What makes this article annoying is her premise and what she doesn't really talk about -- that she has a choice of not riding the bus, she can go back to her nice hybrid car and not worry about all those other problems. She does not really dwell on all the people in Los Angeles (mostly poor and lower wage workers, although she does mention the upperclass anomalies who might be riding the bus. No mention of the disabled either.) who are dependent on public transit to get them around.
Maybe the financial burden that is building with rising gas prices will bring increased ridership to the Los Angeles public transit system (and others) making frequent and reliable performance more of a reality for all riders. You might say it's a shame that it had to take fiscal pain reaching into the higher tax brackets for the rest (or all) of the public transit ridership to see possible benefits from the increased visibility of their system's function, but sometimes you take it any way you can get it.
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csa | 06:14 PM |
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My God, Mariel sounds so utterly spoiled. A $75 bus pass doesn't sound like an incentive? OK, let's do the math. $75 x 12 months = $900 for an entire year of getting around on transit.
How much does car ownership cost her per month, especially driving 50 miles a day to and from work? Since she has a hybrid, let's be generous and assume $100 a month on gas (although they get better mileage in street traffic than on freeways, but remember, we're being kind).
Ok, now how much is her car payment (car note for you Midwesterners out there)? The average runs just over or under $400 a month.
But don't stop there, there's still the average yearly cost of maintenance. Again, let's be charitable and assume that's a new hybrid she's driving. How about $400 over a year, or about $33 a month? Sounds good to me.
What do all those driving costs add up to for un-transit-incented Mariel? $533 per month, or $6,396 over the course of a year. And that's ignoring any and all parking costs.
So what is the real incentive to taking transit versus driving? Well, in L.A. it looks to me like an additional $5,496 in your pocket. You could take ten round-trip $20 cab rides a month on that amount. You could rent a compact car every weekend or a full-size car every other weekend for a year on that amount. You could spend a month in Europe and still have money left over on that amount. You could feed a family of four and pay their electric bill for a year on that amount.
Now I understand Mariel didn't have a lot of fun waiting out in the sun for her MTA bus, although half of me wonders how well she really planned all her trips. But let's be real, folks. If an extra $5,400 and change per year isn't an incentive, then I don't know what is.
But if that's how unaware she is about all of her expenses, I'd sure love to be her credit card company.
And of course, it doesn't occur to Mariel that where you live and how you get around may be connected.
I read that article too and was blown away by the vodoo math. my only explanation was that she was comparing the price of transit per month...versus the price of gasoline per month (since her hybrid sat in her drivewaly all month, she still had all her car payments due)
While this isnt a very fair comparison, it's still not an outlandish one. I think the initial onboarding of car-people into a public transit people takes this middle stage...of people taking transit to work but having a car for the weekend and other errands. This doesnt solve the problem entirely, but it can lead to transit-centered people.
Especially here in DC. I know plenty of folks who come here with a car, and after a year of getting comfortable with the system, seeing how little they end up driving the car, decide to abandon car-dependence altogether.
You're missing the point.
As long as any transit system depends solely on people who have no choice, it has no chance. It must appeal to middle-class people (and above) whose time is very valuable, and can't afford to fritter it away waiting for buses or trains that never come, changing trains three times to go three miles, or having a close encounter with a gang on every commute.
The entire nickel-and-dime approach to American urban transit ("We can only afford crappy service. Hey! Why don't we have more riders?") is a complete waste of time. The answer is to spend money up front to build a system people actually want to use; then, that system will come closer to financing itself.
@Mme DeFarge:
I am completely sure that most American urban transit systems would love to spend more money up front to build a more complete and more useful system with more trains or more buses or stations etc., but the big problem has always been and will always be the money.
You are correct in saying that transit systems must appeal to people who have a choice, and I would never argued that they should not. Quite the opposite, with rising gas prices it is exactly the people who ever have considered that choice who are the potential riders that need to be enticed on to transit systems.
What I was commenting on was the tired refrain of the article - "public transit is not as good as my car" - and the writers lack of ability to see beyond her own limited predicament. In a car - centric sprawling city such as Los Angeles, the former argument is obvious, unfortunately. The latter may not have been within her ideas for the article, but she seems to be writing about the bus riding experience, so what about other riders?
