Northampton’s planning department is eager to boost density in places like Ward 3 with the hope that it will make public transit — notably buses — more viable. Problem is, buses have come to be, in general, a relatively inefficient way to move people around in America, to say nothing of their increased commuting time and reduced convenience and comfort as compared with private cars. Better alternatives beckon, writes Canada’s National Post (12/7/09):
Rethinking Green: Save the environment: Don’t take transit
Mass transit vehicles use up roughly the same energy whether they are full or empty, and for much of the time, they’re more empty than full…
Last year, policy analyst Randal O’Toole ran the numbers for the CATO Institute, where he is a senior fellow, comparing mass transit vehicles to private vehicles, ranking each based on how much energy they consume and how much CO2 they emit. The average motorized city bus, he reports, burns 27% more energy per mile than a private car and emits 31% more pounds of CO2. The U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics confirms that the average city bus requires 20% more energy per passenger than the average car…
In the next few years especially, the average energy consumption of passenger vehicles, and their emission levels, will only improve, with projections by the International Council on Clean Transportation showing the average auto could beat all public transit modes for efficiency and CO2 within the next five years…
[Examples of better alternatives to buses follow]
A congestion charge toll implemented in Stockholm in 2007, for instance, reduced CO2 emissions in that city by roughly 16% last year, cut traffic by 18%, and, because it exempts low-emissions vehicles, led to a tripling of purchases of so-called green cars. Best of all, it sustains itself [it doesn’t require subsidies like most American public transit does]…
Ridesharing applications for smart phones — users enter their location and desired destination and a cost-conscious carpooler responds — are already in wide use, Mr. Rubin says. Self-sustaining, small-scale private jitney systems have successfully operated for years in Atlantic City and Puerto Rico (all North America’s early public transit systems were privately operated until they were nationalized). And with billions freed up from public transit funds, it appears entirely feasible to simply offer subsidized Prius taxis, or even car subsidies, to the small portion of the public entirely reliant on public mobility…
Read the full article
See also:
“Sprawl and Congestion—is Light Rail and Transit-Oriented Development the Answer?”
The car is an amazing piece of technology that has greatly extended our range of choice as to where to live, work, shop, and play. No other form of transport can compete with the automobile in terms of door-to-door mobility, freedom to time one’s arrivals and exits, protection from inclement weather, and comfort, security, and privacy while in transit.[2]
[Locales like Portland are tempted to embark on boondoggle rail projects in order to avail themselves of federal government subsidies: “It’s predictable that public bureaucrats, the construction industry and unions, certain professional service providers, and even business associations would promote such projects, each reaching for a chance to cash in on some piece of the action.”]
Randal O’Toole: “Dense Thinkers” (Reason Magazine, January 1999)
The “decline” of cities that officials worry so much about is due to the fact that cars, telephones, and electricity make it possible for people to live in lower densities–and most choose to do so…
Smart Growth Winners (Rich People) and Losers (Other People)
Smart growth is great if you can afford to have everything you buy delivered, or are in excellent physical condition with a physically undemanding job; it is not so great if you have to come home from your shift at the nursing home to lug groceries a quarter-mile down the street, and then up three flights of stairs… Smart growth is great if you can afford taxis when you need them; it is not so good if you are forced to take three buses to get somewhere you really need to be…
NY Times Magazine: “The Autonomist Manifesto (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Road)”
Even with $5-per-gallon gasoline, the number of cars per capita in Europe has been growing faster than in America in recent decades, while the percentage of commuters using mass transit has been falling. As the suburbs expand, Europe’s cities have been losing people, too. Paris is a great place to visit, but in the past half-century it has lost one-quarter of its population…
Intellectuals’ distaste for the car and suburbia, and their fondness for rail travel and cities, are an odd inverse of the old aristocratic attitudes. The suburbs were quite fashionable when only the upper classes could afford to live there…
Some…especially the young and the childless, are moving back to cities, and once again there are private developers ready to meet their desires, which now run toward lofts and historic town houses with modern kitchens. But for most middle-class families, the ideal of city life conflicts with the reality of their own lives. Even if they’re willing to do without a yard, how can they afford to live in a decent neighborhood within easy commute of their jobs? How will they go shopping on a rainy day with a child in tow?
LA Weekly: “What’s Smart About Smart Growth?” (5/30/07)
[Photo caption:] 11.7 m.p.h.: Average speed of L.A. buses. Yet City Hall pols hope buses will somehow handle the human crush once their plans for multistory living take hold…
[Sharon] Tohline decided to do her part and hop on the bus. Now, she has a commute that consumes three hours each day…
Energy-Efficient Personal Vehicles of the Near Future
…commutes by public transit typically take twice as long as commutes by car.
The May/June briefing from trendwatching.com describes how companies are working to combine the convenience and comfort of personal vehicles with the need to be gentle on the environment…
The Urbanophile: “The Downside of Living Carless in a Small City” (8/25/09)
…In a metro area that is nearly all auto oriented, much of the setting of civic life in that city is outside of the core downtown area and districts where it is easy to get to without a car. To live without a car is a deliberate cutting off of oneself from those activities and regions – especially suburban – and from that part of society…
Car Free with Kids: “Suburban Friends and the Carfree Family”
I like to reciprocate visits to friends and not always have them come to us, but renting a car just to go sit in a girlfriend’s living room is not something I’m going to go every week—or, for that matter, every month. Most of my husband’s friends have kids, and they are forever having baby showers and birthday parties and Super Bowl parties and et cetera. Sometimes we can take the bus to these events, but these are two-transfer rides with long wait times and infrequent service… Many times, we cannot take the bus to these events and so either have to rent a car or skip the trip…
Streetsblog New York City: “The Social Costs of Car-Free Living in Small Cities”