up to 5-7 miles. For longer rides You need to be close to Light Rail/Subway/Express Bus station and to go to a place close to one. With the size of Greater LA it's of course very limited. Still, if you can rent where you want and you work close to a station you can use public transport for daily commute. Still you need at least one car per family.

Local buses are completely useless for those who can walk. I walk almost as fast as they ride with all their stops and street lights. Riding bikes is much faster then taking local bus. City loose a lot of money on them, of course, but they serve all kind of sick, elderly, etc. people who can't drive. We have a very old and quite sick couple living next door. They still take a bus to go to doctor office and to some stores. Without this someone would have to give them a ride practically every day. Plus, it's an exercise for them. So, you can see it as a social service.

About fast train SD-LA-SF I'm not so sure. It all depends on gas prices. Well, many people won't use it but there are a lot of those who will. Even today LA-SD trains are almost packed. When gasoline was above $4 you needed to buy tickets in advance to get a sit on a SD train. Trains were completely packed and many people were standing from LA to some stations in Orange county. A train that can make it from LA to SF in 2.5 hours will compete with air traffic. For those going to SF it will make a lot of sense, since for most travelers in LA area access to Union station in LA is much easier than to LAX or Burbank airport.

Again, it mostly depends on gasoline prices. Today oil and gas are priced for recession. Just to maintain current level of proved oil reserves it's price need to be around $110/bbl. Car sales in China rise 20%-50% every year, so don't count on gas price below $7-8 by the time SD-LA-SF train starts running.