YES!! The objective is not to replace more convenience with less! I would rather drive my care everywhere until either
a) traffic
b) parking costs/availability
makes it more convenient to take a bus or subway.
When I lived outside Boston I needed a car because even though it has a decent rail and subway system (the “T”):
a) the stations are too far to walk to
b) the Green line takes 45 minutes to travel the same distance I can cover by car in 15 minutes.
c) the system is only good for going Inbound or Outbound into Boston or Fenway Park. It is useless if I want to go form “side to side”
As a matter of fact, the only time I ever used the T was to
a) go to a Sox game where traffic and parking were unpleasent
b) go downtown to drink excessively (and even then, only when I expected to catch a cab back with 4 of my friends.
Contrast that to my NYC experience where I don’t even own a car anymore.
So my conclusion is that we will always have cars until
a) everyone lives in population centers as dense as Manhattan
or
b) some form of public transportion is created that allows combines freedom and flexibility of the car with the economies of scale of public transportation (like those pods in Minority Report)
Also…my car never threatened to go on strike
For the record, I’d like to state that my argument for public transportation is not environmental, but rather that it promotes better urban planning, better communities in general, and better cities.
msmith and others
That is what I am talking about. To substantially improve public transportation. Provide links between suburbia and downtown. Park-and-ride type of deal. Provide extensive links within the city. Plan urban and suburban communities substantially better. Sadly, most of this is just not happening. Public transportation is often in the best case an afterthought of housing expansion because it is assumed that folks will use their cars. So, yes, people clearly find using their cars more convenient. I agree with you, Sam
In addition, I also think there are many out there who just do not consider public transportation as an option though they can. Call it awareness. I obtained a garage permit reflexively like everyone else. I found out the bus goes through my home. I take it on all possibe occasions. I know people who live nearby with the same work schedule as mine who do not even think of it as an option.
Society can and should be engineered to some extent. The fact that we have public transportation at all is engineered, and even Sam agreed that comes in useful occasionally. Hell, even the use of cars is engineered, since the government has decided to create and maintain a vast network of roads. We can choose not to engineer for the car as much as engineer for public transportation by doing things like making public transportation easier and more affordable, and at the same time stop widening and upgrading roads.
The fact that most people prefer cars is irrelevant. Most people prefer cars because the layout of the cities make it most convinient for cars. In fairly dense cities many more people prefer public transit, and in very dense cities most peope prefer it. I think if we engineer cities correctly, car use can go down significantly.
If there were no way for me to drive my own car somewhere, I’d probably go out a whole lot less and rely on things being delivered to my house a whole lot more.
I don’t like public transportation because it not only makes everything more difficult, it’s nowhere near as comfortable as being in my car where I control the air conditioning, and the radio, and I don’t have to deal with someone else’s kid kicking the back of my chair or some random stranger sneezing on me or stopping every half a block to pick up more people or standing so close to other people I can accurately determine their deodorant brand or having some guy who hasn’t showered in three months sit down next to me and tell me all about his favorite house plant Jerbubbazon that likes to be talked to or listen to the sounds of Snoop Dogg or Metallica blaring out of someone’s earphones or sitting at a corner for ten minutes because somebody’s trying to get their little grocery cart onto the bus and they don’t have exact fare…
I wholeheartedly agree with Catsix. I cannot stand public transportation as I dislike being in close proximity of strangers.
When I lived in the Washington, DC area, I used the subway a lot as it is the best way to get into downtown and many parts of the city. I still needed my car to get to the grocery store, mall, etc.
You cannot exist in the city I live in now without a car. It’s very difficult.
Like I said before, having a car is worth not having to sit closely to people and interact with them.
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It actually costs me less to have my car than it did to rely on public transportation, especially considering the time issues involved.
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I’ve had the opposite experience (not disputing yours,though). I live in Queens. When I worked in Manhattan, driving took longer, cost more once parking was included, and aggravated me more than public transportation ever did. Still, some of my neighbors drive into Manhattan every day. I have no idea why, but it’s not becasue driving is faster and cheaper.