
Off-Peak Public Transport Usage - luu
https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/12/26/off-peak-public-transport-usage/
======
ummwhat
I'm skeptical for many reasons.

First, where is he getting that car commuters outnumber rail commuters (just
barely) in New York? Last I heard the split was 60/40 in favor of rail.

Second, where did he get that it is unusual for management to not use a car?
Rather famously Bloomberg himself used to commute to city Hall by subway. By
the authors own admission, even the lawyers use the subway. New York doesn't
have that weird anti-transit classism of the rest of the country.

Third, what is meant by multi modal and why is it a relevant figure if merit.

Fourth, he clearly used New York metro area, not the city proper in his calc.
Can I get some footnotes on if the cross comparison did the same thing to
other cities?

Fifth, 10 min headways is exactly the threshold where you can just show up and
not pre plan your trip. When you get to the station you will wait on average
five min. Compare that to the amount of time spent looking for parking or
waiting for an Uber. I am unsatisfied with the conclusion that of peak wait
times are the reason for underutilization or that there even is an
underutilization problem in the listed American cities.

~~~
Symbiote
10 minute gaps sounds like a long gap for a city the size of New York.

Most metro lines in London have 2½-5 minute gaps off-peak.

10 minutes is more like the waiting time for the next train from London to
Birmingham, after the morning peak:
[https://traintimes.org.uk/london/birmingham/1000/monday](https://traintimes.org.uk/london/birmingham/1000/monday)

~~~
jkaptur
Many of those gaps take place at night. Last time I visited London, I was
nastily surprised to find that the tube has a several hour gap during that
time.

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Pfhreak
> When there is a deficit, agencies cut there first, leading to frequency-
> ridership spirals in which lower frequency deters riders, justifying further
> cuts in service until little is left. I

This is one of the things that drives me nuts the most about American
attitudes towards public transportation -- that they must make a significant
portion of their revenue from fares/ridership.

If we think that large scale people moving is important to a healthy city, we
should all be funding it, even if we're not all riding it. Everyone benefits
when ridership is high -- businesses, other commuters, people who cannot
afford cars, etc.

Why do we always seem give transportation (or public housing, etc.) a heavy
initial investment then immediately start neglecting it but tightening the
purse strings. We're just making our initial investments that much less
valuable.

~~~
uoaei
You know the answer to that question but it bears repeating:

Americans have a kneejerk aversion to any sort of taxes because they think
they will never see the benefits. So these agencies are forced to fund
themselves and/or look to the private sector for support.

~~~
xyzzyz
> Americans have a kneejerk aversion to any sort of taxes because they think
> they will never see the benefits.

Close. It’s not that they _think_ they will never see the benefits, but rather
they _know_ it.

Look, here is a good example of what you and the parent suggest. The ST3
passed in the Seattle ballot, which promises expansion of the public transit
network. The project includes light rail to my neighborhood, in about 20
minutes of walking distance from my home. However, the planned date for
delivery of the project is 2035. Knowing the realities of public projects in
the US, I don’t expect it before 2040s. I’ll be long retired by then.

At the same time, the ST3 involved a tax increase, which for me means about
$10,000 (today’s dollars, more in inflated ones) I’ll pay in additional tax
before the construction is complete.

In addition to that, since the farebox recovery is only around 30%, the city
subsidies covers 70% of operational costs of public transit, and the subsidies
come from my taxes too. To put it in concrete terms: assuming I use public
transit only for commuting, annual fare costs would be $2.75 _2_ 48 = $1320,
and so the whole operational costs apportioned to me would be $1320/0.3 =
$4400, so the subsidy would be around $3000 per rider. Fortunately, only 10%
of people in Seattle commute via public transit, so it roughly translates to
$300/person/year now, which I’m paying to support public transit that I don’t
even use. This number is so low only because the driving majority subsidizes
the public transit riding few. Thus, since operational costs grow roughly
linearly with the number of riders, if majority of people were using transit
for commuting, the cost per resident would have to rise significantly. This
would make my public transit costs significantly higher than my driving costs,
with greatly reduced convenience. So why would I want to support public
transit?

The big issue here isn’t that public transit is always a bad idea, it’s just
it’s a bad idea in places where government cannot do large projects quickly
and cheaply, and cheaply operate them, which in 2020 is the whole US.

~~~
Pfhreak
Except Sound Transit has come in __under budget and ahead of schedule __on
other recent light rail projects. Or, at the very least they 've come in on
schedule.

ST3 costs you 0.5% sales tax, 0.8% motor vehicle excise tax, and a property
tax of 25 cents per $1,000 in assessed value over 25 years. If you have a
million dollar home, you'll pay $6,250 in additional property taxes. With a
hundred thousand dollar car you'd still need to be spending hundreds of
thousands a year on taxable stuff.

So yeah, you are wealthy and are being asked to put in more than some others.
But you'll still see benefits -- light rail stations increase local business,
remove vehicles from the road, pollute less, and you'll help leave a legacy
for your children and your community.

> This number is so low only because the driving majority subsidizes the
> public transit riding few. Fortunately, only 10% of people in Seattle
> commute via public transit...

Have a source for that? Because from what I've read 25% of commuters use a
single occupancy vehicle (car or motorcycle), 10% use a rideshare
(car/vanpool), 49% uses transit, and 10% use walking or biking. [1] And the
number of transit commuters is on the rise overall.

[1] [https://www.seattlebusinessmag.com/seattle-using-public-
tran...](https://www.seattlebusinessmag.com/seattle-using-public-transit-more-
ever)

~~~
xyzzyz
> If you have a million dollar home, you'll pay $6,250 in additional property
> taxes. With a hundred thousand dollar car you'd still need to be spending
> hundreds of thousands a year on taxable stuff.

Sorry, looks like I'm bad at mental math. I'll edit my comment.

> Have a source for that?

See [1], page 14. It's probably something like 14-15% now. Your link only
talks about people who commute to downtown area.

[1] -
[https://kingcounty.gov/~/media/depts/transportation/metro/ac...](https://kingcounty.gov/~/media/depts/transportation/metro/accountability/reports/2017/metro-2017-strategic-
plan-progress-report.pdf)

------
pedantsamaritan
I know NYC subway runs 24x7, while many other systems do not. I was curious on
the actual number of trains.

I made a bunch of assumptions, picked a city to compare NYC to (Berlin), and
did some math.

NYC Subway may run ~960 trains per week per line. Berlin s-bahn & u-bahn may
run ~1270 trains per week per line.

I am curious how other cities compare

Assumptions:

\- u-bahn day peak = 5 hours @ 4min/train

\- u-bahn day = 8 hours @ 10min/train

\- u-bahn night = 8 hours @ 15min/train

\- u-bahn weekend = 24 hours @ 15min/train

\- s-bahn day peak = 5 hours @ 10min/train

\- s-bahn day = 9 hours @ 15min/train

\- s-bahn night = 7 hours @ 30min/train

\- s-bahn weekend = 24 hours @ 20min/train

\- nyc peak = 5 hours @ 10 min/train

\- nyc off-peak = 19 hours @ 10min/train

\- nyc weekend = 24 hours @ 12min/train

~~~
laurencerowe
It's hard for NYC's subway to run at the frequencies others manage since the
system has so many branches and reverse branches. In London I believe there
are plans to split the Northern Line into two separate lines to enable running
at higher frequencies. The Victoria Line now runs at 36 trains per hour at
peak, 100sec/train.

Conversely NYC can run trains all night because so much of the system is
double tracked, letting them close one track each way for maintenance
overnight.

------
kccqzy
> This strongly suggests that non-work public transportation usage is much
> higher in European than in American cities even when the usage level for
> work trips is comparable.

Sounds about right. For work trips, the origin and destination are both
predictable. I can carefully choose where to rent in order so that I would
live conveniently close to a public transport stop. But for "fun" trips and
anything else, there's a lot more spontaneity in the destination, often not
served by public transport, so a car is still necessary.

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tom_mellior
I don't understand the point of giving a big table of numbers and then not
doing any comparisons or calculations based on the data. Maybe it's just meant
to make the whole article seem more scientific than the hand-waving that it
really seems to be?

Anyway, I can't say for any other cities, but a population figure of 3.7m for
Vienna is ridiculously overblown. The actual figure is 1.9m for the city,
Wikipedia gives 2.6m for the metro area. But even just the city itself is
sprawling and very badly connected towards the outskirts, so even the 1.9m are
very unevenly served.

Also, it's not true of course that the French (and Germans, and Austrians)
typically take their 5 weeks of vacation in a single block in the summer. That
wouldn't leave any vacation time for the winter holidays, other school
holidays, etc. Two-, maybe three-week blocks are much more typical in my
experience.

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Nerada
I love when I come across sites like this, where someone is just so wholly
knowledgeable and enthusiastic about something I would have dismissed as
mundane.

------
mjevans
Frequency of service correlates with Freedom to do useful things with the
service.

Lack of frequent service or worse gaps in service mean that someone might have
to drive or even worse suffer lost opportunity if they cannot drive/pay for a
ride of some sort.

Though I would prefer if transit had dedicated underground routes to insulate
the noise and make service independent of the weather.

------
dweekly
Possible alternate explanation: Americans, when not heading to work, get in
their car for the pleasure of driving. Disproportionate US car ownership -
even in areas with abundant public transport - might help support such a
theory, as well as generally American attitudes towards driving being an
expression of autonomy.

~~~
herval
Germans are fairly well known for their love for cars, and a lot of folks have
cars “for pleasure” (convertibles, sports cars, etc). Autobahns are also
insanely fun - you can actually speed up that sport car, unlike here in the US
of A. All anecdotal of course, but I would be surprised if that theory has any
evidence to support it..

~~~
kube-system
They also have legal requirements for ownership which go way _way_ beyond what
most of the US does. I think part of their car culture can be attributed to
self-selection bias.

~~~
herval
I come from a “third world” country, and gotta say the vehicles that are
allowed to be put on the street here are shocking. Lost count on how many cars
glued together with duct tape I’ve seen around - I’d be shocked if those are
driven “for leasure”...

~~~
kube-system
Many are primary transportation for lower income people. But it's also not
uncommon in some circles in the US to have a 'beater car', as an alternative
to their typical transportation.

------
lelandbatey
Every time I have to sit and wait for the Seattle light rail (the red line)
outside commuter hours this is what I think about. It's 3:30 pm right now in
Seattle and the light rail is scheduled to come only every 12 minutes. I dream
of the times this article quotes for Germany and France; 5 minutes between
trains would be amazing!

~~~
cookie_monsta
Does 7 minutes really make a difference? Presumably departure times are
available in real time, meaning you could shave a few minutes off your time at
the stop and spend them somewhere more pleasant

~~~
wott
It brings a completely different way of using the transport, in fact.

When the period between 2 trains/buses/whatever is below 5 minutes, you don't
check the timetables, you don't plan anything, you don't calculate anything,
you just walk to the stop without thinking.

When the period is 10 minutes or more, you handle it more like an intercity
train, you check, you plan, you calculate. Or you don't and you wait, and
wait, and wait.

Personally, I don't have a problem with it, but it is a bit of an obsession of
mine to plan and calculate everything... also I've lived most of my life in
places where you'd be happy with a train, or a bus, every 2 hours (supposing
there was a line). For people who have been accustomed to the comfort of mind
of the first option, it is felt harder to switch to the second option.

\-------

But then there is the problem of transfers. There, low frequency strikes badly
and there is nothing you can do about it, contrary to the first wait at the
first stop. Personally, I had no problem with 15 minutes period buses, but the
transfers were killing me, and it was getting much worse during low-activity
times. Just a small-looking increase in the period has exponentially bad
consequences.

Less terrible, there is also the case when you have to arrive at a fixed time.
Unless the arrival time matches, a low frequency forces you to start earlier.
So, the time is wasted even if you calculated your first wait.

------
wott
It is always difficult to compare such figures. Not only because of different
geographic/demographic situations, but simply because of the figures
themselves.

First, there is the problem of being careful understanding which figure is
given to you.

For example, for Toulouse, he quoted 125.7 M metro+tram _trips_. But 125.7 M
is not the number of trips, but the number of metro+tram _" validations"_
(each time you transfer to another bus or metro line, it counts as an extra
validation (yes, in this city, even between metro lines)). The total number of
trips (132 M) is 30% lower than the total number of validation (188 M). There
is no detailed by mode number of trips, so you cannot get the number of
metro+tram trips. I guess the best you can do is apply the 30% discount to get
an approximation of 88 M metro+tram trips [and I shouldn't even write that
because that depends how we decide to count mixed-mode trips].

Then, there is the problem of deciding if some assumptions which are valid
here are still valid there.

He has decided to ignore bus network.

Still in the case of Toulouse, the bus network usage is a bit bigger than one
metro line, but the thing is that there are only 2 metro lines... Very
roughly, each of (metro line 1), (metro line 2) and (bus network) is 1/3 of
the total passengers. Worse, if you consider the number of kilometres ran, the
bus network represents 73%!

Now you may argue that most bus passengers transfer from or to the metro. It
could be true. But that would only affect the relevance of the figure of
trips/inhabitant.

However if you want to talk about the quality of the service, the quality of
the offer, I don't think you can neglect something that represents 1/3 of the
passengers transported and almost 3/4 of the kilometres offer (those figures
mean that the metro lines only cover a very small part of the territory, and
that's indeed how it is, the bus network is 50 times longer than the metro
network). The frequency and spread of the bus offer has to be taken into
account, hasn't it? Maybe in other cities the bus network can be neglected,
but I don't think it a good idea to neglect it by default.

(One could add that in the case of Toulouse, the bus traffic has grown clearly
and steadily, while the metro traffic plateaued years ago.)

And at this point you fall back on the first difficulty I mentioned: how
difficult it is to compare networks which grew differently and developed
different structures.

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monksy
I wonder what this looks like for Chicago.

