America is a big country few cities are set up for mass transit. those that are (Boston Chicago, San Francisco NYC ..and Washington DC) use it.

The suburban sprawl model does not lend itself to mass transit. Want to transfer three or four times to get to work every single morning?

Unfortunately many old central cities have decayed and that has fostered a rats nest of commuting patterns around their perimeters. Detroit is a good example of that.

High energy prices could bring central cities back to life. And that could help to restore energy efficiency. But until then I’m afraid that telecommuting is a more likely solution than mass transit across most of the nation. Of course, that does not work for manual laborers.

Go to a place like Olympia Washington, a place that gets a lot of rainfall and where biking to work is not a viable alternative for most. You still find that huge bike lanes have been created forcing car traffic into a narrowed snarl. There is nothing virtuous about that. Even when some environmental solution is tried it seems to fail- it’s executed dumbly.

Mass transit is a good idea but it makes for a very painful commute for most Americans. Our cities were not - simply not - designed for it. Still where it is viable we should offer more of it. Just don’t get your hopes up too much.

I was in grad school with a 100 mile commute to school in the first energy crisis (1973). It was not fun. I car pooled -and I was lucky to find a car pool. Still, it was painful and restrictive.

Look at a map of LA. How would you mass transit that?

FYI. I live in NYC now and love the mass transit here.

good luck everyone else…

But, transit’s small percentage in Upstate New York is not the whole story. Similar to the Canadian example, it is better to count and advocate for all alternative modes of travel. In Upstate New York, 20.5% of commuters use alternative modes for going to work, other than driving alone. It’s more credible to advocate for increasing the 20.5% share than just for public transit.

An example for how to do can be found on the CIVITAS website
http://www.civitas-initiative.org/main.phtml?lan=en

What is CIVITAS? It’s a program of the European Union to help cities achieve “a more sustainable, clean and energy efficient urban transport system by implementing and evaluating an ambitious, integrated set of technology and policy based measures.”

All alternative modes are on the table as a green transport package. Further, there is a major effort to use technology to integrate modes. I found the CIVITAS website last week. I found a case study from Genoa, Italy on a flexible transit service for small urban and rural use I’ve been looking for. So, where is the American version of CIVITAS, a clearinghouse for innovation?

The breakout opportunity for public transportation is to use a “big tent” approach to support public investment in all green transport modes. Public transportation should become a leading advocate for the big picture.

(p.s. include the posts in your submittal to the politicians)