Survival Strategies by George G. Wynne

Author:George G. Wynne [Wynne, George G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781000679403
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2021-12-16T00:00:00+00:00

Transportation

The New York region is essentially a closed commutershed. Less than 1 percent of its 8 million jobs are held by nonresidents. That means that within the region each weekday 16 million trips are made to and from work. When all the other trip purposes—shopping, school, recreation, visits—are added, some 40 million trips are made in the region each day by mechanical mode.

Of these daily trips, about three-quarters are made by auto and the other quarter by other means: 4.4 million trips are made by bus, 4.2 million by subway, and 500,000 by railroad.

Trips to points outside the region, though important in economic terms, are modest in comparison: 20,000 by intercity bus, somewhat less by rail, and 100,000 by air.

The big finding from transportation research in the region is the correlation between population density and the use of public transportation. As density of development rises, so does use of public transportation in a predictable manner. The density at the work site is most important, the density and proximity of residences next. Unfortunately, the New York region has been deconcentrating both work places and residences.

Consequently, the automobile is gaining in use, though less precipitously than in the decade of the 1960s. In fact, more per capita income is going into the auto now than previously because of the spread of population to low-density areas. During the decade of the 1960s, families with multiple cars grew in number; those with one car added another, and so on to three and four cars per family. At the same time, more households, especially in the region’s core, ended the decade without an auto than did households ten years earlier. This results in separating older city residents from the better jobs and services now locating outside the cities and not reachable by public transportation.

The addition of autos is not matched by highway building. In fact the only highway construction going on is the completion of long-planned routes; no new highways are on the drawing boards. The region is on a collsion course: it cannot continue to build an auto-oriented land use pattern and stop highway construction altogether.

Rapid transit ridership peaked in the region at the onset of the Depression in 1930 with 2.17 billion rides. It has descended ever since, pausing at plateaus, to 1.05 billion rides in 1976. Late information indicates that subway ridership grew slightly for the first time since 1969 during November/December 1977 and January 1978. This corroborates reports of resurgence in city employment, just reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Next to the pattern of urban development, the largest question for the region’s public transportation is financing. For example, the 50-cent fare in New York City pays only two-thirds the cost. If the fare is to be subsidized, who should pay the remainder: the motorist, or the local, state, or federal governments? We are groping toward a solution that includes all four. To illustrate the difficulties: the five major urban areas with two-thirds of the nation’s mass transit travel (measured by passenger-miles) are allocated less than one-third of the national operating assistance.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.