Life After Cars | US Metropolitan areas where 8% or more residents use public transit to get to work

One of the points I used to make wrt transit advocacy is that people needed to recognize that most of the US--92% of all trips involve a car--has no concept that a transit-centric mobility and lifestyle paradigm is even possible.  

This is why this graphic (via Reddit) is so compelling.  Sadly.  Because it shows how few areas of the country are at least somewhat transit-centric.  

I always say I was privileged to have lived in DC for 30+ years, where it is possible, practical, and frugal to rely on transit (even better when you add biking, walking, and the occasional car share) rather than having to own a car.  Not owning a car at the time supported $100,000 of our mortgage.

If I were healthy, and maybe with the addition of an electric bike, I probably could live car light, not car free, in Salt Lake.  But I am not strong enough yet to be able to use an electric bike, and I have scads of doctors appointments, occasional hospital stays, etc.

"Gasoline is up and GOP sees an easy target: Biden," Politico.

Like when President Biden proposed a federal excise tax holiday on gasoline when prices rose, advocates were quick to say, "no, instead make transit free."  When comparatively speaking, everyone drives, and they are more concerned about gas prices than transit use.

What I always argue is that it took 50+ years to build our automobile-centric transportation system, and while it shouldn't take that long to build up a sustainable mobility system, we need to take a variety of steps, including actively helping people take up bicycling and shift trips from the car.

-- "Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 26 programs"  2024

As some people say, "biking is the freedom that car television ads claim to provide."

This reality is why I didn't bother trying to track down a review copy of the book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, which has received a fair amount of coverage ("‘Car Brain’ Is Making the US Unhealthy and Dangerous. EVs Won’t Fix It.," Bloomberg).  

I think it's great to think of a no car lifestyle as a thought experiment, a way to think about how you get around, and what you can change to do so without a car as much as possible.

But to argue seriously that it should be the policy of the land, given where we are now, is ludicrous and I would think, for most people is an argument that can't ever be taken seriously.

Note that I am pleased by recent various pro-sustainable mobility gains:

•  electric bikes are successful in shifting trips away from the automobile
• bike sharing systems in DC, New York City, and Toronto are having record years
• each year more and more people take part in Safe Routes to School programs
• coverage within SRTS programming about "bike buses" ("More Children Are Powering Their Own Wheels to School as Part of ‘Bike Buses’," Inside Climate News)
• the expanded use of cargo bikes as alternatives to the car 
• winter cycling promotion initiatives including a winter Bike to Work Day in many cities
• and that transit use is rebounding after taking a hit during Covid.

Last year's entry, "20th anniversary of the blog| Urban revitalization systems thinking's greatest hits: Part three -- transportation" has links to what I consider to be my best writings on transportation.

It is possible to shift people away from the car, partly by alternatives, partly by changes to urban form, and the creation of mixed use communities.

My ability to be mobile waxes and wanes depending on (if any) recent hospitalizations.  Before my last trip to the hospital, I was walking two miles per day and doing a variety of exercises.  I haven't worked back to that level, but I can walk a mile, better if split half and half.

Where I live that means I can walk one half mile east to a decent shopping center with a supermarket, Shake Shack, and various other retail in one direction, a little farther from that adds a dry cleaner, shoe repair and copy shop to the range.  

Walking west, another half mile, is a small group of businesses on four corners of a neighborhood intersection with a smaller upscale supermarket, drug store/apparel shop, two restaurants, and salon and light office (for awhile I saw a doctor as my PCP in an office above the direction).

In yet another direction is another grouping of shops, including where I get my hair cut (sometimes I spring for a razor shave too) where I walked to just last week.

There's a park in another direction.  And if I can walk a bit farther, a neighborhood library (more like 3/4 mile each way).

Again, it's a privilege to live in a place with access to all those amenities easily reachable by walking or biking.  (And by car, two major hospitals within 15 minutes, north and south of where I live, among other amenities.)

Again/2, if I could bike right now, I'd have access to a great deal more amenities, all in less than a 5 mile radius.  

And that's not even taking advantage of the light rail-based transit shed in the metropolitan area (it's not too proximate for me, the nearest station is almost 3 miles away, on the University of Utah campus).  Bus service isn't too bad, but degrades with distance.    If you're in the rail transit shed, you can live car light definitely, and depending on where you work, no car.

My hospital is 5.4 miles away, easily bikeable when I am healthy, not when I am really sick, but takes more than an hour transferring from one bus to another....