Is Public Transportation the Answer? | Ellen Emeric | TEDxUniversityofTulsa
Ellen looks at regrowth in the city of Dayton, Ohio, and considers the power of a simple bus stop. She argues that every day we should not be asking how I can get there, but how we can get there.
Ellen Emeric is a senior at The University of Tulsa studying Sociology and Economics, and her interests in demography and the built environment have led her to pursue a career as a City Planner. She currently works at Tulsa City Hall in the Planning and Development Department, and has conducted research for the City as well at Texas A&M University, where she was accepted as a summer research fellow in the departments of Urban Planning and Sociology.
On campus, Ellen passionately serves the Newman Center as a Peer Minister and Graphic Designer.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx
I completely agree that public transport could be the answer or at least one of the best answers. Thank you, Ellen Emeric and good luck in what you do.
You can make fun of India on poor quality roads and public transportation, but one thing the state f Tamil Nadu in India achieved nearly 30 years ago was 100% accessibility to every village in the state by low cost public transportation. It meant a lot for the largely poor rural population. It helped access to education, healthcare and economic activity. You can ask the story today from many of the successful folks from south India in the Silicon Valley. Many have come from low economy and first graduate of the family background If the government ignores the bottom of the pyramid and considers them good only for drafting to illegal wars, the country is going dogs.
Best public transportation shows the growth of a town in a good manner...
Public transportation is awesome. I hate driving.
But it needs to be said that good public transport reduces number of cars in cities, thus making it more enjoyable to drive a car in a city, because you're not always in a traffic jam
Ellen I really like your speech. Public transportation is also a serious problem in Pakistan therefore I can understand what you are saying. My university is about 10 miles from my home and I reach there in 2 hours due to lack of public transportation!
16 Kilometers
The talk was given quite clear with the reasons for the growing number of cars. However, I hope to hear more suggestions on how to reduce their negative impacts on our environment.
I agree to the fullest. Why spend money on owning a car when you can save up? If you really need to drive somewhere, doesn't Enterprise rent cars? I bet it is much cheaper to rent a car on special occasions than owning a car and making regular payments towards: 1. Gas, 2. Insurance, 3. License Plates, 4. City Sticker, 5. Car Wash 6. Repairs, 7. Other Maintenance. The option of Uber rides and Lyft rides and not to mention your typical yellow cabs have existance. The bus as well as the train are also a good feature. As far as students getting around, whatever happened to the idea of school buses? Plus their are shuttles that drive people to their doctor's appointments too. In Chicago, we now have Divvy bikes that people can rent to get around town also. Let's bring it up to our alderman and other government authorities to make it happen. We must also contribute to the idea by using public transportation more often. 100% SUPPORT TO ELLEN HOPING THAT THIS TURNS INTO A PROJECT THAT BENEFITS ALL AMERICANS. One benefit that I can think of is less traffic. Has anyone ever consider renting a limo whenever going out with F.R.I.E.N.D.S. ?
Love your speech but would like to hear about some suggestions and methods to make this happen
I used to take Delhi metro for granted. I only realized its importance when I moved to Bangalore. The roads and public transport here is really bad.
any urban transportation system has to start with the reduction of use of and the design of the car as we know. ideal design: 2 passenger commuter car see the elio. use of: shared. but only if the trip is necessary and can't be done in a better way by bike, bus, foot etc. the woman is absolutely right the road system is inefficiently used. in fact it's way overbuilt-see "green metropolis".
One problem: That's not transportation.
public transport could solve major probmlems in india too,i mean just look at indian railways,just realiae how important it it for future of india,it is like neuron system running all over the country.good tranportation mean miving economy mean mean more cash flow and that helps ecomomy
Quality and schedule also matters
Yes. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
Is that you?
No.
Public transport should be encouraged every part of gobe 🌏 which leads us to low air pollution.
I Own A Car And It’s Very Easy Transportation And Parking But The Cons Are Insurance Gas Electricity (If It’s A Tesla) Oil Changes Inspections Maintenance And So Much Jumps The Cost.
And every month 332 dollars on installment basis I will hv to give 😢, for seven years! 😢
Which car do you have brother? I think toyota corolla has less maintenance cost.
thanks lmao im gonna make this as a reference for a homework
I say we make free kinetic energy and manufacturing jobs with upgrading America's public transportation system. also brings tourists which brings extra income
The White House to the Washington Monument is just a little bit more than half a mile.
Anyone here because of a bloody assignment?
Research for me
yes it is the answer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No.
walking 1 mile only take 20 minutes
U can't relie on public transport. It's shocking. You'd get home and back ten time by time a bus or train arrives it's shocking
My local commuter train runs every 10 minutes
@@kentallard8852 good for you. Does it always turn up on time.
@@anthonyleedickinson3491 where I live people don't have cars we have so many choices for public transport
@@ujjalshill6442 guessing you don’t live in America. My city might have some of the most god awful, hair pulling public transportation in the world. Most bus routes only run on the hour (maybe every 40 minutes for a few peak hours), busses are often 5 minutes late and YOU WILL MISS YOUR CONNECTING BUS. We are too small for a subway, too small for trolly and the lack of routes means getting to a place that might take 10 minutes by car becomes well over hour long ride (my route to college).
@@ujjalshill6442 If you live in Europe, you guys have public transportation that FAR superior to us in the States.
So public transport for the poor, for the others. Not for me, I will drive.
Public transport is not for the poor. It is for the general population. Cars are horrible and terrible inefficient.
Natural Science is easy compared to Sociology.... lol only on TED talk
"Having" poverty, inequality, and whatever isn't the same as "struggling" with it. Also, poor people can just move. Save your dollars up and buy a bus ticket to anywhere else and start over.
Definitely NOT - as per Singapore's case!
Automobiles use replaced street cars because automobiles are an inherently more convenient form of travel and because (as the speaker herself noted) incomes were increasing at that time, enabling more people to purchase them. It wasn't a conspiracy by automobile companies, it was simple a major technical advance. People used cars simply because they are better than street cars.
sounds like an automobile industry shill
@@fatcatballs So you chose to just completely ignore my point and restate the same baseless claim I refuted with actual logic. the real question is why activists such as Ellen believe that public transport is better for us and why they believe they know better than us.
Allan Moorhead maybe because she spent years in college learning about this subject matter? She isn’t even an activist... she’s just having a TedTalk. The same logic could apply to you: why do you believe that you know better than her then? Also you never refuted that you aren’t a shill, just that “automobiles replaced street cars because it was a ‘major technical advance.’” But that was when automobiles first started becoming popular. If somebody isn’t a fan of suburban sprawl and long traffic lines on highways, I doubt that they would be a fan of automobiles, which directly affected how America is formed now. Some people are just trying to make America as a whole better, because it’s clear that something is wrong.
@@fatcatballs She is obviously an activist. She isn't just delivering an academic lecture. She is talking about social improvement. Spent years in college? How many years? Three? Sitting in a room for six hours a day listening to somebody talk doesn't make anyone an expert. No you are not applying logic. What is the point in having experts if we can't all learn from them and form our own opinions? Do we all just get on with our own jobs and trust the experts make all the decisions? Why have elections then? Why have bookshops FFS? Why have TED talks? What would you say if another expert, who spent the same number of years in college, completely disagree with her? Would you say that person is an "automobile industry shill"? Okay, then might she also be a shill for some other agenda, like railway infrastructure construction companies or bus and street car manufacturers? You never gave any reason for why I am a shill except that I expressed an opinion disagreed with this one person. It's not for me to refute your baseless claim. You didn't refute my actual argument. Do you have an argument or are you just here to blindly follow experts or your own personal biases? Why bother commenting if that's the case? You've got nothing to say. Uh, yeah, I "just" made an argument. What are you doing? Your argument is that "I'm an automobile shill" with no actual evidence. Is it possible that some people might like automobiles, give the fact that millions of people actually buy them? What other technical advances in transport have there been since the automobile was first introduced? Why would they just stop being popular? Did automobiles stop being popular? Are people still buying them? Did computers just stop being popular? What is your point? There is nothing wrong with suburban sprawl. Before automobiles, we had urban crowding and slums. People had to ride horses, bicycles or walk - or take street cars, so workplaces (including factories) had to all be close to the city or town center. People had to live in a small, densely populated area. Land prices were such that working-class people could not afford good homes. The whole reason the suburbs expanded was that due to automobiles people could live on larger properties for lower cost of purchase. They could travel longer distances to work and to their homes. Businesses and workplaces could spread out from the city. This also allowed the economy and the average standard of living to increase, because people had access to a wider range of jobs. Workplaces could expand in size to make manufacturing and other operations cheaper and more efficient. What you and the TED speaker want is to go back to living in crowded urban areas in 30-storey apartment buildings and tiny housing blocks packed together. Rail and bus don't have the flexibility or the range that automobiles and motorways do. They impose heavy restrictions and time constraints on where people can travel to and from.
I believe the point is that a city that is imbalanced towards car infrastructure is bad for air quality, mental health, and economic mobility. The cost of a car is burdensome for a lot of the population, and being able to walk instead of sit is better for personal health, no wonder we're all obese. If everyone has to live in a suburban style neighborhood, then everyone is stuck in traffic and people have to spend more and more time and money on cars. If say half of the population could live with a car and half without, the people with cars would spend less time driving with the same suburban benefits, their taxes would lower from less road maintenance, and the people without would have more opportunities for climbing the ladder and staying healthy. The original suburbs of the late 19th and early 20th century were not problematic, because there was balance, now with all of one thing and little of the other, we're in limbo.
i didn't like that she stretched the speech unnecessarily. Get to the point faster
Nobody thinks that only "I" should be able to travel quickly. Of course "we" want "we" all to be able to travel quickly. It is perfectly possible to design roads so that "we" can all travel quickly by road. The only obstacle is the anti-automobile policies of the planners themselves which have already been in place for many decades now.
Is this why Houston has the widest freeway in the world and simultaneously some of the worst congestion in the United States? You will have to elaborate
@@DavidThomas-xe2mb I think you need to elaborate.
If access to a bus station decreases poverty, better roads for automobiles should completely eliminate poverty.
Allan Moorhead How? I agree we should have good roads, but most poor people don't have cars because they are so expensive, or if they do they live in them or have the cheapest ones. Public transit helps reduce poverty because you are paying way less for the same service.
@@agirlwithdreams15 Emeric isn't just talking about better access to public transport for the poor. She is saying that other people who drive cars are somehow preventing public transport from catering to poor people by "making the wrong choices". Also, how does providing public transport for the poor reduce poverty? Are people poor just because they don't have public transport? Obviously not, or else everyone would be poor. Some people have cars and therefore don't need public transport. What's holding the other, poor people back? She also makes the false claim that car manufacturers bought up the trolley lines and scrapped them just to force people to use cars. That did not happen. Cars merely phased out trolley lines, simply because they provide greater mobility. It was this greater mobility which enabled incomes to increase, due the greater convenience and time-saving and the greater range of travel distances. People no longer had to live and work close to the city, crowding was reduced and land prices became cheaper. This allowed the economy to expand and incomes and standard of living to increase. Relying on trolleys is what made people poorer. If we restrict car travel for the sake of providing trolleys or buses for the poor, we will increase poverty, not reduce it.
@The secular humanist Cars provide more job opportunities than trains and buses do. With a car, you can drive in all directions for 50 km to a workplace. With a bus or train, you are limited to wherever a bus or train stops on a set route. The poor moved out of the cities a century ago, when automobiles began being mass produced. Before that, workers lived in slums around the cities, working in factories near the cities, which polluted the areas the workers lived in. When automobiles became available, the workers moved out of the cities and businesses of all kinds moved with them, increased in number and expanded in size - to hire more people. The same people advocating public transport as a solution to poverty now are opposed to suburban "sprawl" and the middle class (i.e. wealthy employees). They don't want to make workers wealthier, they want to make more poor people.
@@allanmoorhead6546 You are a bit shortsighted, right? If cars would keep people out of poverty, how come so many americans can't meet ends ? The sole focus on cars in the US and neglect of public transport has made that you can't do many things with buses, train or bikes and almost can't live without cars. Cars meant >> more sprawl >> more need for roads >> more need for cars >> more roads >> more sprawl. By now you need a car for any errand and a car to cross a 6 lane 'street', because walking has become too dangerous. Millions of Americans live in food deserts , where they need a car to get some vegetables (which they maybe couldn't afford ). The sprawl of roads and suburbs has put cities in financial problems because they can't pay maintenance for the tarmac, pipes and wires. And it got the country in a obesity health crisis.
cars cost thousands a year to keep running the bus is only a couple bucks per trip
Ted has really gone downhill.
Why is transportation a "public good"? Why is it a "collective" issue? If individuals are all able to satisfy their individual needs, the "collective" outcome is also satisfactory. "Collective" society is made up of individuals. The best outcomes for individuals are the best outcomes for society collectively.
Allan Moorhead Its good because it can be used by everyone. It's an actual need.
@@agirlwithdreams15 Other things we need and use aren't provided by the government. It doesn't provide our food or the stores we buy it from.
@@allanmoorhead6546 it actually does. Almost all governments around the world give massive farming subsidies and also provides the infrastructure you actually need to build a consumer base for the stores in the first place. Go to a rural area that has very bad govt intervention and count the number of stores in a 10 mile area. You will see what I am talking about.
@@iamdanyboy1 Indirect government controls impact almost everything. You are merely assuming that it is beneficial, i.e that we would be worse off without it. It can be shown that, in many ways, it is actually very harmful and whatever benefits there are, they are far outweighed by the harm. Public transport has no advantages over private automobile travel. Even the poorest among our society can afford to buy a car.
Was distracted by her legs most of the time
Say yes to public transportation and say goodbye to travel freedom.
Kerosene Public transportation is means more freedom if done right because everyone can use it compared to driving.
No travel freedom? For £50 return, I can get on a train from a station ten minutes away from my home, and be in london in just under an hour and a half. It's over four hours in a car, and you're stuck in traffic most of the time.
How is not needing a car to get places a restriction of freedom? If anything it's an expansion of it.
Yes, public transportation is the answer.