AARoads Forum

Reuters via Yahoo!: America's Generation Y not driven to drive (http://news.yahoo.com/americas-generation-y-not-driven-drive-145632280--sector.html)

Wait till they start working and want to actually go someplace.  That'll change.

Generation Y don't work, dawg- we sit at our parents houses and play XBox all day

Speak for yourself - the main thing is that young people these days prefer living in urban environments where they can take transit to work. Especially up here in Mass, that's cheaper and easier than owning a car in the city.

Quotewhere they can take transit to work.

Lol'd first about where Gen Y likes taking public transport and then lol'd about Gen Y having jobs.

Quote from: bulkyorled on July 02, 2012, 07:54:22 AM

Quotewhere they can take transit to work.

Lol'd first about where Gen Y likes taking public transport and then lol'd about Gen Y having jobs.

I live in the city and like taking public transport. I have a full time job.
Many of my friends also live in the city and, guess what, have jobs that they get to via public transit!

My mother, on the other hand, lives in the suburbs with her car and is... unemployed!
The big difference here though is that I'm going to college, she didn't (at least until late in life and not any useful degree).

I notice you have your age hidden though, so I can't make any comment on whether or not you know what you're talking about.

I do like to drive, but I would much prefer to have access to public transit between home and work, but for the city I live in, it's almost non-existent.

QuoteI notice you have your age hidden though, so I can't make any comment on whether or not you know what you're talking about.

I'm 20. Here the motto is "only take public transport if youre broke" and even people would rather walk. It's an LA thing, but be that as it may I've got friends and family all over the country and they all drive and wouldn't take public transport unless their lives depended on it. The only people I heard that take public transport are New Yorkers and people in DC. I suppose you can count people in SF who take BART, covers good. Safe? Sanitary? Hmmm try again
I'd walk before I'd take the bus or whatever in any city other than those two. Some cities pride themselves on their transit, yuck.

Say what you will about the LA transit system, I probably wont deny it. But still  :thumbdown:

That's just me though. No judging coming from me if you or anyone take the transit. If it works for people thats great, that's just one less thing that we need to worry about. I personally would avoid it at all costs.

Complete and utter laziness. Why else would someone choose to walk or bike rather than drive?

Never mind that statistically, much of Generation Y is (at the time of this post):

A) not yet of legal driving age
B) many do not yet have jobs; businesses aren't hiring as many 14-to-17 year-olds as a generation ago for various reasons
C) legal driving age has increased in most states by at least a year since Gen X first took driving tests
D) is burdened with insurance costs, tag/title costs, and cost of fuel have seen a steeper increase in the past 15 years
E) far more electronically connected to each other, rather than actually having to meet up in person
F) this is also likely an urban/suburban phenomenon, not a rural/micropolitan issue which usually has a lack of public transportation
G) able to play Gran Turismo or Grand Theft Auto to tap into their inner hoon/redneck/racer  :-P

So all this will fade quite a bit, since many assumptions about Generation X, and earlier, Baby Boomers were made years and years ago (we're slackers, bad leaders, don't want jobs, draft-dodgers, handout-laden, gimme-gimme-gimme), but also came to pass. 

Sounds like a bunch of "you-kids-get-off-my-lawn" scare tactics (ma and pa will have to shoulder the burden of driving kids around), although I think we will indeed see a slightly larger percentage of folks use public transportation, as it does allow more time to use portable electronic devices, and in some cases, actually be a little bit more informed and/or productive at their jobs (partly because the jobs demand that you check your phone every thirty seconds, or they desire multi-taskers). In the latter case, I can see why people enjoy public transportation to some degree; after all, I have an aircraft take me close to my work site every week, and it sure allows you a little time to catch up on photos, watching a movie, or taking a nap...Either that, or they can play automotive simulators while being carried to their destination via bus or other transit.

Gotta love that stock footage used for first photo, too. 

QuoteD) is burdened with insurance costs, tag/title costs, and cost of fuel have seen a steeper increase in the past 15 years

Hit the nail on the head there.
Adding onto that, its not just "get up off your ass and find a job to pay for it"  :thumbsup: That doesn't cut it for some

I'm 25: does that make me part of Gen Y?

Either way, my take is this: I have a job (actually, it will start in September, but I have it lined up), and I have great interest in not having to drive my own car to/from work every day. I do like driving, especially for medium-distance excursions (100-400 miles). I just moved to San Francisco, and I was very attracted to living here due to density, the neighborhoods, the nightlife and food, and the culture. I like that I don't have to drive around the city!

I'm going to be working at a large, well-known company in Silicon Valley. My company (and several others) realize that a lot of people my age like living in the city, and they've provided shuttles from San Francisco to the office. (They have not realized it enough to actually open up larger offices in San Francisco itself, but that's a different story.) These shuttles are probably 5-10 minutes longer than driving myself, and run every 20-45 minutes or so.  I would gladly take a train or other truly-public transit for this, but sadly that would take 2.5 hours each way!

Many of my friends feel the same way, especially here in San Francisco and in the tech industry. I wouldn't go as far as saying that the entire generation feels this way, though. I know plenty of people my age who are quite happy living outside the city and using their cars daily.

Quote from: formulanone on July 02, 2012, 08:58:14 AM
Never mind that statistically, much of Generation Y is (at the time of this post):
A) not yet of legal driving age
B) many do not yet have jobs; businesses aren't hiring as many 14-to-17 year-olds as a generation ago for various reasons

Also remember Gen-Y covers all people in there early to late-20's as well, not just current teenagers. (Gen-Y started in the early to mid- 80's)

Quote from: citrus on July 02, 2012, 04:39:09 PM
I'm 25: does that make me part of Gen Y?

100% yes

i was born in 1983, so i guess that technically makes me a Gen Y...although i've always associated myself with more of a Gen X personality...i couldn't wait to get my license to start exploring. we always went on road trips as a kid so i guess it rubbed off on me. i've also been working a full time career job since 2007...ONLY 20 YEARS LEFT TIL RETIREMENT!!

I think a lot of this is just what city you're looking at. Everyone I knew at age 16 got their license as soon as they were able to. If you can't drive in central Oklahoma then you have to have someone cart you around. Oklahoma City and its suburbs are not optimized for transit, chances are good that either where you're at or where you want to go won't have a stop nearby. And there is no transit service on Sunday.

They're busy texting and playing video games, spending most of their time indoors...

QuoteSpeak for yourself - the main thing is that young people these days prefer living in urban environments where they can take transit to work. Especially up here in Mass, that's cheaper and easier than owning a car in the city.

Yeah, I work fifty hours a week, go to school full time, and obviously drive. My parents wouldn't let me have a video game console as long as I was living in their house, and now I have no interest in gaming, so good decision on their part, I guess. 

QuoteI think a lot of this is just what city you're looking at. Everyone I knew at age 16 got their license as soon as they were able to. If you can't drive in central Oklahoma then you have to have someone cart you around. Oklahoma City and its suburbs are not optimized for transit, chances are good that either where you're at or where you want to go won't have a stop nearby. And there is no transit service on Sunday.

This is more like the real reason- I lived in a really rural area where it was a massive inconvenience for my parents to take me to school every day, so even if I wouldn't have been chomping at the bit myself to get a license (I was) as soon as possible, they would have forced me to. Same with pretty much every one else I knew.

I just went on a date with a twenty-year old girl who lives in Tucson and goes to school in Flagstaff and still doesn't even know how to drive- she says she's never had a reason or the desire (though her parents now have to drive all the way to Flagstaff to pick her up from school). One of the major reasons I won't be seeing her again is she lives on the opposite side of Tucson from me and I'm not about to drive all the way over there (about an hour at 30 MPH through traffic lights, or about an hour on the freeway) every time I want to see her. If she had the ability to come over here every once in a while or even meet in the middle, I'd reconsider because she was a nice girl.

The other reason would be that I'm not really compatible with the type of person that has no interest in driving, and an associated lack of interest in travel.

I was somewhere in between. I didn't get my license until I was 19 because I didn't need it before then (for college), although I'd had my learner's since 15. When I did start driving regularly, it quickly became something I loved to do.

Quote from: cpzilliacus on July 01, 2012, 11:31:29 PM
Reuters via Yahoo!: America's Generation Y not driven to drive (http://news.yahoo.com/americas-generation-y-not-driven-drive-145632280--sector.html)

There are a lot more requirements to get a license than there used to be.  Here in Florida you can get your permit at 15 and you need to have a permit for over a year before getting your license, and then i think it is a graduated license.  My daughter is 15 and will be 16 in January but she is just now working on getting her permit so she wont be driving with a license until she is almost 17.  I know that a kids grades are tied to getting a  license as well.  If you don't have the grades or drop out you have to wait until you are 18.  Then there is the zero tolerance type laws that if a kid has even a miniscule amount of alcohol BAC under 21 they can loose their license and i believe that any drug arrest is also a reason to take away a license.

  Car ownership can be expensive ( insurance, gas etc) I think with the economic downturn some families just cant afford to add a 16 y/o to an insurance policy let alone buy an additional car.  If there isn't a car available to drive why bother with rushing to get a license.

A lot more hassle to get a drivers license.  When kids get jobs and have to have their own transport the DL is more of a pressing issue and worht the hassle

We've spent half a century building cities for cars more than for people, so it's physically difficult to resist the necessity of vehicle ownership in most places.

But there also some nice urban cores left where one has the option to not have a car.  For many of us 20-somethings, we want to live near where we can walk to bars and restaurants and stores, and hopefully, our jobs.  It also doesn't hurt that this self-selected group of people usually haven't started families yet and don't really care about schools for now.

I think older folks still have the opinions they formed about public transit from like the 70's and 80's, when more of the buses and trains were getting pretty bad.  But many cities have made improvements since then.  In Milwaukee, where I live, MCTS replaced over half their fleet of buses in recent years.   They're quieter, cleaner and better looking.  As a frequent rider, I consider waiting for buses no less inconvenient than dealing with traffic and finding parking.  I'm saving money on gas and not rolling the odometer on my already high-mileage vehicle.

It's not workable for every situation of course.  That is not a reasonable expectation.
It's a trade off.  I wait 10 minutes, maybe to catch a bus that moves slower than normal traffic; another person spends that 10 minutes driving through stoplights and subdivisions.  Many of us younger folks value access to amenities over having a really nice place of our own right now.  And it's perfectly reasonable that owning a car is an unnecessary expense in that situation.

Quote from: triplemultiplex on July 03, 2012, 10:48:05 AM
We've spent half a century building cities for cars more than for people, so it's physically difficult to resist the necessity of vehicle ownership in most places.

But there also some nice urban cores left where one has the option to not have a car.  For many of us 20-somethings, we want to live near where we can walk to bars and restaurants and stores, and hopefully, our jobs.  It also doesn't hurt that this self-selected group of people usually haven't started families yet and don't really care about schools for now.

I think older folks still have the opinions they formed about public transit from like the 70's and 80's, when more of the buses and trains were getting pretty bad.  But many cities have made improvements since then.  In Milwaukee, where I live, MCTS replaced over half their fleet of buses in recent years.   They're quieter, cleaner and better looking.  As a frequent rider, I consider waiting for buses no less inconvenient than dealing with traffic and finding parking.  I'm saving money on gas and not rolling the odometer on my already high-mileage vehicle.

It's not workable for every situation of course.  That is not a reasonable expectation.
It's a trade off.  I wait 10 minutes, maybe to catch a bus that moves slower than normal traffic; another person spends that 10 minutes driving through stoplights and subdivisions.  Many of us younger folks value access to amenities over having a really nice place of our own right now.  And it's perfectly reasonable that owning a car is an unnecessary expense in that situation.

And no worries about getting a DUI on a train!
I would love to take the train or bus to work.  My brother lived in Silver Spring Maryland and worked in DC.  Walked to the metro station and got dropped off right across the street from his office.  That sounded nice, not putting miles on the car.  But i like having the option to drive in when you arent goign right home.  I resent the "intelligent " people telling me I **have** to live in the urban core. If the trend continues there will have to be a change in transit funding

They wanted to have land and live in the country( wife grew up on a farm) so now he drives to work

I tend to agree with Jwolfer about it having gotten harder to learn how to drive.  Even in Kansas, where instructional permits are still issued to 14-year-olds, the regulatory burdens are now much higher than they were in 1992 when I was learning how to drive, and a lot of the infrastructure that was put in place to facilitate it has been dismantled.  New drivers in Kansas are now subject to a logbook requirement (50 hours of supervised driving, signed off by a parent or other responsible adult), and at least in Wichita, can now no longer take driver education through the public schools.  About ten years ago, USD 259--which covers Wichita and some of the surrounding area--decided to continue offering driver education in high schools but not to participate financially in it, which put the whole cost on parents and resulted in year-on-year declines in take-up.  Several years later the high schools stopped offering driver education altogether.

Corco points out that in the very rural part of Idaho where he grew up, he was encouraged to learn how to drive early so that he would not have to depend on his parents for school transportation.  In Kansas, farmers encourage their children to start learning how to drive at age 14 or even earlier so they can help in the fields and take themselves to school (school commuting is and has always been a protected use for restricted driver's licenses in Kansas).  (There is no minimum driving age on private land in Kansas, so children can start learning to drive much earlier as long as they stay clear of the public highway--my father, raised as a city boy for the most part, learned how to drive at age 10 when he was helping his uncle with chores on his farm/sheep ranch in far western Kansas.)  But farming counties in Kansas continue to depopulate, so this is increasingly a minority position.  Kansas' population growth has stayed relatively flat overall (slightly lagging the US as a whole between the 2000 and 2010 Censuses) and the only counties that have experienced significant growth either contain or are adjacent to major urban centers.

Auto insurance is also considerably more expensive since it is one of the ways in which higher healthcare costs are passed on to the driving population as a whole.

Quote from: corco on July 02, 2012, 10:31:22 PMI just went on a date with a twenty-year old girl who lives in Tucson and goes to school in Flagstaff and still doesn't even know how to drive- she says she's never had a reason or the desire (though her parents now have to drive all the way to Flagstaff to pick her up from school). One of the major reasons I won't be seeing her again is she lives on the opposite side of Tucson from me and I'm not about to drive all the way over there (about an hour at 30 MPH through traffic lights, or about an hour on the freeway) every time I want to see her. If she had the ability to come over here every once in a while or even meet in the middle, I'd reconsider because she was a nice girl.

The other reason would be that I'm not really compatible with the type of person that has no interest in driving, and an associated lack of interest in travel.

To me this reads like you are trying to convince yourself you should have nothing more to do with her.  In my experience, it is fairly unusual to make determinations of this kind on the basis of inclination or otherwise for driving, if only because that is something that tends to change within a very short period of time.

*  In six months she might learn how to drive and discover she likes it.  (This is how it happened for me--I didn't actually start driving until I was 17, and did not badger my parents to start learning as soon as I turned 16 and became eligible for a full, unrestricted license.  At first it was just another skill to pick up on the road to adulthood, like touch-typing.  Then I found I liked it!)

*  Her parents may gladly be driving her up to Flagstaff because they don't want to worry about her driving.  (My parents would not allow me to have my car with me my first year in college.  The first semester they allowed me to drive myself up, they insisted that I confine myself to a fifty-mile radius which kept the cultural facilities of Kansas City frustratingly out of reach.)

*  Has she actually said she doesn't like to travel?  Not being driven to learn how to drive and not wanting to travel are not the same thing.  (In 2010 I took an eight-country trip with only two powered transits down highways, in both cases because the parallel rail itineraries were indirect, poorly documented, and awkwardly scheduled.  In 2000 a friend and I spent two weeks in Turkey and relied entirely on intercity coaches and jitneys--an experience which taught me the value of being able to negotiate transportation even across a stiff language barrier.  I do like long driving roadtrips, but have not actually taken one since 2003.  Also, at age 20 she is kind of young anyway--I didn't travel off the North American continent for the first time until I was almost 24.)

I suggest that if she is really a nice girl, and that is really what you want, then you should give yourself a second chance.  Coups de foudre are rare; the true love of your life is just as likely to annoy the hell out of you the first time you meet her.  If nothing else, experience has taught me that it is unhelpful to fixate on relatively unimportant details, as I did once when a girl told me of her deep love for Cajun food and I envisioned myself keeling over dead at 45 (face-first into a plate of dirty rice) from eating étouffée every day.

I have met a surprising number of Gen-Y folks who have little to no interest in driving; but, then, I've also met plenty of middle-aged folks who don't drive either.  I prefer travelling by other means (hitchhiking, train, bus), but it is no longer realistic for me.  I work outside the reach of public transit, most of our in-town trips done at times the buses don't run, and long-distance travel is very expensive for a family of four.  When I lived in the Chicago area, I used public transit and hitchhiked even during the few months I owned a car–just because I enjoyed it more.

Getting a DL was super easy when I was in high school.  I took the public high school's driver's ed course for a few weekends in the summer, and got my learner's permit at age 14.  Then, when I was of age, I traded it in for a real DL.  I've never even taken a road test, just the written one.  I even knew foreign exchange students who did that to make getting a European license easier.  Imagine that!  Learning to drive in rural Kansas–McCook, NE, was our "urban" driving location–going back to Munich or wherever, and just trading it right in for a national DL.

When I met my wife, we lived 500 miles apart, and I did not own a car.  I still went to visit her.  If she had refused to drive up to visit me every other time, I still would have stayed with her.  That sounds like a very lame excuse to get out of a relationship.

I have been known to make up reasons why I don't like a girl that is interested in me, and I very well may be doing that here. I do have a tendency to find flaws in girls who express interest in me, always finding interest myself in the girls I can't have. Maybe I have a crippling paranoia of relationships and don't realize it, or maybe I just haven't found the best possible girl.  At least for me, though, I would date a girl that I had to drive a distance to see constantly, but my standards are much higher with that sort of complication. This girl was cool, but I feel like there has to be a girl as cool as her that's easier to access- it wasn't like it was love at first sight or something.

What she said about travel was that she has been to Australia twice and would love to go back, would want to go to Europe but thinks that's cliche because everybody wants to go to Europe, and wants to live in California (another red flag), and otherwise has no desire to travel. This is a girl that lives in Flagstaff and has never seen the Grand Canyon. That's a problem.

I'd be sympathetic if it were money related, but it sounds like her parents take very, very good care of her (another red flag).

I just...I can't fathom not wanting to drive, and it is a thing with the urban core of my generation, but I don't understand it- gosh, I mean, I remember in high school going out onto rural farm roads and testing the top speeds of our cars and spinning donuts in the middle school parking lot on wintry days at 3 AM, or putting the top down in 20 degree weather and going 70 to see who caved in first. My friends and I in high school went ten ways (two of them girls) on a 1976 Subaru on its last legs we bought for $200 just to drive the shit out of and jump and that was the life- for me the idea of being high school aged and not wanting to drive is just incredible.

Obviously those people come from a different upbringing, and that's great for them, but I couldn't see myself dating somebody who is so fundamentally different from me. I hate to sound so shallow as to say that driving is a major part of my identity, but it really is, and I'd be shocked if I was the only person on here who felt that way.

Wow.  You really looked down into your mind and counted the tassles.  Who knew this forum would become a catalyst to self-discovery and. . . . OK, I'm done.

Some of the points were brought up above but I think it's more complex than just "they want to live in urban areas" - a common thought of certain vocal urbanists that like to proclaim their way is the best way and nothing else.

1.  In recent years it has become more difficult for teenagers to obtain a driver's license - mandatory education (and additional costs), that mandatory driver's education is not always available.

2.  Graduated licenses often require that younger drivers can't have other teenagers in the car, so driving to events (carpooling) is a no-go.

3.  Used car prices have skyrocketed.  That makes obtaining a car harder.

4.  More people lease cars, so having the hand-me-down is no longer available. 

5.  Many schools no longer offer auto tech, and many kids no longer have the desire to learn how to fix their cars.  Newer cars are also more difficult to maintain.

6.  Fewer jobs for high school students = less ability to earn money to own, operate, maintain a car.

7.  Higher fuel costs.

8.  Many schools have disallowed student parking.  I know my high school (granted it's been a few years) has only a very small amount of student parking available, and most of the streets surrounding the school have been turned into a residential permit parking zone.

Put all of these together, and it's no wonder why fewer kids are driving.  I know a number of teenagers that had no desire to drive while in high school, but once they turned 18 they got their license when they obtained a full-time job and didn't have to through through the graduated licensing and driver's ed requirements.  It's not that they don't want to drive...it's that there have been a lot of obstacles placed.

Quote from: sp_redelectric on July 03, 2012, 09:28:22 PM
3.  Used car prices have skyrocketed.  That makes obtaining a car harder.

I've never noticed this.  do you have any figures which support this? 

I've been buying used cars since 2003, and in my anecdotal experience, the prices have remained roughly constant, adjusted for inflation.

Frankly, young people need to learn how to get around without a car before getting a car.  So many younger people would be utterly lost as to how to get to work if their car won't start.

While I've had a learner's permit since age 14, and had less-than-rigorous obstacles to obtaining a DL, and still managed to become a somewhat capable driver–I'm in favor of more obstacels to getting a license.  One reason is what I said earlier: that people need to know how to get around without a car.  But the other, bigger reason is that I did some stupid stuff when I was a high schooler, and I know I'm not alone.  Honestly, with some of the crap I pulled when I was younger, I shouldn't be alive.  I think that, with more extensive driver's education and a DL more difficult to come by, maybe I would have felt more ownership of the priviledge to drive.  Maybe not, but I bet so.

I was able to buy a good running 1990 Dodge Colt with a body/interior in good shape in Seattle for $800 in 2006, but a purusal of Seattle's craigslist today shows no half-decent cars in that price range. This Volvo is about the best http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/cto/3117129197.html, but I'd rather have a fairly immaculate, at this point 8 year newer Colt.

Actually, this Mazda is pretty nice http://seattle.craigslist.org/sno/ctd/3073144749.html... maybe I'm wrong

I bought my current car - an '01 Taurus with 117000 miles - for $2400 last September.  I thought that was a very good price - about a 12 year old car, medium feature quantity, just over 100000 miles, not much over 2000 dollars.

in 2004 or so, such a feature set would've cost me about 1800, but I am willing to adjust for inflation.

maybe the price of absolute beaters has gone up?  I'd be very reluctant to trust a car under $1500 or so.  I'd run it into the ground in a week!

(the Taurus, in 10 months, has accumulated just under 50000 miles - it's sitting on something like 166120 as we speak!)

I see someone other than myself saw that article.

Ok, I am 21, my parents want me to get a license, I'm not really interested in getting one yet. My life isn't at the point where its an issue. I take the 814 home from campus every afternoon, get driven to campus in the morning,  I take NJ Transit trains into the city and to friends' houses.

I have a boaters license (have had since I was 16), which I've put to good use, but currently have no boat to drive. My sister does drive. When I was 6 in summer camp, I made a comment to my counselors that I wouldn't be driving until I was 24, which means 2015. I am kind of hoping and not hoping at the same time it doesn't becoming prophetic 18 years after being stated.

I also didn't go to a normal high school and never had Driver's Ed in 10th grade, my sister did, so I never had any practice. At this point I am setting the line at failing the drivers test about 10 times before passing. Conf.$10 I go more than 10. When I first started driving a boat, I had issues with being very quick on stopping the boat, which while easier on open water, is not so nice on the road. Plus, I am afraid of parallel parking, even after watching the rest of my family do it.

The other reasons I have, I am fat, 276 lbs fat, I have my bike at the repair shop being fixed. Right now exercise by walking and biking its a big importance for me, so its better right now. In the heat, like we're in now, I get a breeze while biking, so its cooler than being in the car.

I will get a license some day. It just won't likely be until I am at least 22 at a minimum. I told my parents I would try after I turned 21 because of NJ's goofy nanny laws, but I really doubt I will try. 

Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 03, 2012, 09:32:11 PM

Quote from: sp_redelectric on July 03, 2012, 09:28:22 PM
3.  Used car prices have skyrocketed.  That makes obtaining a car harder.

I've never noticed this.  do you have any figures which support this? 

I've been buying used cars since 2003, and in my anecdotal experience, the prices have remained roughly constant, adjusted for inflation.

The ill-advised 'Cash for Clunkers™' program of a few years ago removed a lot of good serviceable cars from the used market, which has not yet recovered from that.  Also, cars these days are far more reliable and durable than they were a couple of decades ago, making them more valuable when they do come onto the used market as well.

Mike

I have extensive experience driving cars and boats (I worked at a marina for three summers), and I find driving a boat to be way harder than driving a car- I'd say that somebody who can park a boat with ease definitely has the ability to maneuver a car in heavy traffic.

Stopping a boat quickly is pretty hard- definitely a lot harder than stopping a car quickly. To stop a boat quickly you have to slam into reverse and then steer out of it- stopping a car quickly just involves putting your foot on the brake.

Personally, I find parallel parking to be about on par with maneuvering a boat into a boat slip

Quote from: corco on July 03, 2012, 09:55:49 PM
Actually, this Mazda is pretty nice http://seattle.craigslist.org/sno/ctd/3073144749.html... maybe I'm wrong

Those 626's are notorious for automatic transmission failures. Once on Craigslist I saw at least six of them for sale with bad transmissions. If it's a 5-speed, no such problem, but another thing about today's cars is that fewer manual transmissions are seen; they're almost a luxury in newer cars.

That one looks like a five-speed

Yeah, it is. Depending on the mileage, that is a great deal.

My little car gets good gas mileage, and I always take a mini-road trip to get somewhere. My family gets mad at me when I'm supposedly "wasting gas," but I feel that if I can pay to put gas in at $30 a tank, which lasts 2 weeks, I can afford the $6 in gas to take a drive along the Mississippi River. Generation Y'ers would benefit from taking a drive somewhere on the weekends, and appreciating what is outside the realm of the PS3 or 360.

Quote from: mgk920 on July 03, 2012, 10:55:52 PM

Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 03, 2012, 09:32:11 PM

Quote from: sp_redelectric on July 03, 2012, 09:28:22 PM
3.  Used car prices have skyrocketed.  That makes obtaining a car harder.

I've never noticed this.  do you have any figures which support this? 

I've been buying used cars since 2003, and in my anecdotal experience, the prices have remained roughly constant, adjusted for inflation.

The ill-advised 'Cash for Clunkers™' program of a few years ago removed a lot of good serviceable cars from the used market, which has not yet recovered from that.  Also, cars these days are far more reliable and durable than they were a couple of decades ago, making them more valuable when they do come onto the used market as well.

Mike

The only people "cash for clunkers" was ill-advised for were those auto repair shops that worked the grey market for used car parts. Manufacturers of new cars and new car parts were helped by the program.

Except for the fact that despite the disguise of monthly payments and better MPG, it's still indisputably cheaper to drive an old 20 MPG car than a new 40 MPG car over the long run... Even the cost to replace a head gasket or transmission or both is still going to be less than a brand new car in nearly all cases.

I'm as pro-auto industry as you will ever find and I appreciated the attempt, but that was terrible policy.

Quote from: corco on July 04, 2012, 12:57:42 AM
Except for the fact that despite the disguise of monthly payments and better MPG, it's still indisputably cheaper to drive an old 20 MPG car than a new 40 MPG car over the long run...

That's like saying sticking with a bachelors degree in Geography is better than getting a graduate degree in Geography as well.

If you're making minimum wage, you're better off buying  low MPG clunkers and running them into the ground than buying a brand new car and being stuck with payments- cash for clunkers ran a lot of people into debt- moreso than those who forgoed the program over the same time period.

Yeah, it's better to get a grad degree, but if you can't afford a grad degree it's definitely a terrible idea to run yourself into student loan debt just to get one. Best to work for a while and save some money and get one a few years down the line.

And as somebody with  a bachelor's in Geography that is about to get a master's in Planning, I'm realizing it's going to take a long time to pay off the actual cost of the degree in salary- fortunately I was subsidized by scholarships/assistantships and worked full time to cover the difference, because otherwise it definitely would not be worth it.

Don't forget, part of Cash for Clunkers was environmental policy–it was seen as desirable to lower fuel consumption by taking a lot of 20 MPG cars (most of which probably didn't meet modern emissions standards) off the road all at once.

It is still possible to get great bargains on cars, but you have to be creative and work for it. I have a friend who is one of those bargain hunter guys–you know the type, older guy, always going to auctions of every kind (storage, auto, municipal) and garage sales, consummate salesman, could probably haggle a car salesman into throwing in his suit as part of a deal. Lately he's taken up flipping cars for something fun to do in his retirement. Today he was showing me a rather swanky-looking 1999 BMW he got at auction for $1500. Apparently he details them and manages to sell them elsewhere for a few hundred dollars profit. Of course it helps that he knows what he's doing (he managed to get a Ford Explorer for extremely cheap once because it was listed as not running but on closer inspection simply had bad spark plugs) but if you are really dead set on getting a cheap car it's rather doable.

Quote from: Hot Rod Hootenanny on July 04, 2012, 01:01:04 AM

Quote from: corco on July 04, 2012, 12:57:42 AM
Except for the fact that despite the disguise of monthly payments and better MPG, it's still indisputably cheaper to drive an old 20 MPG car than a new 40 MPG car over the long run...

That's like saying sticking with a bachelors degree in Geography is better than getting a graduate degree in Geography as well.

The Master's is only worth it if you're going to actually need it in your profession.  I used to work in a warehouse with a geography major college graduate.  I'm sure we've all met people who spent a lot of money to get a degree they couldn't actually find work in.  I bet many of them would trade their title back in for the money they spent to get it.

Quote from: Hot Rod Hootenanny on July 04, 2012, 01:01:04 AM

Quote from: corco on July 04, 2012, 12:57:42 AM
Except for the fact that despite the disguise of monthly payments and better MPG, it's still indisputably cheaper to drive an old 20 MPG car than a new 40 MPG car over the long run...

That's like saying sticking with a bachelors degree in Geography is better than getting a graduate degree in Geography as well.

except your degrees expire after several years and you have to get them again.  (or, the way I use my degree, it would expire after one year!)

The cheapest possible way to own a car is to buy one new, paying cash for it upfront (no loan, no interest), and then run it all the way into the ground. Of course, you need to be able to save up enough money to do that.

As it is, I sort of fall into the "not driving" category. I don't use my car for commuting, though I do occasionally have to use it for work and obviously sometimes I use it for pleasure. My lifestyle simply demands I own one. I can't be confined to not being able to easily travel where transit doesn't go, like so many people my age seem to be perfectly willing to do.

Quote from: Duke87 on July 04, 2012, 11:17:33 AMThe cheapest possible way to own a car is to buy one new, paying cash for it upfront (no loan, no interest), and then run it all the way into the ground. Of course, you need to be able to save up enough money to do that.

I don't think that is normally the cheapest way, because one-third of the purchase cost is lost as depreciation in the first year and two-thirds is lost to depreciation after three years.  I don't think there is a unique cheapest ownership path; minimizing ownership cost forces you to arbitrage among fuel cost, depreciation, and repair cost, and the answer will vary according to how long you plan to own the car and how old you would like it to be when you buy it.  (That said, my parents' usual practice since the mid-1970's has been to buy new, paying with cash, and hold until a limiting point of mechanical senescence is reached, usually 13 to 20 years later.)

Corco's observation that a 20 MPG clunker is cheaper to own than a brand-new 40 MPG car is based on the fact that depreciation costs are typically much greater than the difference in fuel cost between 20 and 40 MPG, even at the current high prices for gasoline, for typical mileages.  If you drive 10,000 miles a year, your car gets 20 MPG, and gas costs $3.50 a gallon, you are paying $1750 a year for gasoline.  With 40 MPG, this drops to $875, so the annual savings in fuel consumption is $875.  This is considerably smaller than $5000 depreciation cost in the first year for a $15,000 car, or $10,000 depreciation cost spread over three years for the same car.  The arithmetic becomes even more lopsided in favor of clunkers for cars with relatively small annual mileages and well-documented maintenance and repair histories (such as my eighteen-year-old Saturn which currently gets driven probably less than 1500 miles a year).

Another variation on this basic approach is Click and Clack's recommended minimum ownership cost path--buy a 10-year-old car, keep for one year, then buy another 10-year-old car.  This strategy is based on the assumption that any repairs a 10-year-old car is likely to need (due either to component wear or lack of maintenance) can safely be deferred for a year, at which point the car can be sold for only slightly less than it was bought the previous year, and the repairs become someone else's problem.

Buying new is essentially a pay-more-to-get-more proposition.  The main advantage is that if you choose for reliability, you are not limited to overmaintenance as a strategy for limiting repair costs.  However, you have to work hard to "bank" the extra life so that you can keep the car cosmetically acceptable and running smoothly right up to the final episode of systematic failure.  For example, it is foolish to buy new without the ability to garage the car.

<<< For example, it is foolish to buy new without the ability to garage the car. >>>

Hmmm ... I bought new 10 years ago, and don't have a garage or car port at my house.  Modern bodies and paint technology holds up just fine when the car is kept outdoors.  No rust or deterioration at all.

For that matter, the previous 2 used cars I bought before that, 1994 and 1990, never had any body or paint problems either.  I had the 1990 car until 1998, and the 1994 car until 2002.

Beltway--if that has been your experience, I would say you have been fortunate in terms of climate.  I have seen many older cars with faded seats, cracked dashboards, oxidized paint, peeling clearcoat, etc.--all of which are at least partially a result of outdoor sun exposure.  My family had a 1986 Nissan Maxima (October 2005 manufacture date, purchased in autumn 2005) for 22 years and it was garage-kept for only the first ten years; by the end of the 22nd year it had serious problems with paint oxidization and peeling clearcoat.  My current ride has leather seats and after about three years of steady sun exposure there is bad wrinkling on the tops of the back seats, which are in direct sunlight.

I would agree that rust formation on underbody components, wheel arches, etc. has become much rarer with the widespread use of electrophoretic deposition, robotic welding, and better quality control generally.

Paint on new cars is different from paint on older cars. So are the bodies themselves. I have some scratches on my back fender but I've just let it stay that way rather than pay to get it touched up since the fender is made of plastic and can't rust.

As for the new versus used debate, perhaps it depends on where you shop but my father and I looked around when I was looking to get my car and found that your average used car at one of the local dealers (3 or 4 years old, having just come off a lease) was being sold on average at maybe a 25% discount over the new price, with about 25% of the life of the car (and the best 25% of the life of the car, at that) used up. So we decided there was no point in getting anything used. Finding an old clunker may have been cheaper but that option was never considered, since neither of us wanted to deal with the reliability issues of buying a clunker or the uncertainty of you don't know what any of the previous owners did to it and what condition is it really in. I in general don't like buying anything used if I can avoid it, for this reason.

22 years old is a lot longer than 10 years old, and 1986 manufacture is a lot older than 2003 manufacture.

I could have a garage built on my property, but my experience with cars since 1990 has been that I couldn't justify spending $15,000 to $20,000 on a garage only on the basis of protecting the body of my car.

Now if someone lives near enough to the coast to be subject to salt spray, that is a whole 'nother matter...

My family has been shuffling around a 1997 Ford Escort since new- first my aunt's, then my grandma's, then mine, now my parents', and it's probably spent a total of two months in a garage.

We wash it regularly and wax it twice a year and it still looks like new.

It has spent most of its life in Idaho, about half in Boise and half in McCall- it has lived in Arizona for over a year now, but it's mostly been subjected to Idaho weather. Idaho doesn't use salt on their roadways in the winter, and I suspect that has a lot to do with the condition of the car, despite having spent a good number of years outside in fairly brutal winter conditions.

My wife and I share a car, because having a 2nd car is an expense we don't want to take on right now, particularly when my wife's employment is currently part-time retail hell.

We chose our current residence in large part based on convenient transportation options. We're no more than a 10-15 minute bus ride from my job or from hers, on a bus that comes by every half-hour (plus another every hour). I still drive most days, but 1-2 times a week I take the bus in so my wife has the car for excursions, weird work shifts, etc. It doesn't hurt that my employer has a car I can use for longer excursions.

Even then, using the car is not necessarily an automatic option. If you want to do a Chicago excursion, using the car is a real pain in the neck. Much more convenient to catch the train or the bus in, and not deal with the drive or parking hassles. Milwaukee is more convenient, but for Brewers games and such, the bus is often more convenient.

I'm pretty disappointed that the "high-speed" train never made it to Madison. It was one of those situations where the money was spent anyway, so it was foolish to not take it and provide another transit option to Milwaukee (forestalling the inevitable need to widen I-94 for 20-30 years), and to Chicago.

I'm as much of a fan of driving as anyone, but I'm rather enjoying the fact that I don't HAVE to spend 1 1/2-2 hours a day behind the wheel commuting right now (2 months ago, I moved, cutting my commute from 45 miles to 2). The idea of commuting long hours to afford a home in a cul-de-sac is getting pretty tired.

Yeah, there's nothing like taking a nap during a commute, only waking up at the end of the bus/train line to transfer.  I used to do that in the Chicago area:  I'd take the bus from Wheaton to Forest Park during the late afternoon once a week.  I'd pop in my headphones, get a CD going, and fall asleep until my transfer at Forest Park (to River Forest).  You can't do that in a car!

Quote from: kphoger on July 04, 2012, 06:26:49 PM
Yeah, there's nothing like taking a nap during a commute, only waking up at the end of the bus/train line to transfer.  I used to do that in the Chicago area:  I'd take the bus from Wheaton to Forest Park during the late afternoon once a week.  I'd pop in my headphones, get a CD going, and fall asleep until my transfer at Forest Park (to River Forest).  You can't do that in a car!

Your ride may be safe, but many transit systems recommend against that, for security reasons.

Quote from: Beltway on July 04, 2012, 09:33:52 PM

Quote from: kphoger on July 04, 2012, 06:26:49 PM
Yeah, there's nothing like taking a nap during a commute, only waking up at the end of the bus/train line to transfer.  I used to do that in the Chicago area:  I'd take the bus from Wheaton to Forest Park during the late afternoon once a week.  I'd pop in my headphones, get a CD going, and fall asleep until my transfer at Forest Park (to River Forest).  You can't do that in a car!

Your ride may be safe, but many transit systems recommend against that, for security reasons.

Well, yeah, I kept all belongings in direct contact with me, usually all in a bag which I looped around my leg.  I did enjoy not using a car whenever possible, even though it's not very feasible for me these days.  I was born in 1981; am I Gen-X or Gen-Y?

I take transit, and I was born and raised in Los Angeles(More specifically Long Beach). I'm 18.

I save myself hundreds of dollars a month compared to my friends that have cars. Using the Commuter Train, it costs half as much to get to LA from Rialto and back than by car. This is only counting gas, let alone car repairs, insurance, and car payments.

Trying getting around LA at rush hour via car. I can say with confidence that it's much easier to get around via Los Angeles Metro Rail, and even more so with the expanding rail system.

Cars begin to easily break down when every living individual soul as their own car.  Buses and trains can move much more people efficiently in 10 times less space. I invite you to look I-10 between El Monte and Downtown LA at Rush Hour. Buses in the busway are flying past the backed up cars at 50mph. Trains in the median are flying at 90mph. Cars: 15 mph and below.

Frankly, cars actually make people more Lazy. Walking 2-3 miles from a metro station is easy for me. It seems like the average car user won't switch to rail unless their destination within 100ft of the train station.

Try going between two places that aren't served by any mass transit, which is to say.... a lot of places. Mass transit works if you happen to live along a route served by it and that bus/train happens to serve the location you work near. For the vast majority of people, that's simply not the case. As for "savings", for many, mass transit is actually an added cost since one still has to maintain a car for non-commuting uses.

Plus the weather in the rest of the country isn't like southern California, it rains and....GASP..... temps goes below freezing and it even snows. Try walking 2-3 miles with temperatures in the teens or with sleet sometime..... with dress shoes and a full suit and tie like most grown up jobs require. You'll see why most people aren't fond of the idea of going much further between a train station and their place of work.

Count me in. Several months ago, I made the decision to stop driving. And I was a little apprehensive. But Salt Lake really has a great transit system, especially when it comes to light rail. (The bus system is alright, but night and weekend service has really taken a hit in the last few years due to the everlasting recession.) I didn't have much to lose, so I took the plunge.

It's been satisfying, to be honest. The financial savings are the best part; I spend fifty percent less on gasoline. I can do whatever I want when I'm on the bus or light rail, like read. And when I'm going to a Real Salt Lake or Jazz game, I can park at a light rail station and use my monthly pass to complete my journey.

If I could get rid of all the cars that we have and totally switch to using transit, I would. (I still love driving, but it's interesting how much it's lost its luster since I got my license all those years back.) But in a city as spread out as Salt Lake, there are places one needs to be that just aren't served by transit. Nevertheless, it's not at all impractical for a family to get rid of one of two or three cars by simply having someone get a bus pass.

Quote from: Duke87 on July 04, 2012, 11:17:33 AM
The cheapest possible way to own a car is to buy one new, paying cash for it upfront (no loan, no interest), and then run it all the way into the ground. Of course, you need to be able to save up enough money to do that.

I disagree.  I think that the first 100000 miles are overpriced.  then, given an expectation that I can get another 100000-150000, I will run it into the ground.

basically, I am buying a car with 50% of its life left, at 15% of its original price. 

I've never tried the "use the beater for a year, then get rid of it" idea, because then I am subjecting myself to the risk of new, unknown mechanical problems.  with my current car, after about 10 months and 50000 miles, I know quite well what has been replaced, what is on its way out, and what does not look like it needs replacement any time soon.  only once have I run into a surprise (a leaky transmission pan gasket) that required "immediately, if not sooner" attention.  with a different old car, I would need a month or two of adjustment to get that confidence, and I do not believe that to be a good investment.

my car's cost me about $3500 in maintenance - so add that to the $2400 sale price, and get $5900.  49000 miles at 25 miles per gallon is almost exactly 2000 gallons.  $4 each is $8000.

that's $13900 for 49000 miles, which is 28 cents per mile.  throw in registration, insurance, etc, and we're still looking at significantly better than the IRS rate of 55.5 cents per mile, even with the unrealistic assumption that the car is completely worthless in resale, which is not the case.  I'm sure I could get at least 2000 back.

oh yeah I write off most of those 49000 miles since I drive for business, so that is one hell of a savings too.

Quote from: Riverside Frwy on July 04, 2012, 10:58:25 PMFrankly, cars actually make people more lazy. Walking 2-3 miles from a metro station is easy for me. It seems like the average car user won't switch to rail unless their destination within 100ft of the train station.

Really?  Do you mean that you literally walk 30 to 45 minutes on one end or the other of your transit connection?

Transit might work in dense towns or in downtown areas of big cities, but it will never work in towns like Kansas City or Tulsa or OKC.  They're too sprawled out.  There's no place to build train tracks, and they would have to buy several times as many buses as they have now.

Quote from: NJRoadfan on July 05, 2012, 12:30:51 AM
Try going between two places that aren't served by any mass transit, which is to say.... a lot of places. Mass transit works if you happen to live along a route served by it and that bus/train happens to serve the location you work near. For the vast majority of people, that's simply not the case. As for "savings", for many, mass transit is actually an added cost since one still has to maintain a car for non-commuting uses.

Plus the weather in the rest of the country isn't like southern California, it rains and....GASP..... temps goes below freezing and it even snows. Try walking 2-3 miles with temperatures in the teens or with sleet sometime..... with dress shoes and a full suit and tie like most grown up jobs require. You'll see why most people aren't fond of the idea of going much further between a train station and their place of work.

People often speak as if your own car and public transit are the only two options for getting around.  When I lived in the outer Chicago suburbs, where public transit exists but is quite spotty and runs daytime only, I used a combination of walking, cycling, rollerblades, bus, train, hichhiking, and asking friends for rides; for a time, I shared a ride to and from work.  Between all those modes of transportation, I don't recall ever being completely stranded.  Let me tell you, it gets cold and wet in Chicago; wear boots and put your dress shoes in a backpack.  Is it raining when you need to ride your bicycle to work?  Pack a change of clothes and leave five minutes early.  When nearly every friend and family member you know owns a car, there's no excuse for not having a ride somewhere in a pinch.

I've walked as much as three to four miles as part of a one-way daily commute, come rain or shine.  Honestly, I was in much better health condition back then, and I suppose that had something to do with it.  If I really needed to, I could find a way to work without a car, even though the nearest public transit is a good two miles or more from the office.  If I said I couldn't, I would be lying.

Quote from: bugo on July 05, 2012, 01:15:05 PM
Transit might work in dense towns or in downtown areas of big cities, but it will never work in towns like Kansas City or Tulsa or OKC.  They're too sprawled out.  There's no place to build train tracks, and they would have to buy several times as many buses as they have now.

Wichita and Chicago both have better public transportation than Kansas City.  The former is smaller than Kansas City, and the latter is bigger.  Wichita has a much different route layout than Chicago, i.e. spoke and hub.  There's more at play than just the number of buses and rail lines.

Quote from: Riverside Frwy on July 04, 2012, 10:58:25 PM
Frankly, cars actually make people more Lazy. Walking 2-3 miles from a metro station is easy for me. It seems like the average car user won't switch to rail unless their destination within 100ft of the train station.

Having to walk that amount is absurd!  When my family vacationed in DC, Mom nearly got heat stroke from the 1 mile walk from the Lincoln Memorial to the nearest metro station; I didn't fare too well either.

Quote from: deanej on July 05, 2012, 02:10:25 PM

Quote from: Riverside Frwy on July 04, 2012, 10:58:25 PM
Frankly, cars actually make people more Lazy. Walking 2-3 miles from a metro station is easy for me. It seems like the average car user won't switch to rail unless their destination within 100ft of the train station.

Having to walk that amount is absurd!  When my family vacationed in DC, Mom nearly got heat stroke from the 1 mile walk from the Lincoln Memorial to the nearest metro station; I didn't fare too well either.

How is that absurd? I walk 1.5 miles every day to and from work, and it gets to 105-110 in the summer here. I've yet to suffer heat stroke from it. Yeah, I could drive to work, but I save money on parking and get some exercise.

Quote from: algorerhythms on July 05, 2012, 02:14:47 PMHow is that absurd? I walk 1.5 miles every day to and from work, and it gets to 105-110 in the summer here. I've yet to suffer heat stroke from it. Yeah, I could drive to work, but I save money on parking and get some exercise.

It is not absurd if you are acclimatized.  In Wichita we have been having a run of 100° days and I have been outside walking for at least 30 minutes in the evening every day, including on days when it has been over 100° when I stepped out.  But:  (1) I am used to it, (2) I am in reasonably good physical condition (BMI fluctuating between 20 and 22, fairly regular resistance workouts at the gym), (3) I don't try it when carrying heavy loads, and (4) I have a developed cooling-down regime which involves drinking ice water and squeegeeing sweat off my back.  Walking in this kind of weather would be challenging for the physically unfit, and even people in good health have to ease into routines involving this kind of heat stress.

Yeah, Mom and I both have small comfort ranges (below 70, it's too cold, and above 74, it's too hot; it was 90 that day in DC) and I'm not physically fit.  Plus it takes a long time to walk that far; who has that kind of time these days?  The 19th century is long gone; if it takes more than a couple minutes to move a mile, you're going too slow.

Quote from: J N Winkler on July 05, 2012, 02:28:42 PMsqueegeeing sweat off my back

doesn't that negate the benefits of evaporative cooling?

Quote from: J N Winkler on July 05, 2012, 12:39:28 PMReally?  Do you mean that you literally walk 30 to 45 minutes on one end or the other of your transit connection?

I've done that before - but out of boredom/exercise/nice weather most of the time. Otherwise I've typically carried on on transit, cycled or taken a bus.

Certainly I personally wouldn't bother with transit if I could walk it in 30 minutes (unless running late). I think the last short-distance transit journey I made was Bond Street to Covent Garden - it was very wet and my parent's whom I was meeting didn't understand that I was in a pub with some friends and that it might be better if they, having finished what they were doing, travelled nearer to me rather than giving me about two minutes to drink my beer to meet them at the time they were suggesting as they were travelling away from where I was (IIRC they were at Trafalgar Square). They could have got to me quicker than they could have got to Covent Garden.

Of course, there's no stifling heat to deal with here! (though I did walk from Lords to Hyde Park on a hot day in May).

if you have cash you can find a decent used car.  If you are financing and dont have good credit you end up paying 15000 for a 10 year old car at the "we finance anyone" dealerships( eg JD Byrider).  I was looking at a 2002 Hyundai Sonata for 15000.  I just had to get a new car this year and i don't have good credit and the payments were 300-400 a month not too much less than a new car( Ford Focus type) and if I were going to pay that much a month Id rather have a new car. 

I did find a cash deal at another dealership.  3500 for a 2002 Hyundai Elantra GT.  Thankfully my dad was able to loan me the cash upfront

that is an insane dealer markup.  well, they can get away with it because people still buy from them.  capitalism in action!

I'll open up my own dealership and sell my Taurus for 10000 when I am done with it  :-D

The recent reliability issues, and the ongoing weekend disruptions to service, on the DC Metrorail system led the Washington Post's Dr. Gridlock to ask why people who continue to grouse about the system's weekend unreliability continue to use it on weekends. I found some of the comments from 20-somethings to be amusing. Several of them said things like, "We have no option. We moved to the city so we could take the subway instead of driving." It seems to me they DID indeed have an option and they chose the wrong one–opting to go without a car because you want to use transit is indeed an "option." That's not to say they shouldn't be annoyed about the Metrorail's unreliability, of course, but the sanctimonious tone some of these people take irks me.

I think in most cities (outside of New York) it's foolish to put all your eggs in one basket as to how you'll get around. I prefer to drive, but I'm glad there's a bus stop half a mile from home on a line that connects to the Metrorail. A couple of times when I had to leave one of the cars at the mechanic due to a delay in getting parts I was glad I was able to take the subway and bus to get home (and back to work the next day).

I think it's also important to recognize the difference between the New York Subway and other cities' systems. The New York Subway is a way to get around the city. It's not unusual for people to take the subway to go shopping, for example–sort of like taking the Disney World Monorail to go to dinner at one of the other hotels. New York is unique in North America in that respect. In every other North American city with a subway system, it's first and foremost a way to COMMUTE, and that's a fundamentally different prospect from "getting around."

What it really boils down to for me is that I don't give a rat's arse if someone wants to live in the city on a subway line and not own a car, but I take offense when those people try to tell me I'm living the wrong way because I live in the suburbs and my wife and I own three cars. I spent a month living right across the street from my office one year (a month-long business trip) and I hated it. I felt like I never left the office. I don't like apartment living and I have no desire to live in the District of Columbia due to high taxes, corrupt single-party government, and various other issues. But if someone else doesn't mind those things, it's no skin off my nose.

I walk a mile a day to and from the bus stop to downtown, half a mile each way.  I walk close to a mile to and from the Wendy's I like to eat at downtown.  I like hot weather, even 100 degrees high as today, weighing about 160 lbs helps both ways (staying thin and not minding hot weather).

Heat itself doesn't bother me, but combined with humidity...

I was outside in 100+ degree heat in Kansas, Utah, Arizona, etc. over the past couple weeks and I wasn't particularly bothered by it. But now I'm dealing with 90 degree heat in Florida and holy hell I just want to stay inside in the AC. Same goes when it gets this hot in New York.

My daily commute involves what I'd estimate to be maybe about 3/4 of a mile walk each way (~15 minutes). And of course I walk around more for other purposes. Keeps your legs in shape even if you never go to the gym, at least. :P

<<< What it really boils down to for me is that I don't give a rat's arse if someone wants to live in the city on a subway line and not own a car, but I take offense when those people try to tell me I'm living the wrong way because I live in the suburbs and my wife and I own three cars. >>>

You have the right to own as many cars as you want! 

Regardless of what the urban planning tyrants think, who want everyone to live in hives and ride mass transit.  [redacted]

[Let's not start making baseless accusations against a general group of people and what they would like to do to the Constitution. That way lies political madness. -S.]

Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 05, 2012, 02:38:27 PM

Quote from: J N Winkler on July 05, 2012, 02:28:42 PMsqueegeeing sweat off my back

doesn't that negate the benefits of evaporative cooling?

It can--the key variable is whether the squeegeeing increases the surface area available for evaporation.  I only do it when I have come back into the A/C and within easy reach of ice water, and the real purpose is to get rid of excess sweat which would otherwise shift fabric dyes in my shirt.  (I have ruined several shirts this way.)

Quote from: kphoger on July 05, 2012, 01:45:09 PM
People often speak as if your own car and public transit are the only two options for getting around.  When I lived in the outer Chicago suburbs, where public transit exists but is quite spotty and runs daytime only, I used a combination of walking, cycling, rollerblades, bus, train, hichhiking, and asking friends for rides; for a time, I shared a ride to and from work.  Between all those modes of transportation, I don't recall ever being completely stranded.

Some of those just aren't an option for a lot of people. I would wager the vast majority of the populace wouldn't consider hitchhiking a valid form of transport (it is illegal in some jurisdictions, most would say it's not safe, and you're at the mercy of someone driving by thinking you are safe-looking enough to consider stopping). Asking friends for rides is doable occasionally but many people want to use this option sparingly lest they become a nuisance to their friend (putting strain on the friendship). Of course, this assumes they can get a ride at all–I go to work at 1am and until about six months ago there were no other employees on my shift that lived in my part of the city, so carpooling was pretty much impossible. (I now live with my girlfriend who works the same shift as I do, so we take turns driving.) The rest of the solutions are probably acceptable to many, but most people simply would not want to, say, rollerblade in icy weather, or cycle in 100°+ heat. Oh, you can do it sure, but to most people walking around outside in the heat/cold for two hours isn't worth the $5 in gas you'd save by not driving (not to mention the old adage 'time is money'...you could get to and from work in much less time and be able to use the time you would spend walking on something more pleasurable).

My personal situation prevents anything but driving...my workplace lies at the foot of an I-35 bridge. There is no feasible way to get to work without using this bridge–routing around it would involve a 20 mile detour. So nothing pedestrian-oriented is going to get me there. I can't take transit because, even if it ran nearby both here and my workplace–which is outside city limits so it's doubtful on being able to ride it clear into work–as mentioned, I go into work at 1am, so no transit is going to be available at that time.

That's one of the great equity issues in transit- we assume that transit can be useful for poor people, but a lot of people in service sector and other lower income jobs are working 6-2/2-10/10-6, not nine to five, but most bus systems nationwide are catered to the nine to five schedule.

When I first moved to Tucson, I lived 11 miles from the hotel I work overnights at now. About a month after I moved here, my car got stolen. At the time, I was a bellman, so I made about $70 a shift. Since I'd just moved there and didn't have any social structure yet, my only option to get to work and back was to use a taxi at $65 roundtrip. If my grandmother hadn't stopped driving and kept her car anyway and then been kind enough to let me have it, and if my parents wouldn't have lent me the money to fly back to Idaho to get it on my next day off, I would have been totally screwed.

There have been credible arguments made that it would actually be cheaper to buy all poor people a used car than to continue running bus systems, but that will obviously never happen. Even as a fairly staunch social liberal, I don't think I could ever be ideologically okay with just giving away cars to people.

I guess the argument is that bus systems shouldn't just exist to ferry around low income people, but that is a huge part of their market share. That's a big issue with the light rail movement- buses are significantly more inexpensive and efficient to run, but have the "poor person" stigma, so people with tax dollars on wealthy neighborhoods advocate for rail, and then these systems end up bypassing poor neighborhoods, preventing them from being effective to the people who need them most.

Corco, bingo. Perhaps I am being cynical, but why it seem like the transit system only runs when the welfare office is open? 6a-6p transit simply does not work well for most people.

My city, Fort Collins, is building a $90 million BRT system with "free federal money" right now. Look at the system (http://fcgov.com/transfort); the routes are mostly hourly and the system shuts down at 7pm and all day on Sunday. The $90 million would have been a heck of a lot more useful expanding the existing fixed route system, instead of pouring needless concrete.

Your city, Tucson, is building a $220 million mixed-lane streetcar, that is slower than a bus in the same traffic. How many buses could you purchase and operate for the same amount of money? In a smaller city like Tucson, that may mean the difference between a bus every 30 minutes and a bus every 10-15 minutes.

Unfortunately, due to our federal funding system the money can't be used in ways that actually help the poor (and everyone else), they must be used a way that the Senators and Congressman from Alabama and New York like.  My thoughts in more detail on this are here (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=6893.msg154920#msg154920).

In contrast, look to Canada. They don't have federal funding, yet service in any city over 100,000 is at least 5a-Midnight, and in some cases it may be 24/7. How many bus routes near you run every 3 minutes at 3pm, let alone 3am! (http://www.ttc.ca/Schedule/schedule.jsp?Route=320N&Stop=n.b._on_YONGE_at_CARLTON)

For sure- the ugliest example in my mind is the Seattle light rail. That was built at huge expense and is basically a toy for rich people to get to the sports stadiums and the airports.

I remember when I lived there jumping on Metro 194 at Spokane St/Busway and riding an express bus full of TSA workers and other service-type folk that got straight on I-5 and went to the airport.

That route (and all express routes from the downtown area to the airport) were discontinued once light rail was built, and now the line detours way out of the direct path to the decidedly wealthier Mt Baker and Rainier Valley, forgoing the more direct path along the west with more and poorer population in South Park and White Center.

There's a couple reasons to do that
1) Gateway effect- you don't want people flying into Seattle for the first time and dumped onto a train that's going through the ghetto, so it is good for tourism.
2) Access to downtown/stadia is also good for tourism/recreational activities.
3) Wealthier congressional districts have more money and more lobbying power to get stops.


and those first two are definitely valid reasons, but definitely not at the expense of facilitating the flow of commuters, which the rail has definitely done.

Quote from: corco on July 06, 2012, 12:03:12 AM
That's one of the great equity issues in transit- we assume that transit can be useful for poor people, but a lot of people in service sector and other lower income jobs are working 6-2/2-10/10-6, not nine to five, but most bus systems nationwide are catered to the nine to five schedule.

....

This is one of the reasons buses are not popular amongst large segments of the white-collar workers, at least not here in the DC area. Consider the number of attorneys downtown, for example, who can't really know when they'll leave on a given night. Many of the bus lines seem to run once an hour, and I think a lot of people quite understandably don't consider an option viable when it might require them to sit and wait for an hour if they miss the bus (especially when you consider that many riders no longer trust the subway's ability to be on time in getting them to the bus-transfer point).

Quote from: 1995hoo on July 06, 2012, 09:08:24 AM

Quote from: corco on July 06, 2012, 12:03:12 AM
That's one of the great equity issues in transit- we assume that transit can be useful for poor people, but a lot of people in service sector and other lower income jobs are working 6-2/2-10/10-6, not nine to five, but most bus systems nationwide are catered to the nine to five schedule.

....

This is one of the reasons buses are not popular amongst large segments of the white-collar workers, at least not here in the DC area. Consider the number of attorneys downtown, for example, who can't really know when they'll leave on a given night. Many of the bus lines seem to run once an hour, and I think a lot of people quite understandably don't consider an option viable when it might require them to sit and wait for an hour if they miss the bus (especially when you consider that many riders no longer trust the subway's ability to be on time in getting them to the bus-transfer point).

Similar could be said with respect to SEPTA serving Greater Philadelphia... especially the Regional Rail system.  The schedules for the rail system still represents a 1954-era mindset that everybody comes and leaves their workplace at the same time.

Quote from: corco on July 06, 2012, 12:03:12 AM
There have been credible arguments made that it would actually be cheaper to buy all poor people a used car than to continue running bus systems, but that will obviously never happen. Even as a fairly staunch social liberal, I don't think I could ever be ideologically okay with just giving away cars to people.

I think it's one of those things that sounds great in theory, but would have plenty of loopholes and pitfalls.

Pros:
- Money spent on fuel, repairs, maintenance helps stimulate the economy.
- In turn, related service industries (auto parts, for example) might have more traffic.
- Money spent on tagging, titling, and insuring a car doesn't hurt either (who's paying for that).

Cons:
- If they can't afford a car, then expensive repairs mean a poor family is working to feed a car.
- If vehicles were distributed randomly, repair costs would be a game of roulette.
- If the owners are poor, the cars aren't likely to be kept in any better shape of fitness and safety.
- What if it doesn't pass local safety laws? These vary from state to state.
- And if the cars are unsafe or irreparable, what happens next? Just give away another car?

From the perspective of my industry, I would approve of the measure...but in the greater-good reality, I think it's a terrible idea, unless a private industry wants to jump aboard with the idea for PR and test the waters.

As for "Cash For Clunkers", I don't think it really took that many perfectly-good cars off the road (yes, there were isolated cases (http://www.autoblog.com/2009/09/24/shed-a-tear-for-clunkers-that-deserved-better/) of oddball exotics and generally well-valued performance cars cubed), but it took far more junk that cost more to repair-than-entirely-replace off the road. But exporting those cars to somewhere that has little to no automotive infrastructure might have been an interesting trade proposition (parts replacements, fulfillment, and distribution would be an export that wouldn't hurt our books).

The idea that people of means won't ride a bus isn't entirely true. Sure, there are some people that would die before they step foot on a bus, but on the other hand people will ride the bus, if it is frequent, reasonably time competitive, and runs where they are going. In Toronto, 60% of riders on the subway transferred from a bus. Go to the TTC's website and just pick schedules at random; notice how not many routes drop below a 10-15 minute headway during the weekday. Another key component of Toronto is how the buses pull inside the fare-paid area to drop off customers inside a weather enclosed station, where all they have to do to take the subway is walk a few feet to the nearest escalator down to the rail platform.

Denver doesn't have very frequent buses, but it makes the most of what it has through the use of timed transfers. 40% of rail passengers transferred from a bus. Typically, the buses would all arrive at the same time, then the train would stop, then the buses would depart and this would be repeated again in 30 minutes. After 9pm, despite the light rail only running a 30 minute headway, the trains are timed so that the D and E trains would arrive at the same time at I-25/Broadway, in order to enable a cross-platform transfer.

Seattle seemed to unnecessarily gold-plate their light rail for some reason. Tracks aren't just regular steel on regular ties on regular ballast, but steel on concrete slabs. The route is gerrymandered through wealthy neighborhoods, and includes a cost-increasing tunnel. Trains are high-end models from Japan.

Denver took the cheap route, but made up for it with a larger service area. First, the starter line ran from I-25/Broadway (a major bus/rail transfer point), through Downtown, and terminated in Five Points, which wasn't the nicest of neighborhoods back then. Not only does the line service wealthy suburban-downtown commuters, it also ran to the poorer neighborhoods as well.

After the initial line, extensions occurred where they could be installed for the least cost; parallel to the rail tracks along US 85/Santa Fe Drive, and down I-25 as part of the TREX expansion. Trains aren't needlessly high-end, they are proven high-floor models built in Sacramento, from Siemens. The biggest downside to staying in rail and highway corridors is the lack of weekend destinations along the route, which means that the trains run fairly empty during the weekends.

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 05, 2012, 11:26:06 PM

Quote from: kphoger on July 05, 2012, 01:45:09 PM
People often speak as if your own car and public transit are the only two options for getting around.  When I lived in the outer Chicago suburbs, where public transit exists but is quite spotty and runs daytime only, I used a combination of walking, cycling, rollerblades, bus, train, hichhiking, and asking friends for rides; for a time, I shared a ride to and from work.  Between all those modes of transportation, I don't recall ever being completely stranded.

Some of those just aren't an option for a lot of people. I would wager the vast majority of the populace wouldn't consider hitchhiking a valid form of transport (it is illegal in some jurisdictions, most would say it's not safe, and you're at the mercy of someone driving by thinking you are safe-looking enough to consider stopping). Asking friends for rides is doable occasionally but many people want to use this option sparingly lest they become a nuisance to their friend (putting strain on the friendship). Of course, this assumes they can get a ride at all—I go to work at 1am and until about six months ago there were no other employees on my shift that lived in my part of the city, so carpooling was pretty much impossible. (I now live with my girlfriend who works the same shift as I do, so we take turns driving.) The rest of the solutions are probably acceptable to many, but most people simply would not want to, say, rollerblade in icy weather, or cycle in 100°+ heat. Oh, you can do it sure, but to most people walking around outside in the heat/cold for two hours isn't worth the $5 in gas you'd save by not driving (not to mention the old adage 'time is money'...you could get to and from work in much less time and be able to use the time you would spend walking on something more pleasurable).

My personal situation prevents anything but driving...my workplace lies at the foot of an I-35 bridge. There is no feasible way to get to work without using this bridge—routing around it would involve a 20 mile detour. So nothing pedestrian-oriented is going to get me there. I can't take transit because, even if it ran nearby both here and my workplace—which is outside city limits so it's doubtful on being able to ride it clear into work—as mentioned, I go into work at 1am, so no transit is going to be available at that time.

I don't mean to presume that every single person could make it work.  What I do mean is that most people could make it work but choose not to.  As far as odd scheduling goes, I've occasionally found regular rideshare drivers by random means.  For example, getting out from college after 9:00 PM, I would frequently hitchhike back home; often the driver was going the same way at the same time every day or almost every day I needed a ride.  Other times, I had a driver stop because they'd seen me another day and knew I was (a) not a homocidal maniac, but someone with a schedule, and (b) going their way.  It wouldn't necessarily work for your schedule and route, but it might.  And there's always Craigslist.

Quote from: corco on July 06, 2012, 04:17:40 AM
For sure- the ugliest example in my mind is the Seattle light rail. That was built at huge expense and is basically a toy for rich people to get to the sports stadiums and the airports.

I remember when I lived there jumping on Metro 194 at Spokane St/Busway and riding an express bus full of TSA workers and other service-type folk that got straight on I-5 and went to the airport.

That route (and all express routes from the downtown area to the airport) were discontinued once light rail was built, and now the line detours way out of the direct path to the decidedly wealthier Mt Baker and Rainier Valley, forgoing the more direct path along the west with more and poorer population in South Park and White Center.

There's a couple reasons to do that
1) Gateway effect- you don't want people flying into Seattle for the first time and dumped onto a train that's going through the ghetto, so it is good for tourism.
2) Access to downtown/stadia is also good for tourism/recreational activities.
3) Wealthier congressional districts have more money and more lobbying power to get stops.


and those first two are definitely valid reasons, but definitely not at the expense of facilitating the flow of commuters, which the rail has definitely done.

You have some major misconceptions about Seattle.  The Rainier Valley is the poorest section of the city, featuring cheap but rundown housing, poor schools, high crime, the whole nine yards.  I don't see how you could have ridden through it and not seen that.  The light rail was routed through that area specifically to improve it and give the people there a more convenient way of getting to work downtown.  More people live along the Rainier Valley route than through the Airport Way-Boeing Field route that was the alternative proposal, as far as I recall.

The Mt. Baker neighborhood is a little better but far from rich, except the view properties right along the lake (where the light rail does not go).

The light rail is not as fast as the 194 used to be to the airport, but it's much more comfortable and steadier ride.

The rich continue to drive or get driven to the stadiums or to the airport, but the light rail is very convenient for the middle class and poor.  It does serve the stadiums, which is good, because there's not nearly enough parking there for everyone who'd want to drive.  The airport service is convenient for anyone who doesn't mind schlepping their luggage through the train, and for lots of the people who work at the airport.

Now if you want a route that's a plaything for the rich, look at Paul Allen's South Lake Union Trolley.  He wanted it to increase the value of his real estate, so the public paid to build it for him.  It doesn't get even enough ridership to justify a bus line, let alone a trolley.

You could argue cost-benefit for the light rail, but it's simply not the case that it's primarily for the rich or that it's unused.

"Now if you want a route that's a plaything for the rich, look at Paul Allen's South Lake Union Trolley.  He wanted it to increase the value of his real estate, so the public paid to build it for him.  It doesn't get even enough ridership to justify a bus line, let alone a trolley."

Not to mention the entire S.L.U.T. line is duplicated by bus routes that continue north.

The Streetcar bandwagon is a joke...it's using transportation funding to fund developer's pet projects, and in the end transit loses - here in Portland TriMet is decrying that it can't afford its basic services, as it increases its $6 million subsidy to the Streetcar to over $9 million a year.  AND doubling its contingency budget, and operating one of the worst designed commuter rail lines (that also couldn't support a bus line by its ridership)...  The failure of public transit is designing transit for politics and developers - not meeting the needs of the travelling public.  Transit planning is about "attracting riders" in theory, rather than meeting demand.

Agreed.  I've said for a while now that Amtrak would do better if it stopped trying to be like an airline, and tried to be more like a bus line.  Buses are so versatile, while trains are not.  Don't get me wrong:  I'd much rather ride a train than a bus.  But buses make so much more sense.

Quote from: kphoger on July 06, 2012, 10:54:55 PM
Agreed.  I've said for a while now that Amtrak would do better if it stopped trying to be like an airline, and tried to be more like a bus line.  Buses are so versatile, while trains are not.  Don't get me wrong:  I'd much rather ride a train than a bus.  But buses make so much more sense.

You mean like in California, where there are buttloads of bus connections to Amtrak?

Quote from: NE2 on July 06, 2012, 11:09:55 PM

Quote from: kphoger on July 06, 2012, 10:54:55 PM
Agreed.  I've said for a while now that Amtrak would do better if it stopped trying to be like an airline, and tried to be more like a bus line.  Buses are so versatile, while trains are not.  Don't get me wrong:  I'd much rather ride a train than a bus.  But buses make so much more sense.

You mean like in California, where there are buttloads of bus connections to Amtrak?

Well, yeah, I guess.  Imagine a rail system trying to serve the same customer base as all those bus lines.  Impossible!  Yet I would say the Amtrak lines they connect to could quite easily be converted into bus lines.  Now if only you could take a bus from Chicago to San Francisco (oh, wait, Emeryville..) without having to get off the bus!

(I've never used California's Amtrak, so I don't know how well its operation works.  I'm also not sure if you were being serious or sarcastic.)

I was being serious. http://www.amtrakcalifornia.com/index.cfm/travel-info/where-we-go/

Quote from: kphoger on July 06, 2012, 11:14:33 PM
Yet I would say the Amtrak lines they connect to could quite easily be converted into bus lines.

At what increase in power consumption or decrease in capacity?

Giving out free cars to lower class would be disastrous on the general principle because it would add like 1 million extra cars to the already strained LA freeway system.

The Seattle Central Link Light Rail will do much better ridership-wise with the U-Link extension. What LA's Light Rail shows if anything is that the extra cost for grade separations is well worth the price. LA's Expo Line is horrendously slow toward downtown, with no signal preemption what-so-ever. They made the train cross Adams Blvd at-grade which is already on constant grid-lock from the HOV and General Purpose off-ramp letting cars off at the same damn intersection. Add to the fact that it has to share tracks with the already busy-as-hell Blue Line and you end up with a complete mess.

Seattle made the right call IMO by building the expensive grade separations. Really future proofs the line, especially when the East Link light rail comes online.

As for people getting attacked over owning 3 cars and living in suburbs, I see nothing wrong with those things. What I have a problem with how we worship and cater everything to cars. You haven't "made it" UNLESS you own 3 cars and live in a cul-de-sac. People taking a car just to go a few blocks. What about walking? Biking? Skating? Cars are fine but I don't see why if every once in while, we could use transit or take the train to go into town. If we all started to use something else every so often, freeways wouldn't need to be 20 lane monstrosities.

QuoteGiving out free cars to lower class would be disastrous on the general principle because it would add like 1 million extra cars to the already strained LA freeway system.

The idea is that most of them aren't commuting during peak hours so the added strain would be minimal- a million extra cars at 4:30 AM and 12:00 AM wouldn't really hurt anything.

Quote from: corco on July 08, 2012, 08:28:28 PM

QuoteGiving out free cars to lower class would be disastrous on the general principle because it would add like 1 million extra cars to the already strained LA freeway system.

The idea is that most of them aren't commuting during peak hours so the added strain would be minimal- a million extra cars at 4:30 AM and 12:00 AM wouldn't really hurt anything.

Not sure I get how this is suppose to work, since transit systems have the same peak hours as the freeways. If the idea is to get people out of buses, those same people riding for example on the El Monte Busway will just spill over to I-10's already congested general purpose lanes. However, I think this would work if you can prove that you work unusual and unpredictable work hours. Please elaborate.

The idea isn't to get people out of buses- the idea is that right now transit does a terrible job of serving lower-income people precisely because it operates at peak hours. This leaves two alternatives
A) Expand/realign transit to accomodate for that
B) Give everyone a car

It has been credibly argued that B) is actually cheaper than A).

I'd tend to go for A) with the hope that it encourages everyone to work weird hours. There's no reason society as a whole has to work from nine to five. Folks probably shouldn't work in the middle of the night because that is proven to be bad for health, but if there were a way to further spread out people's working hours we'd be putting less burden on existing infrastructure.

If there's a way to make highways operate at just under peak flow most of the day instead of way above peak for a few hours every day, that's a much more efficient use of infrastructure- right now we build urban freeways for five hours worth of use a day. A) would help to encourage that expansion moreso than B) long term, I think, but as a short term fix there is good argument to be made that B) is cheaper.

I work graveyards right now, so excluding the insane number of miles I put on the roads as a roadgeek, my actual commute subsidizes those people who commute during peak times- I'm essentially paying for road capacity I don't need.

Quote from: Riverside Frwy on July 08, 2012, 08:27:24 PM
As for people getting attacked over owning 3 cars and living in suburbs, I see nothing wrong with those things. What I have a problem with how we worship and cater everything to cars. You haven't "made it" UNLESS you own 3 cars and live in a cul-de-sac. People taking a car just to go a few blocks. What about walking? Biking? Skating? Cars are fine but I don't see why if every once in while, we could use transit or take the train to go into town. If we all started to use something else every so often, freeways wouldn't need to be 20 lane monstrosities.

AMEN.

Quote from: Riverside Frwy on July 08, 2012, 08:27:24 PM
As for people getting attacked over owning 3 cars and living in suburbs, I see nothing wrong with those things. What I have a problem with how we worship and cater everything to cars. You haven't "made it" UNLESS you own 3 cars and live in a cul-de-sac.

That gets to the heart of the issue.

The WWII generation "made it" when they moved to the inner-ring suburbs, bought a car, and commuted 15 minutes to work. The Baby Boomers "made it" when they moved to third-ring suburbs, bought two cars, and commuted 30 minutes to work. Generation X "made it" when they moved to the exurbs, bought three cars, and commuted 60 minutes to work.

Hey Gen Y, buy a place in remote outer Elbonia, buy a lot of cars, and commute 90 minutes to work. HELL NO! they say, build me a subway instead.

What you are also seeing is that the latest generation isn't as prosperous as previous generations were. A lot of college grads right now are unemployed or working below their potential for less money. In addition, with the way college tuitions have gone through the roof, young college grads are now saddled with student loan debt in a way their parents and grandparents never were.

The result of this is that where previously owning a car, owning a house, etc. was seen as a rite of passage and a sign of success, now it is seen as a burden and an expense which is best avoided if practical.

The city I grew up in (Stamford, CT) is seeing a bit of an interesting demographic shift as a result of this. Young people have moved into apartments downtown, not into houses in the more suburban parts of town. Developers built lots of apartments designed for young singles downtown anticipating this, but what's happened that is changing the way the city operates is that those young singles are getting married, starting families... and still living in apartments downtown, rather than moving outward and buying houses. The city is looking at doing a major redistricting of all the schools on account of this. And if you look at the houses in town, you won't find too many owned by someone under the age of 40. In ten years, you probably won't find too many owned by someone under the age of 50.

This is essentially undoing the trend of the half century following WWII where suburbs grew while cities slowly decayed. Now cities are growing like mad and in some places you are already seeing suburbs start to decay as homes are foreclosed upon but there's no one to resell them to.

I'm agreeing with Duke87, though I'm seeing it in Seattle.  It's not even primarily a prosperity issue, although that's part of it.  I see it as mostly a time issue.  Who wants to spend 10 hours a week driving to and from work?  I see more Generation Y people deciding to live in possibly a smaller house, definitely with less land and nearer neighbors, in order to have a short commute to work.  That might mean apartments or condos, or it might mean small to medium size ranch houses.  But not the quarter to half acre or more lots that were a sign of prosperity in the 1950s through the 1990s.  The housing bubble has mostly burst for the outer suburbs, although city and inner suburbs have fallen some, not nearly as much.

I'm 29, and I LOVE driving....on roadtrips and day excursions.  I grew up in the suburbs, and am about to move into Uptown NOLA.  However, I HATE commuting.  I bitch and moan about my 20 minute drive each direction to work.  There is nothing more I want than to be able to have a short drive to work, and be able to walk to bars, restaurants, and retail from home.  I've had it with the suburbs where it takes 5-10 minutes to go a mile sometimes.  Waiting for a left turn green light makes me want to scream in my car.  I feel like a hostage and trapped.  It shouldn't take 2-3 minutes to move 1/2 mile... It's amazing how driving in older parts of town is so much less stressful, while chainy suburbs are so aggravating.

Quote from: lamsalfl on July 20, 2012, 04:32:15 AM
I'm 29, and I LOVE driving....on roadtrips and day excursions.  I grew up in the suburbs, and am about to move into Uptown NOLA.  However, I HATE commuting.  I bitch and moan about my 20 minute drive each direction to work.  There is nothing more I want than to be able to have a short drive to work, and be able to walk to bars, restaurants, and retail from home.  I've had it with the suburbs where it takes 5-10 minutes to go a mile sometimes.  Waiting for a left turn green light makes me want to scream in my car.  I feel like a hostage and trapped.  It shouldn't take 2-3 minutes to move 1/2 mile... It's amazing how driving in older parts of town is so much less stressful, while chainy suburbs are so aggravating.

agreed.  I hate the fact that if I want to have a reasonable commute (average the speed limit, not half of it), I cannot leave my house between 6.45 and 9am, and I cannot leave work between 2.30 and 7pm.