denfromoakvillemilton
Senior Member
yes and yes
why? less people are having kids.
why? less people are having kids.
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You may call me a skeptic, but I would have less troubles imagining the driverless car as the near future of the automobile if the car industry hasn't already promised it as such at every single occasion ever since General Motor's "Futurama" pavilion at the world exhibition in 1939...If self driving cars become available as fast as automakers are expecting, autonomous vehicles will be prominent before many current 16 to 20 year olds reach the point in their lives where they'd seriously consider purchasing cars. This whole discussion about young people and driving would be moot in that case.
I think there are a number of things at play. Kids are not into the suburban lifestyle of their parents, they don't have any kids and if they do they will have them much later in life, and young people today simply don't make the wages the younger people did before even though the cost of living has skyrocketed. When I graduated a BA was a ticket for a decent paying job for life while today it qualifies you to say "do you want fries with that"?
I only found data for Montreal and only for 3 data points (1998, 2003, 2008), but it shows that the gap between Transit and Car usage has started to close for every single age group and Transit trips even exceed car trips for the 20-24 age group:I guess a sample of two is hardly significant, but for what it's worth my wife and I are both aging boomers and one of the things we enjoy about visiting cities like London and Paris is the sense of freedom and engagement that taking public transit in those cities affords. We used to take the TTC when we were young and poor, and still do on the extremely rare occasions when it's a better travel option.
I suspect we're not unusual in that we came to value our time more as we got older and less poor. In Toronto that means driving for most trips. I would also guess the same will apply to the current younger generation, unless the TTC is vastly expanded, or driving becomes such a misery that even the Queen streetcar seems like a better way.
Certainly true if you aren't schlepping young children or old parents around and you stay in the core. I wonder if there's any research to suggest that this generation really is different, or if behaviour changes as cohorts age.
I am heavily dependent on transit apps on the smartphone. I always wondered what life was like before they were ubiquitous.
It makes it much easier to prepare before the bus comes and see exactly where the bus is (complete with bus number even) within one minute.
What apps do you guys use? I wonder if they are also available here in Montreal...It is nice that I have multiple different third party apps that tells me about car shares, bike shares, transit, commuter trains, and Ubers, all or most of the above in one unified app.
A win for Open Data!