Time
Many people now stereotype public transportation as something used only by the lower class, not something for everyday life in everyday people. However, public transit provides many benefits, such as efficiency. This is because a subway does not have to struggle through traffic. But we almost always need to make public transportation more efficient. For two famous examples, there are buses and street cars. Buses are notorious for getting stuck in traffic and are used sparingly. This started after the invention of the car, and as advertisers made cars cool, more people got cars, and the streets became more and more crowded. Eventually, some cities started removing this problem by taking away the buses. This solution worsens it because some people cannot afford cars, so they are forced to go bankrupt by buying a car. But, some sensible cities such as Amsterdam are fixing the situation by making buses their lanes in the streets. Streetcars, however, have yet to be heard of now.
Efficiency
Buses and subways also can move vast amounts of people at a time. In fact, a mile or more of interstate traffic can be put into one big bus or a subway train. This mass movement of people also allows buses and subways to save on energy by using less energy per person. Although I am strictly speaking about buses and subways here, many other forms of public transportation are affected by the reasons I am giving. These forms include cable cars, trains, Maglev trains, street cars, and trolleys. We can solve this problem by allowing more buses on the roads or even making roads only for public transportation. As I have mentioned, some of these cities include Amsterdam (below), Copenhagen, and sometimes even other countries such as Switzerland.
Cheapness
Public transportation is often very notorious for being cheap. But rather than working with this, we dumb people worked against this. We did this by working this into the stereotype for public transportation by saying that since public transportation was cheap, it was only for poor people. We then used this to elevate us higher than the lower class and justify the driving of cars. But intelligent people in Copenhagen and Amsterdam thought about this and devised a brilliant idea. “Why don’t we advertise the cheapness of public transportation,” they said. That worked a lot. People in Amsterdam started biking and riding on public transportation everywhere.
But…
People often frustrate me by providing reasons why we should not use public transportation. Below are a few of those reasons.
- …we have gone too far. – This reason states that we have done too much to help cars and that there is no going back. However, Amsterdam already had a massive car infrastructure, and they destroyed almost all of it and replaced it with bikes.
- …there is too much money to be made. – In fact, there is actually money to be saved. Cars use up a lot of electricity, gas, and diesel. People have to spend enormous amounts of money on these things every year. However, riding public transportation is way more energy efficient.
- …it isn’t fast. – People often complain about how slow public transportation can be. But in fact, they are contributing to its sluggishness. As I have said before, the influx of cars is a major factor in slowing down public transportation. If we could reduce the number of cars, public transportation would regain its speed and efficiency.
If you provide good alternatives for public transport, you won’t have traffic problems.
Jaime Lerner
To learn more about bikes and public transportation, go to YouTube and watch the NotJustBikes channel on the topic.
