Shift to Mass Transit

[Mergingtraffic]

In CT, there is a shift to mass transit focus.  WHich means those projects get priority over highway projects.  That would be okay but CT never had good roads to begin with.  A lot of good highway projects are stalled due to no funding.

I wrote the legislature to press for more highway funding and only one wrote back.  I even used examples of how other states are funding thier projects to see if CT can adopt those projects.  It is frustrating.

It seems mass transit is politically correct these days.   Politicians can talk about how they're helping with transportation even though they really aren't. 

Mass transit can work well in places like NYC or Boston, but CT is too spread out. 

CT has some great and needed highway projects in design but they can't move forward b/c of funding woes.  And the funding that will come in will probalby go to mass transit, bikeways and greenways.  (bikeways & greenways that 1% of the population uses)

Anybody else having the same frustration in your state?

[Chris]

I think it's the same all over. Driving is evil, transit is good, according to politicians who know squat about transportation.

[Riverside Frwy]

Screw mass transit. I love buses and trains, but that doesn't mean I like riding them. I admit that when going to places like downtown, I prefer public transportation. However, once you get out of the cluttered city, mass transit starts getting very limited and useless. Especially since I live down the street from Horse Town USA(Norco, CA) where there is like nothing out here but Cows and, of course, horses.

I also like being able to go WHERE I want and WHEN I want to do it, not on someone else's schedule. I've must have wasted atleast a couple days worth of hours of my life waiting for some stupid bus. I like being in my own car, my own comfort zone, listening to my own music, and not have to worry about some stranger coughing all over me. Nothing beats the beauty of a 10 lane stretch of freeway anyway.

EDIT: I'm getting ready to meet a relative in Burbank....and you guessed it....I'm DRIVING there. Hah!  I-210 here I come!

[yanksfan6129]

Well I disagree, living in NYC (or thereabout). Here, public transportation networks are large, reliable, and varied (train and bus). While I do really really like driving around (as a roadgeek), I do recognize that mass transport does have significant advantages in terms of congestion, quality of life, etc.

I think it's the same all over. Driving is evil, transit is good, according to politicians who know squat about transportation.

I think the point you're trying to make is wrong. I think a good public transport network that is well-used can cut down on congestion.

[Truvelo]

One of our former Prime Ministers, Margaret Thatcher, boasted twenty years ago that anyone over the age of 30 still using buses is a failure.

There's a time and place for both public and private transport. From my experience buses and trains are more effective in large cities. For example in London the roads are so congested in the Central area that the train or underground are the only effective ways of getting around quickly. Even in smaller cities I find using the train is better than driving. I live five miles from the centre of Birmingham and the train takes 10 minutes to get there and costs around $2.50 return. I can drive there in the same time at 2am in the morning but during the day it takes longer and parking costs around $2.50 per hour. Therefore I take the train and spend the whole day there for just $2.50.

In rural areas it's the opposite. Small villages in the middle of nowhere tend to have bus services that run a few days a week with only a couple of buses in each direction. If you miss the bus you're in for a very long wait.

[J N Winkler]

I also like being able to go WHERE I want and WHEN I want to do it, not on someone else's schedule. I've must have wasted at least a couple days worth of hours of my life waiting for some stupid bus.

Those of us who have to wait for public transport on a regular basis just bring books to read, so the time isn't wasted.  On the other hand, time you spend behind the wheel is time you can't spend doing something else, which might be more valuable than driving.

[corco]

On the other hand, time you spend behind the wheel is time you can't spend doing something else, which might be more valuable than driving.

I guess my problem, and probably one shared with a lot of people on this forum (that is admittedly irrelevant to the general public) is that even when I'm on a bus I still look out the window like a giddy puppy and couldn't possibly do something other than look out the window while riding, even if it's a familiar route. When gas was super expensive in mid 08, it became so much cheaper for me to take the bus from Tacoma to Seattle that when I was commuting up there a couple times a week (even with my 40 MPG Dodge Colt) that I rarely drove for a couple months, usually opting for the Express bus, but between all the sounds of people and the sights out the window there was no way I could focus myself enough to read the paper or something like that.

[TheStranger]

With regards to what public transit can and can't do: what it CANNOT do - and this has to be understood by its proponents - are the following two things:

1. substitute for interregional travel
2. an extension of point #1...handle anything even remotely related to freight traffic

Within an urban framework, the combination of commuter rail and urban subway/streetcar/bus networks can be effective...as long as the density is there to justify it.  (The anti-sprawl folks probably would argue that "roadways create excessively spread out development by their very nature" but that is more a consequence of local zoning around roads rather than the roads themselves.)

At the same time, I remember reading a blog post a while ago from someone at Sacramento Regional Transit that mentions the other purpose of mass transit, one that doesn't fall within the scope of modern thinking or New Urbanist philosophy: not necessarily to "get cars off the road" as much as, simply provide a way to get places for those who cannot drive for whatever reason.  I think that's forgotten rather easily in many of these discussions...

[roadfro]

Within an urban framework, the combination of commuter rail and urban subway/streetcar/bus networks can be effective...as long as the density is there to justify it.  (The anti-sprawl folks probably would argue that "roadways create excessively spread out development by their very nature" but that is more a consequence of local zoning around roads rather than the roads themselves.)

At the same time, I remember reading a blog post a while ago from someone at Sacramento Regional Transit that mentions the other purpose of mass transit, one that doesn't fall within the scope of modern thinking or New Urbanist philosophy: not necessarily to "get cars off the road" as much as, simply provide a way to get places for those who cannot drive for whatever reason.  I think that's forgotten rather easily in many of these discussions...

Excellent points. Indeed, the second point about the purpose of transit is often forgotten...even though in some cases it's the primary reason transit exists.

Mass transit projects, and specifically fixed-path transit systems, are only really viable when you have dense population and work centers to support them. In those cases, there would be absolute gridlock if everyone had to drive, because there'd be way too many vehicles in way too small a space.  For places that are lighter density and very spread out, such projects become less viable and desirable because there is a lesser density of people served by the fixed lines.


Nevada is one of those places where its urban centers are too spread out for fixed-rail projects to thrive. (That's one of the many reasons the Las Vegas Monorail is doing so poorly.)  Even still, there are a couple bus rapid transit projects underway in Reno and Vegas that are trying to bridge the gap between regular buses and fixed-rail transit.  I support these projects even though I will rarely ever be a passenger, simply because they allow for viable and attractive options for people that do rely on the services. (It should be noted that these projects are somewhat funded through local tax initiatives specifically for transit, as well as federal transit dollars--no highway improvement dollars involved.)

[Mergingtraffic]

my point is mass transit is fine but you should at least have your roads up to shape and speed first. 
THEN, you can focus on that.  I-95 in CT is only 6 lanes.  It should be at least 8 and then when that is crowded then think of mass transit. 

Hartford & new Haven have no full beltways and points between north and southern Farifield County have no expressway link.

A lot of traffic jams aren't commuters but just traffic in general...people going away for the weekend, people going to the stores.  I can't imagine those people using mass transit for that type of travel.

[roadfro]

The thing is, highway construction and mass transit projects really need to be planned in conjunction with each other, not one after another. When improvements on one side are considered when planning another, the result ends up being better foresight for the whole system.

This is one of the reasons why things like regional transportation commissions and metropolitan planning organizations exist. The RTC's in Reno and Vegas overseen the public transportation systems in those urban centers, as well as do much of the regional highway planning and modeling for those valleys. One benefit to that process is that in some cases like some of the upcoming BRT lines, arterial road improvements are being planned to incorporate roadway/traffic operations improvements where those BRT lines are going in.

[Riverside Frwy]

I also like being able to go WHERE I want and WHEN I want to do it, not on someone else's schedule. I've must have wasted at least a couple days worth of hours of my life waiting for some stupid bus.

Those of us who have to wait for public transport on a regular basis just bring books to read, so the time isn't wasted.  On the other hand, time you spend behind the wheel is time you can't spend doing something else, which might be more valuable than driving.

Yea, but I actually like driving, I get to do roadgeeking and look at the beautiful stretch of highway. I DON'T like riding the bus. And like I said I live in a place where buses and trains don't do much good.

Also, they claim rail is so much better, but have you seen a New York subway at rush hour? It's no better than the infamous I-405 in LA. Atleast on a freeway I can be in my own car.

I also agree with roadfro, the whole system would work better if everything was designed and planned together. (like building a new freeway while at the same time a new rail line is being built in the median) It would also help if we didn't have NIMBYs and environmentalists creating holes in our freeway system creating severe bottlenecks. In LA, most freeways are backed up when they don't have to if only NIMBYs didn't stop construction of helpful alternate routes that would relieve congestion.

[Bryant5493]

MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) is going through a lot of pangs, because of it not being state-funded. Its funding is provided by both Fulton and DeKalb counties, when many outside of the two counties use the train and bus service. CCT (Cobb County Transit), GCT (Gwinnett County Transit), C-Tran (Clayton County Transit), and GRTA (Georgia Regional Transit Authority) use MARTA as a transfer point.

I don't feel it should be state-funded; it should at least be funded by all of the counties in the Metro area to improve its service.


Be well,

Bryant

[Chris]

Well I disagree, living in NYC (or thereabout). Here, public transportation networks are large, reliable, and varied (train and bus). While I do really really like driving around (as a roadgeek), I do recognize that mass transport does have significant advantages in terms of congestion, quality of life, etc.

Well, New York is not the rule, but rather the exception in transportation.

I think the point you're trying to make is wrong. I think a good public transport network that is well-used can cut down on congestion.

There is no 1-on-1 relation. 1 car mile equals only 0.7 transit passenger mile, plus a significant amount of transit miles cannot be substituted by car. In the Netherlands, approximately 80 - 90% of transit miles are by the no-choice travelers (people who do not own a car, cannot afford one, or have no driver's license). But it may be somewhat lower in New York due to the large subway network, which attracts more drivers than most other systems. But if it is 50%, it means every transit mile substitutes only 0.2 - 0.3 car miles. Hence, it reduces 20 - 30% of road traffic - at best.

There is also a regional variation. Transit usage is very high in Manhattan and other dense portions of the city, but drops significantly outside the city proper. For example, the LIRR has a ridership of 300,000, which translates to 150,000 people due to back-and-forth trips, on Long Island, which has over 2.8 million people (excluding Queens and Brooklyn).  This means only 5% of the population uses LIRR.

If we move the discussion to Los Angeles, we can see a subway costs $ 350 million per mile. To get a comprehensive subway system in greater Los Angeles, this requires a system of several hundred miles, say 200 miles. That costs $ 70 billion dollars in construction costs alone! How are they ever gonna fund that with a farebox recovery ratio of 9% that doesn't even cover operational costs?

The LACMTA has an annual budget of $ 2.8 billion. Only $ 260 million is funded by fares. The rest is local, state and federal funding.

[froggie]

There is also a regional variation. Transit usage is very high in Manhattan and other dense portions of the city, but drops significantly outside the city proper. For example, the LIRR has a ridership of 300,000, which translates to 150,000 people due to back-and-forth trips, on Long Island, which has over 2.8 million people (excluding Queens and Brooklyn).  This means only 5% of the population uses LIRR.

If you're going to produce those type of numbers, you also have to factor how many of those 2.8 million people are headed into NYC (or beyond) to begin with.

[Chris]

Still, you can also use LIRR to get around Nassau and Suffolk County.

[Duke87]

Hasn't Governor Rell been making noise about this for a couple years?

Metro-North is getting ready to roll out some new train cars on the New Haven Line. Nice, mind you, but in the greater scheme that's really just maintenance. Things get old and need to be replaced. People need to stop acting like purchasing new train cars is somehow a "capital improvement". At least they're raising the fares to help pay for it.

Much of Connecticut may be too sparse for public transportation to be practical, but not all of it is. There are trains and buses around in denser areas, and people do use them.

On the other hand, bikeways and greenways, unless stuck in the middle of an urban area, are going to be mostly if not entirely about people riding for recreation and/or exercise, not a means of getting from A to B. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but quit treating it like it's "green transportation". Call it what it is: a park.

[yacoded]

To continue the conversation on Connecticut, I think that Hartford is being overlooked.  Maybe it is because I am a Hartfordite, but it angers me to see that my taxes go to the Shoreline for their transport connection to Manhattan.  I am a advocate of Mass Transit because expansion of highways in Greater Hartford is way too expensive for CDOT.  I hope that the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield Line gets done, because it might help with the parking lot that I-91 has become.  I hope that the project can become a catalyst for a greater interest in Mass Transit in Greater Hartford.  Especially into the Northwestern area of the region (considering only one major road (US-44) will get you in and out of the city.)

[jjakucyk]

I'm a bit disappointed by a lot of the comments I see here.  I'm not surprised though, this IS a road-based forum after all.  But still...

In CT, there is a shift to mass transit focus.  WHich means those projects get priority over highway projects.  That would be okay but CT never had good roads to begin with.  A lot of good highway projects are stalled due to no funding.

But if the roads were already good, there'd be less need for mass transit, and vice versa.  Having deficient road AND transit systems is a bad thing, but developing them both to a high level is more expensive and also makes both systems underutilized. 

I also like being able to go WHERE I want and WHEN I want to do it, not on someone else's schedule. I've must have wasted at least a couple days worth of hours of my life waiting for some stupid bus.

And how much time have you wasted in traffic jams, or looking for parking spaces, or arranging rides while your car is in the shop? 

There is no 1-on-1 relation. 1 car mile equals only 0.7 transit passenger mile

True, because almost by definition driving requires you to go farther, because you're going to parking lot dominated locations that are more spread out.  Going from the same point A to the same point B will be longer in a car by definition, because the transit trip doesn't include the time spent walking to and from the station at each end.  Where there's transit, the development is more dense, so you don't NEED to go as far as if you were driving.

In the Netherlands, approximately 80 - 90% of transit miles are by the no-choice travelers (people who do not own a car, cannot afford one, or have no driver's license)

I find it interesting that you call them "no-choice travelers."  How many of those people are taking transit because they CHOSE to forego the expense of owning a car?  Transit is what gives people choice.  Cars are always going to be one of the options, but if it's the only option, then really you do NOT have a choice in how to get around.  Cars are very expensive, and being required to have one just to live your life is something that many people would opt not to do if they could. 

This means only 5% of the population uses LIRR.

As already mentioned, what of that 5% of the population is heading to Manhattan or other destinations along the LIRR?  Counting the whole population of Long Island against the LIRR's ridership is a bit disingenuous.  I think the numbers are similar for people in the Chicago suburbs who use Metra.  The important number is what percentage of the people going TO DOWNTOWN CHICAGO from the suburbs use Metra.  In other words, what percentage of the people who CAN use it do use it.

How are they ever gonna fund that with a farebox recovery ratio of 9% that doesn't even cover operational costs?...The LACMTA has an annual budget of $ 2.8 billion. Only $ 260 million is funded by fares. The rest is local, state and federal funding.

It's the same for roads though.  Most have NO farebox recovery, it's all from taxes.  Why must transit be held to a different standard?  Roads don't bring nearly as much economic development and increased tax revenue as transit does, mainly because we've saturated our environment with roads so they have little additional value anymore, yet we still don't make them pay for themselves.  Also, gas taxes only pay for highways, and the highway trust fund is still insufficient to pay for all of them.  Basically all local roads are funded from property and income taxes, so there's no user fees going to them.  This is just one example of how the costs of driving are externalized, essentially punishing anyone who DOESN'T drive, because they're still paying for it.  The same goes for free parking, which is subsidized by higher prices for goods and services, which everyone has to pay for, whether they drive or take the bus or walk.  We all pay for these wars in the middle east, additional health costs from pollution, and reduced land values and general quality of life because of noise and fumes, even if we don't drive.  Where's the outrage here?  We give driving this free ride, so to speak, yet get all in a huff when we have to subsidize transit fares, it's a terrible double standard.

There's also a number of comments about areas being too spread out.  That's a valid concern in many places, but it's usually grossly oversimplified.  For example, there's been a lot of debate over getting passenger rail service between Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati reestablished.  Many people say that Ohio is too spread out, the cities sprawl too much, or it doesn't go where I want to go, so it's useless.  The thing is, Ohio has nearly the same overall population density as France, which has a highly developed high speed and moderate speed railroad network.  With the exception of Paris, most of France's other major cities are of similar size to Ohio's.  Yet the momentum behind road building and the status quo is so strong that the project is having difficulty getting off the ground, even though it is much more viable than other passenger railroad plans in this country.

So that's intercity transportation, but intracity (or intra-metro area) transit has the same issue.  Yes, many cities are very sprawling, but there's still a difficult time bringing transit BACK to areas that were originally built around them.  Post-WWII sprawl is one thing, but nearly every urban city has been decimated by the destruction of its street railways and the subsequent highway and surface road expansion programs of the last half-century.  It's true that zoning regulations are a big problem, especially when suburban models are applied to urban neighborhoods, but in the end it's just politics, and with the right tactics can be changed for the better. 

But what else do you suggest we do?  Just keep on with the status quo?  We've seen how much trouble unchecked sprawl causes, especially now with the mortgage crisis.  Gas prices have only been checked by the recession, but they're still going up in the long run (and maybe sooner than we expect), so are more roads and more edge development really the answer?  Current low-density suburbs may not be well-suited to mass transit, but they can be.  Bringing meaningful transit options (i.e. more than just a bus line) will encourage higher density development and more transit use.  Zoning codes will need to be changed, but nothing will happen if we just leave things the way they are.  It's a sort of chicken and the egg issue.  There won't be much demand for higher density development if there's no transit options, but there won't be a demand for transit in low density areas.  A move has to be made on one thing or the other.  Just leaving things the way they are because it's "easier" irresponsible and wasteful.

It may be difficult to imagine remaking the suburbs to be more pedestrian and transit friendly, but it's happened before.  Look at many cities that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before much zoning regulation came about, and you'll see that many neighborhoods went through a series of rebuildings that increased their density. One example here in the Cincinnati area is Norwood.  Criss-crossed by a few railroad lines, it became a fashionable high-class railroad suburb in the late 19th century.  There were large houses on large lots, much like in today's suburbs.  However, due to the flat land and good railroad access, many factories started locating there too.  In an odd twist of fate, the people who worked in Norwood couldn't afford to live there.  In the first few decades of the 20th century, the pressure for more affordable housing led to the large estates being subdivided for smaller single and 2-family houses.  A number of small apartment buildings were built as well.  In some cases the original house remained on a much smaller plat of land, usually divided into apartments, or was demolished to allow more smaller houses to be built.  With a higher population density, streetcar lines were extended into the neighborhood, which allowed even more apartments and subdivisions to happen.  Around Cincinnati in general, many single family houses were replaced with duplexes or 4-unit apartments in the 1920s and 1930s (because of that we have this huge repository of really cool art deco apartment buildings). 

Such "densifying" can happen in our current suburbs, but the areas on the edge just might have to be left to wither.  There's so many empty or underutilized neighborhoods closer to the center of the city that there really isn't much need to keep expanding outwards.  Yes, there are issues with politics, crime, schools, and other things, but when gas prices are steadily over $4 or $5 or even more, we'll see a push of people moving into denser older neighborhoods, and I'll bet many of those issues get resolved very quickly.  At the same time, we'll be wondering why we didn't build more transit sooner, and will question the value of so many massive roads to nowhere that we can't afford to use anymore.

[realjd]

^^^
jjakucyk, you make many valid points. You are assuming however that as the price of gas goes up, the price per mile driven also goes up enough to justify people moving to an urban area. As alternative/hybrid car technology matures and becomes more affordable (including biofules and other synthetic gasolines) and gasoline engines become more efficient, the price per mile will potentially drop more than enough to offset the higher gas prices. Higher gas prices will also work to speed the research along as the technologies become more economically feasible. I see the suburbs of the future being much like the suburbs of today, only with more efficient, cleaner, and safer cars.

And what is wrong with this? My house is on a 1/2 acre at the fringes of the suburbs. I value my privacy and my space. I value the quietness that living in a suburban/rural area provide me. I value the fact that I can go hiking, kayaking, and camping all within a few miles of home, yet grocery stores, restaurants, and shops are also equally close. All of this, and my job is only a 5 minute drive (or a 15 minute bike ride) away. My quality of life is significantly higher here than in the city, and I like it.

That being said, within a city, I think transit is an excellent option. When I do visit a place with a good transportation system, I'll usually leave my car at a park-and-ride just to avoid the traffic and expense of taking my car into town. And I do think that higher gas prices will help spur a resurgence of intercity rail. The airlines will be particularly hard hit, and their alternatives to gasoline are much more limited.

[aswnl]

How are they ever gonna fund that with a farebox recovery ratio of 9% that doesn't even cover operational costs?...The LACMTA has an annual budget of $ 2.8 billion. Only $ 260 million is funded by fares. The rest is local, state and federal funding.

It's the same for roads though.  Most have NO farebox recovery, it's all from taxes.  Why must transit be held to a different standard?  Roads don't bring nearly as much economic development and increased tax revenue as transit does, mainly because we've saturated our environment with roads so they have little additional value anymore, yet we still don't make them pay for themselves.  

Most stupid argument I've ever read. Roads costs you only the money for building and maintaining the infrastructure. Public transport (PT) needs also financing the rolling stoch and personnel - especially hiring people isn't cheap at all. But there's more - during rush-hour you have a peek in need of all three of them, which make public transport as an alternative for car travel very, very expensive. In the Netherlands the road system only gets 10% of yearly budget than the system of PT, although only 10% of travellermiles are by public transport...
The benefits of economic development near roads is in NL far bigger than the benefits of PT. If all the money that has been put in PT in the Netherlands had been put in the road system, we could've been nearly free of our major traffic jams.
Oh and by the way, in the Netherlands the highway system takes up 5 times LESS public space than public transport railsystem, when compared to both their results in produced travelermiles.

[jjakucyk]

Roads costs you only the money for building and maintaining the infrastructure. Public transport (PT) needs also financing the rolling stoch and personnel - especially hiring people isn't cheap at all. But there's more - during rush-hour you have a peek in need of all three of them, which make public transport as an alternative for car travel very, very expensive. In the Netherlands the road system only gets 10% of yearly budget than the system of PT, although only 10% of travellermiles are by public transport...
The benefits of economic development near roads is in NL far bigger than the benefits of PT. If all the money that has been put in PT in the Netherlands had been put in the road system, we could've been nearly free of our major traffic jams.

You're missing my point about how much of the REAL costs of roads are highly externalized.  Yes, initially roads cost money for building and maintaining, but that's a very large amount of money in and of itself, don't be fooled.  Yes, public transportation requires rolling stock and personnel.  With roads, YOU provide the rolling stock (your car) and personnel (yourself).  You, however, don't get to write off the depreciation of your car.  You don't get paid to drive yourself around. 

Also, comparing expenditures using miles traveled is very deceptive, just like the arguments about ridership on the Long Island Railroad. You need to include the number of trips into the equation. A person could take 10 short trips on public transit going to all sorts of different places in the same amount of miles as one drive to the store on a highway. 

Finally, here in the US we've been spending virtually 100% of our transportation budget on roads for the past 60 years, with only a few local exceptions.  Has it solved our traffic problems?  Not at all, in fact they've gotten much worse.  Every time you expand a congested road, it clears out the congestion at first, but then people have an incentive to move farther away because it's more convenient (or less inconvenient than it was before) and suddenly the roads are all choked again.  Repeat ad nauseum. 

[jjakucyk]

You are assuming however that as the price of gas goes up, the price per mile driven also goes up enough to justify people moving to an urban area. As alternative/hybrid car technology matures and becomes more affordable (including biofules and other synthetic gasolines) and gasoline engines become more efficient, the price per mile will potentially drop more than enough to offset the higher gas prices. Higher gas prices will also work to speed the research along as the technologies become more economically feasible. I see the suburbs of the future being much like the suburbs of today, only with more efficient, cleaner, and safer cars.

I think everything you say about alternate technologies will help, but I don't think it will be enough to completely offset the higher costs.  No single magic bullet solution will eliminate our need for coal and oil.  It will take a combination of alternate energy sources, new fuels, better vehicles, more mass transit, better urban planning, and overall just leading less wasteful lifestyles to get us into a better situation.  There will always be people who want to live in the cities and those who want to live in the suburbs or even more rural locations.  Those places will always exist, but I think we're at an inflection point now where we're seeing more development going back into urban places instead of suburban and exurban ones.  Gas prices are one thing, but we've also seen how fragile edge development is with the difficult lending and foreclosure situation now. 

[Riverside Frwy]

Roads costs you only the money for building and maintaining the infrastructure. Public transport (PT) needs also financing the rolling stoch and personnel - especially hiring people isn't cheap at all. But there's more - during rush-hour you have a peek in need of all three of them, which make public transport as an alternative for car travel very, very expensive. In the Netherlands the road system only gets 10% of yearly budget than the system of PT, although only 10% of travellermiles are by public transport...
The benefits of economic development near roads is in NL far bigger than the benefits of PT. If all the money that has been put in PT in the Netherlands had been put in the road system, we could've been nearly free of our major traffic jams.

You're missing my point about how much of the REAL costs of roads are highly externalized.  Yes, initially roads cost money for building and maintaining, but that's a very large amount of money in and of itself, don't be fooled.  Yes, public transportation requires rolling stock and personnel.  With roads, YOU provide the rolling stock (your car) and personnel (yourself).  You, however, don't get to write off the depreciation of your car.  You don't get paid to drive yourself around.  

Also, comparing expenditures using miles traveled is very deceptive, just like the arguments about ridership on the Long Island Railroad. You need to include the number of trips into the equation. A person could take 10 short trips on public transit going to all sorts of different places in the same amount of miles as one drive to the store on a highway.  

Finally, here in the US we've been spending virtually 100% of our transportation budget on roads for the past 60 years, with only a few local exceptions.  Has it solved our traffic problems?  Not at all, in fact they've gotten much worse.  Every time you expand a congested road, it clears out the congestion at first, but then people have an incentive to move farther away because it's more convenient (or less inconvenient than it was before) and suddenly the roads are all choked again.  Repeat ad nauseum.  

Firstly, you forget the transfer times. You say "10 short trips" but if you consider the fact that a bus must stop at almost every bus stop, then you must take into account waiting for the bus or train.I remember taking the LACMTA bus route 120 to get to my grand mother's house, and I once stood for 2 and a half hours(NOT exaggerating). Just to get from Long Beach to Los Angeles, it could take up to 3 or 4 hours. Guess what. In 3 or 4 hours, I could have drove from Long Beach to San Diego and back again in the time it takes to travel 11 short(not even) by public transportation. As I said before, I prefer Mass transit in downtown areas, but other than that it doesn't do anywhere else much justice.

Secondly, I can assure you that I've wasted WAY more time waiting for a bus than looking for a parking spot. Hell, most of time I park in the back anyway as I'm not lazy and I can walk.

Also, considering that to build a decent rail/bus system costs Billions of $$$(espcially subway systems), I don't see how Mass transit is sooo much less expensive than building a road. On a subway system, it already cost hundreds of millions just to build a mile of subway. Let alone a whole system, including stations, and of course the expensive train cars themselves.

Finally, you don't think that I don't like having my taxes paying for some rail system that no one appreciates, constantly putting graffiti, oh and even urinating on? Please.(Hell, even though I prefer to drive, even I appreciate the system)

EDIT: Don't buses use the STREET(that I also drive on) as well? If I don't want to be in a traffic jam in a car, what makes you think I want to be in a traffic jam on a bus?

[jjakucyk]

Buses are a bad example of mass transit, especially the way we do them here in the US.  My point about the number of trips had to do with comparing it to highways per aswnl's comment.  You can have 10 transit trips totaling 20 miles, one going to and from work, one going to the grocery store, one to the doctor's office, one to the movies, one to a restaurant, etc., and have that 20 miles "beaten" by a single day's commute to and from work via highway.  However, you can say that so much more got done in those 20 miles on the train (or whatever) than what got done in the car. 

Ok, you've spent way more time waiting for a bus than looking for a parking spot, but what about being stuck in congestion?  Again, buses suck, and the reason you spent so much time waiting for connections is because you're in a place that's so heavily car-oriented that decent transit has little chance of competing. 

It takes a real commitment to build good transit systems, just as it did to built such an extensive highway system.  Of course, that commitment is money.  Yes, decent rail and bus (like bus rapid transit) systems can cost billions of dollars.  Highways cost billioins too.  Here in Cincinnati the Brent Spence Bridge replacement project and upgrade of the adjoining portion of I-75 is expected to top $3 billion.  Add that to the hundreds of millions more being spent to widen the whole I-75 corridor in Hamilton County, all to bring the service level up from "D" to...wait for it..."D".  So after some $3-4 billion dollars of spending and untold disruption to traffic and adjoining neighborhoods, it only encourages more development on the outskirts, further empties out the city, and results in traffic that's just as bad as it is now.  Of course, when all said and done there will be more cars choking the highway and more ozone, which is a serious pollution issue here.  I'm not the only one who thinks enough is enough.  We have so many roads, we really don't need more.  We need to retrench and maintain what roads we have instead of building more and more in an endless cycle.  We can accommodate further growth with alternative transportation methods to better utilize the areas we have that are already developed.   

People paint up highway bridges and *sigh* signs with graffiti too.  It's a good thing they don't usually go after traffic signals.