"Help The Planet, Save Money & Brag About It"

I see this all the time-there is almost no way to get around in America unless you drive. I asked this in another thread but it got buried; do you think that the American public transport system is poor because people are not interested in it, or are people not interested in it because it is poor.

Why did the rail system stop growing, and in fact many lines were shut down? Why did the networks not get put in place here, like they did in so many other countries?

And why are there no footpaths in so many places!? How is a person supposed to stay fit if they have to drive everywhere!

we drive to the gym and wait for a parking space close to the entrance so we dont have to walk as far… LOL

I really dont do that, but I do see people waiting for a close space at the gym.

Well what happened, is after WWII when the soldier began comming home, we had a huge realestate boom and everyone mooved into the suburbs. Suburbs are not close to the rairoads (thats considered the low income part of towns) so naturally people began buying more cars and driving to work as opposed to walking (like in urban environments). This of course killed the railroad and made the auto industry huge.

This is the curse that America is stuck with “Suburbia” and it is the main reason why public transportation has died in these types of cities. Its just not fesible to have a “good” public transportation system in a suburban area becasue it would have to reach out too far (distance).

Now urban environemtns on the other hand have great public transportation systems (New York, Chicago, Sand Diego, etc..).

In my own city (suburban) we have a few busses, which run every 30 minutes to an hour apart. They are disgusting and the AC is broken on most of them, so the thought of ridingthat bus again is frightning.

So it is kindof a catch 22: people are not interested because it sucks and it sucks becasue not enought people are interested.

I don’t know how the rest of the world is compared to Los Angeles, where I live, but here we have an excellent transportation system. While I know many people that won’t ride public transportation because the “type” of people that use it, I am more than willing to ride the bus or train if necessary.

I think that more people are interested in using their own vehicle as transporation due to the privacy and self-reliance that it allows.

Also, there are many footpaths here, and I always see people using them. I think it’s just southern California, though. I lived in Texas for a very short period, and the public transportation system was nothing like it is here. Very scarce, and hard to use. Sidewalks in my small town were nonexistent for the most part, so people weren’t willing to walk.

I don’t think that there is a lack of transportation at all. Around my home, there are trains and buses with very low fares. It is so easy to get anywhere that you want to go. I didn’t have a car for about 6 months, and I found no problems whatsoever with getting anywhere.

New York seems to be the only place with a city wide transport system that kind of works in Orlando there is just about none