It's as though people think that a car costs 45% as much in Kansas City.
Or, to use another analogy, it's like being the wealthiest man in a developing nation. There's no amount of money that can buy you reliable infrastructure in a place that fundamentally lacks it.
I live in NYC and I cannot speak to SF. But perhaps the NYC figures will provide insight. In short YES the car DOES cost 45% as much. My monthly parking cost is $520/mo (with another per-use fee if I take my car out more than twice a week.) The $520/mo is more than my $300/mo car payment. I dont know how much parking costs in KC but i'd venture it is near-free.
Oh, and this is just the monthly cost at the apartment building, not for destination costs which are separate.
Or you can live in NJ and commute in. NYC is substantially better in the range of options across distance/cost/space than (from what I know/have heard about) SF.
Sure, and how much does your apartment cost? People in SF and NYC always seem to forget to factor in the price of admission (i.e. the efficiency apartment that costs 2x my mortgage) when bragging about how much money they're saving without a car.
I have to assume you're trolling at this point. The quality of public transport varies massively between cities.
Almost every city in America besides NYC is built under the assumption of car ownership and, for that reason, the vast majority of people have cars. NYC is the only city in the US where the majority of people go without one, because the infrastructure is in place to support it.
> NYC is the only city in the US where the majority of people go without one, because the infrastructure is in place to support it.
I think you've actually got this backwards. People in NYC would prefer to own a car, just like everybody else in America. The difference is that in NYC it's a lot more expensive and difficult (traffic, parking, etc). That, coupled with the presence of a strong transit system, results in low rates of car ownership.
In Kansas City, to take your example, there actually is decent bus transit [0]. But owning a car is also dirt-cheap and far more convenient than owning one in NYC. So people own cars. I live and work directly on a train line in St. Louis, but I still own a car, because, why not? Cost of ownership is very low -- parking is included at my apartment (and free and easy basically everywhere else) -- and it gives me more options. But I definitely don't need it.
In summary: 1) You absolutely can get around by transit in many (most?) largish Midwestern cities; 2) People own cars anyway because it's cheap and convenient; 3) People choose transit not when it's merely convenient, but when it's more convenient than car ownership.
This comment is exactly on point. I also used to think you could go without a car...then I had two children. Taking one infant or toddler on the subway was difficult. Taking two were nearly impossible. Many stations have no elevator, so you lug the stroller+child up and down stairs and hope someone helps you out. Uber? Not so much -- it is illegal to have a child in a taxi w/o a car seat. We used to carry around a child seat on our storller. Then we had two children and it is literally impossible, so we purchased the car.
I'm not trying to argue over the merits of living in a city vs a suburb. The parent stated that cars cost the same in KC and SF and I'm providing a realistic alternative -- they do not because of parking and ancillary costs. At this point it is obvious we need to move out of the city and it is down to an optimization problem of how much space we want vs how many hours a week i can see my child (e.g., I can live in NJ, but i wont be back home in time to see kids 4+ days out of the week.) I imagine the calculus is the same in SF, but I cannot say firsthand.
> I think you've actually got this backwards. People in NYC would prefer to own a car, just like everybody else in America.
What a weird remark. Have you considered that there might be people who don't fetishize cars like you do?
I very specifically hate driving. I specifically choose which cities I live in so I can avoid driving.
I've tried transport in most cities outside of NYC. It's really not on the level of NYC. Yes, there is a bus system but it's hardly comparable to a subway system where I can get anywhere in the city throughout the night with minimal waits.
>Have you considered that there might be people who don't fetishize cars like you do?
I feel like you might have this loaded as a sort of generic thing you say to people, but it doesn't apply here. I'm talking about the tradeoffs people make in general. Calling me a car fetishist is a non sequitur.
You literally just assumed that millions of people would rather own a car but are forced not to instead of considering the possibility that some people simply don't want to drive.
That doesn't make me a car fetishist anymore than noticing that most people are religious makes me a believer in the afterlife.
What I'm actually saying, though, is far more benign, which is that just as many people would own a car in NYC as in Kansas City if it were equally convenient and inexpensive [0]. People (in general) don't choose public transit merely because it's convenient. They choose transit when it's more convenient than car ownership.
The flip side of this is that high car ownership rates aren't necessarily evidence of nonexistent or inadequate transit. Where car ownership is cheap and convenient, people almost universally choose to own a car (even if other options exist).
[0] Well, clearly not just as many. I don't like driving, either, and New York is attractive to me, too, because it enables that preference. But, still, consider that nearly half of all New Yorkers do own a car, despite how wildly inconvenient that is. Consider also that even in cities like Detroit and St. Louis something like 25% of people are carless, so there's some baseline level of poverty (even in very inexpensive cities) that prevents ownership. All of which is to say that a 50% ownership rate in NYC actually strikes me as pretty high (and as evidence, again, that people really will put up with a lot to keep driving).
Maybe--depending upon your commuting and family situation and what compromises you're willing to make. However, NYC (esp. Manhattan/parts of Brooklyn) is a qualitatively different situation with respect to car ownership and public transportation--and just the culture associated with them--than pretty much any other US city.
Or, to use another analogy, it's like being the wealthiest man in a developing nation. There's no amount of money that can buy you reliable infrastructure in a place that fundamentally lacks it.