Americans Resist the Idea of Public Transit Because They Don’t Know What Good Transit Looks Like
It’s hard to imagine taking public transportation when your only example is the hourly bus that only goes one place and is sometimes cancelled without notice
This obviously doesn’t apply to the few places like New York, with functional transit that the average person uses regularly. In the US, that’s the exception.
For most of us in US cities, we’ve got politicians who don’t want to invest in transit because “no one uses it,” and people who don’t use it because it’s shitty and under-invested in.
Right now, my state is debating the merits of because, at their intended six trains a day, they don’t anticipate enough usage to make it worth the expense. They’re probably right.
At three trains in the morning and three in the afternoon, that transit only works for people with a regular work schedule, and only specific regular work schedules. Anyone who commutes at other times, sometimes gets off work early, or god forbid, wants to go to the city for something else, can’t take the train.
Even when a trip should align with the train times, people are going to be discouraged by any uncertainty. What if your plans change? What if you need to hurry home in the middle of the day for something unexpected? What if you want to run an extra errand while you’re out? People don’t want to give up the option of going wherever they want, whenever they want. It’s easier to just drive.
Now imagine if they ran the trains all day (every 15 minutes was the original plan for that line). Imagine if we were confident that, once we were in the city, clean and reliable transit could get us wherever we needed to go. What if choosing the train didn’t mean foregoing all flexibility and spontaneity?
I would take the train. A lot more people would take the train.
I’ve had the privilege of living in a few different cities and experiencing good public transit as it exists mostly in places that aren’t the US. Let me tell you, I was blind to car infrastructure before I lived with an alternative. I didn’t notice the noise, the traffic, the gigantic parking lots and asphalt deserts — those things were invisible to me because they were normal, and because I didn’t see any other way to have a city that people could get around.
Living in a place like London yanked my eyes wide open. Here are a few things that I didn’t understand about good transit before, that other Americans like me might not understand either:
Public transit goes everywhere
The already extensive London Underground lines, shown above, are also supplemented by bus routes so no matter where you are, you’re not far from a transit connection.
- In a properly networked city, transit access is part of the planning process — when there’s new development, there’s also a conversation about where the nearest stop or station is, and whether a route needs to be added or extended.
- It isn’t necessary to own a car because there’s nowhere you can’t get to without one.
- You can take a train between cities without worrying about mobility when you arrive, because that city also has a transit network.
Timing is not an issue
In the US, I’m used to trip estimates like this:
Public transit, while it technically exists, is a dramatically worse option than driving. In a lot of America, we think of it as a last resort for the very poor and the very desperate. No one would consider going without a car long term if they had a choice.
For my American readers, I need to stress that this is not what good transit looks like. In cities with a functional system, public transit is for everyone, and it’s fast.
- Living and commuting in London, I never checked the train schedule. Never. Trains are too frequent. I just walked to my nearest station and caught the next one.
- It’s not slower than driving. In fact, it’s frequently faster, as a lot of transit methods circumvent traffic.
Transit integrated cities are more walkable/have less dead space
In a good system, public transit is easy and can get you anywhere, but it also makes it more likely that you won’t need it.
Car infrastructure takes up a lot of space. Just think about the long walk across the parking lot of a store you’ve driven to. When more people are able to use transit, car infrastructure can be scaled down. Suddenly a four lane road can be a two lane road and we get to build less parking. Now the three places you need to go are right next to each other instead of being divided by a concrete wasteland.
- The decrease in wide highways and parking infrastructure means everything is closer together. You can walk more places, and still don’t have to walk as far.
- Transit nodes are connected by pedestrian infrastructure, which makes walking much safer and more pleasant. Walking isn’t an afterthought, relegated to dangerous, smoggy sidewalks on the periphery of major vehicle traffic.
Usable public transit benefits us even if we don’t personally use it
Transit network adoption reduces car dependency, and it’s hard to overstate how much that benefits a city and everyone in it.
- Driving is better when fewer people are doing it! We all want less traffic — the way to get it is through good public transit. With more people taking the train, you’re free to drive in peace.
- Reduced car use means reduced emissions and better air quality. There are more pedestrian friendly or pedestrian only streets too, which means that what pollution there is, you’re not choking on it from the narrow sidewalk next to the road.
- Cities with less vehicle traffic are quieter — much less shouting over the road noise and honking drivers.
- Pavement and asphalt contribute to the , which makes cities hotter. Reduced need for road capacity and parking allows for more interspersed greenery and more heat-resilient cities.
- Similarly, in urban areas. Reducing car infrastructure also reduces the impact of extreme weather events by improving a city’s capacity to absorb water.
Americans resist the idea of public transit because public transit as we know it is a chore. It’s inconvenient, unreliable, difficult to plan around, and is only sometimes available in the first place. We can’t reasonably choose to forego owning a car when transit isn’t a comprehensive option. And as it’s almost always a worse option than the car we already own, we usually end up not using the available transit at all.
I can’t stress enough that this should not be the case. A good transit system is incredibly convenient. I honestly miss the freedom of not owning a car.
Car payments, gas prices, oil changes, parking, and traffic are all things that I didn’t think much about until I experienced for myself that there was a viable alternative. Now that I have, I can tell you that I vastly preferred taking the train. Good public transportation isn’t a chore, and all of us would benefit from its implementation.
Demand better transit.
