Why The U.S. Gave Up On Public Transit

[_NOBODY_]

Why The U.S. Gave Up On Public Transit​

Public transit in the U.S. is notorious for being infrequent and unreliable. Americans had to wait 17 minutes on average to get on public transit in 2022, while 45% of Americans have no access to public transportation at all. And while the U.S. spends billions in funding every year, transits across the nation like the MTA, RTA and SEPTA are finding themselves in a fiscal crisis. Ultimately it’s the riders who are paying for the deficit. So just how did public transit in the U.S. get so awful? And can it be improved?

Chapters:
00:00 — Introduction
01:25 — America loves cars
06:17 — Vicious cycle
09:25 — Significance and solutions

 

[Menthol]

The city is designed for car owners, not public transit.

Because of the city design, building public transit in USA is costly and inefficient.

The solution is to replace small houses, and turn them into high density apartment complexes.

 

[_NOBODY_]

The city is designed for car owners, not public transit.

Because of the city design, building public transit in USA is costly and inefficient.

The solution is to replace small houses, and turn them into high density apartment complexes.

Exactly, why can't Americans understand something so simple? Basic urban planning should be compulsory in all American schools.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Exactly, why can't Americans understand something so simple? Basic urban planning should be compulsory in all American schools.

Because the majority of the people don’t want to live in high density apartment buildings.

A thread like this appears every two weeks without anybody bothering to actually look up the facts as to why. People just repeat the same thing over and over and over about building more apartment buildings.

You may as well post new threads every two weeks saying how come Muslims around the world can’t just go to churches instead of Mosques. It’s so simple that would solve everything.

https://www.builderonline.com/money/economics/80-percent-of-americans-prefer-single-family-homeownership_o

80 PERCENT OF AMERICANS PREFER SINGLE-FAMILY HOMEOWNERSHIP​

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

The solution is to replace small houses, and turn them into high density apartment complexes.

They did in the inner city..and it’s calling public housing projects. The people that live there are usually poor and are the ones shooting at each other every day. There’s already a dedicated PDF thread on US shootings and it’s usually close to these places.

Gun Control & Gun Violence in U.S | Mega Thread

At least 10 people killed in mass shooting at Buffalo supermarket

defence.pk

National Gun Violence Memorial

Learn who is killed with guns in the U.S. every day.

gunmemorial.org

Look how almost everybody on these pages live in some city area...likely a poor inner-city area.

Housing Study: High Rise =High Crime (Published 1972)

3-yr, $600,000 study made by NYU's Inst of Planning and Housing of crime statistics compiled by NYC Housing Authority shows that there is a direct relationship between height of bldg and rate of crime in bldg; high-rise elevator bldgs with apartments on both sides of hall are most dangerous type...

www.nytimes.com

Housing Study: High Rise =High Crime​

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The only thing building apartment buildings in cities accomplishes is concentrating people who can’t afford living in a single family home into specific locations.

Even if you were to sell the units at a higher than usual price..buyers will simply sublet the unit to a bunch of sketchy barely employed strangers (think the TV show “Friends” but with 3 times as many people per unit splitting the rent). Now the family in the unit next door (that paid good money for their unit) has to worry about their kids.

 

[_NOBODY_]

Because the majority of the people don’t want to live in high density apartment buildings.

A thread like this appears every two weeks without anybody bothering to actually look up the facts as to why. People just repeat the same thing over and over and over about building more apartment buildings.

You may as well post new threads every two weeks saying how come people in Pakistan can’t just go to churches instead of Mosques. That would solve everything.

https://www.builderonline.com/money/economics/80-percent-of-americans-prefer-single-family-homeownership_o

80 PERCENT OF AMERICANS PREFER SINGLE-FAMILY HOMEOWNERSHIP​

If your governments cared about building sustainable cities then they would have forced people to live in high-density apartment buildings by making it expensive for people to live in suburbs. Car centrism is destroying your cities, I posted multiple paragraphs explaining this in detail in the other thread.

My post explaining the dangers of car centrism: https://pdf.defence.pk/threads/why-public-transit-in-us-is-so-awful.772225/post-14453409

My post highlighting the importance of public transport in American metropolises: https://pdf.defence.pk/threads/why-public-transit-in-us-is-so-awful.772225/post-14453934

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

If your governments cared about building sustainable cities then they would have forced people to live in high-density apartment buildings by making it expensive for people to live in suburbs.

The Government serves the people not the other way around

Car centrism is destroying your cities

What is destroying US cities is an increase in wealth that led people to buy their own single family homes in the suburbs. Unfortunately those who could not afford to buy their own home were stuck in the city causing a higher and higher concentration of low income people. This swamped city budgets with higher social services expenses causing less money to be available for basic upkeep.

As Beijingwalker likes to show the decrepit state of the New York subway it’s because it is unsustainable because they can’t raise rates to pay for it because a large percentage of their users are low income and wouldn’t be able to afford the fare. So the subway is a perpetual money pit running a deficit.

Keep in mind Europe has had historically much higher gasoline prices than the US (like double) making it more difficult for them to be as car centric.

However EVs may just change that. It will be interesting to see if it leads to an increase in suburbanization.

 

[_NOBODY_]

The Government serves the people not the other way around

If Americans were taught even the most basic level of urban planning in school then they would have supported such a thing. Thankfully modern-day American leftists are raising awareness regarding the importance of sustainable city planning and public transport.

As Beijingwalker like to show the decrepit state of the New York subway it’s because it is unsustainable because they can’t raise rates to pay for it because a large percentage of their users are low income and wouldn’t be able to afford the fare. So the subway is a perpetual money pit.

There's no need for the New York Subway to make a profit, public transport systems usually generate losses. Your government decrease the budget for something else to increase the budget for the New York Subway.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

If Americans were taught even the most basic level of urban planning in school then they would have supported such a thing. Thankfully modern-day American leftists are raising awareness regarding the importance of sustainable city planning and public transport.


There's no need for the New York Subway to make a profit, public transport systems usually generate losses. Your government decrease the budget for something else to increase the budget for the New York Subway.

The NYC subway was self-sufficient up through the 1950’s when it was full of suit wearing commuting office workers.

Look at who was using the NYC subway

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Now many of those same people are living in the suburbs and taking commuter rail trains to work not the NYC subway

(yes we have trains contrary to the narrative the Chinese here keep trying to constantly hard-sell)

Map of New York trains. They finger out to states like Connecticut and New Jersey.

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The same thing happened in Boston. People moved to the suburbs and take commuter rail trains into the city not the Boston subway.

Boston's Commuter Rail Network Evolution​

1965 <- Note the year

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Same with Philadelphia they added suburban commuter rail.

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Same with Chicago they added suburban commuter rail.

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Same with Los Angeles they added suburban commuter rail.

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Same with New Jersey they added suburban commuter rail.

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www.youtube.com

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Are you getting the picture yet???

Train service has actually expanded in the US since the 1960's..but you guys are crying that it shouldn't have been done at the expense of local city subways...which is contrary to all the threads saying the US needs to expand their train lines.

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New York’s biggest expense by far is education followed by public welfare services. Just saying they should move some money from other programs is not that simple.

I guarantee social service expenses was not one of their chief expenses in the 1950’s when those people in suits were taking the subway.

20% of New York City’s resident live below the poverty line

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Thankfully modern-day American leftists are raising awareness regarding the importance of sustainable city planning and public transport.

Those idiot leftists are the ones who destroyed cities.
Their grand plan was to offshore polluting manufacturing industries to Asia so we could all have cleaner air, water, and soil.

When asked what jobs will those people take after their jobs are offshored the answer was "it will all work out! Everybody will go to college and become white-collar workers!".

Well it hasn't..and they didn't...now we have cities full of poverty...with people working in McDonalds or selling drugs on the street corners to survive. Thanks leftists for codemning these people to a horrible life of poverty and crime.

 

[_NOBODY_]

Those idiot leftists are the ones who destroyed cities.
Their grand plan was to offshore polluting manufacturing industries to Asia so we could all have cleaner air, water, and soil.

When asked what jobs will those people take after their jobs are offshored the answer was "it will all work out! Everybody will go to college and become white-collar workers!".

Well it hasn't..and they didn't...now we have cities full of poverty...with people working in McDonalds or selling drugs on the street corners to survive. Thanks leftists for codemning these people to a horrible life of poverty and crime.

How is moving manufacturing industries to Asia the fault of the leftists? Owners of these companies are responsible for moving their manufacturing to Asia to make their products more competitive and increase their profit margins.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

How is moving manufacturing industries to Asia the fault of the leftists? Owners of these companies are responsible for moving their manufacturing to Asia to make their products more competitive and increase their profit margins.

Because due to leftist environmental laws it became too expensive to put in the processes to clean industrial waste water, smoke stack emissions, and the solid wastes being sent to a landfill to meet the provisions of the

Clean Air Act (United States) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1963, 1970,1977

Clean Water Act - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1972

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1976

Plus liability insurance became expensive.

This led to manufacturing being sent to Asia starting in the 1970's.

When some US firms move production overseas, they also offshore their pollution

Jobs are important for both developed and developing countries. In the face of globalization, however, national leaders should focus more on jobs that are sustainable and do not come at the expense of the environment.

businessimpact.umich.edu

When some US firms move production overseas, they also offshore their pollution​

Indeed, over the last few decades many developing countries have adopted loose environmental standards to lure foreign firms to move production there. However, an emerging body of research shows that policies like this also bring heavy pollution to the host countries.

In a recent study, my co-author Xiaoyang Li and I found that a significant number of U.S. firms reduce their pollution at home by offshoring production to poor and less regulated countries. The greening of U.S. manufacturing over the past several decades may be partially caused by a growing flow of “brown” imports from poor countries.

For example, one recent study calculates that 17 to 36 percent of four major air pollutants emitted in China come from production for export. Among these export-related emissions, about 21 percent come from the production of goods for the United States.

U.S. firms can choose either to purchase cheap and “dirty-to-make” goods from low-wage countries or to produce them under stringent environmental standards at home, they are making a strategic decision about the private costs of production compared to the public (and international) costs of pollution.

Companies that offshore pollution to less-regulated countries are taking advantage of those nations’ lower environmental and labor standards and letting the host countries bear the associated social costs.

This is the result. I'm quite sure the majority of this 80% has occurred since the 1970's when China started industrializing:

More than 80% of underground water in China is heavily polluted

Industrial pollution and farming has rendered it unsuitable for human use Industrial pollution and farming has rendered it unsuitable for human use Accor...

www.thecivilengineer.org

According to statistics reported by the Chinese media, more than 80% of the underground water in large river basins of mainland China is unfit for drinking or bathing because of contamination from industry and farming

as more cities are forced to dig thousands of feet underground for clean water, the capacity of those deep aquifers is being taxed.

Not all US manufacturing moved. Some bigger companies were able to afford the smoke stack cleaners and other preventative measures.

I'm not saying environmental laws are bad. I think they are a great idea. However ZERO thought was given to the ramifications of moving low skilled jobs overseas and what the societal costs will be to the people who would work in them.