Driving Is Going Out of Style

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/05/driving_drop_car_usage_keeps_falling.html

by jseliger • 13 years ago

44 61 13 years ago

lbearl2• 13 years ago

It would be nice if we could live in a world where Amtrak didn't cost as much or more than flying in a plane (source: travelling between Minneapolis and Milwaukee from 2007-2012).

sliverstorm• 13 years ago

Agreed! I would love to take trains more often, but when a flight takes 2 hours and a train ride takes 24, it's harder to justify also spending 1.5x as much for the train ride.

Source: Visiting family in California via California Zephyr vs planes.

Cairn• 13 years ago

Legroom? I also value the lack of cavity searches.

visakanv3• 13 years ago

Hmm. Why do Americans take trains at all, then? Only thing I can think of is "fear of flying", but is that enough demand to make trains worth running? Thanks in advance.

angersock2• 13 years ago

The story of how the American rail system has gotten where it is winds over a century and is a fascinating clusterfuck of public and private interests colliding and colluding.

tokenadult• 13 years ago

Not needing to drive is a big draw of living in New York City, where my oldest son lives.

maratd• 13 years ago

While you don't need to drive in NYC, you'll find plenty of people have cars. In fact, most do. Contrary to popular opinion, Manhattan is not the only borough.

I suspect the decline is largely related to the Internet and the increased ability of people to work from home. Work from home = no commuting = less miles driven.

EDIT: In fact, most do. = 46.6%. Happy?

justinsteele• 13 years ago

http://www.nycedc.com/blog-entry/new-yorkers-and-cars

23% in manhattan, ~46% overall. Definitely not a majority, especially if just talking manhattan.

chimeracoder2• 13 years ago

In fact, most do.

New York City is the only city in the country in which more than 50% of residents don't own a car, and that's looking at all five boroughts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_most_...

(If you were looking at just Manhattan, the number would be around 80% - estimates vary.)

The next two are also in the tri-state area (Newark and Jersey City).

It's not until you get to DC (#4) in which you come to a different metropolitan area, and they only have 37% of residents without a car.

Eric_WVGG• 13 years ago

I'm mostly just curious where you even came up with that notion. Out of everyone I know in New York only one guy ones a car and he's daft.

chimeracoder2• 13 years ago

Not needing to drive is a big draw of living in New York City, where my oldest son lives.

Very much so.

For your son, it's certainly fun to be able to live in his 20s in a very trendy neighborhood with a vibrant nightlife, and within walking distance of work. :)

But for another one of my friends, New York is one of the only places where they can actually live comfortably.

He's legally blind. Not completely - he can read his phone if it's 2 inches away from his face, but that's it. You wouldn't necessarily know it when you first meet him (I didn't). He can hold a conversation with you and you wouldn't know that he can only make out your face in vague blurs.

If you live elsewhere (and especially if you live outside a major city), it's easy to overlook just how much of people's lives and culture in the US center around the act of driving.

For him, living in New York City allows him a level of mobility and independence that no other place in the country could provide. He doesn't feel like he's missing out on anything, because walking and taking the subway here are the norm. He doesn't really need much assistance beyond that (he can actually get by without the white cane or a seeing eye dog).

While blind people certainly can and do find ways to live their lives in other cities, it means a lot to my friend that he can live as "normally" as possible here.

malandrew5• 13 years ago

This makes me wonder if it is possible to use the ADA to block roadway projects in some cases. Cars are inherently anti-accessibility in places where there is already tension between pedestrians and cars.

malandrew5• 13 years ago

Most other people not having cars is also a draw of New York City.

Every time I find out someone in San Francisco that lives in a neighborhood with convenient public transportation still chooses to drive regularly, I shudder. This city should be eliminating parking with a mighty vengeance.

sien2• 13 years ago

That's a really interesting bit of data but the idea that you save money by putting money into public transport is not supported by evidence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio

There isn't a public transport system outside of Asia with a farebox recovery ratio > 1 .

This is not to say you shouldn't spend on public transport, just that saying it will save money is not true.

It is great to see more people riding bikes. That saves everyone money and makes people healthier.

dredmorbius3• 13 years ago

Public transit offers a large externality: it provides transportation to employees and shoppers, which means a benefit to employers and merchants. There's also a massive benefit to those who can't (or won't) use transit and benefit by reduced congestion.

Early transit systems were highly subsidized by just those same parties. Concentrating on farebox recovery is a false premise, ignores these benefits, and results in underprovisioning of transit systems.

yetanotherphd• 13 years ago

For the record, providing transportation to employees and shoppers isn't an externality. Imagine if I said that providing a subsidy for buying milk was an externality, because it benefited milk sellers?

Carbon emissions would be an externality if it were proven that public transport really did reduce carbon emissions.

iak8god• 13 years ago

Driving is heavily subsidized. What is the farebox recovery ratio for spending on roads?

sien2• 13 years ago

In Australia it's pretty close to 100%

http://www.bitre.gov.au/publications/2011/files/is_040.pdf

In much of Europe it's higher. In the US it's lower.

megablast• 13 years ago

You understand that road tax does not cover the cost of roads/highways, which cost extra billions of dollars a year.

apsec112• 13 years ago

Railroads and streetcars were hugely profitable in the US, until the government subsidized cars by:

- giving everyone high-quality roads

- setting road tolls to zero or almost nothing

- making dense housing illegal to build with zoning laws

- requiring businesses to provide free parking

- requiring home builders to provide free parking

- all the crap US does internationally to secure oil supply lines

- not taxing pollution, noise, or other car externalities

- enacting crazy regulations on railroads; for example, American railroads can't buy European trains, they must build their own custom-designed trains at enormous expense

and on and on and on it goes, all at taxpayer (or business owner) expense. An American on a road trip thinks cars are cheap because everyone else is forced to absorb the cost.

angersock2• 13 years ago

And let's not forget how the streetcar stuff went:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspi...

celadon• 13 years ago

This is really fascinating. Do you have sources for this? I hadn't even thought about this side of the economic equation.

lambda2• 13 years ago

Gas taxes and tolls don't make up for the amount of spending we do on road repairs, police, rights of way, land for free parking, and the like to build the road network, but somehow public transit is expected to have a farebox recovery ratio greater than 1 when automotive transit is not expected to?

malandrew5• 13 years ago

What's the roadway recovery ratio in cities?

elwell• 13 years ago

I don't drive. I hate the bus with a passion though.

cupcake-unicorn• 13 years ago

Is this really news to anyone?

rmason• 13 years ago

Cars may become fewer in number, but not highways. Michigan's economy is still so dependent on the automobile industry that we spend a lot of time thinking about it.

I think out 25 years or so there will be a two thirds reduction in the need for cars. The rich will still be driving if they still choose to do so. But everyone else will primarily renting by the ride, aka Uber style transportation.

But Uber may not be in the picture by then because we will be talking driverless cars. We will order our transportation from Google. Do not be surprised if Google even buys one of the Big 3 to cut out the middleman. The only thing the average person will care about cars is how comfortable is the back seat.

jpatokal5• 13 years ago

Visiting Silicon Valley as I type this, and I didn't rent a car this time. Looking at the States with a pair of foreign eyes, I can assure you that this country in general, and California in particular, remains thoroughly wedded to the motor vehicle.

As a trivial example, there's a Taco Bell located literally about 300 feet from where I'm staying, but getting there on foot requires a detour of about a mile because it, like all other business establishments on El Camino Real (substitute your suburban highway of choice), is surrounded by concrete wall on all three sides except the one facing the highway. Which means the foolish pedestrian needs to walk around the entire block to get there.

Another trivial example of pedestrian-hostility: the city of Mountain View, being run by nice, eco-friendly hippies sucking on the Google bong, has banned plastic bags in supermarkets, mandating the use of paper bags instead. However, this also has the side effect of making it virtually impossible to complete your shopping by any means other than car, since paper bags disintegrate if you look at them sideways or attempt to carry them more than the distance from checkout to parking lot, much less (say) stuff them in your backpack, hang them from the handlebars of your bike, or even swing them a bit while waiting at the traffic lights.

aggie• 13 years ago

Plastic bags haven't been banned, just disposable plastic bags. The idea is to bring a reusable bag or two with you to the store.

sneak2• 13 years ago

Which, despite being a nice idea in theory, now means that when you've forgotten (usually) and still need food, now you end up taking a car back with your paper-bagged groceries.

codygman• 13 years ago

Learn parkour? :D

jpatokal5• 13 years ago

I pretty seriously considered scaling the wall of the motel opposite Taco Bell, but a) I would probably have gotten shot, or at least had the cops called on me, and b) it's hard to climb when you're carrying a piping-hot Chalupa Steak Supreme. (And oh god, was it awful. Shudder.)

Incidentally, Taco Bell was happy to serve me my take-out in a plastic bag. Make of that what you will.

puller• 13 years ago

Is it hard to buy reusable shopping bags (or backpacks, since you're talking about bikes) in Mountain View?

jpatokal5• 13 years ago

Dunno, I'm here on a business trip. But the problem with reusable bags is that you have to know to bring them in advance, which is OK for the weekly massive shopping excursion, but not feasible for the "we're out of eggs and milk, please pick up some on your way back from work" situation.

Back in Melbourne I shopped a lot by bike, and I'd never put anything even in my backpack without a plastic bag around it, because meat leaks, yogurt bursts, glass jars break etc. A paper bag would rip if you tried this, and soak through instantly if something did spill.

dredmorbius3• 13 years ago

mandating the use of paper bags instead

No: Mandating the use of bags other than disposable plastic bags.

I typically carry a couple of reusable bags inside my messenger bag. For items which don't fit in the latter, I can lug a couple of bags worth of groceries or other shopping items easily. And the reusable bags are markedly more durable than even disposable plastic bags.

ginko• 13 years ago

However, this also has the side effect of making it virtually impossible to complete your shopping by any means other than car.

Just use reusable bags. You even say you have a backpack. Why don't you use that?

malandrew5• 13 years ago

    "hang them from the handlebars of your bike"

If you are doing this, you are increasing your chances of an accident. Get a bike rack and panniers.

ArkyBeagle• 13 years ago

Matt Yglesias hates cars and loves density. So what else is new?

Driving Is Going Out of Style

Related Stories