Quote:
Originally Posted by nec209
Are you saying it mostly poor people and low income taking the public transit in say Seattle, San Diego, Honolulu, Portland?
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No. In U.S. cities with more Canadian-like demographics (few blacks, lots of immigrants, lots of Asians, middle class in-town neighborhoods) you don't see the same hollowed out transit.
Seattle, which is very sprawly and almost entirely bus transit, ridership share is approaching Philly, which is a comprehensive metropolitan-wide grade separated rail system with much better urbanity, density and centralization. Legacy places like Cleveland and St. Louis have crap ridership compared to places like Portland and San Diego. That suggests that race plays a factor in cross-national ridership differences.
Granted, I don't think that's the main factor, but it's a factor. Even in NYC.
The express bus system serving the city fringes is a 1960's-1970's product of (then) white neighborhoods refusing to take the subway thru declining black/Latino areas, so the MTA set up a system where Italian-Irish-Jewish neighborhoods had a direct route to Midtown without having their secretary wife/daughter pass thru the South Bronx or wherever. Even today, as those fringe neighborhoods have diversified, there are lots of people of all backgrounds who generally won't set foot on the subway or a regular bus, but will happily take the express bus to a Broadway show or wherever.