daveklepper Excllent bus service Brooklyn to Staten Island via the Verenzaro Brodge (spellng?) Also reasonable Queens to Bronx via the Triboro, and Queens to Brooklyn via serveral bus and one subway lines. Others, as you say, time consuming and possibliy requiring several changes of vehicles.
Excllent bus service Brooklyn to Staten Island via the Verenzaro Brodge (spellng?) Also reasonable Queens to Bronx via the Triboro, and Queens to Brooklyn via serveral bus and one subway lines. Others, as you say, time consuming and possibliy requiring several changes of vehicles.
I was in Bay Ridge in October.
From where I lived, I would have had to take a bus or the train or walked from 71st Street to 86th Street and Fourth Avenue, where I would have had to change for or caught the bus to Staten Island. And once I got to Staten Island, depending on where I was going, I would have had to change to another bus or the Staten Island Rapid. That is not my idea of excellent public transit. And it was not appealing to any of my neighbors as far as I could tell. We all had cars. Except for trips to Manhattan, we drove everywhere.
I could also take a bus from where I lived to 86th Street and catch a bus to Kings Plaza. Or I could have taken the bus to my spouses home in Rockaway Park. We never did it. We drove, and everyone that I knew who had a car drove. It would have taken several hours to take a bus from our home in Bay Ridge to Rockaway Park. Or even Kings Plaza for that matter.
Public transit has three or four identifiable user groups in the United States. Commuters probably are the largest group, especially in large cities, i.e. New York, Dallas, etc. The poor, who have no alternative, including many students, who are usually relatively poor, probably are the second largest group. Lastely, people going to special events, i.e. sporting and entertainment events at Madison Square Garden or the American Airlines Event Center in Dallas, are significant users. At the end of the day, however, most Americans prefer driving, even if it means being stuck in traffic, as opposed to public transport. And that is not likely to change significantly in the near future.
As noted in another post, between 1989 and 2012 the percentage of Americans commuting to work by public transport increased from 4.6 per cent to 5.0 per cent. That is not a significant jump in the per cent of people using public transport.
The percentage of people in the country's major urban areas using public transport is higher than the percentage of people using it in the nation as a whole. In Texas, even in the big cities, however, the percentage of people using public transport is very low.
schlimm http://mtayloranalysis.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/an-auto-oriented-manhattan/
http://mtayloranalysis.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/an-auto-oriented-manhattan/
Having lived in NYC for eight years, I found the article and graphs interesting. I lived in Manhattan for two years and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, for six years.
Public transit is critical for getting into, around, and out of Manhattan. I commuted daily to my job on Wall Street on the subway, although one summer I was able to take a ferry from Bay Ridge to lower Manhattan. It was a pleasant way to escape the repressive heat on the subway, which was not air conditioned at the time (1964 to 1972).
NYC public transit does not work so well for the people who commute between Borough locations, i.e. Bay Ridge to Staten Island, Queens, Rockaway or the Bronx, etc. It is doable, but it is time consuming, and most of the people I know in Brooklyn, including my in-laws, don't use public transit to travel from cross borough. They drive.
Public transit is important for the nation's largest cities. I have used it regularly in Hartford, Dallas, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, and Melbourne, where I lived or visited frequently on business. It is not so critical, except for certain groups of people, in most medium and small cities.
Most of the systems are hub and spoke. They are effective for getting into and out of the central business district, but they are not so effective for communiting between suburbs, which is a pattern that has emerged in many areas, i.e. Dallas, Melbourne, etc.
Public transit is important for low income people, as well as mobility impaired persons, etc. who don't have an alternative mode of transport.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
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