Posted on 05/12/2021 5:43:41 AM PDT by Kaslin
Commuting by subway -- or some other form of public transportation -- and commuting by car epitomize two dramatically different lifestyles in the United States.
In the former, for example, an American might live in a high-rise building in a densely populated urban area. He rides an elevator to the street each morning and then descends via an escalator to an underground chamber, where he stands on a concrete slab until a crowded train comes along.
When he boards that train, he is likely to stand, holding the metal rail above his head to make sure he does not fall when the train lurches forward.
He hopes the coughing, sneezing person standing next to him does not have a communicable disease -- but doubts it.
In a hypothetical example of the latter lifestyle, an American might walk through the door of her single-family home into a two-car garage. She gets into her four-door sedan, pushes a button to open the garage door, starts the car, turns on the air-conditioning and backs into her driveway.
She then heads down to the street, passing through a bright green lawn shaded by a massive oak.
She now turns the dashboard stereo to her favorite music.
That same morning, some other Americans would be heading to work via bus, bicycle, cab, carpool, ferryboat or even their own two feet.
So, which commute would you choose?
A recent Census Bureau report indicates the vast majority of American workers have made the same choice: They drive -- by themselves -- in their own cars.
According to the bureau's American Community Survey for 2019 (the year before the COVID-19 pandemic hit), there were 156,941,346 workers in the United States. Of these, 119,153,349 -- or 75.9 % -- drove to work alone in a car, truck or van.
Another 13,900,979 -- or 8.9% -- commuted to work in a carpool.
That means that 84.8% commuted in a private vehicle, either alone or in a carpool.
The next largest group of these pre-pandemic workers (8,970,800, or 5.7%) did not commute at all. They worked at home.
In fact, only 5% of American workers (7,778,444) took public transportation to work.
This included the 2.3% (3,601,403) who took a bus; the 1.9% (2,935,633) who took a subway or elevated rail; the 0.6% (921,391) who took a long-distance train or commuter rail; the 0.2% (242,776) who took a light rail, streetcar or trolley; and the 77,000 who took a ferryboat.
In addition, there were 4,153,050 workers (2.6%) who walked to work; 805,722 (0.5%) who took a bicycle; 385,756 (0.2%) who took a taxicab; and 221,923 (0.1%) who took a motorcycle. There were also 1,571,323 (1.0%) who got to work by what the Census Bureau called "other means."
Nor was the use of public transportation evenly distributed across the country.
A majority (51.1%) who commuted on public transportation lived in the Northeast. Another 21% lived in the West, while 15.1% lived in the South and 12.8% lived in the Midwest.
Within these regions, not surprisingly, public transit users were concentrated in urban areas. Indeed, 62.5% (4,842,172) of the nation's public transit commuters (7,778,444) were concentrated in just five metropolitan areas: New York (3,000,640); Chicago (584,804); San Francisco (461,832); Washington, D.C. (440,972); and Boston (353,924).
The City of New York, according to the Census Bureau report, was the only major city where a majority (2,242,092, or 55.6%) took public transit to work.
Shortly after President Barack Obama took office, as this writer pointed out in a 2010 book ("Control Freaks"), he indicated his desire to have Americans reduce their use of automobiles.
"I would like for us to invest in mass transit, because potentially that's energy-efficient," Obama said at a 2009 town hall in Fort Myers, Florida.
"The days where we're just building sprawl forever, those days are over," he said.
Then-Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood -- a former Republican congressman -- suggested taxing Americans for every mile they drove. But even the Obama White House rejected that idea.
Obama's Transportation Department then launched what it called the "Livable Communities Initiative."
The AARP Bulletin asked LaHood in October 2009 to "describe" what a livable community was.
"It's a community where if people don't want an automobile, they don't have to have one," LaHood explained. "A community where you can walk to work, your doctor's appointment, pharmacy or grocery store. Or you could take light rail, a bus or ride a bike."
On May 21, 2009, LaHood spoke about this plan at the National Press Club. "Some in the highway supporters and motorists groups have been concerned by your livability initiative," the moderator asked him. "Is this an effort to make driving more torturous and to coerce people out of their cars?"
"It is a way to coerce people out of their cars, yeah," LaHood responded.
The moderator followed up: "Speaking of, some conservative groups are wary of the livable communities program saying it's an example of government intrusion into people's lives. How do you respond?"
"About everything we do around here is government intrusion in people's lives," said LaHood.
A decade later, according to the Census Bureau report, most Americans were still driving their cars to work.
There is one word that explains why they insist on doing so: freedom.
What a stupid article! Maybe I met a friend on the train? Got to read a book? Took a nap?
Maybe the car ride sucked. Got rear ended, late for work or something else?
I had an employee who took public transportation exclusively. He loved it. Lead a totally different lifestyle than I did. I rode a motorcycle almost exclusively and lived a somewhat different lifestyle than someone who drove.
Freedom also means not having some dork tell you that your choices are dumb because it’s not what they would choose.
Oppressing the freedom to travel is a long held Democrat dream.
Also - speech, religion, property, guns, homeschooling, etc...
The brutal annihilation of democracy and Christianity is the goal. Violent oppression is the tool.
It has only existed for a hundred years.
You might stretch it to steam railroads, but they were not generally used for commuting.
Amen and very well put!!
“There is one word that explains why they insist on doing so: freedom.”
Amen to that!!! Except I plan to sit out the next November election, rather than vote for the RINO (you know, to ‘teach the GOP a lesson’), so I guess we’ll have to be moving into an apartment soon, as the Democrats consolidate power (with my help, but who cares, I hate RINOs more). Well, I did enjoy the American lifestyle, very rare in this world...but I guess it’s time for change.
The COVID response made the case that you need your own vehicle with advanced air filtration systems and cannot take mass transit since you’ll get a deadly disease.
Another key concept: economic mobility.
People with cars are more able to take and commute to better jobs than someone limited by public transportation routes. This matters.
Vote NO on every millage for pubic transportation every time.
All pubic transportation does is bring the ghetto to your front door!
If ghetto rats want transportation they can pay 100% of the cost.
Try living in real South Dakota without a means of transportation.
I hate to sit in traffic, plus I like to walk, so I wouldn’t mind seeing some tax money going to making streets walkable, like sidewalks and crosswalks.
In addition, some changes to road standards to allow for sidewalks and some changes to town zoning codes to allow denser urban cores to allow uses to be built close to eachother would be an improvement to the current standard of every use being far apart requiring a car trip to everywhere, i.e. drive to office complex, drive to strip mall for lunch, drive to dry cleaners, drive to post office, drive to bakery, drive to grocery, etc.
They tried that, it's called Blue cities. Feel free to walk and shop, just be wary of the skyrocketing crime on individuals because perps are not punished.
I applied to work at a local competitor several times because I would been able to walk to the office from my former residence.
To each his own...
All pubic transportation does is bring the ghetto to your front door!
I grew up in a very quiet suburban neighborhood. Before we moved the Gold Line extension reached our little town. That was many years ago. They are now constructing a second Gold Line station in my hometown. Still very few "ghetto rats".
They don’t have sidewalks and crosswalks where you live?
Many subdivisions in suburban communities since the 70's are built off major feeder highways and without sidewalks. The development itself may be safe to walk around in because of low volume of traffic but it's impossible to safely cross the often 6 lane road and even if your destination is right across the road from your subdivision you take your life in your hands trying to cross it.
Older towns build before the 60's were built in a smaller scale with interconnecting minor roads.
Even places that are a mix, if your destination is in the later developed part of your town, you probably won't be able to safely walk to it because the road engineers and the town planners deliberately designed it for car access only, so you could have a destination a short distance away that you must get into a car just to cross the street.
This exists all over the country.
“Still very few “ghetto rats”.
Without pubic transportation there would be none!
So you have no crosswalks across six lane highways, and no sidewalks along those roads. Is that what you’re saying?
Also, are there stop lights at any of the intersections of those six lane highways?
If you want to ban people from driving cars, while at the same time move lower income folks out into the suburbs where there's no mass transit ... you might be a Democrat.
“So you have no crosswalks across six lane highways, and no sidewalks along those roads. Is that what you’re saying?
Also, are there stop lights at any of the intersections of those six lane highways?”
Look around when you are driving. Do you see any 6 lane roads that are safe to cross? In florida, for example, the arterial roads are so wide that crossing them is particularly onerous especially for an older person. Moreover, the crossing opportunities might be a half mile apart. They are, by design, for car travel.
In contrast, Disney built a town in Florida called Celebration. It’s walkable by design with lots of smaller streets that inter-connect allowing for traffic flow on multiple streets thus keeping them 2 lane and human scale.
Many states have older towns built in the 1920’s and 30’s that are walkable and highly desirable. Of course, as others have mentioned, many urban cities are violent God-forsaken squalid dumps.
There’s a balance, of course. Building communities that allow for safe pedestrian connections from house to shops, dining, and services is a lot different from building high density many-story low-income government-subsidized criminal incubators connected to crime-ridden trains and buses, in a survival-of-the-most-violent Hobbsian nightmare.
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