Americans who drive vs. use public transit (data) (subway, Boston, population)

[nei]

Originally Posted by drive carephilly

This is journey-to-work data and JTW trips only account for about 25% of all trips.

This sort of data doesn't say much other than the places where people work aren't connected by transit to the places where they live. Doing something because there is no alternative isn't indicative of a preference.

Obviously, that doesn't make it misleading. I never thought it indicate much of a preference or not. Here's an international survey that asks about all trips:

NatGeo surveys countries' transit use: guess who comes in last | Kaid Benfield's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

[impala096]

This was how the question was phrased in the American Community Survey which was used to come up with modal share percentages:

How did this person usually get to work LAST WEEK? If this person usually used more than one method of transportation during the trip, mark (X) the box of the one used for most of the distance.
-Car, truck, or van
-Bus or trolley bus
-Streetcar or trolley car
-Subway or elevated
-Railroad
-Ferryboat
-Taxicab
-Motorcycle
-Bicycle
-Walked
-Worked at home
-Other method

Essentially someone who took mass transit 3 days out of the week and drove a personal vehicle the other 2 days would check one of the mass transit options. In over 20 years of my working life, i have never taken mass transit to get to work. How many people who take mass transit can say they have never taken a personal vehicle to get to work?

[nei]

Originally Posted by urbanlife78

No, it reflects how much our country really lacks when it comes to public transportation....but it gives us something to think about when we are sitting in traffic with everyone else burning fuel.

Or the way the US is laid out makes public transit less useful in much of the US. Toronto and Montreal manage to get far more riders per mile of train track than most American rail systems*. Calgary has almost half the length of light rail Portland does but almost three times more riders. Albany, NY appears to have a rather thorough bus system. They could add in more buses, but they already didn't appear that well used.

*Some of the gap is investment. Philadelphia's system is 25 miles long vs 43 miles for Montreal. Boston's coverage is about the same as Montreal once you add in often street running Green Line, but the Green Line is often slow and a few of the most transit friendly sections are missed.

[nei]

Originally Posted by impala096

Essentially someone who took mass transit 3 days out of the week and drove a personal vehicle the other 2 days would check one of the mass transit options. In over 20 years of my working life, i have never taken mass transit to get to work. How many people who take mass transit can say they have never taken a personal vehicle to get to work?

I can think of a few, though they haven't been in the workforce long.

[JR_C]

Originally Posted by impala096

This was how the question was phrased in the American Community Survey which was used to come up with modal share percentages:

Essentially someone who took mass transit 3 days out of the week and drove a personal vehicle the other 2 days would check one of the mass transit options. In over 20 years of my working life, i have never taken mass transit to get to work. How many people who take mass transit can say they have never taken a personal vehicle to get to work?

I have never driven to work, because I am unable to drive. I've been in the work force for almost 15 years, and have probably gotten a ride to work 40-50 times.

[impala096]

Originally Posted by JR_C

I have never driven to work, because I am unable to drive. I've been in the work force for almost 15 years, and have probably gotten a ride to work 40-50 times.

15 years X 250 days of work per year = 3750 days.

Based on those numbers, you have taken a personal vehicle to work roughly 1% of the time (40/3750=1.06%).

[FrankInPhilly]

Originally Posted by nei

Or the way the US is laid out makes public transit less useful in much of the US. Toronto and Montreal manage to get far more riders per mile of train track than most American rail systems*. Calgary has almost half the length of light rail Portland does but almost three times more riders. Albany, NY appears to have a rather thorough bus system. They could add in more buses, but they already didn't appear that well used.

*Some of the gap is investment. Philadelphia's system is 25 miles long vs 43 miles for Montreal. Boston's coverage is about the same as Montreal once you add in often street running Green Line, but the Green Line is often slow and a few of the most transit friendly sections are missed.

Maybe SEPTA has 25 miles of rail in the city of Philadelphia, but it serves the Philly commuting catchment area, which is huge. From List of SEPTA Regional Rail stations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "The system covers a total route length of 280 miles (450 km), 151 miles (243 km) of which are owned by SEPTA, with the remainder owned by Amtrak, CSX Transportation, and the City of Philadelphia."

[eschaton]

Transit is almost always inferior, on an individual level, to driving when it comes to work commutes. Transit's two big negatives are it operates on a schedule (whereas you can get in a car whenever you want) and it is almost always slower than a car (it can be quicker if you're dealing with transit separated from the road, but in much of the country, when you talk about transit, you mean surface road bus transit, which is slow as molasses).

Public transit can outshine driving for work trips for basically two reasons, both of them relating to parking. One, if parking is rare near your place of work, and you will have to spend a good deal of your time circling around looking for parking. Second, and related, if all parking spaces near your place of work not only cost money, but cost significantly more than a round-trip transit ticket.

The latter, is for example, why Atlanta's transit system is underutilized. There are park-all-day lots in Downtown Atlanta which are cheaper than taking the subway. Thus, if you own a car, work downtown, and live right by the subway line, it still makes more economic sense to drive. And it will continue to do so, until the parking lots have price increases (or are redeveloped) or Downtown Atlanta has enough job growth that the lots cannot accommodate all of the commuters.

[46H]

Here in NJ there is a lot of rail and bus service. However, it mostly heads to NYC/Hoboken (or Philly). I live on a train line that I have used for commuting into NYC. If I had a job near a station between here and NYC on my line, I would need the job to be within within 1/2 mile from the station on my line or I would drive. If there is a job on the next train line, I would have to go to a central station and reverse commute back out to the job. This could take 2 hours with connections/walking vs a 5 mile commute that takes 12 minutes.

The problem is that every NJ town has bedrooms and most have commercial space. There is a huge amount of point to point commuting vs in to a central location and out at night. Many commuters are going many different directions. This makes carpooling impossible. The commercial property in suburban areas in this area is not often found near near mass transit. Even when mass transit might work in suburbia, you might be stranded in some office park without food or other services you might need to deal with during the day.

The limits of mass transit in a dense population area like NJ are magnified in less dense areas.

[K-Luv]

I have lived across the U.S. and it seems that public transportation is more favored in certain areas (Boston, SF, DC) and looked down upon as something that only "the poor" or students use (Minneapolis, Baltimore).