The Pain in the Ass Factor, Cars, and Public Transport
The reason public transit does not make money is that the non-monetary costs of it are very high. You have to walk at each end, crowd in with unpleasant people, and wait (often in the heat or cold) for your chariot. Like many New Yorkers, I get very impatient at even very small delays, and I recently figured out why; a delay of a minute or two can be transformed into a delay of fifteen minutes or more when you factor in a missed train. Plus, on a systemic level, public transit's speed is inversely proportional to its convenience. The more stops and interconnections a system has, the easier it is to move from any given point A to point B; but the longer it will take you to get there. All these things mitigate against public transit. Since moving to Washington, I--a lifelong New Yorker and mass transit afficionado with an ideological and financial opposition to owning an automobile--have begun seriously considering the acquiring a car.
As long driving is more convenient and comfortable than taking a train, most people will prefer it even at a relatively high price premium. [emphasis mine]Am I the only one who thinks the Pain in the Ass Factor of owning and maintaining a car far outweighs the Pain in the Ass Factor of waiting for trains?
Seriously - here's some of the fun stuff I remember from owning a car:
- stopping for gas;
- looking for parking;
- worrying about things like your car getting stolen, what that weird noise coming from your wheel well might be, or getting in a high-speed freeway accident (which I've been in - there's nothing like suddenly facing backwards on the freeway to make you hate driving);
- remembering to get the car serviced;
- dealing with the consequences when you don't remember to get the car serviced;
- sitting in waiting rooms of auto dealerships and service stations;
- getting road rage;
- being the recipient of someone else's road rage
- insurance
In contrast, here are some of the hardships of my pre- and post-car public transit life:
- walking to the train
- getting on the train
- riding the train while reading a book
- getting off the train
- walking to wherever I'm going
- not thinking about whether someone's going to steal the train while I'm not looking
- not thinking about whether I can get a better deal on train insurance from some other company
- not thinking about where I'm going to park the train
- not thinking about when the train needs to be serviced
Labels: public transportation
posted by Christine Borne at 11:30 AM
10 Comments:
Tend to agree overall--back here in Cleveland, missing a connection later at night can result in a delay of an hour or two, and it can get nasty in the cold weather. They just don't run the buses over the routes often enough, or late enough, to be truly useful. My wife and I have experimented with buying monthly passes and focusing on staying away from our car, Tiara, the Urban Combat Vehicle, but we just can't use the pass enough to make up for what it costs. Hence, we're occasional riders.
Tim- I used to live in Brooklyn and work in Lakewood. It took 3 buses and probably 2 hours, round trip. Often I'd miss the last connection coming home, so I'd have to walk a pretty fair distance in the dark.
So I totally agree with you.
If you're going to commit yourself to using RTA, you really have to pick where you live carefully, which is great if you happen to live in or wouldn't mind moving to an RTA-friendly neighborhood, but which is unfortunate if you're relatively new to public transport and you've already established yourself somewhere else.
My opinion is, every little bit helps. When I was growing up we had two cars, but my dad took the bus downtown to work every day.
I'm not sure how RTA's ticket system works anymore...is it still that you buy a pass for one calendar month (June, July, etc)? In New York you buy an unlimited use metrocard ($76) that's good for 30 days after you first activate it, or you can buy a card for a specific dollar amount ($20 gets you 10 rides, whatever - usually you get one free ride with that). Personally I think that works better for people than confining them to a calendar month or a specific week during the month.
You said: "They just don't run the buses over the routes often enough, or late enough, to be truly useful."
Amen to that - you're definitely not the first person I've heard that from. RTA needs to know it, too.
Re: my former commute from Brooklyn to Lakewood - I meant to say one-way, not round trip.
Getting to and from downtown Cleveland is relatively easy on RTA -- assuming you are traveling Monday through Friday during the morning and evening rush hours. But if you live in the burbs, service is scarce, if available at all, during mid-day or evenings and weekends. Train service is much better, but you have to get to a train station.
Getting across town, even during rush hours when RTA service is most available, is another matter, often involving mutltiple buses and more time than most people can spare.
These various limitations make it impractical to get by without a car. And then once you have a car, the obvious financial advantage of public transportation gets lost in the time and convenience equation.
Until the various factors align to make public transportation a practical alternative to driving, we're going to have to keep our cars.
Hi Bob - thanks for stopping by.
Here's another idea I've been thinking about a lot recently, inspired by a post at Clevelandada that, for the life of me, I can't find now....
You could just refuse to go places that aren't public transit friendly. I realize this is a lot easier to for people who aren't tied to a neighborhood, like I said ^up there^.
But if, say, I do this, and more public transit enthusiasts ditch their cars and move to RTA-friendly neighborhoods, ridership on the most-used lines will go up, and then maybe they'll think about expanding service to/from the outlying areas.
Depends which burb you're in, too...in my experience, Lakewood had the best RTA service of anywhere I'd lived. Fairview Park (where I grew up) had decent service, if you could walk up to Lorain Rd. (which we could). Living on Van Aken in Shaker Heights was good, too, because the rapid stopped right outside our apartment. But if you're someplace like Independence or Olmsted Falls, forget it.
I'm trying to envision how I'm going to arrange my life, when I move back. I'm hoping this whole Euclid Corridor thing could open up living/working options for me. Right now, there's no way I'd move back unless I could find a job downtown.
It is interesting to have a side-by-side comparison list of hassles. I think it's also worth noting that in cities where public transit thrives, often the hassles with owning/using a car are greater (parking, traffic, etc.) and the hassles with public transit are mitigated (e.g., wait times).
It's also worth noting that these hassles often have a different frequency of occurrence. Using public transit for work, hassles related to public transit happen daily. With a car, some of the hassles are daily (parking, traffic), but many of the hassles (maintenance) occur with much less regularity.
Certainly in Cleveland, parking and traffic are not really huge issues, but wait times and other public transit-related issues can be significant. (e.g., my commute by car to work is 15 minutes or less, it would take me an hour, probably, to commute via the RTA -- that's a lot of sleeping in I don't get to do :-D).
Interesting topic. I've recently come to the conclusion that I hate driving and only do it out of necessity/convenience. I've been taking the bus to CSU for my practicum. I have a car but with gas being $3/gallon plus the cost of parking downtown it is easier/cheaper to take the 20 minute bus ride to CSU.
I do agree that Cleveland public transit can be a pain, depending on where you live and what time you need to catch it. I live in an outer-ring area and whenever I need to get downtown on a weekday morning or afternoon, I prefer to take the Rapid. I just do the whole Park-N-Ride thing; no worrying about a finding a parking spot, scouting for the cheapest lot, or having to run back and forth to a parking meter. Plus, I can get work done along the way. However, on a Saturday night... forget about it.
I remember reading a New Yorker article that discussed the toll of car oriented culture on people in developed countries. Overall, if you have access to convenient public transportation I don't know why you would pass up the opportunity.
erin - you hit the nail on the head:
"on a Saturday night... forget about it."
i think this is probably a big stumbling block.
one of the most common things i've been hearing from people is that they might use public transport more if it the buses/trains came more frequently. i imagine this must be a big problem for transport agencies - how do you spend that extra money when there's no *demonstrated* demand? no answers here (yet!)
You brought up some good points of public transport in Cleveland. I just got a job downtown and am now considering taking the rapid to work instead of driving. My only problem is that the RTA website isn't very friendly if you aren't familiar with how the public transit system works in this city. It'd be nice if I could put in a zip code and the address of where I'm going and have it tell me what station I need to get on at and where I should get off and walking/bus/trolly directions to my office from there. Any suggestions for figuring that all out?
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