The World Wide Triumph of the Car and Sprawl

Robert Bruegmann reports:

Given the low overall densities in European suburbs, it's not surprising that the private automobile has become the most common way for residents to get around in recent decades. Even in the Paris region, which has one of the most extensive systems of public transportation in Europe, public transit does not play much of a role through large parts of the territory. Public transit accounts for only about 30 percent of vehicular travel in the area, and this figure declines further with each passing year.

Use of the private automobile, in contrast, has been rising quickly throughout Europe--even faster, in fact, than in the U.S. This makes sense, since, outside the central core, the automobile is almost always a quicker means of getting from one place to another. The average commute to work in greater Paris, for example, is 27 minutes by car, 53 minutes by public transport. A massive switch from public transit to the automobile has taken place even though the French government, along with those of all the other Western European nations, has levied very high taxes on autos and gasoline to discourage car use and finance public transport.

The same pattern is visible in the Tokyo area. Despite one of the best public transit systems in the world, Tokyo has some of the world's longest commuting times. And the public systems are the slowest option.

The private automobile is much quicker than the collectivist means of transportation.