Cars offer more than just convenience: they can give lower income Americans an economic leg up. [...]
While tracking households that had participated in two federal housing voucher programs, [a study] found that car owners were twice as likely as transit users to find jobs and four times likelier to retain them. Car-owning households were also able to locate near better neighborhoods and schools. This reaffirmed previous work ... arguing that car ownership plants the seeds for upward mobility.
— thedailybeast.com
9 Comments
This article is like the worst of pseudo-science.
It doesn't take the cost of car ownership into account. It blatantly tosses the environmental impact of thousands of more cars on already overused roads right on out the window. It doesn't acknowledge that we peak oil might exist. It doesn't specify that it's only including sprawl cities, not urban cores, in its analyses.
If mass transit serves an entire city then it would serve "better neighborhoods and schools" too, right? The article bemoans long bus commutes involving transfers but doesn't acknowledge that if a transit system were better those transfers wouldn't be necessary.
So yes *this* study might have found the conclusion that cars are better than mass transit, but the study was a poorly-crafted study to begin with. It worked great for finding the results they pre-determined they wanted, of course.
Let's not forget suburban sprawl, urban decay, accidental deaths (50,000/yr.), air pollution, evisceration of communities, social isolation, health effects (including obesity), etc.
A society that has spent the last century catering to automobiles is clearly not well suited to those who don't have them.
This is a pretty blatant case of the tail wagging the dog - a lot of our infrastructure and development patterns are currently designed around cars, so of course access to cars increases one's mobility and opportunities within our existing infrastructure. However - the goal is to make transportation and development patterns more equitable across multiple modes - because not only are there high costs associated with car ownership - but there are also restrictions to obtaining a license for the privilege of driving - both of which unfortunately excludes a large segment of the population - especially those who are the most economically vulnerable.
There's also the unfortunate fact that the urban implementation of the federal highway program was (and still is, to a certain extent) a major tool used to both displace and segregate communities of color.
The article makes some good points, and I think appropriately points towards a two-prong approach to transportation planning and accessibility: transit in areas dense enough to support transit and car-access in areas that lack density. The plannerly transit supporters tend to be too ideological, too polemical in their rhetoric - an all or nothing mentality. Instead of the general vitriol towards the car as an object, there needs to be a more productive dialogue about how car technology and the car economy can be improved to address economic mobility and environmental challenges. Services like Zipcar, Uber, and Lyft are innovative low-cost means to improve access; how can these services be spun off into the neighborhoods that have the greatest need? Similarly, consumers should demand that the auto industry become more innovative. We have lived with essentially the same car for the last 50 years with only insignificant changes to the styling and engine. Instead of futzing with minor model year tweaks, bells, and whistles, automakers need to seriously address the economic and environmental impact of their product.
Calif. city takes steps to curb pedestrian deaths
Blacks and Latinos disproportionately hit by cars because they walk more, live in less pedestrian-friendly zones
won, I do think that the amount of road infrastructure we have merits using it more wisely rather than abandoning it - I'm definitely not an all-or-nothing believer in mass transit. Which is why I love the idea of Bus Rapid Transit - some investment in infrastructure (real elevated stops) but they can use the roads and most important be *frequent*.
I'm skeptical of Uber etc. Frankly, they seem too unregulated. Ironically I feel like I have more faith in Google's driverless cars than in a horde of vagabond Lyft drivers. Maybe there's a middle ground.
I believe fuel efficiency standards are set to dramatically rise in coming years, yes? But it's a government regulation, not coming from consumers.
I haven't heard any complaints about Uber or Lyft. In fact, I think it's the lack of regulation of these services which has made them inexpensive and highly efficient.
Government regulated MPG does little to address what is really a market problem. I want car companies to make fuel efficiency sexy, make it something that consumers can't live without. In fact, forget about fuel entirely. Do something innovative. Elon Musk has been doing that at Tesla, but there's no Steve Jobs at GM. All of the smart, creative people are off getting rich making video game apps. Imagine if some of that creativity were put towards addressing real problems!
won: 4 prong approach, in this order: walking, biking (or, non-powered wheeled transportation), transit, and cars. walking is the most fundamental form transportation, and IMO, a civil right. You should be able to walk places safely - and this is what we should be focusing on in both planning and in architecture. biking is significantly cheaper than transit and car infrastructure - there's a physical and price barrier, but both are pretty low. the problem right now is that we have very little bike infrastructure, and a lot of what we do have is geared toward more affluent riders. although - with walking and biking, we've covered up to about 6 or 7 miles - which is a significant distance in many urban areas - and covers the vast majority of non-commute trips even in suburban areas.
transit gets tricky -it's very political, expensive, difficult to implement, and relies very heavily on other modes and denser development in order to work - it also restricts people to single routes which may or may not serve their needs. it works pretty well to connect dense urban areas with each other, but with increasing poverty in sprawling suburban areas, this is going to get difficult without some major investment - someone always gets left out.
cars are great for some things (especially once we solve the pollution problem)- but they don't make sense for shorter trips in dense urban areas, can be a major financial burden for struggling families - especially if they have to rely on a single vehicle in a place where it's difficult to get around by other means - and are a major public health crisis.
Some basic math would be illuminating here:
Consider the actual efficiency of the typical automobile:
Automobile efficiency: 15%
Now let's consider an even larger problem - that in order to deliver a person, you also have to deliver the vehicle.
Car efficiency (15%) X percentage of weight delivered (4.1%) = 0.6%
Since the electrical grid is only about 30% efficient, there really is no benefit to an electric car.
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