Location Transport - What can we do to encourage more people to take public transportation?

What can we do to encourage more people to take public transportation?

How can we we make public transportation more appealing to the masses of people who drive their cars to and from work every day?

Public Comments

90% of the country doesn't have any mass transit. If I lived in the city I'd take the bus rather than fight traffic but it's a moot point in most areas.
Put televisions in them - similar to the greyhounds. Offer lower rates for monthly commutes. clean the things - they smell like a holes and elbows
First of all, and most importantly, we need to make public transportation easier to use. We need to make it convenient. I live in Dallas, Texas, and having a car here is a necessity. There are buses and they are building a rail line, but they really aren't convenient. If public transportation becomes easier to use and more convenient, then more people will use it. EDIT: I actually asked a question on this subject a couple months ago. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ajm.FJ9VMNrLoYLVHY07yHnty6IX?qid=20070625115038AA2lFf5
Make them more appealing not old and something nobody wants to ride on and they need more seats for bigger crowds nobody wants to be crowded. Make them look like something cool like different colors and stuff that seems cool.
Make it more accessible and efficient. People who really need it, frequently don't live in areas where it's available.
I'm not sure it's possible. I take public transportation because I don't know how to drive, but it's enough of a nuisance that if a person has a car, they generally do drive instead of take the bus. There are plenty of inconveniences, including the buses going some distance from where you live or where you work, so that in bad weather you really get to hate that walk. Or they are scheduled for the wrong times, they get late if there is too much traffic and you miss connections. They break down. If there's a fall or an accident or injury, no matter how minor, they hold up for an hour or two. If you want to stop and run an errand on the way to or from work, it's a major hassle. There's a limit to what you can carry on a bus: no trunk, you know. There is over-crowding at commute time, screaming babies, teen-agers who are rude and crude, old drunks that smell horrible, etc., etc., etc. I rode the bus for many years to and from work, and believe me, if there was any other way, I would have used it. The capper was when the drivers went out on strike for a month and I had to use up vacation time, beg rides, inconvenience others, etc. I believe it was a major reason I was laid off my job as soon as the strike was over: they realized they could indeed run the place without me.
Add more routes that are more convenient especially in cities where their are limited cross town routes.
Make them more accessible. Not only in the highly populated areas. Come up with a convenient schedule, that is friendly to everybody.....not just the 9-5 worker....Make them look nice...something you enjoy using! Europe (Germany) has an excellent transportation system!
Make mass transit more comfortable, clean, accessible. The area in which I live doesn't have a bus stop that doesn't require my walking more than a mile to get to it. Because it is so incessantly hot, I think it is more dangerous to try walking a mile than to just get in the air/conditioned comfort of my own car. Additionally, I work almost 30 miles away from my job and there are also no bus stops near my job either. It would take me nearly 3 hours each way to get to and from work everyday instead of the hour both ways with traffic. I would propose a subway system, but you can't dig too far underground in Florida...we would sink. They tried developing an above ground rail system, but it only goes downtown and not all over the city. There is no more room to build onto the above ground rail system because of the existing highways. So sadly, I don't think it is possible for every single city to have a favorable system for mass transit.
By making everyone understand that the the LAW OF SUPPLY & DEMAND is REAL. Assume that TOMORROW every vehicle of any type that now exists on earth could somehow be enabled to run on something other than Petroleum products, the explosion of progress in developing nations would STILL DEMAND AN ENORMOUS NEED FOR PETROLEUM PRODUCTS & DERIVITIVES. WHY? Virtually EVERY manufactured product in the world contains some type of petroleum or man made chemical based on petroleum. Look around you. See how many items contain some type of plastic. Computers, Shrink wrap, Notebook covers, Phones, Cameras, and on & on. There are hundreds of thousands of items you will see every day in your every day life and as many you never see. UNLESS SOME MIRACLE OCCURS THAT ALL THESE PRODUCTS CAN BE MADE FROM SOMETHING THAT IS NOT PETROLEUM BASED, THE BEST ANSWER TO THIS URGENT WORLDWIDE PROBLEM IS PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION OF SOME SORT TO CONSERVE LIMITED RESOURCES. CARPOOLING, BUS, OR BY ANY OTHER MEANS WILL HELP. THIS WILL REQUIRE A SEEMINGLY IMPOSSIBLE REVERSAL OF MAN'S NATURAL TENDENCY TO NOT CHANGE OR GIVE UP THEIR NORMAL WAY OF DOING THINGS.
Make it available to more people. I live in a metro area of 4.5 million people. The closest any public transportation comes to my house is 8 miles, and it's a bus. Plus, assuming I were to drive to this bus stop, there's no place to park. Assuming I could park, it would take 1.5 hours for me to get to my office, about 7 miles away (no direct route), so there is also a huge convenience issue. It's also over 100 degrees here for close to six months out of the year. I'll drive the 15 miles to work in the comfort of my own vehicle without drunks and tweakers crowding my space, until a more convenient solution is available.
There closing down the bus system down here where i live. Not enough money, don't know how they expect the people who rely on them to get around.
Make buses smaller, more comfortable. With my back, I can barely get on or off, and the drivers don't like waiting for me to sit down. The seats are hard, with metal armrests that hurt my arms. Clean them up, they smell horrible and have food smeared on the seats. The buses are so big, they rock back and forth constantly and I get seasick. Make the fares good for the whole day, so we can get on and off. I can't go shopping, and pick up my grandson at school, and get some food at the fast food. When people get off work, they often have to stop off at the store, and go to the postoffice, and run other errands, which they can't do on one fare. Place stops on more streets so we don't have to walk so far. In 100 degree heat, I simply cannot go all the way to the bus stop. It's nearly impossible to shop and ride, because there's no place to put our packages.
replace the thousands of miles of railroad track that have been torn up and get our "electic" trains on the trax (similar to the European systems) return defunct bus lines to areas they used to run. (never drove anywhere when I was station in Germany, traveled long distance by electric train -- always on time and short distances by bus -- also on time //clean transportation convenient to use)
They should bring back inter-urbans and other ways to have transportation reach those of us who live in rural areas and don't have access to buses. I would take it if I could, and if it wouldn't take me an insane amount of time to get to work or school. When I lived in a small city/college town that had buses, I alternated between riding my bike and taking the bus to work and school.
I think the only way is to increase the price of gas. In Europe, they tax gas like crazy, so public transportation becomes a better alternative. If driving here cost more, people would drive less, which would create a demand for mass transit, which would encourage cities and companies to provide more service.
The best answer is make it available to everyone. I live in Portland, OR. We have a wonderful public transit system- a combination of buses and light rail. They are constantly expanding the train routes. During commute time, it is standing room only. They are heavily used and a great way to get around. I even take my bike on board the train if I'm going a long ways from the train stop. Yes, it can be unfortable and crowded at times, but as I look at the cars stopped on the freeway, I feel good about what I'm doing.
The town where I live has at long last a decent transportation system. My only thoughts on improvement would be to have better covered seating for those waiting for a bus. When it is hot out or raining, standing and waiting for the bus to come, with children or carrying groceries open benches simply do not cut it.
For one thing make it more avaliable. I live in a place where public transporation is just not convient at all. We have a few buses that run through the small cities but only the bigger cities really have a good public transporation system. Where i am im lucky if the bus even comes once an hour. There is no subway or tracks system avaivalble.
Car manufacturers & dealers should stop making & selling cars so people will automatically encourage to take the public transportation. Just kidding ! Unfortunately, in the third world countries like South Asian Countries , people are bound to take public transportation because oil prices are so high in that countries that people can not afford a car or motor cycle for themselves. My personal observation and experience is that people fought against bus drivers if they take heavy bus-fares from public. People can not afford heavy bus-fares too because of poverty.
Improve Public Transportation, have more shelters, for the public while they are waiting for the Bus in inclement weather. It also needs to be priced low in order to be affordable to the general public especially the minimum wage workers. It is difficult to make connections, in order to get to different point in the area I am in. That is why most people like to drove. If and when the public transportation is better and more accessible, more people would use it .
People who use private transport for following reasons 1. Comfort (Seat, A/c or Heater) 2. Flexibility (Go whenever you want) 3. ZERO Waiting time. 4. Dress Safety!!! (Surely you dont want to take a bus when you are well dressed to attend that board meeting!!) 5. Our own Route. (You dont have to catch 3 busses to reach work) Basically if you have seen some of the Sci-Fi movies where you get your own cubicle of public transport. Thats exactly what people want. Then we can see more people using public transport and less of private cars. Ofcourse there are other "arm twisting" ways governments use : Road Tax, Tolls on streets, Parking fees. They keep these so high that you might as well sell the car and go by walk. Thats exactly why I keep my house very close to work. I dont like to be armtwisted! .:Fishie:.
Stop being stupid. The government says 'We want people to use public transport' then in the next breath it says 'And we are rising the prices of faires by £1 In the end its cheaper, and more comfortable to take the car. In this world are people going to choose the expensive route when there is a cheaper more comfortable one on offer.
Well... first of all public transportation could start by making their bus drivers taking some kind of customer service training. I do not take the bus anymore, haven't done so for years, but the memories that I have are not fond :) Plus many people that I know do take the bus, and it seems that this particular problem has not changed. Some drivers just plain need anger management classes. Also more buses available for certain areas. Some places that I know of, buses only come by every half hour, sometimes even every forty five minutes. So in a nutshell: Better service to people taking the bus, more transportation available, and I forgot - better equiped buses e.g. working a/c - and clean buses as well.
The place I live is crowded with about 10 million people in our capital city. There is not enough public transport system (circular-railways, bus or mass transit system etc) that could cater 10% of the total load. I have seen some of the efforts made to improve public transport systems in Singapore, Malaysia, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Kolkata, and Vienna which we could have easily replicated here if the job was taken some decades ago. Here you don't even need to encourage more people to take public transportation, since people are already not getting that kind of services available to them. As so many above has said, if the public transport is not going to the places where I would be heading then why force me to get onto them? (lol). I agree with Yarnlady and Auntb93's above observations and suggestions and wish that people visit Singapore to learn how efficiently public transportation can be put to serve its people! Therefore, it is important that the city/town planners and governments wake up and do something to help getting 'access' to its citizen for easy and comfortable public transportation facilities. That way the public transportation would be more appealing to the masses.
○ Promise (and live up to the promise of) efficient and timely transportation service. I hate the bus system out where I live because it takes way too long to get from Point A to Point B and still have some daylight left to yourself. I used to have to be out the door at 5 am to be at work at 8 am...in the SAME city!! (It normally takes me 15-20 minutes to get there.) ○ Keep rates low. Public transportation has grown more expensive. Of course, I understand why because I have to pay more at the pump, too; nonetheless it's difficult though for those that depend on this service to keep up with rising costs while taking care of other family responsibilities. ► All and all: If service is bad and I can get to the same place faster by spending less, then why should I keep using the service? ◄
It is simple! Make them safe, reliable, on-time, low-cost, convenient, and extensive to cover a wide area so all can use them to benefit the quality of their lifestyle..
ugh my city is terrrible a city of 2 million and all we have is a mediocre bus system and an under construction light rail where nobody lives. Public transportation need to be avalaiable to everyone in the city no matter where they are. busses are gross and have gross people get more rail people
Until the early 90's I lived and worked in LA, which at the time had one of the worst public transportation systems. I worked one half hour from home . . . providing that I didn't try to get to work during rush hour. Traffic turned the drive into a grueling 2 hour affair. The buses, though inconvenient, took 45 to 50 minutes to get me to work, so I rode the bus. It is simple, if public transportation becomes MORE convenient than driving people will use it. We Americans are far too independent to give up the privacy of our personal vehicles if we don't have to. We are looking for some new invention or device to bail us out. What might get us to take public transportation would be for some of the more radical environmentalists to gain control. Many have stated that the best way to save the earth is "cut" population by two thirds. Conveniently, they evade the question of how to do this. Who gets to decide where the population gets cut. A better solution would be to cut our electricity consumption, PG&E's website states that cutting 25kilowatt hours per day would be the equivalent of permanently removing 1 automobile from the roads. In the US, fully 33% of the carbon released into the environment comes from the creation of electricity. Change all light bulbs to fluorescents, don't use AC (of course that brings us back to my comments above). Unless we are pushed into it, we probably won't do it.
They could make it a more interesting experience with funky electronic gadgets like comfortable seating, tv screens, scrolling news streams, headphones in every seat, music, better routing and oh yeah....laptops.
we can convince them to ride in a public transportation vehicle by giving them a good service... that they would appriciate it...
Set up a system (subway, railway, etc.) that runs through/by every single block of a city. Run it nonstop 24/7. Advertise-Advertise-Advertise, comparing cost-per-mile of usual private transport with the small fee (or tax) that gets you anywhere in the city. Also, offer Frequent Flyer Miles.
The bus system in my area services about one million people, and it is the most unreliable public transportation system I've ever had the displeasure of using. Without encountering rare problems like a flat tire, accident in the road ahead, etc, the time it took to travel from my house to the college--a distance of about five miles--ranged anywhere from one hour to five. (Those particular five miles are an easy bike ride, usually in nice weather, so after a few weeks I just gave up and biked.) I never dared ride to bus to my more distant workplace; going to work late three days in a row was sufficient cause to get fired. The buses only run during the middle of the day, on weekdays, and even then very infrequently. The busiest route allows for one bus an hour, and there are usually fifty to sixty people per bus. If you're unlucky enough to work on weekends, or need to be to work before 10 AM, you're out of luck. Unforunately, I have no idea how the administration of the bus system works, and so I have no idea of exactly how these problems might be fixed. But speaking from personal experience, I will say that if the busses came by more often, got to places somewhere near their scheduled time, and passes were reasonably priced, I would ride them regularly.
Let me tell you about mass transit. Nobody likes to wait for the bus; and nobody likes to trust a system with drivers who weave out of control downtown scarring the crap of out folks.
Provide cleaner and safer transportation. More routes are needed to make it feasible for many - then you're right back to the same pollution as cars. The Downsides: Who wants to ride a train that smells like vomit and urine from the drunks the night before? Who wants to be a possible target in a terrorist attack just because it's public transportation? Who will protect people who may be attacked while riding a train? How is it saving money for a person to drive to a station, pay for parking, pay for a ticket, and then walk blocks to work - time consuming and not good in bad weather. Trains are not available for all areas. Buses? You're putting your life in someone else's hands every day you ride on one. All bus drivers were not given proper driving instructions I'm thinking. The Upside: You can usually get where you're going even in bad weather on a train if the train is going to your destination. You can meet a lot of interesting people. It might help to make the transportation a better ride if they could listen to or see the news while in transit. With modern technology, they need to bring their transportation up to the modern age of technology. How about offering internet connections for an extra fee? Better pollution control on government vehicles - trains, planes, buses, etc - would be a better for our environment. Let's not forget about the construction vehicles - which are everywhere, plows, etc. The government needs to set the example before they should expect people to follow.
I think a big thing would be adding more bus routes. currently if I wanted to take the bus ANYWHERE whether it be my place of business or the mall I would have to drive/bike/walk about 12-14 miles to get to the nearest bus stop. at that point I would be 3 miles away from both work and the mall. Gas prices are very high right now but its just more convenient for me to take my car and pay the gas prices then bike or walk the 14 miles in the 110 degree weather (I live in AZ so it is hot)
where i live, apparently we have a bus system. unfortunately, nobody knows were there are stops, nor the times that they arrive there. anyways, if there was a bus, nobody would take it because they're skanky. they need to have a schedule posted online, and one in the town newspapers. the buses need to be upgraded and clean and spacious so that people actually want to use them.
Listen Mike. My sister and I have driven the Los Angeles freeways for over 25 years. You're talking 120 miles total both ways EVERY SINGLE DAY. Nobody knows better about gridlock than us. Before the LA Council idiotically decided to build the ridiculous, ineffective, under the ground where earthquakes happen Metrolink SUBWAY, there was a suggestion to create a Monorail along the freeways. One idiot councilwoman snapped "This isn't Disneyland!" and the ensuing fiasco went onward. A monorail could run along over the freeways, only about 20-25 feet off the ground, could run on magnets and could be extended and branched off to all parts of the Los Angeles basin. There would be no more gridlock, no frightening subway weirdos to contend with and you could actually see daylight and where you're going. The reduced smog alone would be worth the cost! Not to mention curtailing road rage, drunken driving (sometimes the wrong way) and gang drive-by shootings on the freeways. Every time my sister sits in 2-3 hours in traffic, she's near tears thinking what should have and could have been the PERFECT mode of transportation in Los Angeles. No we're not Disneyland, but you know, sometime Walt had some damned good ideas. And besides, aren't we really Disneyland?
I live in Texas where the summer climate does not encourage standing in the hot sun/torrential downpour waiting for a bus. We need sheltered waiting areas at bus stops!!!!!!!!!
Use web connections to allow user to anticipate the arrival of the next bus at alternative locations, smaller vehicles that run more often, allow drivers that have proven themselves through a series of classes to drive the smaller vehicles to near-stations and leave it for the next driver to drive to another near-stations. Have driverless vehicles of the same that run more often as well in safe situations. You get the idea...
How about if people in public stop lying and pretending to be cute and concerned? Politics is about coalition building, organizing, image-making, compromising, not coming up with more 'ideas'. People who are really concerned about public transportation are on the front lines, organizing, fund raising, marketing, and likely belong to a union.
make better city routes - keep gas prices rising - give better monthly discounts -
* Helps to prevent too much air pollution. * Have some classical music or something to relax the panicing people who are late to work, etc. * Cleaner bathrooms. * More running water coming from the sinks on trains. * Soap onboard trains. * Water fountain or bottled water at fair prices for thirsty riders.