This video was made possible by Skillshare. Learn anything, including how I make these
videos, for free for two months by going to Skl.sh/wendover. This is Indiana, and this is Scotland. Both have a similar number of inhabitants,
a similar size, and a similar population density. But here’s Indiana’s public transportation
system, and here’s Scotland’s. You want to get to Cupar, a town of 9,000
30 miles from the capital? That’ll take you 55 minutes on a train that
leaves every 30 minutes or an hour and 40 minutes on a bus that leaves every 40. You want to get to Anderson, a town of 50,000
30 miles from Indiana’s capital? Well, you’re out of luck. The only option is the car. Antiquated technology, safety concerns, crumbling
infrastructure, and nonexistence—it’s not hard to argue that the US public transportation
network is just not good. Vast swaths of the US have no option but to
drive because the alternative just is not there. This has consequences on the environment,
on economic mobility, on where people live, the consequences of America’s lack of solid
public transportation almost defines American culture. But it wasn’t always like this. The United States once had the best public
transportation system in the world. It was a the admiration of countries worldwide
and an essential factor allowing for the successful western expansion of the country. It all started with this—the horsecar. Now, there were urban transportation systems
before these horse drawn trams came along, but they weren't cheap and they weren’t
fast. Roads generally weren’t paved and there
just wasn’t the economic demand for high frequency service because these carriages
were rarely faster than walking. But on rails, these horsecars were fast and
one horse could pull a full load of passengers thanks to the rails. In its heyday, there were over 6,000 miles
of horsecar lines in the US. In comparison, the combined mileage of every
tram, subway, light rail, and commuter rail system in the US nowadays is 5,416. In 1880, 50 million people lived in the US. Today, over 320 million. Around the turn of the century, many of those
horsecar systems were electrified. There were then 11,000 miles of streetcar
track nationwide. The systems were absolutely everywhere. Even tiny towns like Bangor, Maine and Berlin,
New Hampshire had streetcars. So what happened? How did the US go from having 11,000 miles
of streetcar to 200? How did the US go from having solid public
transportation in towns big and small across the country to how it is today? The decline of the streetcar began just after
the turn of the century. That was when the automobile came around. By 1920, the car was starting to get to an
attainable price-point for the everyday individual. That was the real threat for the streetcar—not
cars, but economical cars. The streetcar received another blow in 1929—the
great depression. There were fewer people with jobs which meant
fewer people who needed to commute and fewer people who had the money to pay for transport
so many lines were just not profitable anymore and closed. But then the streetcar received a stay of
execution—World War Two. You see, during World War Two, the US had
the lowest unemployment rate in history—as low as 1.2%. There were tons of factory jobs to support
the war so practically everyone who wanted a job had a job. That meant there were tons more people now
going to and from work, and, even better for the streetcar, there were rations going on
on rubber and gas which diminished the popularity of the car. But something else was going on through all
of that. Something more sinister. Sometime in the 1920s, automobile technology
became advanced enough that the bus became cheaper to operate than the streetcar. Streetcars cost very little to power, but
they do require a lot of infrastructure from overhead lines to track. Buses were more flexible and required almost
no infrastructure. And the bus had some powerful friends, the
automobile companies, or more specifically, General Motors. General Motors went and bought dozens of small
streetcar companies across the nation and turned them into bus companies. They removed hundreds of miles of track across
the US and supported other companies doing the same, but its not like they didn’t have
a good reason to do this. These streetcars were not economically advantageous. Buses were faster, cheaper, and at the time,
they were the modern and fresh transportation method that the public wanted. Nearly every streetcar system nationwide was
replaced with a bus system. In addition, the streetcar companies were
almost all commercial so if and when they failed, many local governments set up public,
subsidized bus companies. So that’s how transportation got bad, but
why did it stay bad? Well, mostly because of the car. America is the country of the car. It grew up as the car grew up and so its cities
were built for cars. Think Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angeles—you can’t
survive in these cities without a car. Remember, the United States is centered around
the idea of personal freedom. With a car, you can go anywhere at anytime,
so politically, cars have historically been associated with the idea of personal freedom. Just like the Republican party votes to have
strong national defense, allow gun ownership, and preserve small government in order to
promote personal freedom, they have always worked to promote the usage and ownership
of cars. This means they often voted in favor of subsidies
helping the auto industry, most often in the form of indirect subsidies lowering the cost
of gas. Now, that was fine when cities were small,
highways were new, gas was cheap, and climate change wasn’t even a concept, but that’s
not the case anymore. Cities are just of a size where they literally
cannot support their entire population driving. You can’t fit more road infrastructure in
many cites, but you can fit more public transportation. Cars were available to the common American
much earlier than the common European, so the US set road policies early that allowed
for large, smooth, well-functioning roads. While the US was building its magnificent
roads, Europe was building their public transportation systems. The high car usage in the US even has to do
with zoning. You see, European cities tend to have less
strict zoning laws which allow for businesses and housing to intermingle. The US zones its cities much more strictly. Houses are next to houses and businesses are
next to businesses which means that the distances between houses and shops in the US is much
greater. Therefore, Americans have to go further more
often. The most demonstrative fact is how the two
places approach parking. In the US, zoning laws specify a minimum number
of parking spaces per building. In Europe, the laws specify a maximum number
of parking spaces. The three cities with the three lowest car-ownership
rates in the US all have something in common. Boston, New York, and DC, are all old, rather
compact cities with decent public transportation systems. Since they were cities before the car, they’re
built much more like the European cities that have such good public transportation systems
today. Simplified, public transportation gets worse
as you go further west since western cities are newer. But here’s the most important sentence of
this entire video: access to transportation is the single most important factor in an
individual’s ability to escape poverty. That is not a subjective claim, that is a
fact that emerged from a Harvard study. Someone who lives right by a subway stop is
astronomically more likely to find a high-paying job than someone who doesn’t have a way
to get around. Individuals in poverty generally live in poor
neighborhoods with few job opportunities, but with reliable, accessible, and inexpensive
public transportation these individuals can get all across their city to where the jobs
are. So, a good way to evaluate the effectiveness
of a public transportation system is by how well it serves the poor. DC, for example, does a good job of this. The poorest neighborhoods have the greatest
proportion of their residents within a 10-minute walk of a metro station while the richest
neighborhoods have the smallest proportion. Hand-in-hand with their move back into the
cities, millennials are shunning cars. Car ownership among young people is at historic
lows and the urban youth is relying more and more on public transport. Some cities like, Portland, Kansas City, Detroit,
and DC are turning back to streetcars. Done right, streetcars can drive huge increases
in economic development. They’re more of a symbol of modernization
that entices residents, developers, and businesses to areas. Portland, for example, has had an estimated
$5 billion in extra economic development thanks to its streetcar. New streetcar systems are being built all
across the US in cities like Milwaukee and Oklahoma city since they’re finally making
money again—not from their fares, but from the jobs brought by their existence. People didn’t want them a century ago, but
streetcars finally make sense again. Public transportation is instrumentally important
to the success of cities. You can almost be sure that a good city will
have good public transportation and a bad city will have bad public transportation. Public transportation increases economic mobility,
decreases carbon footprints, and increases economic development so the only question
is, why not build more of it? One of the most common requests I receive
is for a behind-the-scenes video and I’ve finally made one. I’ve partnered up with Skillshare to post
it on their platform. The course is mainly geared to people who
already do or want to create their own videos but it should be interesting for anyone. If you’re not interested in that in particular,
Skillshare has over 16,000 classes about pretty much anything and everything which you can
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months including my behind-the-scenes course which is also linked in the description.
The video admits because of the very high costs of streetcars, bus companies outcompeted much of the private streetcar companies. How is spending billions in dollars for streetcar infrastructure justifiable when buses are way more cheap and flexible? Conventional rail lines via passenger train or street car are very costly to build and maintain and cannot support themselves financially without significant government subsidies. Also, autonomous vehicles will only make buses and cars more lucrative and more efficient as autonomous vehicles reduce traffic jams and congestion and also doesn't require billions in government spending.
Streetcars are often very ineffective as they, like busses, can get stuck in traffic, but like light rail or subways, are expensive af. The only postive of streetcars is how sexy they look and probably some economic growth as businesses try to open shop on the streetcar routes. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RftqoygXXHk)
And of course the anti street car piece from The Economist
https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/08/economist-explains-2
Buses use more energy, sure, but he says streetcars being swapped out for buses was how "transportation got bad"? I don't get that. Buses are more flexible, and they require less dedicated infrastructure. Seems like he's fetishizing street cars because...they run on tracks?
Excellent video.
I skimmed through the study here and nowhere does it say those exact words. It doesn't seem to me that growing up in a city with good transportation is the most important factor given this statement "Hence, growing up in a one SD better county from birth increases a child’s income by approximately 10%." That's a decent difference, but it's not large enough to say that it's the most important factor.
Despite many people thinking that IQ tests are unreliable, it turns out that IQ is the single best predictor of income. Having one SD better in IQ represents a 28% significant increase in income.
Interesting video. It makes a lot of sense.
Just build busways and bus lanes.
Why public transportation sucks? Because it's public transportation, not private transportation. UberPOOL has done more effective job in providing small shuttle service than any government owned public transportation has ever done. UberPOOL is so amazing and cost effective service for passengers that it takes passenger from point A to point B, door to door service, with finding other passengers going in the same direction. This is much much faster than public buses or trains with similar fares. If government stops regulating the market, UberPOOL is planning to install buses on the roads as bus shuttle service using the same GPS technology and mathematically most effective algorithm when it comes to plan a route from point 1 to point 100. This would be a hell lot of cheaper, faster, more convenient for passengers and solves a lot of traffic congestion.
We've always wondered how to make the most effective public transportation system for centuries. Public transportation will never be the most effective system. Why? Government doesn't have the profit incentive. Let the free market work. Private transportation is the answer.
we could use some of these too