| Speaking for my metro area, while it is true that there are significant resources in Express routes and other commuter-movers to get people into the downtown hub, a secondary, or even primary aim of our transit system is to GET PEOPLE SHOPPING. Our transit centers are literally hosted by shopping malls, more often than not, until they are significant enough to be freestanding or independent of such malls. The routes are carefully planned to get people from one major retail center to another; the stops stop in front of stores, restaurants, and venues; it's all quite transparently consumer-focused. The transit system here would look significantly different if they concentrated on moving workers to places of business. Transit riders work in certain areas which simply aren't served at all by transit. Take call centers, for example: a call center is usually situated in a business park or industrial zone. This will not have bus stops. I worked in a call center where I'd take my bicycle every day to ride the last mile, quite literally. I regularly negotiate with recruiters about commute distance, and it's always my chore to explain how distance means a different thing to a transit rider: I can ride the train a long ways and it's a short, easy commute; if I need to transfer 2 buses it's a huge pain, 3 hours each way, even if it's 1/3rd of the distance of that single train ride. Transit systems which serve upper-middle-class workers in downtown hubs do it because those workers find it impractical to park downtown, not because they can't afford private vehicle ownership. I took advantage of Caltrain in the Bay Area, just so I didn't put so many miles on my car. Transit systems like mine don't actually serve the proletariat nor support our commuting needs; they're fundamentally here to encourage consumerism and stimulate retail economies, and that's how they score such massive subsidies that they hardly even need people to pay fares. |