Re: A Republican!!!!!! (was Re: OT: sponge burning!)
On 2 Mar, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 02, 2007 at 01:47:15PM -0800, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
>>
>> just to put it out there, another way to look at that stat:
>>
>> assuming 2 trips per work day for commuting, that is 1,327,822,650
>> work round trips per year or 5,311,291 man/years of work commuting or
>> 28% of commutes. Obviously there are huge assumptions (including the
>> idea that all 18million people commute to work). No matter how you
>> slice it, though, it is actually a significant portion of the
>> regional transportation. Whether that is a "success" or not is
>> debatable, but I think you'd have to agree that putting that many
>> trips back onto the highways and surface streets would be a problem.
>>
> You are absolutely right. I am just tired of the "public
> transportation will fix everything" statements. It is a huge
> accomplishment. However, NYC and Chicago represent the absolute
> *best* in US public transportation. Everything after them is on a
> steep slope to insignificance. If you consider the cost to tax
> payers, most cities' public transportation is a collosal waste of
> money.
>
> Regards,
>
> -Roberto
>
Even with your very basic model, I'd call NYC public transport a
huge success, as Andrew wrote. A more realistic model would make it
look even better. I doubt that it would even be possible to put that
many additional cars on the road.
As to the cost, I'd bet that compared to the cost of the extra
congestion, pollution, etc., it's also a winner.
I also question your statement that everything after Chicago is
no good. For example Boston has about 390,000 passenger trips per year.
The combined population of Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville (the three
largest users) is about 735,000. Based on the NYC figures, that looks
like a pretty good ratio. Boston may, of course, have a higher ratio
of suburban commuters than NYC, and a more thorough look would have to
take account of that.
One thing that I agree with you on is the stupidity of statements
like "public transportation fixes everything", or other unsupported
generalities. Public transportation is certainly feasible in large
cities, but there are obviously limits to where it makes sense. FWIW,
about 20% of the US lives in the 100 most populous cities.
-Chris
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| Christopher Judd, Ph. D. judd@wadsworth.org |
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