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Ever wondered why public transportation in the US is piss-poor? Wonder no more.
Taken for a Ride is an amazing documentary by Jim Kleina and Martha Olson that documents the efforts to derail mass transit in America. Ever wonder why the U.S. has the worst mass transportation system in the industrialized world? Using historical footage and investigative research, this film tells how GM fought to push freeways into the inner cities of America, and push public transportation out. For more information about this film, check out http://www.newday.com. This video was funded by the Independent Television Service. Support the work of this film by (a) using public transportation, (b) telling your elected representatives to dedicate more funding towards public transportation, and (c) purchase this video for your own collection. Go to www.newday.com/Taken_for_a_Ride.html
I’m fortunate enough to live in NYC, where public transit obviates the need for a car. What’s your access to P.T.?
(h/t my ninja please)
13 Comments
Public transportation in NYC is actually pretty good.
I can’t imagine it to be comparable in places without the population density.
What’s even worse about Big Auto is how they colluded with Big Oil to destroy the electric trolley industry. I wrote about it for The Seminal about a year ago.
Link it, Jim.
http://www.theseminal.com/2008…..onspiracy/
Thanks, I enjoyed reading your post.
You might enjoy or might have enjoyed The Power Broker by Robert Caro.
Electric trains and trolleys were quite extensive in the DC metro area. The story told in the movie was repeated. The Metro sort of made up for the loss, but has only been a moderate success by comparison. Building out the highway systems to accommodate commerce (like federally-funded airports) encouraged the suburb-exurb growth, inner city exodus, and damn those traffic jams. The complications cascaded to the mess we have today.
The trolleycars in D.C. were one of the first things I loved about that city, and made me follow the demise of the system there, and in Dallas, also wrote about it earlier; http://cabdrollery.blogspot.co…..ay-be.html
LA is reviving the electric trolleys from the early 1900s.
My two hour commute by auto to a major airport takes 2.5 hours by public transit and costs significantly less than just the fuel burned in my auto, 20 to 25 mpg.
It is only inconvenient after midnight until 5 am, when the trolley shuts down.
So does that now make LA, San Fran, and New Orleans as the only cities with active trolleys?
DC public transit is a godsend. It’s really amazing that there are only a few cities in the country with really good public transit. Sad.
What is also sad is the shame that is often attached to taking public transportation. At least in my neck of the woods, anybody with other options wouldn’t dream of taking a city bus, even though it’s much cheaper and often faster.
over the past decade and more, I’ve been glad to live in NY and DC, places with pretty good public transportation. As a result, the last time I owned a car was more than a decade ago. I use zip car occasionally, maybe once a month or so, otherwise do a lot of walking, metro-ing, bus-ing. As macaquerman noted, though, this is a lot harder to do outside densely populated cities. at some point, I plan to live in a much less densely populated area, and will almost certainly end up getting a car
I take the T whenever I visit Boston, it just can’t be beat and I wish we had that here in San Francisco. We do have the train and BART to take us up and down, but if you want to go right and left, it’s not so good. The cable cars are fun, but very limited to where they actually go. Many people in SF take the bus, but it isn’t very pleasant and they constantly break down. MUNI has a horrible reputation.
Things are better though when BART extended its track from Daly City to Millbrae, allowing for PT to SFO airport (what a concept!) And there’s a train station at Millbrae too, making for an almost seamless PT ride.
Also, San Jose has installed some PT but I cannot speak to that at all really except to point out it exists.
No, living in California, I am not at ALL surprised at the state of PT throughout the country.