Then I sincerely hope we never have meaningful transit.
That future sounds dystopian to me. Possibly there would be less space dedicated to parking, but correspondingly greater road congestion due to circulating rideshare vehicles driving from one passenger to the next. Autonomous low occupancy vehicles solve nothing.
Density does matter…
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When you say “rate”, do you mean that as in how often people use transit (as opposed to just if people are using transit at all)? I think that would be the big difference between what you’re saying and the article @TedF posted.
What are the costs of driving vs transit per person per year when you really get into the details, anyways?
Not just the obvious stuff; I’m talking about the whole nine yards:
- explicit user fees (fares/pass costs vs gas)
- monetary costs (tolls, parking meters, cost of driving to/from a park-and-ride, state inspections)
- indirect costs (transit referendum cost per capita, DoT road upkeep costs per capita)
- non-monetary costs (hours of productivity lost from being stuck in traffic, walking to/from work, convenience of adjacent parking spots)
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Also add in vehicle maintenance and repairs, auto insurance costs, personal property and use taxes, depreciation of property value.
Owning a car is a terrible financial investment, but it doesn’t feel that way because they’re shiny, sometimes convey social status, and we use them to do things the way we want to.
I have a long paid-for 13 year-old car that I love and is fun to drive, but I really hate paying for maintenance/repairs (and the disruption involved with that). I dread the thought of having to replace it, and I’d give it up for easier to use transit.
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I’m not sure anyone knows exactly how it’s going to play out. I wouldn’t assume we’re talking about just autonomous low occupancy vehicles either.
I’m talking about cargo trucks traveling at night, freeing up travel lanes during the day. Autonomous electric buses in dedicated lanes. You could have a coordinated street grid, special vehicles like 4 rowed micro buses, individual compartments. Bikes that don’t have to deal with poor drivers.
I think that even with autonomous low occupancy vehicles we’d see an improvement, because when they drop someone off they’ll just pick up the next passenger at the closest location.
Sorry, increasing congestion is coming no matter what. But if we react to congestion by ending dense development, then growth heads outwards, and that actually has a worse impact on congestion (driving still becomes inconvenient) AND it makes it impossible to support meaningful transit.
Name one place anywhere that has grown while maintaining the convenience of driving. Growing while maintaining the present pattern of development only makes things worse. We’ll spend all our money on increasingly astronomical road widenings that achieve less and less.
On the flip side, name one place that has stopped growing without experiencing either extreme gentrification and a housing crisis, or economic stagnation and decline. I can’t think of any, either.
Transit allows growth to continue and people to get around irrespective of congestion.
TL;DR:
Growth is better than no growth, and congestion is an inevitable consequence of growth. The best response is to just accept that as fact, and build meaningful transit.
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I’m hypothesizing (not backed up by data) that if you have an area where 2% of the population rides transit, and then double the density but simultaneously widen the roads to double the capacity so congestion remains exactly the same, you will wind up with roughly twice as many people riding the bus, but still 2%.
Obviously this is not a realistic scenario because doubling total roadway capacity in a built out area is cost prohibitive.
On the flip side, if you double the density, and don’t widen anything (perhaps even converting some existing lanes to bus lanes), you’ll spend way less money, get much higher transit use, and still move the same number of people as the first scenario. Some people will fight it because it will be disruptive to their old habits, but I think we’d be way better off in the long run.
The remaining roadways will either become more congested, or will have to be controlled by charging market prices for roadway space with a congestion charge.
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But what is it that makes an individual more likely to ride transit? Is it the density itself, or is it the increased inconvenience of driving that results from the density? I would say it is much more the latter than the former. Growing while keeping driving just as convenient as ever is not economically feasible in the long term however, so congestion inevitably follows growth. If meaningful transit (read: dedicated right of way, bypassing congestion) is built, it will be well used.
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I agree - if you provide the density but then widen the roads so that everybody can still drive and has no incentive to take transit, you’re really not doing anything to expand transit use (in terms of % of people taking transit)
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“and never make drivers bear at least a larger share of the costs of driving”
This is were you lose any support from me and probably most anybody driving a car right now. We are already paying a lot to have the right to drive. You basically want car drivers to pay for mass transit while all along those riding on mass transit will never pay their share of the burden either. I am for mass transit simply for the sake of mass transit and I don’t think that those of you who basically hate suburbs and cars should make us shoulder the costs.
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I drive a car and, while I acknowledge driving isn’t cheap as it is, no I do not pay a lot for the right to drive and nor do you, I’d hazard. I pay a few hundred a year in fuel taxes, property taxes, and registration fees. (The cost of buying a car is not a user fee, nor is maintenance, nor is the non-tax portion of gas, nor is insurance). I am completely conscious of the fact that the user fees I pay do not come close to covering all the societal impacts that my driving causes. While I am not voluntarily paying more money to drive (where would I even pay? Serious question, actually.) I do recognize that a world in which driving costs more, and in which the money I pay goes to offset some of those impacts, would be a better and more fair world.
The roads and highways that I drive were built often at the expense of seizing property at gunpoint from disadvantaged minority communities, often under the guise of “urban renewal.” They severing communities and sacrifice the lives and safety of pedestrians and cyclists
who were written out of their designs.
The emissions from my tailpipe are causing the planet to warm and icecaps to melt. Here in Raleigh this will make July afternoons slightly less bearable, but people in Bangladesh and elsewhere are already feeling the impacts of this through increased flooding and it will only get worse.
Children living in housing close to the freeways I drive on will grow up more likely to have asthma and other illnesses.
The spaces I park my car cause runoff which causes flooding and sends pollution into sensitive waterways. When I park on the street, storage of my personal vehicle is subsidized by city property taxes, paid by residents that don’t all drive.
I support a higher gas tax. I support using the money for transit because it helps people get around while negating or lessening the impacts above.
You are welcome to disagree. The fact that more than half of Wake County voters supported the transit tax suggests that more people recognize some of these impacts than you perhaps realize.
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Thanks. I really needed that lesson in my lack of humanity and empathy. The reason that most people voted for the tax (myself included) was simply because we realize a need for a better transportation system in this area. Nothing more. I doubt if many put as much thought into it as you have. I know I didn’t. Your rhetoric would probably dissuade many to vote for such things in the future. Of course, you are welcome to disagree.
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I definitely appreciate that my approach above was undiplomatic at best.
Most people just do what makes the most sense for them and I don’t fault people for doing that. Human nature. Hell, like I said, I drive too. I just want to see a system where the dollar-cost per mile of driving is more in line with the cost of the externalities. I am glad that some money from the national gas tax goes to subsidize transit. I’d like to see the state do more of the same, and I’d also like to see counties have the option to levy an extra local gas tax. (Not allowed per NC law.)
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Now I am a lot closer to agreeing with you!!!
Sorry to pick on you TedF, but you’re the perfect example of what John was saying above with how people prefer a “me” centered reasoning for doing something versus “the greater good for all” reasoning haha
I mean…do you want the truth about how to really have an efficient transportation system in a city? (truly try and shift single occupancy vehicle trips to more efficient modes of transportation) Or are you happy with continuing the half-ass way we’ve been doing things just so there isn’t a major disruption to people’s routines…for now until congestion gets to a certain point? (provide public transportation for “other people” but I’m not going to take it and continue my routine of driving everywhere and don’t dare to disrupt that)
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In fact I am happy. I have lived in several different places where traffic is a lot worse than it is around here. And I am not so sure that your doing things for “the greater good for all” is a good thing. I mean do people who think like you get to decide that people who think like me are “bad”??? That is kind of scary if you ask me. Honestly I believe that this area probably doesn’t need light rail or something similar today as things stand. But I feel that by the time we can get anything approved and built that it will be 10 plus years out and we need to go ahead and get started. But the main thing is we can’t even get the bus system and other modes of transportation right at this point in time. I voted for the transportation tax knowing that I would probably never ride any bus, train, ride a bike, or whatever. So maybe you choose to think that I am not thinking for “the greater good for all”. Again, the likes of you in political power scare me… That is my truth.
That’s fine if that’s your opinion. Luckily we live in a political system (that to some extent) allows us to collectively make decisions on stuff like this. Just don’t go running to NCDOT and complaining about the traffic in the future if it does become as bad as other places that you’ve lived at 
(because we can’t possibly widen roads at the pace we are growing, and there already isn’t enough funding to even maintain existing infrastructure - and you already mentioned you aren’t willing to increase your contributions to the highway system to increase that funding availability)
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Well apparently it isn’t enough that I voted for the transportation tax… it seems like I am also supposed to think a certain way too. I must endeavor to try and make myself worthy.