Metro Transport Thread

[Libertas Vel Mors]

I know there's already a Redistricter thread proper, but as this is focused on discussing a set of data from the app and not the app itself I wanted to make a specific new thread.

https://twitter.com/Redistricter/status/1782439646212886961

As this thread shows, there are huge differences between metro areas in transportation.

I was curious as to what explains some of the isolated transit neighborhoods in DC/Boston -- DC seems to have one stretch around Americna University, but does anyone know the others? Is it just proximity to a metro station? If so, why isn't there a closer match-up with the metro lines in general? Similarily, what's with the very deep orange neighborhood Northeast of city center in Boston?

[ProgressiveModerate]

A lot seem to be based around colleges/universities.

For some of the others it could honestly just be noise - you're talking about one census tract where these types of statistics could easily be off a few %. I would also look at the types of development in those tracts - just a breif google search makes it seem like many have disproportionately multifamily homes and apartment buildings where people are just less likely to own a car.

Honestly my bigger confusion are the fairly large swaths of NYC well served by the subway that still have more people using a car - most notably the area around Midwood in Brooklyn and Gun Hill in the Bronx area. Some of the anomalies make sense like the Upper East Side being more car friendly because of the wealth or the outer reaches of Queens just not having good subway access, but these places are neither wealthy or lack subway access

There more generally seems to be a decent inverse correlation between income and public transit use in NYC - this may explain why there are some pockets of poorer eastern/southeastern DC that are more transit favorable.

[Boobs]

Eastie in Boston is a generally working-class area, but importantly has a lot of recent immigrants. Both of these contribute to a lack of car ownership. Eastie is close enough to downtown, where most lines intersect, that it provides enough convenience for using transit broadly.

It appears the transit neighborhoods in DC in Anacostia also follow rail stops.

New York is unique because metro service is in a class of its own in America. In other cities, affluent transit-minded residents tend to be able to afford to live close enough to their workplaces that many of their trips can be done by walking; it is still the working poor that use transit as their primary means of transportation. In fact, studies have found that permanent transit stops (such as suburban rail) tend to create neighborhoods with poorer residents on average, because they often have no other option but to live near such stops in order to access employment.

Also important to remember is that buses, although less geographically noticeable than the effects of a rail station, still make up a significant portion of transit trips.

[Boobs]

Honestly my bigger confusion are the fairly large swaths of NYC well served by the subway that still have more people using a car - most notably the area around Midwood in Brooklyn and Gun Hill in the Bronx area.

Midwood, I would wager, is just a quirk of choropleth mapping, as I think there is probably a significant walking contingent like nearby Borough Park composed of many Chassidic Jews, enough so that the transit percentage drops below that of auto users.

The area you call “Gun Hill” - Pelham Gardens, Williamsbridge, the like - is actually kind of interesting. There’s a little profile of the area in the Times that encapsulates the “vibe” of the neighborhood better than I’d be able to describe, but it really is more of a “suburban enclave” (emphasis on enclave) than you’d expect of an area in that part of the Bronx.

[LostFellow]

Adding onto the Boston analysis:

The deep orange in East Boston is the Airport itself and nothing else, and I assume the map is by resident location. Could be a small data sample of erroneous data entry for workers commuting into Logan.

The strongest correlation with universities seems to be walking---one can see in green Bentley University, Harvard + HBS, MIT, BU, and Northeastern. The other green general walking neighborhoods of downtown, Seaport, Back Bay, and Fenway/Longwood tend to be finance/consulting/healthcare workers living close enough to their place of employment, or traditional historic walkable enclaves like Chinatown, the North End, and Beacon Hill.

The orange corresponds fairly well to transit locations and neighborhoods with more young professionals, such as Porter and Central in Cambridge and Somerville, the green line B going through Allston, the blue line going through Eastie as HCP mentioned, the orange line stops close to Jamaica Plain and Roxbury, and the red line through Andrew Square.

[LabourJersey]

I know there's already a Redistricter thread proper, but as this is focused on discussing a set of data from the app and not the app itself I wanted to make a specific new thread.

https://twitter.com/Redistricter/status/1782439646212886961

As this thread shows, there are huge differences between metro areas in transportation.

I was curious as to what explains some of the isolated transit neighborhoods in DC/Boston -- DC seems to have one stretch around Americna University, but does anyone know the others? Is it just proximity to a metro station? If so, why isn't there a closer match-up with the metro lines in general? Similarily, what's with the very deep orange neighborhood Northeast of city center in Boston?

These maps would be a lot more useful if they combined the "walking," "bike" and "transit" groups together, honestly. There's so much overlap in those specific groups, particularly in DC.

As opposed to NYC, where the Subway is extremely well established and well-used, DC's car-free residents are more mixed in their transportation, I think - riding buses seems more common among my DC peers than any of my NYC peers.

[pikachu]

Honestly my bigger confusion are the fairly large swaths of NYC well served by the subway that still have more people using a car - most notably the area around Midwood in Brooklyn and Gun Hill in the Bronx area. Some of the anomalies make sense like the Upper East Side being more car friendly because of the wealth or the outer reaches of Queens just not having good subway access, but these places are neither wealthy or lack subway access

In the outer parts of the outer boroughs, cars are still useful for trips that aren’t to a CBD. To choose a random example, if you're a Bangladeshi family in Kensington wanting to visit relatives in Jackson Heights, driving takes way less than the F. Theoretically, IBX should help with this.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I've been planning a trip to Italy (going in a little over three weeks), and I was surprised by how small a lot of the metro systems there are.  I kind of expected coverage like NYC or DC in big cities (thinking Europe was full of metros/subways), but Rome literally has three lines, Florence doesn't have one (neither does Venice, but for obvious reasons), and Milan isn't huge either.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Honestly my bigger confusion are the fairly large swaths of NYC well served by the subway that still have more people using a car - most notably the area around Midwood in Brooklyn and Gun Hill in the Bronx area. Some of the anomalies make sense like the Upper East Side being more car friendly because of the wealth or the outer reaches of Queens just not having good subway access, but these places are neither wealthy or lack subway access

In the outer parts of the outer boroughs, cars are still useful for trips that aren’t to a CBD. To choose a random example, if you're a Bangladeshi family in Kensington wanting to visit relatives in Jackson Heights, driving takes way less than the F. Theoretically, IBX should help with this.

That's fair; I think I overestimate the number of people who live in the outerboroughs and commute into Manhattan, especially post-COVID.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I've been planning a trip to Italy (going in a little over three weeks), and I was surprised by how small a lot of the metro systems there are.  I kind of expected coverage like NYC or DC in big cities (thinking Europe was full of metros/subways), but Rome literally has three lines, Florence doesn't have one (neither does Venice, but for obvious reasons), and Milan isn't huge either.

Honestly outside China there are very very few developed metro/subway networks anywhere in the world.

NYC Subway still holds the title for most stations in the world and DC is fairly unique because even though it doesn't have tons of lines or stations, it sprawls very far out so serves a very large region and by track length is actually one the largest metros in the world.

America public transit generally sucks but I think people overstate how behind we are compared to Europe.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I've been planning a trip to Italy (going in a little over three weeks), and I was surprised by how small a lot of the metro systems there are.  I kind of expected coverage like NYC or DC in big cities (thinking Europe was full of metros/subways), but Rome literally has three lines, Florence doesn't have one (neither does Venice, but for obvious reasons), and Milan isn't huge either.

I feel like this is in part a problem of calibrating your expectations. Florence is comparable in size to Honolulu and New Orleans (and has built a few tram lines, although I would have liked a subway more); Milan is maybe like a more compact Washington and it has one line less and half the total length (but also an astoundingly extended tram system). More in general the difference between the USA and Europe is much more in interurban trains than urban rapid transit, as ProgMod pointed out huge networks of the latter everywhere is more peculiar to China. And then again, Chinese urban areas are much larger...

[Nutmeg]

I was curious as to what explains some of the isolated transit neighborhoods in DC/Boston -- DC seems to have one stretch around Americna University, but does anyone know the others? Is it just proximity to a metro station? If so, why isn't there a closer match-up with the metro lines in general?

These maps would be a lot more useful if they combined the "walking," "bike" and "transit" groups together, honestly. There's so much overlap in those specific groups, particularly in DC.

As opposed to NYC, where the Subway is extremely well established and well-used, DC's car-free residents are more mixed in their transportation, I think - riding buses seems more common among my DC peers than any of my NYC peers.

Agree. Many of my neighbors will take the Metro on rainy days but bike or walk during nice weather.

As for the transit riders in Upper Northwest, that's the Van Ness area, not American Univ. Connecticut Ave, 16th St, and Georgia Ave are major bus routes moreso than Metro. East of the Anacostia largely is bus transit as well. The Metro works well for commuters from the burbs at least as well as it does getting around within the city -- most Virginians I know will Metro to work, but most D.C. residents I know take the bus, walk, or bike.