Joel Kotkin educates us on the ineffeciency of public transportation:
Last century the new pattern became most evident in Los Angeles, which would soon become one of the nation’s largest cities. As early as the 1920s, Angelenos were four times as likely to own a car as the national average, and ten times as likely as a Chicago resident. Between 1924 and 1933, when L.A. was America’s fastest growing major city, streetcar usage fell roughly 50 percent. Virtually everywhere in the advanced industrial world at this time, streetcars were falling into disfavor with commuters, who vastly preferred car travel.
During World War II, tires, gasoline, and cars were hard to buy, but following a wartime peak for public transportation in 1946, transit use began to decline nationwide. Transit ridership tumbled from 17.2 billion in 1950 to 11.5 billion in 1955. Many of America’s new, fastest growing cities in the Sunbelt and West developed without much reliance on public transit. By 2000, in most of the nation’s large urbanized areas, barely 5 percent of the population used public transit. Nine out of ten Americans drove to work. Carpooling, although declining, accounted for more than twice as much travel as transit use.
The efficiency and consumer choices of America’s increasingly sprawling metro areas don’t impress planners hearkening back to the rail-stamped cities of the past, though. Places like Phoenix and Houston can be economic dynamos, admit critics. But they are seen as lacking the aesthetic qualities and “civic life” associated in their minds with places that boast more centralized downtowns and stronger public-transit links. Yet one would be hard pressed from the evidence to say that a Phoenix or a Houston has a less vibrant civic culture than cities like Boston, Philadelphia, or Chicago. Those more traditional cities—whatever their particular charms—have all been losing population, particularly families, which indicates a serious deficit in livability and civic health beneath the surface.
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As a result, the long-term outlook for traditional public transit—no matter how much public money is spent on new light rail systems—is not particularly bright. Transit’s share of the nation’s total travel has continued to drop. One reason: transit riders are far more likely to suffer long commutes than those who drive. Contrary to media accounts, residents of suburbs and exurbs actually have the country’s shortest commutes, while the areas with the longest average commutes—like New York and Chicago—are dense cities with extensive transit systems and centralized business districts. In contrast, places like Houston have far shorter average commutes.
Socialist transportation means a slower commute.Which is another giant negative for these old,industrial cities.
