Lifestyles of the public-transit rich

In My Humble Opinion
21

In inner Melbourne (which is fairly public-transit rich but nowhere near as aggravating to drive in as somewhere like London) a coworker of mine dealt with the issue by simply totting up what trips he would need to take by taxi if he didn’t have a car and figuring out how the cost compared to owning one (it was cheaper. Lots cheaper). Pretty much anywhere in the inner north and east you can get to a tram/ train/bus within about 5 minutes walk, and there’d be a decent supermarket within 15 minutes and that takes care of a lot of trips for most people.

He didn’t have kids, which helps.

22

Grew up and went to school in Hamburg (Germany) - pop. 1.8 million and in a small town near Hamburg - pop. 10k; studied in Hanover - pop. 500k; now work in Tübingen - pop. 80k

Kindergarten age 3-6 - walked with mother (SAHM at the time - ~ 500 m)
Primary school - walked (~ 2 km). Father commuted by train and underground (~ 10 km); mother still SAHM. We got a car; used it for weekend trips/family visits.
Secondary school - walked (~ 2 km), from ~ age 14 bicycled. Father commuted by train (~ 30 km); mother first SAHM then commuted by train, then got local job (walked ~ 2 km). Used family car for vacations and visiting.
Internship - commuted (~ 40 km) by train and underground to Hamburg.
University study - walked or took tram to university (~ 1-4 km from various lodgings)
Internship - commuted (~ 10 km) by tram
Near end of study, got driving license (for job prospects - need to make business trips when engineer). Never owned a car yet.
Now living and working in Tübingen (pop. 80k and, being dominated by an university of ~ 25k students, one of the most ecologically conscious towns in Germany). Walk, run or bike to work (~ 2 km), in bad weather take bus (3 stops), or take train to city centre (~ 2 km) when I want to breakfast in a particular café before work.
Member in a car sharing club, use one of the shared cars (one parked 30 m from work or one parked 200 m from my apt.) about 2 times per week (sports dates on evening and next morning; hiking group walks when not convenient by rail).

Re dropping off kids: When I walk to work I often see parents dropping off kids at the local daycare. Some drive, few walk (a few 100 m do seem to be onerous particularly if the kid isn’t inclined to walk as smartly as the parent wants); a lot carry them by bike (one kid can go into a bike child seat but two usually get strapped into a trailer like this one - most parents add a small flagpole with a red pennant, so motorists see from a distance the bike tows a kid trailer. It appears the maximum is 2 daycare-age kids (when they don’t fight).

My parents, retired since ~ 20 years in a town now of pop. 15k, made a lot of trips by car and a lot by rail. Now they really need the car because my mother is in a wheelchair. They go by car to the supermarket (~ 1 km) as the local grocer (~ 200 m) has long closed; their doctors (~ 300 m) and the town centre (~ 1.5 km) are reachable by motor-assisted wheelchair.

When I visit my parents (~ 700 km as the crow flies) I use the train (~ 7 h) or the plane (~ 5 h including bus to/from airport, security queue and wait before boarding)

My brother (trained as social worker, now web designer) and his wife (nurse) live in Hamburg (pop. 1.8 million). They don’t own a car (my brother passed his US driving license when living in Washington DC, doing foreign aid work in lieu of military service, but he doesn’t feel up to Hamburg traffic). They walk or run their 2 daughters (2 and 4) to day care. Primary school will be in walking distance. The mother commutes to hospital by underground (~ 10 km); my brother walks to work, takes usually train or sometimes plane to sales meetings, train and tram (~ 300 km/2.5 hr) to part-time study every month or so.

23

[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

But in places like London, Manhattan, or Paris, where driving one’s own car must be nothing but aggravation, what is the answer to the need to run errands or pick up one’s kids? Do more Manhattanites own cars and drive them every day than one would imagine?

[/QUOTE]

No, most Manhattanites don’t own cars. I’ve lived in Manhattan for 3 years and Hoboken, NJ for 4 years and I got rid of may car as soon as I moved here.

I don’t have kids, however when I need to run errends, I basically walk there. If I have to carry a lot of stuff or something particularly bulky or heavy, I can take a cab. I’m about a block from a supermarket, there are dry cleaners on every block, and I have a washer/dryer on my floor. Also, much of what I need can be delivered to me. I had some friends come down from Boston and after a hard night of drinking they were like “what are the chances of someone coming over and just giving us food?”. It’s New York. The chances are 100%. Just pick what you want from the stack of takeout menus.

On the infrequent occassion that I need to travel beyond the MTA or NJTransit systems, I rent a car or take a “Zipcar”. It’s far cheaper than maintaining, insuring and parking a car for $200 a month or more.

24

I’m 47 and have never driven, and live in Chicago, one of the best transit cities around. I take the bus and train to get everything including trips to CostCo. I have an external frame backpack to which I have mounted additional bags, including an insulated cooler bag. I sit in the food area after checkout and pack the bags, discarding extra packaging to get better density. An average shopping trip will include stuff as large as a whole rib eye and cases of canned vegetables. I can carry more than 100 lbs in this way.

It’s a very special experience strapping a 36 roll pack of toilet paper to the top of the stuffed pack. I have to duck down when entering the bus and the amusement on my fellow passengers faces…it’s a wonderful feeling knowing you’re bringing such joy to their lives.

25

[QUOTE=TheLoadedDog]
Matt, can I ask how old you were when you moved to Montreal? Were you a metro enthusiast from a young age?

I ask because I’ve been a rail enthusiast since about the time I could walk, and much of my early travelling alone on Sydney’s trains was of my own volition and just for the sake of riding the trains. Was there a young matt out there on the metro for the joy of it?
[/QUOTE]

I was 13 when I moved to Montreal, and yes, I was instantly fascinated by the metro, never having lived in a city with a metro before (I grew up in Winnipeg). Within a few months, I had memorized all the names of the metro stations and had a collection of a transfer from each station.

Also, I was born on the 15th anniversary of its opening, of parents who met on the 80 Av. du Parc bus :slight_smile:

BTW, other people asked about shopping. Most of the stores I need for my daily stuff - grocery, drugstore, post office, café, tea shop, etc. - are within walking distance (actually along the commercial street between here and the metro station). In the old neighbourhood, where the grocery store was farther away, I used to have things delivered when I did a big shopping run.

For other things I just go downtown and shop there. (Montreal has a very vigorous, well-used, safe downtown area, with several malls as well as scads of small businesses of every kind.)

Montreal has big box stores, but by and large they’re in the suburbs, and I rarely ever need anything they sell. Many of them have smaller outlets downtown (Canadian Tire, the Bay, Bureau en Gros [Staples], etc.). Pretty much the only big box store I ever go to is IKEA, and then I make a day of it and go with a friend who can drive; we take their car or rent a truck there. I used delivery when I moved in, and when I was a poor student I used to carry truly awesome quantities of furniture home by myself by bus and metro.

26

Incidentally, something like 50% of Montreal households don’t have a car. We also have a very high central residential density, with tons of people living in what we call triplexes – three-storey houses with each storey being a separate apartment. (That’s the kind of house I have.) I’d say most people in the major residential boroughs inside from the suburbs – Verdun, the Sud-Ouest, Cote-des-Neiges, Notre-Dame-de-Grace, the Plateau, the Centre-Sud, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Rosemont, etc – live within walking distance of a commercial street and the services they need, and have this kind of residential stock.

Also, we have a limiting factor for cars, which is that the wide St. Lawrence River separates Montreal from its south shore suburbs, resulting in some of the busiest bridges in the world. Bizarrely, we only have four real public transit links to the south shore: the yellow line metro, the reserved bus lane on the Champlain Bridge, and two commuter train lines. We really need to get on that.

27

Besides, with $4.00 a gallon gas added to the costs of purchasing, maintaining, licencing and parking a car - my $20 a week unlimited transit pass that I only purchase when I need is looking even better. Not to mention a carbon footprint that I can be downright smug about.