Public tranportation in California, and especialy here in the Orange/LA/Ventura county megopolis is 3 things.
Overcrowded busses that take hours to get near but never to your destination.
Vitualy useless trains that don't go near where you want, making you take a bus or walk from the station.(while being almost empty.)
Mass transit is only feasable in highly concentrated areas, like NYC, Chicago, and San Fransisco.
It must be installed early in the cities history, or the cost is prohibative, (eminent domain can be quite expencive ) and the industry is seldom where the terminals are near. Hint, the best land is ALREADY being used, and has buildings already on the property. Look up "the big dig", and see how expencive and inconvenient it is.
You have to PLAN to have the system user friendly, and the roads ALREADY go where everyone wants to go.
The advantages of automobiles is simple and obvious if you have ever lived in a city like mine. More than a 1 mile to walk from the station to your final destination is the rule, not the exeption.
FLEXABILITY!
New opening for a busness? Roads are already there to take you to and from work!
Closed for the downturn? No lost and unused capacity, the roads just sit there until used.
Repairs needed on the roads? Use alternative routes! (Try THAT with rail!)
The webwork of roads almost never has only one way to get from A to B, like bus routes, or rail.
As for subways, well this is earthquake country, and anyone stupid enough to use them will be afforded a free burial when the next big quake comes.
In answer to your question about why mass transit needs to predate massive road networks to work, is that the automobile spreads things out, and offers a level of convenience, controle and privacy impossible for public trans.
Until gridlock starts, the downsides of this choice are minimal, and only after a certain density happens do cars become less practical than mass transit.
Having roads and private autos will kill demand for mass transit, (until it is too late and your city is commited to the asphalt jungle) and strangle it with competition in it's infancy.
By the time a place NEEDS mass transit, it is TOO LATE to get it. The city has been built around the roads, not the rail, and the switchover just won't work. The whole CITY would need to be rebuilt. The residential suburbs REQUIRE cars to work. Wanting a large yard precludes the density of residence needed for mass transit.
Try and imagine RETROFITTING a modern city with sewer and water.
Stupid right, as it should have been the first thing done?
Same thing with mass transit.
NYC was made around the subway, and I understand it is actualy HARDER on you in NYC if you HAVE a car than don't. If you don't commute from from the mainland, you don't need one.
Hmmmmmm.
"It is happening now, It has happened before, It will surely happen again."
Oldest member of SD.net, not most mature.
Brotherhood of the Monkey
