What can we do to encourage more people to take public transportation?

Question

How can we we make public transportation more appealing to the masses of people who drive their cars to and from work every day?

Answer 1

The place I live is crowded with about 10 million people in our capital city. There is not enough public transport system (circular-railways, bus or mass transit system etc) that could cater 10% of the total load.

I have seen some of the efforts made to improve public transport systems in Singapore, Malaysia, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Kolkata, and Vienna which we could have easily replicated here if the job was taken some decades ago.

Here you don't even need to encourage more people to take public transportation, since people are already not getting that kind of services available to them.

As so many above has said, if the public transport is not going to the places where I would be heading then why force me to get onto them? (lol).

I agree with Yarnlady and Auntb93's above observations and suggestions and wish that people visit Singapore to learn how efficiently public transportation can be put to serve its people!

Therefore, it is important that the city/town planners and governments wake up and do something to help getting 'access' to its citizen for easy and comfortable public transportation facilities. That way the public transportation would be more appealing to the masses.

Answer 2

Well driving helps people grow a sense of Independence though think about it..even if you are late...you still have a chance to be caught in a traffic jam. A chance that the car won't work. Be even more late since you can't find the keys. The people with the phobias that are related to buses- fix them! I know you can't but behavioural cognitive therapy can! If everyone drove a car then it will only increase the likliness of a traffic jam. Think of it this way. Think of a long reqtangular board,there are sponges going down the board on a smooth tempo, if one stops then all the one's behind it stop and then the domino effect occurs with all the sponges. Then that one that stopped orriginally will move and all the one behind it will move slowly and once it does then the one behind that one will start moving and that's once long process. Well, that's a traffic jam and if people carpooled and knew the road better then that wouldn't happen. If there were less cars then there would be even a less likely chance of that happening! Yes, homeless people might go on the bus and i witnessed it for the first time several days ago but it was almost 10 at night! I doubt it that a homeless person will be on the bus during the day. During the night, they are more likely to be attacked by people who just want to fight. How about this? Go on the bus if you are not late...buses arrive on specific times and it is possible for it to arrive several minutes too early or too late. Go on the car when you are late or find out if there is a car pool. When it's possible- try other forms of transportation such as a motorcycle or a bike or roller blades. I hope any of the imforation enlightend you.

Answer 3

Until the early 90's I lived and worked in LA, which at the time had one of the worst public transportation systems. I worked one half hour from home . . . providing that I didn't try to get to work during rush hour. Traffic turned the drive into a grueling 2 hour affair. The buses, though inconvenient, took 45 to 50 minutes to get me to work, so I rode the bus.

It is simple, if public transportation becomes MORE convenient than driving people will use it. We Americans are far too independent to give up the privacy of our personal vehicles if we don't have to. We are looking for some new invention or device to bail us out.

What might get us to take public transportation would be for some of the more radical environmentalists to gain control. Many have stated that the best way to save the earth is "cut" population by two thirds. Conveniently, they evade the question of how to do this.

Who gets to decide where the population gets cut.

A better solution would be to cut our electricity consumption, PG&E's website states that cutting 25kilowatt hours per day would be the equivalent of permanently removing 1 automobile from the roads. In the US, fully 33% of the carbon released into the environment comes from the creation of electricity. Change all light bulbs to fluorescents, don't use AC (of course that brings us back to my comments above). Unless we are pushed into it, we probably won't do it.

Answer 4

The bus system in my area services about one million people, and it is the most unreliable public transportation system I've ever had the displeasure of using.

Without encountering rare problems like a flat tire, accident in the road ahead, etc, the time it took to travel from my house to the college--a distance of about five miles--ranged anywhere from one hour to five. (Those particular five miles are an easy bike ride, usually in nice weather, so after a few weeks I just gave up and biked.) I never dared ride to bus to my more distant workplace; going to work late three days in a row was sufficient cause to get fired.

The buses only run during the middle of the day, on weekdays, and even then very infrequently. The busiest route allows for one bus an hour, and there are usually fifty to sixty people per bus. If you're unlucky enough to work on weekends, or need to be to work before 10 AM, you're out of luck.

Unforunately, I have no idea how the administration of the bus system works, and so I have no idea of exactly how these problems might be fixed. But speaking from personal experience, I will say that if the busses came by more often, got to places somewhere near their scheduled time, and passes were reasonably priced, I would ride them regularly.

Answer 5

Listen Mike. My sister and I have driven the Los Angeles freeways for over 25 years. You're talking 120 miles total both ways EVERY SINGLE DAY. Nobody knows better about gridlock than us. Before the LA Council idiotically decided to build the ridiculous, ineffective, under the ground where earthquakes happen Metrolink SUBWAY, there was a suggestion to create a Monorail along the freeways. One idiot councilwoman snapped "This isn't Disneyland!" and the ensuing fiasco went onward. A monorail could run along over the freeways, only about 20-25 feet off the ground, could run on magnets and could be extended and branched off to all parts of the Los Angeles basin. There would be no more gridlock, no frightening subway weirdos to contend with and you could actually see daylight and where you're going. The reduced smog alone would be worth the cost! Not to mention curtailing road rage, drunken driving (sometimes the wrong way) and gang drive-by shootings on the freeways. Every time my sister sits in 2-3 hours in traffic, she's near tears thinking what should have and could have been the PERFECT mode of transportation in Los Angeles. No we're not Disneyland, but you know, sometime Walt had some damned good ideas. And besides, aren't we really Disneyland?

Answer 6

Provide cleaner and safer transportation. More routes are needed to make it feasible for many - then you're right back to the same pollution as cars.

The Downsides:
Who wants to ride a train that smells like vomit and urine from the drunks the night before? Who wants to be a possible target in a terrorist attack just because it's public transportation? Who will protect people who may be attacked while riding a train? How is it saving money for a person to drive to a station, pay for parking, pay for a ticket, and then walk blocks to work - time consuming and not good in bad weather. Trains are not available for all areas. Buses? You're putting your life in someone else's hands every day you ride on one. All bus drivers were not given proper driving instructions I'm thinking.

The Upside:
You can usually get where you're going even in bad weather on a train if the train is going to your destination. You can meet a lot of interesting people.

It might help to make the transportation a better ride if they could listen to or see the news while in transit. With modern technology, they need to bring their transportation up to the modern age of technology. How about offering internet connections for an extra fee?

Better pollution control on government vehicles - trains, planes, buses, etc - would be a better for our environment. Let's not forget about the construction vehicles - which are everywhere, plows, etc. The government needs to set the example before they should expect people to follow.

Answer 7

Well... first of all public transportation could start by making their bus drivers taking some kind of customer service training. I do not take the bus anymore, haven't done so for years, but the memories that I have are not fond :)
Plus many people that I know do take the bus, and it seems that this particular problem has not changed. Some drivers just plain need anger management classes.
Also more buses available for certain areas. Some places that I know of, buses only come by every half hour, sometimes even every forty five minutes.
So in a nutshell: Better service to people taking the bus, more transportation available, and I forgot - better equiped buses e.g. working a/c - and clean buses as well.

Answer 8

○ Promise (and live up to the promise of) efficient and timely transportation service. I hate the bus system out where I live because it takes way too long to get from Point A to Point B and still have some daylight left to yourself. I used to have to be out the door at 5 am to be at work at 8 am...in the SAME city!! (It normally takes me 15-20 minutes to get there.)

○ Keep rates low. Public transportation has grown more expensive. Of course, I understand why because I have to pay more at the pump, too; nonetheless it's difficult though for those that depend on this service to keep up with rising costs while taking care of other family responsibilities.

► All and all: If service is bad and I can get to the same place faster by spending less, then why should I keep using the service? ◄

Answer 9

People who use private transport for following reasons
1. Comfort (Seat, A/c or Heater)
2. Flexibility (Go whenever you want)
3. ZERO Waiting time.
4. Dress Safety!!! (Surely you dont want to take a bus when you are well dressed to attend that board meeting!!)
5. Our own Route. (You dont have to catch 3 busses to reach work)

Basically if you have seen some of the Sci-Fi movies where you get your own cubicle of public transport. Thats exactly what people want. Then we can see more people using public transport and less of private cars.

Ofcourse there are other "arm twisting" ways governments use : Road Tax, Tolls on streets, Parking fees. They keep these so high that you might as well sell the car and go by walk.

Thats exactly why I keep my house very close to work. I dont like to be armtwisted!

.:Fishie:.

Answer 10

Make mass transit more comfortable, clean, accessible. The area in which I live doesn't have a bus stop that doesn't require my walking more than a mile to get to it. Because it is so incessantly hot, I think it is more dangerous to try walking a mile than to just get in the air/conditioned comfort of my own car. Additionally, I work almost 30 miles away from my job and there are also no bus stops near my job either. It would take me nearly 3 hours each way to get to and from work everyday instead of the hour both ways with traffic. I would propose a subway system, but you can't dig too far underground in Florida...we would sink. They tried developing an above ground rail system, but it only goes downtown and not all over the city. There is no more room to build onto the above ground rail system because of the existing highways. So sadly, I don't think it is possible for every single city to have a favorable system for mass transit.