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Did most people have cars in the towns in Mexico you lived?
Plenty of cars there yes but since it is far less car dependent (and many can’t afford to buy/maintain a car) probably 60% live there without a car. This is the case in most places in Mexico. Motorcycles and scooters are extremely prevalent as a form of transportation as well due to their low entry cost and because they are so cheap to operate.
Plenty of cars there yes but since it is far less car dependent (and many can’t afford to buy/maintain a car) probably 60% live there without a car. This is the case in most places in Mexico. Motorcycles and scooters are extremely prevalent as a form of transportation as well due to their low entry cost and because they are so cheap to operate.
Owning a car in the third world countries is for people who have the financial resources to do so. In some third world countries, cars are defined as a luxury item, and the extremely high taxes on the cars double the purchase cost of the cars. Motorcycles and scooters are a step up from bicycles. Bicycles are a step up from walking or taking public transportation.
But with public transportation, you're still subjecting yourself to a significantly higher risk of becoming a victim of a crime, by the criminals that are around the places you have to wait for the public transportation and on the public transportation. The public transportation can be very crowded too. There's not much social distancing going on with public transportation, and you are subjecting yourself from getting sick. That was true before COVID-19, and even more true now. A simple cloth mask is not going to stop the virus. Touching contained surfaces on the public transportation, then touching your face with your hands is another way you'd get infected.
It all comes down to public transportation is not a utopia, it's a second class transportation system. But if public transportation is a utopia for you, then it's a good thing, because it frees up more space on the roads for people like me!
Owning a car in the third world countries is for people who have the financial resources to do so. In some third world countries, cars are defined as a luxury item, and the extremely high taxes on the cars double the purchase cost of the cars. Motorcycles and scooters are a step up from bicycles. Bicycles are a step up from walking or taking public transportation.
But with public transportation, you're still subjecting yourself to a significantly higher risk of becoming a victim of a crime, by the criminals that are around the places you have to wait for the public transportation and on the public transportation. The public transportation can be very crowded too. There's not much social distancing going on with public transportation, and you are subjecting yourself from getting sick. That was true before COVID-19, and even more true now. A simple cloth mask is not going to stop the virus. Touching contained surfaces on the public transportation, then touching your face with your hands is another way you'd get infected.
It all comes down to public transportation is not a utopia, it's a second class transportation system. But if public transportation is a utopia for you, then it's a good thing, because it frees up more space on the roads for people like me!
I’m not sure I’d call it “utopia” but while I’m in a place like New York City or Mexico City it is fantastic to be able to get around quickly, easily and inexpensively using the subway. If I lived in either of those places I would not bother with car ownership.
I could not live here in the Twin Cities without access to a car. That’s just how it is.
I’m not sure I’d call it “utopia” but while I’m in a place like New York City or Mexico City it is fantastic to be able to get around quickly, easily and inexpensively using the subway. If I lived in either of those places I would not bother with car ownership.
I could not live here in the Twin Cities without access to a car. That’s just how it is.
Exactly, each city is different and has transportation that best suits itself which is all the matters. When I stayed downtown SF I didn’t have a rental car, we walked everywhere, plus I didn’t have to pay $40 a night to park it. I did rent one and used it to explore the coast and redwoods southwest of the city ending up in San Jose for Wild Sharks game.
Exactly, each city is different and has transportation that best suits itself which is all the matters. When I stayed downtown SF I didn’t have a rental car, we walked everywhere, plus I didn’t have to pay $40 a night to park it. I did rent one and used it to explore the coast and redwoods southwest of the city ending up in San Jose for Wild Sharks game.
So to bring this back to the OP, the simple answer is that although you could say the Twin Cities has the total population to support a subway system that it lacks the density to make it practical. Thus a public transportation portfolio of bus and light rail with the possible addition of street car lines probably makes more sense.
Owning a car in the third world countries is for people who have the financial resources to do so. In some third world countries, cars are defined as a luxury item, and the extremely high taxes on the cars double the purchase cost of the cars.
Yep.
1st world countries also though, especially the nordic economic model countries. Car prices double, especially on imports.
Due to my job, I lived in Israel for several years, and public transport worked pretty well there, but IMO public transportation was considered very viable because personal car costs were stupidly high due to govt policies. A tiny car in Israel was over 2 times the cost of one in the U.S. to purchase (all imports), and cars with larger engines (including my 1700cc motorcycle) cost almost 4 times as much to insure as rates were dictated by the government. Gas was over $5 a gallon most places in Tel Aviv (taxes, taxes, taxes!)
Quote:
Originally Posted by davephan
But with public transportation, you're still subjecting yourself to a significantly higher risk of becoming a victim of a crime, by the criminals that are around the places you have to wait for the public transportation and on the public transportation. The public transportation can be very crowded too.
Yep.
I also lived in Mexico City for three years, and drove my car nearly 10 miles through the city from Sante Fe to downtown every day because of that. Mexico City metros were a place you got robbed. Buses were even worse. Ubers were about the best way to get around to avoid parking issues. City run taxis were often really sketchy.
I used the city bus system in Minneapolis extensively as a young man, but I always had my Ruger on me when I did. Some crazy guy jumped on my bus (#5 bus on Chicago route)in the early 80's with a gas can and started pouring gas all over people before he jumped back off. I wasnt on the bus that day, but heard about it from others the next day.
A big problem with public transportation is it is full of the public.
Honestly the premise of this thread is a bit off. While there isn’t a subway system, there is a light rail system that keeps expanding and has caused a great amount of investment in the areas it has been built along. Functionally, the light rail system is the same as a metro.
Also, I feel like the possible safety issues on public transportation systems are far outweighed by the issues that come with owning/driving a car. Few people die on public transit systems even in cities where the majority of the population uses it either everyday or every week like Chicago, DC, and NYC. And it’s not like people don’t get shot while driving or car-jacked either and that doesn’t always have to occur in a ver dangerous area either. I mean, it was only a few years ago when someone got car jacked in a suburban area of Des Moines and was so brutally beaten that he died a few years later after being severely disabled. Or there was that one German tourist who got shot in the head in a roadrage incident outside of Calgary, Canada.
I can understand some of the safety concerns when taking public transport in smaller cities where not many people are taking it in the first place, but in larger metropolitan areas like the twin cities, I wouldn’t hesitate. I also grew up in the Boston area and always took the subway, busses, commuter rail growing up and not once did I have an actual safety concern outside of being weirded out by some people.
Last edited by Northeasterner1970; 01-11-2022 at 06:50 AM..
When they were designing the SW Light Rail path, they were considering running part of it underground. It would have gone underneath Lyndale Ave south of downtown and then turned west under Lake Street. That would have brought it through one of the densest parts of the metro, with some of the lowest car ownership rates. I really wish they had decided on that route, but they ended up routing it through an obscure area north of 394 and west of 94, then turning south through Kenwood between Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles, and then going through the area where Lake Street runs west of Bde Maka Ska. So it ended up going through some more obscure parts of town and some very rich parts of town, where it is my belief that it will be far less used than with the Uptown subway route. It came down to the fact that it was far more expensive to do the subway route, to the point that they didn't think they would have sufficient funding to do the line if they chose that. Oh well. There will surely be development on the route they chose, so I guess that's good.
Other peer cities such as Seattle and Denver are way more eager to massively fund great rail systems. We currently have a ton of arterial bus rapid transit lines in the works in the Twin Cities. In case you did not know, our SW Light Rail line is currently under construction, so this was only a few years ago that they were discussing the possible underground portion.
I’m sure there are objective measures and data to determine access, quality and cost of public transportation between different cities and countries. I would also guess that for the most part the US lags behind most other countries in this area. Personally I have lived in both the US and Mexico and there is no question in my mind that public transportation is far more available and accessible in Mexico than it is in the US, with very few exceptions. I had no car during the time I lived in Mexico and got by just fine. There are only a few places where you can get away with this comfortably in the U.S. (NYC, D.C., Boston, Chicago, S.F.)
I’ve lived in Seattle for 11 years now without a car. It’s been quite comfortable to be honest.
When I’m not using public transit, I’m cycling or just walking.
It's a complex story. But it's fascinating. While not related to a subway system, this story involves public transportation in the Twin Cities.
The Twin Cities' streetcar system in the 1950's-1960's - considered among the best in the US - was purchased by National City Lines which was owned by General Motors. (Yes, you could ride streetcars from Wayzata on Lake Minnetonka nearly 40 miles to Stillwater).
So, the streetcar systems and, in some cities, the elevateds, were profitable businesses. In the pre-automobile era, speculators extended streetcar lines to make an urban land market. Much of the profit came from land development but at a time when you rode the streetcar or walked, the fare revenue was sufficient to cover operating costs. If these are still private companies 20-30 years after cars became universal then GM is just making a rational business move by purchasing a company with plunging fare revenue and relatively high operating costs and replacing the electric cars with new GM diesel buses which have much lower operating costs, in part because the city pays for the roads the buses travel on. Streetcars were a big deal from the time of electrification in the mid-1890s until about 1920, when automobiles began seriously eroding the demand for public transp. In 1940-1950, when GM subsidiaries were actively converting traction systems to buses, many people were still riding the bus. The famous Montgomery, Ala, bus boycott wouldn't have made any sense in today's Montgomery, where bus transp is minimal at best, but back in the '50s a bus boycott had some consequences. Bus transportation doesn't have to be second class. Many places, especially in Latin America, have high quality bus rapid transit. Probably wouldn't make sense for the cities to attempt a subway system but there's no reason they couldn't have a great bus system. But as long as cars are cheap, widely available, and gas costs a fifth of what it costs in Japan or Europe, Americans are for the most part going to be driving their cars, which means that local transit will never be the profitable undertaking it was in 1900. n
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While not related to a subway system, this story involves public transportation in the Twin Cities.
