Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
Yeah, those are additional factors. U.S. has significantly higher incomes, vehicles in U.S. are somewhat cheaper, and U.S. has lots of beaters providing working poor mobility.
In Germany, every vehicle is inspected annually and the old ones are forcibly retired per federal regulations. There are no beaters, so no such thing as working poor cars. Of course every village has bus service and walking/biking trails to adjacent towns.
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This is honestly a bigger factor than most realize.
Regulations around autos in Canada is stricter than much of the US - licensing is tougher to get, insurance more expensive, fuel more expensive, paid parking more common, standards on vehicles is higher (and vehicles fail faster due to the climate), etc.
The answer to the original question is a wide variety of small factors combining:
1. higher vehicle costs
2. Built Form differences supporting transit more
3. Lower incomes
4. Different cultural attitudes
5. Different racial histories of cities leading to different stigmas and higher transit use in middle income households
6. Different infrastructure choices meaning vehicle vs. transit use practicalities are very different for many trip types
probably a few more thrown in there, and a lot of those intermix as well.
Somewhere like Vancouver is probably the most extreme - very little road infrastructure, sky-high vehicle operation costs ($7/gallon gas, expensive, socialized, auto insurance, high registration costs, expensive parking costs, etc.). Compared to somewhere like the US midwest, it's almost shocking on the differences in not only the costs but also the value proposition of owning and operating a car.