Los Angeles and the 'great American streetcar scandal'

Re:Los Angeles and the 'great American streetcar scandal' by dionidium on Monday April 25, 2016 @03:53PM (#11566838)

This is not an external benefit. This, if true, should mostly be reflected in people's willingness to take public transport. Of course, people taking public transport are in my experience usually of the most dubious mental health. So that's concerning.

What you'll find is that people use public transit in cities where its convenience outweighs the convenience of a car. In cities where that is untrue, only those who can't afford a car use public transit.

Which is to say that public transit isn't somehow magically better than auto travel by virtue of some fixed aspect of public transit.

It's better when it's better, which may sound like a tautology, but is actually just kind of an obvious truth, evidence for which is available all over the world.

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Re:Los Angeles and the 'great American streetcar scandal' by ghaff on Monday April 25, 2016 @04:51PM (#11567256)

I'm not sure it's just convenience but rather some combination of convenience, cost, and just preference. But your basic point stands. The vast majority of people will use public transit when it works better for them personally given their other options on a given day. This tends to most commonly occur in cities that have relatively good transit systems (for the trip in question) and congestion that makes the same trip by car relatively unpleasant/slow.

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