I wish I could use mass transit. There has been expantion of the DART light rail and plans to expand it. Right now it doesn’t get near where I work.
When I lived in Toronto I literally had door to door transit service between my apartment and my job.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Broomstick *
**
Brrr! Dude, I would die in Chicago! I am definitely a warm weather Lizard Girl. Cold weather makes my liver fold up! (And I so hate that…)
I use mass transit and I couldn’t be happier. I work for the federal government here in Northern Virginia, and I received $65.00 in metrocheks which pays for my work transportation. It’s great to have someone else doing the driving, not paying for gas, parking, or increased mechanic’s bills. The biggest drawback is waiting but nothing’s perfect. I only drive on the weekends now and I love it. I will agree that it’s convenient to have your car handy at lunchtime to run errands, but there are tradeoffs for everything.
Well, I’m just about to head out the door for a three-hour walk (in the rain, because, well, it’s Vancouver,) and I must admit: I’ve finally seen the light. “Oh, THIS is why people choose to own those irresponsible, polluting, personal vehicles.” Four months without public transit has taught me that I never want to be dependant on it again. Ever.
At college in Claremont, everything is in walking distance. To visit my grandparents in LA, though, I have to use Metrolink. It takes about 45 minutes from here to LA, as compared to 45 minutes by car.
I’ve heard that 500,000 people use the LA bus sytem daily. Thousands of others use Metrolink, and then the Santa Monica and several other cities have their own bus systems. In short, yes, people do use mass transit.
I too find it interesting that there are places that actually have Mass Transit. In my enviromental science class I thought it was odd that our texts were telling us that people should use buses and trains to get around, and to either walk or bike to the nearby stores. Perhaps in the idealized setting that the authors lived in there actually * are* buses and trains. And maybe the nearest stores in their hometown are not 10 miles away. I guess they forgot that some of the readers wouldn’t be living in urban settings…
If I could take a bus or train to work, I probably would. I don’t like to drive. It’s a trade off, either live where it’s crowded and there are such options avalible, or live where things are spread out and only feasibly gotten to by car. It’s nice to think that people who live where cars aren’t a necessary evil do take advantage of public transportation, though.
When you live in NY, you better fucking use mass transit. It’s impossible to find parking, and what you can find costs heaps of cash.
It seems that mass transit is OK where I live (Belfast NI) so long as you’re on one of the more travelled paths. As it is I have to go back in towards the city centre (5 min walk to the bus stop and 10 min trip to the city centre) and then out towards the south of the city (another 5min walk to another bus stop and then a 20 min bus trip to my destination.) Or a 15 min car drive straight from the house to work.
Public transport has improved a lot since Northern Ireland has seen the virtues of riding on buses instead of burning them but working in the Roads Service I know that the public transport plans from Translink and other agencies still have a long way to go, a reflection of real life experience. I suppose things aren’t that bad but when I see what our continental friends get up to you sort of want the same yourself.
Wait a damn minute. I’ve lived in Bergen County for over 20 years, and I’ve never driven a car in my life! I walk and take buses, and get around find.
Though I do seem to be in the minority.
Tokyo. Use it every day and absolutely love it. I especially like how easy it is to hop on the subway near my apartment and, with no more than two train changes, go almost anywhere in the country.
While I can afford to buy a car, I’m not so sure I could afford to keep one. There are only 10 parking spaces for my 30-apartment building, and they cost over $100/month, if they’re ever available (which currently they’re not). Then there’s the hassle and expense of trying to park anywhere in Tokyo. Then there’s the $4/gal. gasoline. Then there are the highway tolls that make travelling long distance by train cheaper for groups of 4 or fewer. Then there’s the fact that the streets in my neighborhood are 3-meter wide market streets packed with pedestrians, bicycles and shop displays that I couldn’t drive through without growing a new grey hair each time.
Shopping? Everything I need is close enough that driving and parking would take longer than walking. For big items, most shops have pretty good delivery policies.
A bad mass transit system is worse than useless, but a good one is heaven. Now if only Tokyo’s trains ran 24 hours…
–sublight.
I’m in Dublin, which must have the worst public transport of any Western European capital. There is no subway system and the buses are incredibly unreliable. There is commuter rail but it doesn’t help those of us who live in the city. So I’m fortunate to live central enough to be able to walk most everywhere I go.
As for the other cities I’ve lived in: in London, New York (Manhattan and Brooklyn) and San Francisco it is very, very easy to get by without a car. DC’s a bit more difficult, especially at night after the Metro stops running. Albany NY, forget it. I was very fortunate to have a boyfriend with a car when I lived there (as I myself don’t even have license, and don’t intend on getting one, as the thought of driving a car scares the shit out of me).
I’m in Atlanta and our public transport(MARTA) is definately not the best. If you happen to live next door to the station(as I do) and work downtown(as I do) it’s not so bad-I walk out the door, up the hill and get on the train. If I had to use the bus system as well? I’d drive downtown every day, as much as I hate the traffic here. Right now, though, it makes more sense for me to ride the train.
If the outlying counties(Cobb and Gwinnett specifically) would allow the train system to expand, I think a lot more people would ride MARTA, just to cut down on the commute time.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. I don’t intend ever to own a car if I can possibly avoid it.
In Montreal, which is one of the most expensive driving cities and one of the cheapest transit cities in Canada, you could afford a year’s worth of bus passes PLUS a round-trip taxi ride every day of the year PLUS a trip to Europe on the cheap for what it would cost to run a car.
I take the metro practically every day to go to school. Since I’ve lived by myself, even in the depths of poverty I’ve had a metro pass every month but one. It’s an essential service to me.
Outside of rush hour, 46% of all metro trips are made by people from households without cars. (The figure is 34% outside of rush hour.) Since the metro is run on hydroelectricity, its operation contributes no fossil fuel exhaust to the greenhouse effect. (Even bus travel contributes only one-eleventh the pollution per passenger mile as a 4x4.)
Now, to be fair, Montreal has one of the highest downtown residential densities of any North American cities, which is another reason I love it here. But still, to the extent that it’s managed competently, public transit is my city’s pride and joy. Prendre le métro, c’est intelligent!
Let me also add that parking in Montreal, especially downtown and especially when the traffic is at all dense, is sheer havoc.
For more info on car-free city planning and lifestyles, see http://www.carfree.com .
Let me just add to matt’s first-hand accounts that as a serious tourist, I’ve found Montreal’s Metro to be an absolute delight…and aesthetically pleasing to boot. Every station is decorated differently, as opposed to the NYC subway system where until very recently, they all had surplus tiles left over from public school bathrooms (or so it seemed).
Chaim Mattis Keller
Y’all are wimps. Try a) a bus stop in Minneapolis in February, or b) a bus stop in Houston in July.
I am currently carless, but where I live, it’s irrelevant. I’m six blocks from the supermarket, three from the bus stop, and it’s a fifteen-minute ride either into downtown or to work, the museum district, and a half-hour to the Galleria. For $35 a month, I can go all over Houston at virtually any hour.
On the other hand, they seem to lose it when it comes to road construction
Robin
No, try a Jefferson Transit stop in July, especially the Causeway Boulevard line! That’s the one that runs once an hour, at least when I was catching 'em. I see theyv’e been changed to every half hour during peak usage.
Hell, I once walked home to Harahan from summer school in Metairie! Got about halfway (about 4 miles) when a cop decided to give me a lift the rest of the way. I had sat on an overpass for a rest and he though I was going to tip over the side.
I live in Tolland, CT and work in Hartford, CT. I’d have to walk three mile’s to get to the nearest bus stop which isn’t much fun but is doable. However, when I go into Hartford all I see are slimy dirty people getting off the busses. I’d never ride one even though some of the people I work with do.