Comment 80979

By Springfield (anonymous) | Posted September 18, 2012 at 15:02:18

I don't know if I would say $70K+ is an affluent household. It's strikes me as simply the supra-median. (Hamilton's median household income in 2006 was $66,810, for example, compared to $69,156 province-wide.)

When I read that "16-34 year olds with a family income over $70,000 USD increased transit use by 100 percent, cycling by 122 percent and walking by 37 percent," I do wonder what the baseline numbers were like, and where they were recorded.

Did they only take a couple of bus trips a year but ended up logging four? Was there a huge increase in subway traffic in major metros, but negigible gains elsewhere? And why do we seem to be comparing "use" to "distance" in some of these formulations? Does anyone calculate "vehicle" miles for car/bus/bike classifications?

Household earnings notwithstanding, what role might historic levels of youth unemployment (around 20% in the US, apparently twice that in some areas of Europe) have with regard to new car purchases among that cohort? Are they simply buying used cars and driving less? Or are those who buy cars actually driving them further (eg. 30% fewer cars travelling 23% fewer miles).

I'm not disputing that there's something happening here, but IMHO what it is ain't exactly clear.

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