[sandworm101]

>> "a smaller-than-average share of workers drives to work alone in more compact college towns"

We all talk about trying to get people our of their cars, but imho isn't all about cities or even transport systems. Imho it is about jobs. The great divide is between those who work in places that support alternative to private vehicles and those that do not.

If your employer wants you to work changing hours on short notice, public transport doesn't work. Asking someone to show up an hour earlier than normal is difficult if that means they won't have a bus/train available. I want to see studies comparing various sectors. I'd bet good money that those working government and/or education jobs (the college towns in the above quote) are less likely to drive cars to work. And conversely, those who work private sector jobs (swing shifts, late hours, on-call etc) are more likely to drive cars.

Personally, I now work in a government job (military) with a few hundred people in one building. Lots of people do bike/walk/run to work. We have bus stop right in front of our base, but nobody uses it. It just isn't reliable. Our bosses don't want to hear that we are late because the bus was stuck in traffic. We also sometimes have to work strange hours/shifts. Sometimes our day ends "whenever it ends". 2000 quickly becomes 0300. Will the bus get me home at a random hour and with enough time to sleep before the morning? My car/bike/feet sure will.

[flyingpenguin]

> Asking someone to show up an hour earlier than normal is difficult if that means they won't have a bus/train available.

I lived in Seoul for close to a year without a car. I never used a taxi and never looked up or planed my routes before I left home/work/shop/etc. The longest I remember waiting for a train/bus was around 4minutes. In this instance, I saw my bus pulling away as I was walking up. There was another of the same bus in line behind 3 other buses.

I have lived in Denver without a car for close to 4 years. I pay 4x as much in public transit fees, I know all train times and bus times by heart and I plan when I leave based on those times. I usually bike to/from the train because it is literally faster than the bus stop less than 100ft from my house.

We have a chicken and egg problem.

Edit: God I miss the trains in Seoul. I don't know if they had times but the rule seemed to be if a train was pulling out, you just had to wait for the next train to finish pulling in.

[esotericn]

I don't see how that's about jobs - that's an artifact of a bad public transport system.

In London I could drive or get public transport. Depending on where I go, one could be faster or slower. Generally, for non-radial journeys further out, driving will be faster.

But in terms of reliability/variance the public transport option will almost always be better for journeys of longer than ten minutes or so.

Buses have bus lanes - aside from the small delay of people getting on or off, they strictly cannot suffer more variance than a car because they have priority over cars for some subsection of the route.

Trains... well, trains run on tracks. There are service interruptions, sure, but those are far less frequent than traffic jams or accidents on the road or whatever.

(I'm talking here about all journeys. Commuting, not commuting, whatever.)

The stereotypical rural (or bad city urban) bus that comes every 20-30 minutes with no real adherence to any timetable, no live arrivals information or anything else sours people on public transport.