Are Melburnians Wedded to Their Cars?
I’ve been catching up on some of the posts that I’ve missed, and reading MJJA’s most interesting post on achieving modal shift and the resulting discussion, I was brought back to the question of whether people in Melbourne are – for want of a better term – wedded to their cars. Melburnians supposed psychological attachment to their cars long been used as a reason for not upgrading public transport, but I wonder if it’s really true. Whilst people aren’t always rational (some might say aren’t often rational), they do still respond to incentives, and if the train gets them to work faster/more comfortably than their car then my feeling is that they would take the train. Whilst I don’t have the datasets (or the patience) to undertake comprehensive statistical hypothesis testing, there’s plenty of map based data from the ABS and DPCD which should offer some good insights into the question.
Some basic assumptions
The idea that Melburnians are wedded to their cars implies that public transport use is not a function of public transport quality – if it were then it would be a good indication that people were making transport decisions based on the merits of their options. To test this, we can compare public transport modal share and average cars per household in parts of the city with good and bad public transport quality. To assess what constitutes a good public transport service, I’m going to take a very simple approach – namely that trams and trains are good, and that buses are bad. It’s certainly a simplistic assumption, but a largely necessary one if I’m to use the map data. In any case, I think it’s fair to say that, on average, the quality of service on Melbourne trains and trams is much higher than on buses.
The data
The data I’ve used is from the ABS’ Melbourne… A Social Atlas and DPCD’s Melbourne Atlas, both from 2006.
The map below is from pages 50-51 of the ABS report, and details public transport modal share for trips to work. Using trips to work (which are primarily undertaken at peak hours) works well because it is when the trains are at their most efficient and the cars their least efficient.
What’s striking about the map is how clearly the areas of higher public transport use in the middle and outer suburbs are clustered around the rail lines. The inner suburbs are largely saturated with tram lines and also have a high public transport modal share.
The next map is more interesting. Taken the DPCD’s Melbourne Atlas Living in Melbourne section, it shows the relative proportions of 0, 1, 2 and 3 car households in Melbourne.
There’s a clear pattern of cars with fewer cars clustering around the rail lines, and I’d say that in general, fewer cars equates to more public transport use. These figures are going to be influenced by average occupancies per dwelling and overall density. Pages 64-65 of the ABS report shows the percentage of the population living alone, which is clustered around rail lines in some areas, but the connection does not appear to be incredibly strong. Population density (pages 12-13 of the ABS report) does not seem to be correlated with the rail corridors at all.
Conclusion and caveats
To my mind, the data shown above suggests that Melburnians do make their transport decisions on the basis of the available options. The obvious issue with my assessment is the selection bias problem. It could well be argued those that want to use PT will choose to live close to rail and tram lines, and that those who prefer to drive won’t care if they live near PT. I don’t find that argument very convincing, but in all fairness I have to admit that the data above can’t rule it out. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this issue.
cheers
Phin
Just a quick note – I’m not suggesting that train or tram lines are required for high modal share per se, but rather that they currently offer a higher level of service than buses for the most part, and therefore attract a higher modal share. There’s nothing stopping a bus route being run at the same service standard Melbourne’s busier tram lines, and there’s no real reason to suggest that such a service wouldn’t be as successful.
I don’t think Melbournians are wedded to their cars and we only need to point to the last 5 years of patronage growht on Public Transport to notice that. 40% growth in 5 years on trains, 10+% growth across all modes last year including buses. Given the right signals – whether they be petrol price, tougher budgeting (eg. Mortgage up with interest rates having to save money elsewhere circa 2007, or possible job loss = penny pinching circa 2009), environmental reasons whatever people have voted with their feet the last few years.
The question now is how do you keep that momentum going and get an even broader audience. We also need to realise that their is an audience who really do love their cars and might never make the switch – but thats ok. Lets target the other 80% of people who might be open to the idea of doing some/all trips on PT.
The obvious way to do that, the easiest way and fastest most fleixble way to do that is to improve bus services in the outer suburbs where people currently use less public transport. Why not run buses on major roads at the same frequency as we run trams in the inner city? Why not take the third lane of Springvale Road (which IS underutilised post eastlink) and turn it into a bus lane? Why not build a third lane the length of Stud Road for Buses? Lets put busses into developments as they are being built not 10 years after first occupation so that people move in with 1 car instead of 2?
Also in the short term to help in the inner city why not look at improved priority for trams. Lets announce today that on New Years Day 2013 all trams (or a select group of trams) will have dedicated track and cars on those road will have to all use the kerbside lane. perhaps you would allow right turners at major intersections in the tram lane with signal priority to clear the right turners when a tram turns up?
Then in the longer term we’ll have the heavy rail initiatieves start to kick in, like South Morang extension, Tarneit (metropolitan) line, Sunbury and Melton electriciation, Cranbourne East extension, roughly 10 new suburban fringe stations (fed by feeder buses), Melbourne Metro tunnel, track duplication and quadding etc.
Most of the above is cost neutral with existing plans that are in place. I.e. the Victorian Transport Plan announces funding for most heavy rail projects and a big increase in bus funding (but probably needs more again to implement my suggestion) and the tram proposal is simply a politican growing some balls and sticking it to the car lobby with no dollar ‘cost’.
lets start doing it Brumby and give the signals to people to make the switch they’ve shown in teh last 5 years they want to/are willing to make!
Sorry but some other ‘off topic’ comments on the information you presented/discussed.
a quick point with regard to the level of service issue – below is a quote from a press release re: the still imperfect Smartbus system. shows that on buses if you offer a higher level of service you’ll get patronage growth.
The introduction of SmartBus services has prompted record patronage growth of almost 50 per cent on four major bus routes in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, Minister for Public Transport, Lynne Kosky, said today.
http://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/domino/Web_Notes/newmedia.nsf/bc348d5912436a9cca256cfc0082d800/6012c18bc14e41cfca257343007d2b17!OpenDocument
The density graph appears to more be a function of approximate development time than anything. Inner city early development (19th century) highest density through Melbourne, Richmond, St Kilda, Port Melbourne, Sydney Road, Footscray etc. Middle Ring suburbs ‘medium’ density developed mainly post WW1 and again after WW2. eg. Camberwell, Snadringham, Maribyrnong. And then more recent development which still has some patches of underdevelopment in the outer areas.
Also interesting to note along the Glen Waverley line (which I know best) some big patches of ‘low density’ on the train line which are just a function of land use. eg. Malvern Valley Golf Course, Riversdale Golf Course, and Wesley College take up literally hectares of prime land with long frontages to the train line.
Nice post Phin, good to see the spatial data coming into play.
I also don’t think Melbournians are wedded to their cars. At least not ideologically. Some people love cars and that’s cool. But it’s the object they desire, not the commute. I’m fairly sure when those people in the three car areas were buying their house they did not think “Finally, a place of our own. I can’t wait until there’s two or three aging hatch backs parked all over the lawn to really set off the colour of the brickwork.”
I think the “making use of available options” argument goes a long way in transport planning. It’s a good way of explaining induced demand as well.
Welcome back Phin.
I agree with the main thrust of your article – people are willing to use public transport in the areas where it’s worth using.
If you ask 100 random people off the street to show you their driver’s licence, about 60 of them will have to get it out from behind their Metcard. They aren’t opposed to the idea of using public transport, but find it too inconvenient to use as a general rule.
This might change if the economic crisis worsens – people will rethink their priorities and value the price difference more than the convenience difference.
In the meantime, I think we can safely say that there is a very large potential induced demand (sorry Riccardo!) in Melbourne, which will not only justify any major capacity expansions built in the next decade or so, but fill them within another decade of opening. There will be no resting-on-laurels for public transport infrastructure in Melbourne for many years.
Phin: Two brief comments:
“Build it and they will come”. Case study was this last weekend which was the first run of the new 903 SmartBus. This brought half-hourly weekend bus services to a large part of the northern and western suburbs that either previously had no service (eg Essendon DFO) or had a lesser level of service. I wasn’t there but patronage was apparently good and hopefully will hold up after the free travel period ends.
“Build an extra garage and a car will fill it”*
Another possibility explaining why houses near stations have fewer cars include the different characteristics of them (on average) compared to houses in non-rail areas.
On average houses near stations are older because the rail network shaped residential development for the first half of the last century. That is unless they were knocked down (from the 1960s onwards) to build units.
A mix of older houses and units correlate with (i) houses that might have only a single carport or garage, and no room for 2 or 3 cars and (ii) units which are more likely to have smaller households (especially singles with 0 or 1 car). The vast majority of units built from the 1960s to 1980s had only 1 garage at best. Units are also likely to have renters (on average smaller households) than owners, unlike houses.
Garages are a high priority for homebuyers. Around here I would estimate that an extra garage (like a bedroom) is worth about $40 000 increase in house price. Although having said that small places in prestige suburbs with poor parking can still be expensive.
Is it possible that those households who have decided they ‘must’ have 2 or more cars not so much de-emphasise public transport but rather emphasise good garaging (ie at least 2 garages side by side)? Such houses are on average newer and are more likely to be in non-rail suburbs like Rowville and other outer areas with only limited buses.
So it might be that housing stock and garaging might be one factor that encourages those with two cars and marginal attachment to public transport to move to areas with even less of it.
If the above is correct, this would encourage selection bias where people look at garages as much as bedrooms, and if two cars is an assumption then they’ll be attracted to suburbs with more of such housing stock (at an affordable price).
(*) unlike an extra bedroom which will not necessarily be filled by an extra child.
Just a correction: I should have said last weekend was the first weekend run of the 903 – the service started a week ago today, April 20.
No. People are not wedded to the cars. Unless they are car nuts. Like that women in France who got herself married to the Eiffel Tower. As I said, nuts.
People are sheep. They will always choose the path of least resistance, even if it increases the likelihood of death.
Next time you are near a pedestrian crossing, observer the number of people that actually wait at the crossing for the little green man. Then look at the number of people that cross within 100 m of this crossing playing the game of how-many-times-can-I-cross-before-I-get-killed.
The prosecution rests.
For those that live near high density mesh transport networks (as in inner melbourne), as I do, you can survive without a car. Oh, it is a handy thing to have access to, but for those times when I need one, I either hire one, or borrow a friends. (Flexicar is also an option, but I have been too lazy to find out much more than their name. And website. And costs. And how to pay. But I haven’t signed up yet. Because I am lazy.)
That is not to say that you don’t need one.
If you look at most cities public transport networks, the last major upgraded/expansion occurred when hi tech meant an electronic typewriter. Everything was focused on the CBD – Talk about all paths lead to GPO! (generally, it was about the time they started pulling up the highly efficient and frequent tram networks!)
As such, if you live, work and (importantly!) play within the narrow band of transport collection/delivery, then car ownership is an optional luxury. But as the cities have changed, the transport networks have stayed the same.
Oh, sure. New bus routes have been introduced, but seriously, who wants to ride on a bus any more than you have to?
People have a natural priority of transport modes. It is largely based on frequency of services and speed to destination, however I believe the likelihood on wether you will have to sit next to a smelly person, or have a row to yourself also influences decisions (Read BUSSES!).
From my observations, in Melbourne it is;
Train.
Tram.
Bus.
If you provide it (and it is good!), then they will come.
Provide transport that takes people where they want to go, and provide a top rate cycling/walking network for the rest, and you will see car ownership start to dive.
I also believe that the cost of private motor transport is greatly subsidised by the government – I have no figures to back this up, but I base this largely on the priority given to motor vehicle travel over other options. As a train passenger, your ticket includes a ‘priority’ component for the right of way over other vehicles. I don’t believe that everyday private motor vehicle usage incurs such a ‘fee’ (tolls are and excellent example of this).
In summary, until you build a transport network that gets people where they want to go quickly and efficiently, you can’t expect people to ditch their cars en masse. Realistic and ‘balanced’ (read, more for car owners!) pricing for motor vehicle transport would also speed up any such modal shift – as would things such as a congestion charge and a ‘solo occupant’ surcharge – particularly if such revenue was spent on improving public transport!
That is all.
Gday Phin, and welcome back.
I would suggest that the cars-per-household could be somewhat misleading – a simple exercise factoring in household size (i.e. number of cars by number of persons in a household) would make the data more accurate. That said, there may not be a heap of difference in the results.
On the more philosophical side – I don’t think that owning 1 or 2 cars necessarily equates to low PT use. I will always own a vehicle, as I require one for my hobbies and recretational trips that usually involve going bush. That said, I’d rather use PT for the mundane trips (e.g. work commute). I’m just one (perhaps atypical) example but it shows that car use does not necessarily have to correlate to car ownership. Reducing the “need” to own a car (or a second car) should be focused to giving people the choice (based on lifestyle, hobbies, finances etc.) rather than forcing them.
Drwaddles – I take your point, but surely owning two or more cars would equate to low PT use?
Of course it would also depend on the demographics. For instance, in a young families area (ie none of the kids old enough to drive), one car is a necessity, and two means that both parents need to use the car at the same time. That probably means neither use public transport to get to work.
That all changes in more established areas where tweens still live at home and have cars of their own. Hence what you said about household size.
However, I would guess that those factors would have only a marginal effect on the argument, and Phin’s point is still valid.
I once new someone who dives everywhere in Melbourne but when he was in London took the Tube. He does not like the waiting around there is here.
I would be careful about the use of the word tween.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preadolescence#Tween
I should also add that the higher the fixed costs of car ownership, the more often people will use their vehicle – because the marginal cost of additional trips becomes lower and lower. It’s the same argument we use for increased off-peak and counter-peak frequency on the rail network – fixed cost is high, marginal cost of extra services are low, and there’s an opportunity cost incurred when you don’t make the most out of your fixed cost.
Basically, if you make the fixed cost of having a parking space in your apartment building high, people will be more likely to want to use their car to get the most out of their fixed expenditure (e.g. “Why am I paying so much if I’m not going to use it?”)
The same applies to yearly parking passes (discounted or otherwise) at places like universities – high up front cost leads to encouragement to use it to its full potential. My brother responded to poor counter-peak bus services by driving to uni and now drives all the time – even when bus services are 15-minutely – because he’s already paid for his yearly parking pass.
I’ve seen adverts for ‘pay as you drive’ insurance, which is a good start in reducing the fixed costs of car ownership. I don’t really mind higher fuel prices (despite it affecting me personally) because it makes the variable costs of car ownership higher, which can only be a good thing.
Basically my philosophy is ‘let people own a car(s) if they want to, but discourage them from using it when they don’t need to’. In practice, this comes down to a person’s own cost-benefit analysis and, generally speaking, mundane trips will get a lower return than recreational/hobby trips, as a greater enjoyment is derived from the latter.
I’m on a massive tangent (maybe inspiration for another post, Phin? :-p) so I’ll leave it there
Nice to see those maps so large Phin. Really makes them easier to see particulars. The thing that stands out, is how localised mode share is. Where the stations are well spaced, there is a 5-10% mode share difference between places near (very near, as in 400-800m) the station and those not. There is a similar shift along both train and tram lines, though the train is much stronger once you get out a little (note the way the Burwood Highway tram peters out a bit as it gets to Vermont). But also, that there is a reverse effect along freeway corridors, still within that 400-800m range, and even some obvious barriers, such as in Glen Iris, where the southern (station) side of the freeway has a mode share 10-20% higher.
Meaning, to temper the comments above, that while you can clearly see that probably twice as many people will use p/t if it is there, it needs to be very carefully placed to get almost blanket coverage, or it won’t necessarily be used. Particularly in well-to-do areas; the northern suburbs are much more consistent in mode share, despite, arguably having an inferior service.
Also, on selection bias. This is one of those things that the literature is torn on. Obviously people with a preference not to drive are going to be more prevalent in well served areas. So, the actual benefit of a new transport link across a random suburb may be lower than the colours indicate. Conversely though, an assumption that it will have little effect, assumes that people have chosen to live where they can maximize their preferred choice. That assumption is clearly false, there just aren’t enough places (particularly affordable places) well served by public transport to allow that ordering to occur.
Which, related to the problem I outlined above, if the goal is purely to increase mode share (and I am don’t personally think it should be) then places where housing choice is more limited will probably be more conducive to doing so.
drwaddles interesting poitn re: fixed/marginal costs of car travel.
You have used this problem to advocate for lower up front costs for ‘car related items’ eg. parking/rego/insurance as then people would be more inclined to say ‘I’ve paid for that’ and don’t need to use it anymore.
I’d be more inclined to advocate the other way and increase the price of all those things so that the alternative costs for public transport choices are cheaper. i.e. if the parking permit is $500 and yearly train tickets are $300 (for a student) then the student would take the $200 saving.
in the same way that if Rego was $5,000 instead of $500 people would think about what they could do with the $4500 (i.e. pay for a lot of Public Transport and CABs) and not bother getting a second car.
now I’m not advocating for $5,000 rego. but I thnk that rego should be higher than it is and also variable depending on a range of factors eg:
- fuel economy of car
- safety of car
- age of car
- low income discounts
Lachie – rego, in my honest opinion, should be low enough that there isn’t the thought of making the most out of a large upfront expense. Any rego increase just makes the high fixed/low marginal cost of travel worse and encourages more use of the vehicle. if you want to raise the cost of car usage, raise the variable costs so that usage costs increase in proportion with actual usage.
I actually think yearly parking permits at Universities should be abolished and that parking spaces in an apartment building should simply be charged as additional square metres, without any sort of premium because it is a parking space.
There will always be the ‘market’ that is the ‘weekender’ – i.e. weekday commuter but use the car on the weekends to go bush/whatever. If you make fixed costs high, what incentive is there for them to minimise their use of the vehicle when they don’t need it (e.g. during the week)? A transport and land use planner ignores this large market at their peril.
I can’t edit my post…
I should have made it clearer that the ‘weekender’ market will most likely decide that a car is necessary regardless of the upfront cost is (providing they can afford).
Therefore, they will be encouraged by the high up front cost but comparatively lower marginal cost of additional trips to make the most use out of it – i.e. drive when they could otherwise use PT.
Many thanks for the comments all.
Agree that the increase in PT use in Melbourne over the last few years supports the idea that people will respond to incentives. In the case of Melbourne’s increased PT use, I’d argue it’s exogenous to PT quality, but rather a reflection of increased car costs (and a few other things) – certainly shows that car use is far from price inelastic. The spatial data above, as well as evidence from Smartbus, shows that endogenous factors make a big difference too.
I have to admit that I’ve always liked old cars in much the same way as I like old trains (and planes and ships) – they’re a fun hobby to have. Peter, if I got my hands on a 4 car garage I’d fill it with old broken Renaults within 2 weeks (maybe like a car version of Dorrigo) – unless my girlfriend killed me first! But I’d absolutely hate to have to drive to work every day and wouldn’t choose a house not close to decent public transport. I’d suggest that none of us here are likely want to live away from public transport – perhaps that suggests that selection bias is apparent. Although I’d venture that contributors to this blog may not be a representative sample of transport users.
Regarding the question of whether PT is better encouraged by making the fixed or marginal cost of cars higher, I have admit I’m biased. Like Drwaddles, I own a car which I don’t use during the week but sometimes use on weekends. If rego cost me $5000 a year I might start to question whether it’s worth it, but you have to ask where the harm is from my car ownership. Someone who owns a car and drives very little is not doing very much harm at all – the negative externalities from cars are roughly proportional to use. Consequently I’d consider it much more sensible to place the tax at the point of use – that is on fuel. Although I admit I have a big economic incentive to say that
“the negative externalities from cars are roughly proportional to use.”
You summed up my point in one sentence
It should also be remembered that restricting parking at the destination (rather than origin) reduces use without removing the opportunity to own car.
“the negative externalities from cars are roughly proportional to use.”
you’re only talking about hte negative externalities of the operation of hte car. Most cars (given we import abuot 70% of cars to Aus) have very high costs in production and disposal that noone ever thinks about.
I have often wondered if someone did a life cycle analysis on cars if it would be better to run cars to absolute death (like we do in Australia) or to use the Japanese/Singapore model of increasing ergistration costs teh older the car adn therefore making a car older than about 8 years too expensive to bother keeping (which is why so many 18y/o Australian males drive imported used Nissan Skylines)
anyway. we can agree to disagree on the point as we are basically coming at it from different angles. you are suggesting that for people who will always have a car it is better to have up fixed costs cheap and use costs high to discourage car use. and I’m saying that for people who might choose not to have a car it is better to have fixed costs high and use costs (high also preferably).
perhaps someone needs to do market research to work out which one would get a better result for more people. i.e. are their more ‘weekenders’ or more who’d consider no car at all.
Lachie, I agree that a full life cycle analysis of cars is very important indeed. I did a little bit of research into it a couple of weeks ago but haven’t found much substantive information and what I did find was usually undertaken by people with a vested interest on one side or other. I might do a bit more digging and see what I come up with – it would be really interesting to find an optimal age for cars.
I was also playing around with some car rego and fuel cost figures in excel on the train this morning. I’m hoping to find some ratio of fixed to marginal costs and see where that takes me. If I find anything meaningful or interesting I’ll try to do a post on it in the next few days
cheers
Phin
Hi Phin. cool maps.
The discussion above excites a few ideas in me:
on selection bias:
If people were absolutely able to maximise their preferences in making decisions about where they live, then selection bias would be a big problem. However, I suspect the housing heuristic ends up being a ’satisficing’ one rather than a maximising one. What that means is that because people have preferences over a range of characteristics, they have to trade off something they value (e.g. proximity to station) for somethign else they value (four bedrooms, room for vegie patch, in the catchment zone for local high school, etc.)
i.e. I bet people who live far from train lines don’t live there cause they hate PT – just because they were trying to meet some other needs.
On the fixed costs of car ownership:
A few years ago I read an article about some rockstar buying a Prius. He was quoted as sayign that it wouldn’t stop him from still driving his Hummer sometimes, but he wanted to do his bit. The journalist swooned. I nearly tore my hair out.
The environmental costs of making a car are, I have read (somewhere??) , greater than the costs of its operation until about the ten-year mark. (steel, aluminium, plastic all very energy intensive). Incorporating the costs in disposal probably makes the trade-off point even later.
Perhaps people are quite good at understanding the environemtnal costs of flows, but crap at stocks? for example, people love to turf their old fridge for one with a higher-energy rating, or throw out perfectly good lightbulbs and replace them with fluoro ones. I doubt these are environemtnally sensible actions.
So one implication of this ill-referenced rant is that there is potentially an environemtnal case for a high fixed cost tax on car ownership.
A seond implication is the dynamic relationship between the relative costs and beenfits of car ownership and PT patronage. This is similar to my favourite theory about PT design, which i believe i have expounded on here before.
1. Probably the single biggest determinant of PT patronage is car-ownership.
2. Once a first car is purchased, the marginal cost of making all sorts of incidental trips on PT becomes relatively high. total PT use falls.
There’s my preferred way of forestalling the first car purchase – by improving services which meet users needs:
3. People are liable to buy a first car to satisfy travel needs that are low-frequency but highly valuable, e.g visting their girlfriend’s house cross-town at strange hours of the night, going down the coast on the weekend, getting to basketball training / volunteering.
4. Systems that are designed to meet these low-frequency, high-value needs, can add as much value to the punter as those that are designed to meet needs that are more predictable, and have more substitutes.
5. Building a system that is designed to forestall car ownership may mean some individual services run at a loss (assuming these high value trips can’t be charged for separately), but total patronage on the system is potentially higher.
Or we can forestall the car purchase decision by having a high rego fee. In practice, they would work well as a combo.
3. On the variable costs of car use.
Clearly, the private costs of driving at certain times are way too low. The image of traffic embodies the concept of negative externalities. Increasing the petrol price is a pretty blunt tool to solve this, as it hurts counter-peak flows, business, farmers, etc.
it is probable that the private costs of driving are too low at all times. Not only is there insufficient tax, but there is a whole lot of subtle, implicit subsidy. One thing that really gets my goat is the compulsory provision of parking a) on streets b) in major developments. this pushes the cost of car ownership off car users, and onto people who use shops and offices. hardly seems fair.
Many of you may have already seen it, but the range of responses to this blog on yesterday’s age was eye-opening.
http://blogs.theage.com.au/yoursay/archives/2009/04/going_up.html
it got more posts in reply than almost any other topic ever. people really get fired up by integrated land-use planning!
Sorry I’m so late to join the discussioni but excellent stuff.
Coupla points:
-I like the ‘delay buying the first car, and delay buying the second one’ which means thinking in human life stages and cohorts. Encourage those 16 years old RIGHT NOW to avoid needing a car by specifically improving PT to the universities, entertainment and part-time jobs such as retail. The avoid the second car after the first has been bought by tailoring the system to meet the needs of stay-at-home mums/dads, or looking at arrangements that suit couples that both work, maybe soft measures involving ticketing and so on. Also hard stuff by looking at urban planning around life stages.
A lot of the urban planning ideological stuff is rubbish – reality is people can BOTH want to live in high density or low, maybe at different life stages or within different housing types in the same suburb. For example, you might want to live with your parents in Box Hill/Chatswood, then live in a high rise also in Box Hill/Chatswood to save some money, but then later buy your own house, also near Box Hill/Chatswood. The di/tri/polychotomies of urban planning ideology are too constraining.
-I agree that this question of selection bias is really a question of how demand is constrained. People DO factor PT availability in all but the most hard-nosed auto-loving cases, as a contingency. They don’t make the decision to use PT every day, but maybe once only, on purchase of the property. Those areas with really bad PT have what I would call a chronic problem, in that not only is the primary breadwinner unable to use PT to get to work, but I expect every single journey, including kids going to sport/music practice etc becomes a mums taxi journey. They must get their licence as early as possible and a car the same day.
That said, an excellent analysis Phin. Do we have any comments on people in SY/Toorak/Armadale etc not using PT while it’s in abundance? Or is it? Have you actually tried to get on a train at Hawksburn lately? Is it possible?
[...] 4, 2009 · No Comments This post posits that residents of Melbourne, Australia can be convinced to take transit. Hope the same [...]
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