As human being, we like to categorize things — it make it easier for us to understand the world. We do that in transit, too. But sometimes these categories actually make transit systems worse.
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When a city plans a rail new transit system, it is almost inevitable that a connection to the airport is included. That’s a reflection of the importance of plane travel, which has become ever cheaper and more widely used. But it’s also a product of transit politics. Many rail planners have discovered that the numbers don’t seem to justify such a connection; employment centers generate many more riders, and bringing a rail line into an airport is often complicated and expensive. But the public sold on airport connections; someone who takes the train to the airport every few months has as many votes as someone who rides to work every day.
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In the past two decades, the United States has seen a boom in ballpark construction. Two thirds of the current Major League Baseball venues were opened in the last 20 years. The expectations of what a ballpark looks like have completely changed. And so, it seems, have the expectations on how to get there. In 1970, 38% of baseball parks had rail transit access; today it is 77%.
When we talk transit, we tend to talk about infrastructure. But that's only part of what makes successful transit. The Munich S-Bahn ism a cause in point. It's a remarkable success that carries 800,000 passengers a day (that’s LIRR and New Jersey Transit combined) in a metro area of 2.6 million (roughly the same as Pittsburgh, a tenth of NYC). But that didn't happen just because of infrastructure.
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