Why do some megalopolices become car centric?

Since I'm in Japan and don't have a real good way of sharing my research for the week (webcam is still dead!), I thought I'll put up my main findings on Blogger.

My goal for the week was to look into the histories of developed Megalopoli and see if I could determine why some cities developed extensive public transport networks while other cities developed inner city highways. The cities I looked at were Los Angeles, Houston (I used to live there), Tokyo, and New York, with the later two being public transportation centric.

City Development Curve

From this you can clearly see that Tokyo and New York were well developed before the pre 1900 century while Houston and Los Angeles developed post 1900. The population in Houston and LA were 212k, 170k respectively in 1900 while New York was 3.8 million.

Automotive Adoption Rate

So the next question I had was when cars became prevalent in the US and Japan.


Here is the number of vehicles registered in the US against population and cars per person. Note, I didn't have vehicle figures for 1930-1959, which is why you see a very straight line. Nevertheless, it's noticeable that already in the 1920s, there were 2 cars per 10 people in the US, and assuming 2.5 persons per household (it was 2.62 in 2000, and I suspect it was larger in the past), that's already close to 50% household adoption rate in the 1920s.

It's typically said that the Model T Ford (released in 1908) started the motorization of US, and it's safe to assume that by the 1930s, cars were becoming part of life in the US (I also read similar anecdotal references when discussing the demise of the street car in the US).

The picture is similar for Japan except it's about forty years apart:


The dark blue line is the household adoption rate for cars, and you can see the rapid growth from the late sixties (near the end of Japan's rapid postwar growth) through the seventies.

Cross correlating these two data, the obvious conclusion is: A city develops into a vehicle centric society if it starts developing after critical mass in automotive adoption.

Of course this is a dangerous (not to mention undersupported) conclusion looking at data from miles above the clouds so I looked into how the transportation networks developed in these cities.

Los Angeles


(Note: I couldn't find the historical population data for the LA metropolitan/urban area so I'm using the LA County data along side the city data)

Los Angeles is an interesting case study in that during the early parts of the 20th century, it had the largest Street Car network in the world but abandoned it for a network of freeways. While conspiracy theorists like to blame General Motors and Big Oil for systematically purchasing and destroying street car lines in the US (and there is some truth to that), the replacement of street cars for personal cars was a common phenomenon in the US and Japan (happened in Tokyo as well). Light Rail did return to LA in 1990 as the LA County Metro Rail and expansions are being planned, but it's still a small fraction of what the Pacific Electric Railway used to be.

LA had one of the first freeways in the US in 1940 (Arroyo Seco Freeway) and it's success is typically attributed to the LA urban planning in the 1950s. The freeway network was constructed mostly during the 50s and 60s, before the Oil Shock and anti-Freeway movement of the 70s.

Houston


Houston has a very similar history to Los Angeles being a post 1900 city having a light rail system that got dismantled and rebuilt.

The Houston Electric Street Car was developed in the 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, and 1920s but saw steep decline in the 1930s and was fully replaced by buses in the 1940s. It then returned in 2004 right in time for the Super Bowl in Houston.

The major highway construction in Houston also happened in the 1950s and 60s and came to a near halt in the 70s when environmental concerns increased the bureaucracy involved in highway construction. Incremental improvements have been occurring since the 1980s.

Tokyo


Long Distance Rail, Commuter Rail: The iconic JR Yamanote Line was first constructed in 1885 as a freight line to connect two stations in Tokyo. Only in 1925 did the Yamanote line take the current loop line shape. Most of the trains coming into Tokyo were first designed as long distance freight and passenger rail, and mostly built during the late 1800s to early 1900s. Their transformation into a commuter rail is a more recent phenomenon, when the rapid economic growth of the 1960s brought people from the country side to Tokyo (Tokyo suburban sprawl).

Street Car: The Tokyo Toden was first developed in 1902 and kept expanding until 1922 when it spanned 213 km. While some of the lines were contracted in the 50s, most of the deconstruction happened in between 67-72 when inner city public transport was replaced by buses and subways.

Trolley Bus: Trolley buses were deployed in Tokyo after the war as a cheap alternative to street cars. Construction started in 1952 and reached is peak in 1958. Like the street car, Trolley buses were considered obsolete with the coming of the personal automobile age, and were quickly dismantled in 1967 to 1968.

Subway: While the first subway in Tokyo opened in 1927, bulk of the subway construction occurred during the 1960s. 5 of the 12 existing subway lines opened during the 60s (though later expanded) and 9 of the 12 subways lines opened between 1959-1978.

Highway: Construction of the Capitol Expressway (Shutokousoku) started in 1962 and continues incrementally till today.

New York

Commuter Rail: The LIRR was first established in 1832 as a connection to Boston via Steamboats. The Metro-North Railroad was first established to connect New York City to Albany in 1850. Similarly to Tokyo, the modern commuter rails of New York have their origins as long distance freight and passenger trains.

Subways: While the first subway opened in New York in 1904, at this point the city was well blanketed by elevated railways. Much of the elevated railways in Manhattan were removed between 1904-1954 and replaced by subways and new lines were also added during that time. Not much has changed since 1954.

Expressways: Bulk of the major expressways and interstate highways (that go through New York City) were constructed during the 50s and 60s (except for the Long Island Expressway which was started in 1939).

Conclusion

While the earlier conclusion about the timing of automotive adoption and city development may hold true still, it's interesting to note that even these car centric cities once had public transportation networks that got scrapped for freeway networks.

Another commonality is that cities with developed public transportation networks had significant long distance railway that ultimately turned into commuter rail. It should be noted here that subways are short distance transportation modes within the densest parts of the megalopolis. The transportation modes that support the suburb to city center traffic is either rail or freeway, not subway.

This doesn't mean cities without extensive long distance rail won't develop freeway networks and scrap their light rail systems. I think a lot has changed in the last 100 years that it's impossible to concluded history will repeat itself.

Another commonality is the return of the light rail in Major US cities. While many of the urban light rail in US cities were dismantled in the 50s to make way for buses and cars, they've started appearing in the 80s, 90s, and 00s. I'm not sure if this is a shift in our value to a more eco-friendly society or out negative view towards oil dependency (I'm sure it's these two factors combined with whole slew of other reasons), but will the rest of the world learn from the mistakes and not close down light rail lines?

I'm not sure what this means in the terms of 15 years into the future. It gives me an idea of what to look into when looking at an undeveloped city and trying to figure out how the city may develop, but it gives me very little insight on how developed cities might change. I realize I also have to watch out carefully for the terms developed and undeveloped (or developing) since it automatically assumes one will turn into the other (developing into developed), though that's not always the case.

Further Questions/Points of Investigation

Spread out and investigate more cities. It would be interesting to see other cities with developed public transportation systems like Mexico City or Seoul. What are other non-US automotive megalopolis?

Dig deeper into these cities. I didn't particularly focus on the actual drivers of the change, in particular politics (which seems to be the dominant force behind urban planning).

Look into some common events happening in these cities: revival of the street car, conversion of freight rail to commuter rail.