Mass transit Studies, The Netherlands and the Individual
Every commute is unique for that person; when looking at aggregate population "studies" transit studies usually only study the most highly traveled route - thus making them totally valid and totally meaningless for anyone who does not travel the route studied. Also, given that they only have 30 minutes commute time in the Netherlands - which means people often live quite close to where they work unlike the USA - what is discovered there is also meaningless here.
And without them publishing the data collection methods, the universe of people, the routes studied, the math behind the results - it is a data point without any context and meaning at all.
I too can measure my public vs car commute time for my 19.7 mile commute from my house to work.
By Car on a bad day from walking out the door to sit down at work - counting a 10 minute walk from parking the car - I can go from a low of 45 minutes to a high of 90 minutes.
By public transportation - completely - I can go from a low of 90 minutes to a high of 110. By driving to a park and ride it can be cut down to 80 minutes to 100.
Of course without a car then if you want to go anywhere else after work, then you MUST go home and get you car and then often double back to go shopping.
Public transportation = giving up YOUR time to let someone else drive and of course be tied to THEIR schedule. Which often means that you will have to waste more of your time waiting for their schedule service to arrive. And if you by any chance stay late at work you can easily waste an 1/2 hour to an hour more of your time to catch that one and only bus / train back to your home - if it is running at all when you get off.
Mass transit NEVER scales well outside a 10 mile radius. And most want to have mass transit in a 3000 x 2000 mile wide country - and compare it to a 150 to 60 mile country in Europe and says it will work here.
And without them publishing the data collection methods, the universe of people, the routes studied, the math behind the results - it is a data point without any context and meaning at all.
I too can measure my public vs car commute time for my 19.7 mile commute from my house to work.
By Car on a bad day from walking out the door to sit down at work - counting a 10 minute walk from parking the car - I can go from a low of 45 minutes to a high of 90 minutes.
By public transportation - completely - I can go from a low of 90 minutes to a high of 110. By driving to a park and ride it can be cut down to 80 minutes to 100.
Of course without a car then if you want to go anywhere else after work, then you MUST go home and get you car and then often double back to go shopping.
Public transportation = giving up YOUR time to let someone else drive and of course be tied to THEIR schedule. Which often means that you will have to waste more of your time waiting for their schedule service to arrive. And if you by any chance stay late at work you can easily waste an 1/2 hour to an hour more of your time to catch that one and only bus / train back to your home - if it is running at all when you get off.
Mass transit NEVER scales well outside a 10 mile radius. And most want to have mass transit in a 3000 x 2000 mile wide country - and compare it to a 150 to 60 mile country in Europe and says it will work here.
posted by Tom Philo at 11:03 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home