Why Public Transportation Sucks in the U.S.

Someone called Wendover Productions has released a ten-minute video about why public transportation sucks in the United States. I have some pretty good ideas why public transportation sucks:

  • Transit agencies are more interested in building infrastructure empires than in moving people;
  • Politicians are more interested in building new infrastructure than maintaining the old;
  • The industry has seen a 50-percent decline in worker productivity since it was municipalized;
  • Transit planners refuse to accept that cities no longer have the same job and residential concentrations that they had a hundred years ago.

While exercise and diet help in new.castillodeprincesas.com order cialis every cause from those women are affecting. However, it is usually hard to find these systems directly built into the car’s inboard or you can viagra sans prescription purchase portable devices which are to be believed, such penis enlargement & traction devices also cure the dreaded but often well-kept secrets like erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation. Slow but steady progress is the important http://new.castillodeprincesas.com/item-6526 discount levitra online thing to handle any of their physiological or psychological issues. The infusion of shilajit and gold viagra no prescription http://new.castillodeprincesas.com/directorio/seccion/catering/?wpbdp_sort=field-1 is an ancient herbal remedy for rejuvenation and longevity.

The video, however, mentions none of these things. Instead, it blames transit’s problems on the widely discredited General Motors streetcar conspiracy. The video also claims that Republicans subsidized highways and that zoning unnecessarily separated residential and commercial areas. These are specious notions: while there are road subsidies, most major highways paid for themselves and, since at least 1970, transit has been far more heavily subsidized than highways. Meanwhile, Texas suburbs that have no zoning see almost all new construction separating residences from commercial areas, suggesting this is a response to consumer demand, not archaic zoning.

The video repeatedly points to Europe as providing examples of successful public transportation systems. However, it never mentions that, while Europe may have more public transportation than the United States, that doesn’t mean Europeans use it that much more. According to the European Union, The average European rides trams and metros (what we call light and heavy rail) 200 kilometers per year vs. Americans’ 100 kilometers per year. Yes, that’s twice as much, but the difference–62 miles–is insignificant compared with the 5,800 miles that Europeans by car each year. Europeans would drive much more if their governments didn’t punitively tax motor fuel.

The video also mentions that access to public transportation helps poor people find jobs. But it never mentions that access to automobiles does much more for poor people because people can reach many times as many jobs by car in 30 minutes as they can access by public transportation.

The video claims that cities like Portland that have spent money on rail transit have generated billions of dollars in economic development. It never mentions that Portland and other cities provided billions of dollars in subsidies to that development, nor that transit spending alone, without the additional subsidies to development, resulted in no new development.

The video claims that spending money on transit is environmentally sound. It doesn’t mention that transit uses almost exactly the same amount of energy per passenger mile as car drivers, nor that greenhouse gas emissions from light rail (via the fossil fuels burned to provide electric power) and buses are actually greater, per passenger mile, than the average car.

The video admits that, with a few exceptions, most American cities are built for the automobile and public transportation simply cannot work well in those cities. But it fails to admit that such urban design provides huge advantages over more compact cities, including increased mobility, lower housing costs, better access to consumer goods, and employer access to a more highly skilled workforce.

The real reason public transportation sucks is because it is obsolete. Nearly 96 percent of working Americans have at least one car in their households and around 30 percent of those who don’t nevertheless get to work by car. With the possible exception of New York City, we don’t need transit anymore and it’s time for the government to stop trying to force it on us.

Tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

15 Responses to Why Public Transportation Sucks in the U.S.

  1. LoneSnark says:

    Transit is obsolete, but doesn’t have to be. Cut out the rail and street-cars, establish sensible curb-rights, and privatize the buses, we can move far more people than we do today.

  2. Dave Brough says:

    What neither the video nor the AP mention is an ugly truth about transit: “it kills”. There were 6,000 pedestrian deaths last year, a rise of 15% over 2016. People rarely walk because they enjoy it. I cant find any stats, but hazard a guess that ‘most’ were waiting at or heading to or from transit.

  3. prk166 says:


    it blames transit’s problems on the widely discredited General Motors streetcar conspiracy
    ” ~anti-planner

    My first reaction is that, no, Mr. O’toole you’re wrong. They don’t say that. They merely point out that GM bought these companies and converted them. And they do right away point out that operating the streetcars was not economical.

    But then I realized…. wait, if that’s how they see it why even mention GM? After all, the process of converting lines to bus service had been going strong since the 1920s. All sorts of street car companies were doing it, not just ones connected with GM.

    Maybe they’re being sloppy in mentioning GM. It may be that they’re trying to be clever and invoke the GM conspiracy while having plausible deniability. Or maybe they’re trying to nicely tell the folks wearing tin foil hats – look, we love public rail transit and even we know it wasn’t really a conspiracy.

  4. prk166 says:

    They’re bit with Scotland was clever. It’s not wrong but there are some important differences. While they have similar populations, 80% of people in Scotland live in an area , a trapezoid, that’s about 100 miles by a 100 miles. There are only 2 or 3 cities in Scotland out of their 25 largest that are outside of this small region.

    You can see this quite clearly on a population density map of Scotland — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_Scotland#/media/File:Population_density_map_in_Scotland_from_the_2011_census.png

    Indiana is a lot differrent. In Scotland the 2 largest cities are 50 miles from each other and in just that corridor lives 2/3 of the population. Indiana has many population centers spread out to every corner of the state. It’s 2 largest concentrtions are Indianpolis and NE Indiana / Gary / suburban Chicago are 150 miles apart, not 50.

    Indiana population density — https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Indiana_population_map.png

    As you can see, overall they average out the same but the real distribution is quite different.

    So yes, they do have a publicly supported transportation system with better coverage. But they have a lot more people squeezed in with fewer destinations. Cupar isn’t a destination, it’s a stop on a train between Edinburgh ( 2nd largest ) and Dundee ( 4th largest; @50 miles away ). For Scotland, with the density they can set up a few milks runs inbetween the major cities throw in some stops along the way and cover most of the population.

    The video doesn’t tell you that while there isn’t a bus you can take to Anderson, you can take one to Pendleton or Muncie. From their you can take a cab or walk or bike or…. wait. If you can get to Muncie on the bus can you really NOT get to Anderson on the bus from Indianapolis?

    NOPE! You can take a bus from Indianpolis to Anderson, or Muncie or Pendleton or… 🙂

    http://www.cityofanderson.com/142/Fares-Routes

    Muncie to Indianapolis Route
    The City of Anderson and Miller trailways are now offering a new bus route from Muncie to Indianapolis with stops in Muncie, Anderson, Pendleton, Fortville, and Indianapolis, two times a day. Call 502-368-5644 or check out Miller Trailways and view schedules, locations, and buy tickets.

    Chalk up another one to group think. I’ll bet they used google maps, didn’t see a direct route, and didn’t bother to google it beyond that. Sucks to so wrong over something so easily found.

  5. prk166 says:

    The other interesting thing about Scotland is they don’t talk about how much of that service is for profit. Like the rest of the UK, public transportaiton in Scotland went through large reforms during the Thatcher administration. Scotland alone was spending something like a quarter of a billion dollars a year subsidizing bus service throughout the country.

    So they slashed the subsidies or dropped them completely for a a lot of the service. Now there’s a few hundred privately owned and operated companies in the country. Most of the red that you saw on the map was due to them and almost all of their service is subsidized.

    I’d be curious how much of it is due to culture. There may be more of an attitude that if you’re going to travel, you don’t drive. BUt some of it may come from the time involved, too. If you want to drive from Edinburgh to Dundee, it’s @60 miles by road but it’ll take you 2 hours. Muncie’s just as far from Indianapolis yet it’ll take ya 30 – 45 minutes less.

    If you live in some town north of Inverness, you may only be 200 miles from Edinburgh but it’ll take you 5 hours to drive it. More importantly taking the train and bus may only take an hour longer. The marginal cost isn’t too bad, eh?

    And here’s where I suspect some culture and how to look at things comes into play, too. If you’re in Indianapolis and want to g 150 miles to Gary, it’s a 2 1/2 hr drive or 3 hour greyhound. Now, Greyhound has a repuation – and it aint a good one – in a lot of circles. Surely that plays into things.

    Anyway, I love the comparison. But I think they’re not being fully honest with their audience in walking through some of the differences. Especially given that they’re claiming the US transportation system sucks cuz it’s not the same. It’s kinda funny cuz there’s some folks in Scotland who claim their current system sucks because of Thatcher and her free market reforms.

  6. the highwayman says:

    The USA has had 100,000+ miles of rail line stolen since WWI.

    Government policy is anti-rail, roads are not expected to be profitable to survive.

    Now you teahadi’s are pushing for Terminator that will make humanity obsolete :$

  7. prk166 says:


    The USA has had 100,000+ miles of rail line stolen since WWI
    ” ~the highwayman

    At some point your use of the English crosses the line from merely perverting the meaning of words to outright rape and pillage.

    The reality that you refuse to acknowledge is that 0 miles of rail line have been stolen since WWI. Or, do you have some long lost police reports that you’d like to share that demonstrate that an alleged theft occurred?

  8. the highwayman says:

    “Highways are there regardless of economic conditions”

    Even Mr.O’Toole has agreed with me.

    I don’t see you teahadi’s complaining about sidewalks not being profitable to survive either.

    Capitalism is a myth!

    Legalized theft, is still theft. The USA has had 100,000+ miles of rail line stolen since WWI :$

  9. metrosucks says:

    Don’t encourage it, prk166. You’re talking to a delusional moron.

  10. the highwayman says:

    I’m not in denial. You teahadi’s say you hate Big Government/Socialism, yet you never complain about it when it comes to roads. :$

  11. the highwayman says:

    You’re actually on the cusp of something, though substitute humans for horses.

    There’s no need for the forklift driver, if the forklift drives itself.

    In the future there will be no need for customer service, because there will be no customers :$

  12. CapitalistRoader says:

    USDA:

    American agriculture and rural life underwent a tremendous transformation
    in the 20th century. Early 20th century agriculture was labor intensive, and
    it took place on a large number of small, diversified farms in rural areas
    where more than half of the U.S. population lived. These farms employed
    close to half of the U.S. workforce
    , along with 22 million work animals, and
    produced an average of five different commodities. The agricultural sector
    of the 21st century, on the other hand, is concentrated on a small number of
    large, specialized farms in rural areas where less than a fourth of the U.S.
    population lives. These highly productive and mechanized farms employ a
    tiny share of U.S. workers and use 5 million tractors in place of the horses
    and mules of earlier days.

    It’s no wonder that the US experienced massive population die-off in the 20th Century considering that half the jobs disappeared due to automation.

    I find it hard to believe that you and I can post on this blog since both of our parents in all likelihood either died last century or were never born.

  13. the highwayman says:

    Semi-automation isn’t the same thing as full automation :$

  14. prk166 says:

    I’d be curious how much of it is due to culture. There may be more of an attitude that if you’re going to travel, you don’t drive. BUt some of it may come from the time involved, too. If you want to drive from Edinburgh to Dundee, it’s @60 miles by road but it’ll take you 2 hours. Muncie’s just as far from Indianapolis yet it’ll take ya 30 – 45 minutes less.

Leave a Reply