Randal O’Toole does the assessment.
Most low‐income workers have given up on transit as a method of commuting and have purchased cars. Instead of helping low‐income people, transit’s major growth market is people who earn more than $75,000 a year. In all but a handful of urban areas, transit uses more energy and emits more greenhouse gases per passenger mile than the average automobile. Far from relieving congestion, transit agencies are seeking to increase congestion in order to promote their businesses.
Pointer from Timothy Taylor. Locally, the contractor for building the Purple Line of the Metro just pulled out with the project a couple of years away from completion. The impact on me, as far as I can tell, is that my favorite bike path, which was torn up at the very start of the project and which was supposed to be replaced when it was completed, will be out of commission indefinitely.
Anyway, suppose we use the intention heuristic, which says that you judge something by its intentions, not by its results. By that standard, mass transit is great, and we need to spend more on it.
It’s fair to say that CATO would be biased against public transit. Saying that, with the electricity grid getting cleaner and transit vehicles moving to electric, the greenhouse gas claim will no longer be an issue soon.
As far as growth is concerned, we all know that a smaller group can grow much faster than a bigger so it’s not necessarily a fair statement.
O’Toole argues that cars are becoming more energy efficient at a faster rate than mass transit is (he says mad transit in the US is in fact no longer becoming more energy efficient on average). If true, then this issue will count more against mass transit over time. And the smallness of a group isn’t a good indicator of its prospects for growth. Very few people get around by horse these days, I wouldn’t see that evidence that horse travel is due for a boom at the expense of cars
The Obama administration proposed to increase Corporate Average Fuel Economy quite a bit. The Trump administration “rolled back” the proposal. My impression is that the Obama standards would have resulted in a menu of cars that Americans would have reacted to like they would react to four more months of lockup. So perhaps we have about reached the limit of energy efficiency of cars.
My CR-V, which isn’t a hybrid or small car or expensive, gets over 30 miles a gallon, which is a damn lot.
“On July 29, 2011, President Obama announced an agreement with thirteen large automakers to increase fuel economy to 54.5 miles per gallon for cars and light-duty trucks by model year 2025. … The agreement resulted in new CAFE regulations for model year 2017–2025 vehicles, which were finalized on August 28, 2012.”
wikipedia, Corporate average fuel economy
I really like mass transit. I love being in crowds and using my time in the train to do other things.
Cars are awful to me. They separate you from other people. Traffic. Parking lots. Lost space. They also induce debt.
I’m rooting for more mass transit.
Opposite preferences.
I only prefer mass transit when its faster than a car due to traffic.
I think part of the issue with mass transit is the planners are fixated on shiny new things, thus the obsession of light rail. Light rail in the DMV, as it has been implemented (H street) and proposed (Colombia pike), amounts to nothing more than an expensive bus that can’t switch lanes. Buses could be much more useful to lower income folks but there would need to be changes in how they are operated. Fewer stops would increase their travel speed but probably increase the number of circuits a bus could conduct. Curb cuts to enable buses to get out of traffic during stops would increase travel speed for everyone else. Fixed stops, nothing fancy like the abomination in Arlington (walter reed and Colombia pike intersection) that cost a $1 million, but plastic enclosures would make waiting for a bus a little more comfortable. And a basic ticker telling passengers when and where the next buses are going would make buses more accessible to the marginal traveler (a tourist for instance).
Moving forward, I don’t see the huge demand for mass transit. The people that like it will no longer need it. Covid is ushering us into a world of telework. I wonder if those that enjoy walkable environments but no longer have to commute to work might of a sudden discover the American small town. But I do see having buses that actually work worth a damn providing a welfare gain to working class folks who don’t have the luxury of permanent telework.
It will also be interesting to see if the pricing premium for real estate in proximity to mass transit sticks.
So there are different policy responses for those cities above the line and those cities below the line.
What do you think the line is? New York and everybody else? New York, the next few down to Seattle? The next few after that including Portland?
Investments don’t make much sense or improve quality of life if you don’t have enough stations and coverage in the network, and it is impractical to build a sufficiently large network if you have too little density of jobs and workplaces. So I don’t see the point unless you are going to upzone the hell out of land around transit stops. Which would be a good, libertarian thing to do, and would make cities and their residents a lot wealthier, but doesn’t really work in the US for reasons. Whereas in China they tax the hell out of cars but are building huge subway networks for their cities.
Mass transit is great if you live in the city. Not so great if you are in suburbs. More lines needed. But the real problem is that states keep building more expressways and enticing people to drive. Stop subsidizing roads and turn X-ways into mass transit movers. For example, in Chicago, they should turn one lane in each direction on I-94 from the Loop to O’hare airport into express train service to O’Hare. This would greatly reduce car congestion on the road and attract businesses and business people who travel a lot. Of course the road repair and construction companies would scream. There is a lot of political pork in those roads and campaign contributions at stake and 2 less lanes would cut into their take. .