Going to the reference site: Sydney is 42:30:28
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024001272?via%3Dihub](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024001272?via%3Dihub)
I haven't drilled deeper to find a national average.
While that's true there is a bit of a difference as the land where Australians actually live is very tiny compared to other countries like the US. About a fifth of all Australians live in Sydney and about half in the 5 biggest cities.
What I'm saying is yes it's wrong to just take a single city but looking at a single city in Australia is not as big of a difference as looking at a single city in the US.
It's probably sarcastic, it's the kind of shit Americans say a lot when arguing about transit, as if they're regularly going cross-country.
I know some people with wacky long commutes that would always "need" a car(thanks to their personal choice), but pretty much everywhere on earth average transportation needs can be met with some form of transit.
I’m just sarcastically parroting arguments people use against building any infrastructure but highways. NA and OZ will probably always have higher vehicle ownership than other countries just because of size and culture but the vast majority of city dwellers (which are most people) could get away with have at least less cars if we built different kinds of infrastructure.
You could say exactly the same thing about Canada though, and we're lumped in with the US in the chart - appropriately so, because we also rely very heavily on cars to get around.
EDIT: For what it's worth, the source has AU & NZ at about 77%, and from the data on their website it looks like Canada is lower than the US at somewhere around 80% on average.
You can legitimately say the same about the US too to an extent. Suburban sprawl is real but most of the population still lives in urban areas, and the car usage is a mostly political and, to some extent, personal choice, as the country killed off transit in favor of funding massive highway projects that cost way more than rail or bus infra ever could for the capacity they create.
It would be *interesting* if that were the case. Australia has a steeper population density curve, a larger share of the total population concentrates in the city compared to USA, and public transport is a lot more favoured near city centres where congestion makes it favourable to take the ferry/train/etc. The styles of AUS city planning are different too.
Sydney has more use of public transport than the rest of Australia, but still only 20% I think? We ride bikes a lot more than the US, but still only a tiny percentage of commuters.
The population - density curve might be steeper, but the population density of our major metro areas is also low by global standards. We don't have the density to support a world-class standard of public transport connectivity (but chicken-and-egg, the lack of public transport is limiting our ability to increase density). We followed the American car-centric design methods for too long, and now have a lot of work and political change required to fix it.
You got me curious so I took the time to look up the source OP specified. Australia IS mentioned (so it's still interesting it got omitted in the graph) and the statistics state that it is at about 76% car usage and 18% public transport. Notable though is the fact that New Zealand is folded into the same group as Australia, however I have lived in both places and would state the city congestion issues were similarly fucked. There is a lot more % farmland in New Zealand though, meaning a lot more reason for rural communities to setup, and if you're rural, car is often the only way to get somewhere.
76:18:6 for AU & NZ together - it is the closest to North America, yes.
Sadly, no expectation or requirement to disclose cherry-picking on these images. Maybe OP can defend the logic used to exclude certain continental areas?
I can't figure which category scooter and motorbike belong to.
They're an important mean of transportation in many countries (e.g., SE Asia), but they're neither cars, nor bike/public transport.
It says in the paper that motorbikes are part of "cars".
They also explain there are some issues with things like e-bikes which might get categorised in either "cycling/walking" or "cars" but they put e bikes into cycling/walking.
In the study the category is called "active travel", some ebikes run throttle only and are therefore not "active travel" when used in that mode, although they are when pedal assist.
In the uk/eu those kind of ebikes are legally motorbikes, so surveys from these places might include them in "cars" whilst surveys from the US would count them as bicycles.
>In the uk/eu those kind of ebikes are legally motorbikes, so surveys from these places might include them in "cars" whilst surveys from the US would count them as bicycles.
That's what I was thinking. If they don't require the cyclist to peddle, then they aren't e-bikes.
In the EU/UK, yes but not in the US where you can have ebikes that don't need to be pedalled and are legally bicycles. I don't know about other places.
It depends heavily on the model and how it's used. A pedal assist ebike on a lower assist mode is not very different from regular cycling.
My wife uses an ebike to commute, it's helpful for big hills and significant headwinds but her calorie expenditure is only ~10% lower than it was when she was using a regular bike.
I also don't think this graph is intended to be a measure of how hard people work when travelling.
I use an e-bike, and I mostly use it on the lowest assist level, which is basically just a slight decrease in force needed to move the bike. I'm still very physically active while riding. It just kind of lets me go faster on my rides.
Car ownership rates in Africa are much lower than the US and Canada. The African country with the highest car ownership rate is Algeria where less than half (43%) of families own a car. 91.7% of American families own one
Good point. East and South Asia together are close to half of the world on their own. So, considering how low their number is it's a bit strange to see the average being that high.
So no area of the world rates above a 50 for cars except the US and somehow the average is a 51 for cars?
We dont have the car total or population total to make that number move that much.
That's an easy explanation.
Look at south and east Asia.
Then check their population numbers.
Compare that to the rest.
Then you will see how the average is still 50%.
It's actually impressive that the rest of the world bumps up that number by that much. Probably because of USA
u/heynishant In 76% of these cities, the data is ~14* years old. And almost 10 years old in over 90% of those cities.
ETA: and the data represents less than 20% of the world’s urban population. And the data does not include emissions per capita.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024001272
Where are you getting that number? I'm reading the primary source and they clearly state the data age:
>... in 76% of these cities, the data is from 2010 or more recent, and in 93% the data is from 2005 or more recent.
The abstract is really interesting and gives a lot of context for the data, I'd recommend reading it.
Probably not \[OC\]: [https://posts.voronoiapp.com/automotive/This-Chart-Highlights-North-American--Car-Culture-1099](https://posts.voronoiapp.com/automotive/This-Chart-Highlights-North-American--Car-Culture-1099)
North America and Central America listed separately, then at the bottom, the footnote for NA says "\*excl. Mexico." Why lol? Where is the Caribbean? If they just mean the US and Canada, say that then. Kind of makes the whole thing suspect to me. It would be like if it said "Southern Asia... \*excl. Pakistan."
Also seems to contradict the numbers from [USDOT](https://www.bts.gov/browse-statistical-products-and-data/state-transportation-statistics/commute-mode)'s commute mode share estimate, unless people are commuting on foot or with public transport and then driving a ton after work for fun, or people in Canada just never leave their cars under any circumstance.
Its as useful as north south east and west europe. Where do you even start to define those borders lol
Is austria east or west or south, is switzerland west? Is denmark north or west, germany?
Good point. I think I can guess where Poland and probably Czechia ended up, but they're not going to be happy about it. Also hilarious that Mexico, if it ended up in Central America, is now 2/3 of the population and 80% of the area of a region it's not even in. Totally dominant. 30% car modal share, incidentally.
In this case, separating out US CAN makes sense IMO due to their collective high car culture. If you add MEX the average car usage will be lower and that doesn't show clearly what is needed to be seen.
I'm gonna keep it 1000 with you, it smells like circlejerk fuel to me. I don't trust the numbers and I don't think it was posted in good faith. Everybody knows the US and Canada have a higher modal share of cars than pretty much any other countries. But the main thing is, if it's US/CAN numbers, *say that then.*
And FWIW, if I was into smelling my own farts, it would be my kind of jerk. I sold my car four years ago because I decided I didn't want to be a part of car culture, then moved to be closer to transit. I haven't so much as taken an Uber in like six months. I've read Suburban Nation like five times. I listen to urbanist podcasts while I get ready for work in the morning. I just don't believe the numbers and I don't think this is being posted in good faith.
The numbers look believable to me, but I do agree they should say "the US and Canada" rather than "North America". That actually makes the point stronger, imo
The numbers look believable to me, but I do agree they should say "the US and Canada" rather than "North America". That actually makes the point stronger, imo
OP deliberately displayed it that way, they purposely left out the data that includes places like Austailia and NZ since they have similar number to US and CAN
Unfortunately, US and Canada's reliance on cars has more to do with city planning than pure culture. Planners have made cities/suburbs nearly impossible to navigate without a vehicle.
Which goes back to when most cities had great trail service throughout the cities that car manufacturers bought and destroyed.
Certainly they didn't know it would make cities rely on cars, right?
Well if you are talking about the US and Canada the vast majority of planning occurred after WWII. So yes most of North America was designed with cars and cheap gasoline in mind.
The US existed for hundreds of years before WW2.
Most major cities were already pretty populated before cars existed. The cities were planned for humans and then destroyed and paved for cars.
This hurts as a cyclist in the US that has traveled to and lived in many non car-focused areas around the world. Currently live in a very walkable area and love it (although you pay much more per sqft of course).
I wish more in the US would just get to experience live in a walkable city, even if it's brief. For most, large colleges are the only times they will live this lifestyle (and will often be remembered as the best years of their lives as they could get around very easily, etc.).
For people who remember college as the best time of their life, it's certainly not due to ease of travel. It's being young, on their own for the first time, having lots of energy, having their whole unknown future laid out ahead of them, first serious relationships, and so on.
It’s both, and the proximity is important. Talk to people who commute vs. dorms/campus housing. I see completely different takes, the former are often lonely and the latter love it.
Ngl they are beautiful in their own way, until you're like 100 yards away from somewhere you wanna go and can't without driving 8 stressful minutes bc you're cut off by a highway, and then you realize that nobody or nothing that can't drive is also unable to cross anymore
Well it’s a pretty simple reason. We (being the US) saw it as a one time investment. Buy the rails, pave the roads, build the bridges, etc. the rest of the world see it as a long term investment that continues to be improved upon. Look at how quickly and effectively potholes are repaired in Tokyo. The Autobahn is twice the thickness of pavement than the Eisenhower Interstate System requires, so damage to the roads are far less frequent. And (again in Japan) I got looked at like a crazy person for taking a cab to the airport when the train is much quicker and easier.
In 1901 it was possible to travel from Wisconsin to New York, exclusively by interurban tram lines.
But those lines were run by private companies and needed to pay for their own maintenance. When roads were built, the government just came in and did it, and the infrastructure costs were just paid out of tax funds and essentially free to the end user. Tram lines had a tough time competing with free.
Of course, in the decades that followed, America went all in on cars. No one stopped to ask whether or not the cars were actually a good thing for the cities, not even when those cities got bulldozed for endless parking garages and surface lots.
That’s the other common argument for it. Forgot to mention that in my other comment, but yes, in the US the distances and area are much greater than in most other countries
“North American Car Culture”
Oh, is THAT what this is? Car culture? Pasting the volume of interest payments next to these would have me calling it something else.
Yes I remember I was once walking on the sidewalk in Norfolk. One dude in his pick-up truck rolled his window down and shouted while he used his middle finger "fucking pedestrians".
5 min earlier I had asked for direction to the nearest Target/Wallmart, I needed some groceries. The woman in the shop explained how to drive over there, when I looked out the window I could see the shop beeing 50 meters away. I was in a mall and didn't know there was a Target/Wallmart just outside
She didn't even explain how to walk that shorts distance.
Most Americans wouldn't know how to walk around their own town. Hell a lot of Americans can't walk around in stores.
It's really a sad reality of America. Pay a shit ton in taxes for roads, pay insurance, the car, gas etc. While all it really does day to day is make us fat, lazy, isolated and entitled. At the same time cars are often extremely annoying and loud, dangerous and polluting.
Just a sad state of affairs.
While I'd love for North America to be more like Europe, it's going to be a multi-decade effort to completely re-design our cities and infrastructure to make that happen. And as it stands now, the urban sprawl of most Canadian and American cities would make public transit unreliable and expensive. The dependability of public transit is on its frequency and punctuality. North Americans got the punctuality down pat, but suffer on the frequency of lines. And the sprawl means you're never close to where you need to go.
Concurrent to this set of problems, the cost of housing in the city core means you can only afford to live in the suburbs. We have a paradox of workers who want to work not living anywhere near where the most productive and best paying jobs actually are. The only loophole is, naturally, having a vehicle that can get you to where you need to go in a timely fashion.
I’m visiting Singapore right now from the US. Public transport is an absolute pleasure. I believe subsidized in part by the deeply punitive taxes on owning/registering a car for personal use?
As someone from SEA, I'd love to walk/bike everywhere but lately its been 35C and 75% humidity, and being a sweaty mess after 10 mins outside fuckin sucks.
Yes SEA is in serious danger of a combination of humidity and high temperature. Climate change is making this worse every year.
On days where humidity is over 90% and temperature is high, it's best to avoid going out altogether...because the body cannot cool any longer by sweating and can overheat.
So I live at least 20 minutes by bike, way more by walking from anywhere and I certainly cannot bike to work, is part of this because of how we are so spread out in the United States?
US, Canada and Mexico are huge countries. Walking is not an option in a lot of places. But it also does not help that the public transportation infrastructure is normally really bad.
Being a big country is not an excuse or reason for explaining our poor choices made in urban planning, largely the result of a post-war obsession with the car.
I think this chart is informative. I think that it’s also taking a stab at North America and how much we use cars, but it’s not really a fair comparison.
North America has 23 countries, but the top 4 regions (USA, Canada, Mexico, Greenland) make up 97% of the total area — roughly 9 million square miles (rounded). Many countries across the globe are tiny, and it’s much easier to have the infrastructure setup for public transport. It’s actually not surprising at all.
On top of all that, in many countries around the world the citizens don’t have the money to even afford a car, which certainly skews the data to make them look better having less.
I’m sorry but that is nonsensical. Having a lot of land, nationally, is not an excuse for our obsession with car-centric infrastructure and urban planning within our metropolitan areas.
China is humongous, geographically speaking, and yet has made huge advancements with public transit- almost every city has a metro system that rivals the best ones in America.
The correct perspective is: China and the US are both very large countries. China, on one hand, has decided to invest money into robust, inner city public transit. The US continually has decided to invest nothing into inner city transit, and instead funnel all its transportation money into highway expansion.
Being a large country is unrelated. We ultimately are just making poor decisions on the federal, state, and local level on transportation and urban planning.
This data seems off. 35% walking and biking for western Europe is unrealistic since biking is at around 35% only in famously biking heavy cities like Amsterdam.
It depends but people in small towns and villages often live very close to their job and also walk.
The data is also from some time ago so perhaps car use has increased?
If they round up at X.5% or higher and round down a X.4% or lower you can get some percentages above or below 100%.
Eg. 92% = 91.7%, 5% = 4.7%, 4% = 3.6% that equals 100%.
The vast majority of their cities are also super walkable. When I lived in Chengdu almost everything inside of the 2.5 ring road is walkable, which means that probably \~5 million people in that city didn't need motor vehicles.
> North America includes the 2nd and 4th largest countries in the world
Who cares how big the country is? No one's commuting by car from Seattle to Miami.
In U.S public transport should be better and cleaner in the big cities. I am also a proponent of the fast train systems or whatever they are called like the ones in Japan to get around the country. But when it comes to the vast space of America and the fact that a lot of people are rural or just spread out cars are perfect and needed. Also nice to have freedom and availability of road trips
That math isn’t working. East/South Asia has 10x the population of North America-Mexico.
The Average of South Asia East Asia and North America would be ~30%. The average on that chart weighed by population is ~38%. So unless Africa is like 100% Cars then there is no way the world is 51%.
In North America you don't have the choice.
If you want to get somewhere you *must* get government permission, use a government authorised vehicle, pay the government to use it, and rely on where the government allows you to go with it.
That's freedom!
I’m an advocate for public transportation but it’s notable that the US also is the most [productive nation in the world](https://www.conference-board.org/research/economy-strategy-finance-charts/Productivity-April2022) with the shortest [average commute times](http://archive.worldmapper.org/posters/worldmapper_map141_ver5.pdf) of any developed nation.
That’s not to defend a car centric culture, but it feels like an important datapoint. The US model did in fact, work.
If 350 million people have to have cars then that'll boost the economy.
>travel times
It seems we are talking about 4 minutes (na vs we). That hardly warrants destroying whole ecosystems. You probably also need to take into account that you need to spend time exercising to account for all the car travel.
30,000 people die in car collisions every year in this country. 30,000 people smashed, mangled, and blunt-forced to death. It does not work. We have an epidemic of transportation deaths- most notable due to automobile usage. From cars colliding into each other, to endangering other road users (running over pedestrians, or hitting cyclists), who have just as much a right to use a public-right-of-way, but aren’t afforded the same comforts or safety features that cars are afforded.
Cars are a financial burden- insurance, ownership costs, gas, and maintenance, a huge difference from the average transportation costs that people in other countries face.
Cars take up too much space- having every person drive a 2 ton heavy piece of machinery, producing a significant carbon footprint, all to go drive to get a haircut, is abhorrent.
It’s a deeply flawed, inefficient, and dangerous system that dominates and perpetuates every facet of our lives. Sure it moves people, but it does not work. It’s not what we should strive for; and we almost certainly should not try to justify it.
Cars make a lot of sense considering the size of the US, it's population density, and era of development. I dunno if it's "car culture" as much as it is a culture that allows cars to thrive. For better or worse
This is by design though. US city planning has made people travel further distances and made the only viable options for those distances cars. (YouTube channels like climate town have tons of easily digestible info on this if you're curious). It forces cars to thrive and is in no way 'natural' development. It's also definitely for worse almost exclusively.
City planning is largely the way it is because that's the way people want it. And typically not because of cars, just because of space. Spread our suburbs with yards exist in the numbers that they do because millions upon millions of people vastly prefer them.
You should watch that channel I recommended, because what you're saying simply isn't entirely true. Zoning laws, for example, have a long history of classist, racist and financial motivation. And on top of that they can also just be dumb.
But yes, it's a flawed system upheld by people believing it is the american dream to be forced to move everywhere by car. That doesn't make it good.
The population density of US cities, at least the top 50 is high enough for supporting public transit, and better walking and biking infrastructure. It's not like we're saying build it in every little town, but cities Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, etc having 5 million or more people and still at +85% car dependent is just an abomination.
Not to mention, this car dependency gives another reason for the developers to spread out establishments, because every establishment needs parking spots for cars coming, which in turn means anyone even trying to walk or bike has to go further to do the same thing they could have done more easily. So fewer people walk or bike, instead drive, which increases the car's share. (Example, if a grocery were 500ft away v 1500ft away, your more likely to walk in the first case than in the second.)
What do you expect public transportation in a place like Atlana or Houston to look like? As sprawling as those cities are there is just no way for it to be anything but wildly inconvenient
There are already tens of trillions of dollars of houses and infrastructure there though. Building in wouldn't remove what already exists, and most interior city centers are already pretty dense
There just isn't a lot of purpose in building more stuff on the interior of cities when that isn't necessarily where most of the travel is taking place. It's all of the travel through and within the suburbs that makes up a good chunk of it, and can't really be replaced with public transit
So because some travel is being done in location X that is amenable to transit and some travel is being done in location Y that isn't amenable to transit, we shouldn't build transit in location X?
Am I understanding you correctly?
You know Atlanta already has a metro system, right? They just haven't given it any funding to expand in decades, and the land use isn't good near most of the stations. Houston also has public transportation that thousands rely on. It's just not robust enough yet for more people to rely on.
They haven't expanded it because it isn't remotely useful to the vast majority of people living there. Sprawling cities like that just aren't remotely well suited for public transit and it doesn't make sense to invest extraordinary amounts of money in something that only a small fraction of the population would be able to use.
See, I already addressed this when I said land use isn't good around the stations. Transit is used in places like Europe and Asia because they build dense housing mixed in with retail close to train stations and bus stops. Here, we build only single family homes and legally mandated parking lots and don't remove the legal barriers to actually build developments that are actually conducive to transit use. The mistake is in thinking that our built environment is fixed and can never be altered or further developed. If you think we can't build mass transit and develop densely later then I present to you Queens when the subway was first built through it https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/Queens_Boulevard%252C_New_York_City_%25281920%2529.jpg/640px-Queens_Boulevard%252C_New_York_City_%25281920%2529.jpg&tbnid=qYLKl1699_DLWM&vet=1&imgrefurl=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Queens_Boulevard,_New_York_City_(1920).jpg&docid=nmJ_2lSBs5wHpM&w=640&h=347&source=sh/x/im/m1/1&kgs=1f9554bcb113cd12&shem=trie
They built suburbs because people wanted OUT of the cities. Some of them at least. The "American dream" of home ownership may not apply to everyone but it was enough to support the urban sprawl.
I'm not defending or attacking either but I think it's disingenuous to frame this as a "car culture" vs a byproduct of housing demand and accommodation.
It’s a chicken and egg situation. Your density follows your building patterns, and if you build wide and spread out, you’ve gotta eat the ever mounting highway cost and play catch-up on the transit game when economics starts making car ownership prohibitively expensive, as it’s starting to become.
This weird slicing up of regions without further info is not beautiful...
Also, how does the world Avg. car percent go up to 51% when only North America is listed above that % on the chart?
The world average is higher than every region listed except US/CAN?
Last I checked only about 5% of the world population lives in those two countries, must be a lot of cars in Africa
Put this against population per square mile (or km, whatever), and I bet you see a correlation. It would probably be even more clear if you take out unsettled areas, like vast tracts in Canada, Siberia, Africa, and Australia.
The original source, The ABC of Mobility, is available free online and seems well documented. They specifically say that they’re looking at transport within cities.
This information, while very interesting in a way, is also misleading too. The breakdown would ideally isolate some of the individual metropolitan areas, from the regions as a whole.
Lol, what is this nonsense. The EU average transit mode share is 13%, so just a bit better than the than the US,
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/1381193/modal-share-of-public-transportation-by-country/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1381193/modal-share-of-public-transportation-by-country/)
All the rich countries in Europe have not only a lower transit mode share (surprise-surprise because they can afford cars), but that already lower transit mode share has actually been dropping for a decade now.
What's Australia look like?
Going to the reference site: Sydney is 42:30:28 [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024001272?via%3Dihub](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024001272?via%3Dihub) I haven't drilled deeper to find a national average.
Australia & New Zealand: 76:18:6
Sydney would be like isolating New York or Chicago…not really a great substitute for the entire country to take a large city and use that.
While that's true there is a bit of a difference as the land where Australians actually live is very tiny compared to other countries like the US. About a fifth of all Australians live in Sydney and about half in the 5 biggest cities. What I'm saying is yes it's wrong to just take a single city but looking at a single city in Australia is not as big of a difference as looking at a single city in the US.
Excuse me we can’t build any more transit in Sydney because Australia is just SO big and I need a car for my daily commute from Melbourne to Perth.
I don't understand what you are trying to say?
I think it’s sarcasm
It's probably sarcastic, it's the kind of shit Americans say a lot when arguing about transit, as if they're regularly going cross-country. I know some people with wacky long commutes that would always "need" a car(thanks to their personal choice), but pretty much everywhere on earth average transportation needs can be met with some form of transit.
I’m just sarcastically parroting arguments people use against building any infrastructure but highways. NA and OZ will probably always have higher vehicle ownership than other countries just because of size and culture but the vast majority of city dwellers (which are most people) could get away with have at least less cars if we built different kinds of infrastructure.
You could say exactly the same thing about Canada though, and we're lumped in with the US in the chart - appropriately so, because we also rely very heavily on cars to get around. EDIT: For what it's worth, the source has AU & NZ at about 77%, and from the data on their website it looks like Canada is lower than the US at somewhere around 80% on average.
You can legitimately say the same about the US too to an extent. Suburban sprawl is real but most of the population still lives in urban areas, and the car usage is a mostly political and, to some extent, personal choice, as the country killed off transit in favor of funding massive highway projects that cost way more than rail or bus infra ever could for the capacity they create.
It looks conveniently omitted. Too similar to the US.
It would be *interesting* if that were the case. Australia has a steeper population density curve, a larger share of the total population concentrates in the city compared to USA, and public transport is a lot more favoured near city centres where congestion makes it favourable to take the ferry/train/etc. The styles of AUS city planning are different too.
Sydney has more use of public transport than the rest of Australia, but still only 20% I think? We ride bikes a lot more than the US, but still only a tiny percentage of commuters.
The population - density curve might be steeper, but the population density of our major metro areas is also low by global standards. We don't have the density to support a world-class standard of public transport connectivity (but chicken-and-egg, the lack of public transport is limiting our ability to increase density). We followed the American car-centric design methods for too long, and now have a lot of work and political change required to fix it.
You got me curious so I took the time to look up the source OP specified. Australia IS mentioned (so it's still interesting it got omitted in the graph) and the statistics state that it is at about 76% car usage and 18% public transport. Notable though is the fact that New Zealand is folded into the same group as Australia, however I have lived in both places and would state the city congestion issues were similarly fucked. There is a lot more % farmland in New Zealand though, meaning a lot more reason for rural communities to setup, and if you're rural, car is often the only way to get somewhere.
Also curious to see NZ
Probably the same reason they excluded Mexico from North America.
76:18:6 for AU & NZ together - it is the closest to North America, yes. Sadly, no expectation or requirement to disclose cherry-picking on these images. Maybe OP can defend the logic used to exclude certain continental areas?
I doubt it, we are reliant on cars but are still heavy users of public transport
I saw 20% in Sydney, 13% in Melbourne, and much less elsewhere.
20% is a pretty decent number given most of us Sydneysiders drive to the bus stop/train station
And Mexico
And NZ
I can't figure which category scooter and motorbike belong to. They're an important mean of transportation in many countries (e.g., SE Asia), but they're neither cars, nor bike/public transport.
It says in the paper that motorbikes are part of "cars". They also explain there are some issues with things like e-bikes which might get categorised in either "cycling/walking" or "cars" but they put e bikes into cycling/walking.
Why would e-bikes be categorized as anything other than walking/biking?
In the study the category is called "active travel", some ebikes run throttle only and are therefore not "active travel" when used in that mode, although they are when pedal assist. In the uk/eu those kind of ebikes are legally motorbikes, so surveys from these places might include them in "cars" whilst surveys from the US would count them as bicycles.
>In the uk/eu those kind of ebikes are legally motorbikes, so surveys from these places might include them in "cars" whilst surveys from the US would count them as bicycles. That's what I was thinking. If they don't require the cyclist to peddle, then they aren't e-bikes.
In the EU/UK, yes but not in the US where you can have ebikes that don't need to be pedalled and are legally bicycles. I don't know about other places.
Because e-bikes are electric motor bikes, ie two wheeled electric cars. The small amount of watts the e-"cyclist" produces is negligible.
It depends heavily on the model and how it's used. A pedal assist ebike on a lower assist mode is not very different from regular cycling. My wife uses an ebike to commute, it's helpful for big hills and significant headwinds but her calorie expenditure is only ~10% lower than it was when she was using a regular bike. I also don't think this graph is intended to be a measure of how hard people work when travelling.
I use an e-bike, and I mostly use it on the lowest assist level, which is basically just a slight decrease in force needed to move the bike. I'm still very physically active while riding. It just kind of lets me go faster on my rides.
Lol no. I mean, maybe, but only in the same way a pair of skates is just a commercial plane without wings and motors that you strap to your feet.
You don’t sound like you’ve ever ridden one.. there are different assistance levels
I bet that’s falls under cars in this chart. If 44% of people are on 4-wheels to commute, that would be hell, well more hellish than it already is.
I would assume car, because this really is about "motorised vehicles"
And public transport, I guess include all the taxis tuktuk like around SEA. Philippines is just full of them and for so cheap.
Where is Africa? Odd world without it.
OP deliberately left out any place with similar numbers to the US and Canada
Car ownership rates in Africa are much lower than the US and Canada. The African country with the highest car ownership rate is Algeria where less than half (43%) of families own a car. 91.7% of American families own one
Do you really believe that 95% of Africans get around in cars? Jesus, good to see the yank education system working well
South of Europe
What I'm getting from this data is that 200% of people from Africa and Oceania must get around by car to make the world average that high.
The source has data for Africa and Australia+NZ, but OP left it out. And what is labeled as North America* is labeled USA+Canada by the source.
Good point. East and South Asia together are close to half of the world on their own. So, considering how low their number is it's a bit strange to see the average being that high.
So no area of the world rates above a 50 for cars except the US and somehow the average is a 51 for cars? We dont have the car total or population total to make that number move that much.
Australia and Africa are missing... Also looking at all percentages, 51% doesn't seem far off. Europe and SE-Asia aren't too far off from that
I doubt the 30 or so million people in Australia and NZ would have much impact on the average
That's an easy explanation. Look at south and east Asia. Then check their population numbers. Compare that to the rest. Then you will see how the average is still 50%. It's actually impressive that the rest of the world bumps up that number by that much. Probably because of USA
u/heynishant In 76% of these cities, the data is ~14* years old. And almost 10 years old in over 90% of those cities. ETA: and the data represents less than 20% of the world’s urban population. And the data does not include emissions per capita. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412024001272
Where are you getting that number? I'm reading the primary source and they clearly state the data age: >... in 76% of these cities, the data is from 2010 or more recent, and in 93% the data is from 2005 or more recent. The abstract is really interesting and gives a lot of context for the data, I'd recommend reading it.
Probably not \[OC\]: [https://posts.voronoiapp.com/automotive/This-Chart-Highlights-North-American--Car-Culture-1099](https://posts.voronoiapp.com/automotive/This-Chart-Highlights-North-American--Car-Culture-1099)
North America and Central America listed separately, then at the bottom, the footnote for NA says "\*excl. Mexico." Why lol? Where is the Caribbean? If they just mean the US and Canada, say that then. Kind of makes the whole thing suspect to me. It would be like if it said "Southern Asia... \*excl. Pakistan." Also seems to contradict the numbers from [USDOT](https://www.bts.gov/browse-statistical-products-and-data/state-transportation-statistics/commute-mode)'s commute mode share estimate, unless people are commuting on foot or with public transport and then driving a ton after work for fun, or people in Canada just never leave their cars under any circumstance.
Its as useful as north south east and west europe. Where do you even start to define those borders lol Is austria east or west or south, is switzerland west? Is denmark north or west, germany?
Good point. I think I can guess where Poland and probably Czechia ended up, but they're not going to be happy about it. Also hilarious that Mexico, if it ended up in Central America, is now 2/3 of the population and 80% of the area of a region it's not even in. Totally dominant. 30% car modal share, incidentally.
In this case, separating out US CAN makes sense IMO due to their collective high car culture. If you add MEX the average car usage will be lower and that doesn't show clearly what is needed to be seen.
I'm gonna keep it 1000 with you, it smells like circlejerk fuel to me. I don't trust the numbers and I don't think it was posted in good faith. Everybody knows the US and Canada have a higher modal share of cars than pretty much any other countries. But the main thing is, if it's US/CAN numbers, *say that then.* And FWIW, if I was into smelling my own farts, it would be my kind of jerk. I sold my car four years ago because I decided I didn't want to be a part of car culture, then moved to be closer to transit. I haven't so much as taken an Uber in like six months. I've read Suburban Nation like five times. I listen to urbanist podcasts while I get ready for work in the morning. I just don't believe the numbers and I don't think this is being posted in good faith.
The numbers look believable to me, but I do agree they should say "the US and Canada" rather than "North America". That actually makes the point stronger, imo
The numbers look believable to me, but I do agree they should say "the US and Canada" rather than "North America". That actually makes the point stronger, imo
OP deliberately displayed it that way, they purposely left out the data that includes places like Austailia and NZ since they have similar number to US and CAN
Unfortunately, US and Canada's reliance on cars has more to do with city planning than pure culture. Planners have made cities/suburbs nearly impossible to navigate without a vehicle.
Which goes back to when most cities had great trail service throughout the cities that car manufacturers bought and destroyed. Certainly they didn't know it would make cities rely on cars, right?
Well if you are talking about the US and Canada the vast majority of planning occurred after WWII. So yes most of North America was designed with cars and cheap gasoline in mind.
The US existed for hundreds of years before WW2. Most major cities were already pretty populated before cars existed. The cities were planned for humans and then destroyed and paved for cars.
I think you need to understand the amount of growth that happened after WWII.
This hurts as a cyclist in the US that has traveled to and lived in many non car-focused areas around the world. Currently live in a very walkable area and love it (although you pay much more per sqft of course). I wish more in the US would just get to experience live in a walkable city, even if it's brief. For most, large colleges are the only times they will live this lifestyle (and will often be remembered as the best years of their lives as they could get around very easily, etc.).
cyclists need a dedicated lane.
For people who remember college as the best time of their life, it's certainly not due to ease of travel. It's being young, on their own for the first time, having lots of energy, having their whole unknown future laid out ahead of them, first serious relationships, and so on.
It’s both, and the proximity is important. Talk to people who commute vs. dorms/campus housing. I see completely different takes, the former are often lonely and the latter love it.
Not surprising if you’ve been to other countries. Their public transportation and pedestrian systems are far more robust, reliable, and safe.
It's funny, the US's transit used to be the best in the world, then we tore it up. For a variety of reasons but the results were not pretty
You mean to say you’re not a fan of our stroads and spaghetti freeways? How could you!
Ngl they are beautiful in their own way, until you're like 100 yards away from somewhere you wanna go and can't without driving 8 stressful minutes bc you're cut off by a highway, and then you realize that nobody or nothing that can't drive is also unable to cross anymore
Not liking cars means you hate freedom! (/s)
Well it’s a pretty simple reason. We (being the US) saw it as a one time investment. Buy the rails, pave the roads, build the bridges, etc. the rest of the world see it as a long term investment that continues to be improved upon. Look at how quickly and effectively potholes are repaired in Tokyo. The Autobahn is twice the thickness of pavement than the Eisenhower Interstate System requires, so damage to the roads are far less frequent. And (again in Japan) I got looked at like a crazy person for taking a cab to the airport when the train is much quicker and easier.
In 1901 it was possible to travel from Wisconsin to New York, exclusively by interurban tram lines. But those lines were run by private companies and needed to pay for their own maintenance. When roads were built, the government just came in and did it, and the infrastructure costs were just paid out of tax funds and essentially free to the end user. Tram lines had a tough time competing with free. Of course, in the decades that followed, America went all in on cars. No one stopped to ask whether or not the cars were actually a good thing for the cities, not even when those cities got bulldozed for endless parking garages and surface lots.
Also...the distance between placed in America are much further than other western countries
That’s the other common argument for it. Forgot to mention that in my other comment, but yes, in the US the distances and area are much greater than in most other countries
I'm sorry, but Eastern Europe's public transportation sucks. Bucharest has more can than can handle and people avoid public transit.
“North American Car Culture” Oh, is THAT what this is? Car culture? Pasting the volume of interest payments next to these would have me calling it something else.
If by "car culture" you mean city plans based around the assumption that everyone travel by car.
Yes I remember I was once walking on the sidewalk in Norfolk. One dude in his pick-up truck rolled his window down and shouted while he used his middle finger "fucking pedestrians". 5 min earlier I had asked for direction to the nearest Target/Wallmart, I needed some groceries. The woman in the shop explained how to drive over there, when I looked out the window I could see the shop beeing 50 meters away. I was in a mall and didn't know there was a Target/Wallmart just outside She didn't even explain how to walk that shorts distance.
Most Americans wouldn't know how to walk around their own town. Hell a lot of Americans can't walk around in stores. It's really a sad reality of America. Pay a shit ton in taxes for roads, pay insurance, the car, gas etc. While all it really does day to day is make us fat, lazy, isolated and entitled. At the same time cars are often extremely annoying and loud, dangerous and polluting. Just a sad state of affairs.
While I'd love for North America to be more like Europe, it's going to be a multi-decade effort to completely re-design our cities and infrastructure to make that happen. And as it stands now, the urban sprawl of most Canadian and American cities would make public transit unreliable and expensive. The dependability of public transit is on its frequency and punctuality. North Americans got the punctuality down pat, but suffer on the frequency of lines. And the sprawl means you're never close to where you need to go. Concurrent to this set of problems, the cost of housing in the city core means you can only afford to live in the suburbs. We have a paradox of workers who want to work not living anywhere near where the most productive and best paying jobs actually are. The only loophole is, naturally, having a vehicle that can get you to where you need to go in a timely fashion.
i wonder how they separated walking/biking from public transport - if anything walking &public transport should be combined, not walking with biking
I’m visiting Singapore right now from the US. Public transport is an absolute pleasure. I believe subsidized in part by the deeply punitive taxes on owning/registering a car for personal use?
World average but you leave out Africa?
As someone from SEA, I'd love to walk/bike everywhere but lately its been 35C and 75% humidity, and being a sweaty mess after 10 mins outside fuckin sucks.
Yes SEA is in serious danger of a combination of humidity and high temperature. Climate change is making this worse every year. On days where humidity is over 90% and temperature is high, it's best to avoid going out altogether...because the body cannot cool any longer by sweating and can overheat.
That’s life
It’s obvious the person creating this graphic started with the title, then manipulated the data to match it.
Man I would love it if my city was walkable. Or at least viable to use a bike. Or at least the public transport was reliable. Sigh
Cars melt glaciers. Cars kill children. Cars ruin cities.
Would be interesting to see the Dutch percentages. Think it could easily be around 50% biking/walking
It's exactly 50% in The Netherlands (bike 28%, by foot 22%) , car is 42%.
Only 8 % OV? That seems awfully low. Considering our good public transport infrastructure (especially in Randstad area). Interesting though
Holland is around 20% by cars, 80% cycling, walking, transit
This can't be right, I've been told plenty of times that Europeans bike everywhere.
I'd love to see the world average without the US, no doubt there's a massive skew there.
In countries where cars are few, there is more walking. Who knew?
just going to take the opportunity to mention the podcast War On Cars…
Lol, north America single handedly pulling the average over 50
Until you add in Africa.
East asia, south america, and south asia are goated. Its no wonder i loved those places so much
So I live at least 20 minutes by bike, way more by walking from anywhere and I certainly cannot bike to work, is part of this because of how we are so spread out in the United States?
Didn't expect Europe to be 50% cars. Higher than I thought.
US, Canada and Mexico are huge countries. Walking is not an option in a lot of places. But it also does not help that the public transportation infrastructure is normally really bad.
Being a big country is not an excuse or reason for explaining our poor choices made in urban planning, largely the result of a post-war obsession with the car.
If you're American - data is depressing.
Car’s world average can’t be 51%, all of the regions except North America are smaller than 51% and north americas population is just 350M.
Plus Africa seems to be missing.
I don’t want a car the rest of my life!
I think this chart is informative. I think that it’s also taking a stab at North America and how much we use cars, but it’s not really a fair comparison. North America has 23 countries, but the top 4 regions (USA, Canada, Mexico, Greenland) make up 97% of the total area — roughly 9 million square miles (rounded). Many countries across the globe are tiny, and it’s much easier to have the infrastructure setup for public transport. It’s actually not surprising at all. On top of all that, in many countries around the world the citizens don’t have the money to even afford a car, which certainly skews the data to make them look better having less.
I’m sorry but that is nonsensical. Having a lot of land, nationally, is not an excuse for our obsession with car-centric infrastructure and urban planning within our metropolitan areas. China is humongous, geographically speaking, and yet has made huge advancements with public transit- almost every city has a metro system that rivals the best ones in America. The correct perspective is: China and the US are both very large countries. China, on one hand, has decided to invest money into robust, inner city public transit. The US continually has decided to invest nothing into inner city transit, and instead funnel all its transportation money into highway expansion. Being a large country is unrelated. We ultimately are just making poor decisions on the federal, state, and local level on transportation and urban planning.
This data seems off. 35% walking and biking for western Europe is unrealistic since biking is at around 35% only in famously biking heavy cities like Amsterdam.
More people walk than cycle
So then Amsterdam would score a lot higher than 35%.
I would say that 35% for Amsterdam is low. In fact, 35% seems very believable for the whole nation.
It depends but people in small towns and villages often live very close to their job and also walk. The data is also from some time ago so perhaps car use has increased?
North America also one of the fattest places in the world…. 🤔
What do you mean movement is vital to human health?
It is the place where people drive their cars to get to a gym. That's how much people hate being in the open air.
Heyhey we prefer the term highest calorie places
Why does America have 101%?
Rounding. Let’s say the actual numbers are 91.6, 4.8 and 3.6 that adds up to 100 but the rounded numbers are 92, 5 and 4 as displayed Edit: maths
If they round up at X.5% or higher and round down a X.4% or lower you can get some percentages above or below 100%. Eg. 92% = 91.7%, 5% = 4.7%, 4% = 3.6% that equals 100%.
Where does Russia fall here? North America includes the 2nd and 4th largest countries in the world.. this isn’t completely unexpected
China is no less big and has a very robust high speed train network.
The vast majority of their cities are also super walkable. When I lived in Chengdu almost everything inside of the 2.5 ring road is walkable, which means that probably \~5 million people in that city didn't need motor vehicles.
Size of the country won't matter because the study looked at urban/metro areas with over 10k population that had a travel study/survey they could use.
US and Canada have 797 and 618 cars per 1000 people. Meanwhile Russia has 315. The size doesn’t matter !
> North America includes the 2nd and 4th largest countries in the world Who cares how big the country is? No one's commuting by car from Seattle to Miami.
I'm American and I hate how it's so skewed for us.
Anything else we in the US can do besides vote and not use cars when practical?
Getting involved in local politics. Advocating for more walkability within your community.
In U.S public transport should be better and cleaner in the big cities. I am also a proponent of the fast train systems or whatever they are called like the ones in Japan to get around the country. But when it comes to the vast space of America and the fact that a lot of people are rural or just spread out cars are perfect and needed. Also nice to have freedom and availability of road trips
That math isn’t working. East/South Asia has 10x the population of North America-Mexico. The Average of South Asia East Asia and North America would be ~30%. The average on that chart weighed by population is ~38%. So unless Africa is like 100% Cars then there is no way the world is 51%.
Neatly explains USA obesity
That's only half of it, our food being absolutely dogshit is the other half
How does it correlate with diabetes?
In North America you don't have the choice. If you want to get somewhere you *must* get government permission, use a government authorised vehicle, pay the government to use it, and rely on where the government allows you to go with it. That's freedom!
If you plan on doing so on government property.
You can do it on your own private roads too, but they don't tend to go many places.
I’m an advocate for public transportation but it’s notable that the US also is the most [productive nation in the world](https://www.conference-board.org/research/economy-strategy-finance-charts/Productivity-April2022) with the shortest [average commute times](http://archive.worldmapper.org/posters/worldmapper_map141_ver5.pdf) of any developed nation. That’s not to defend a car centric culture, but it feels like an important datapoint. The US model did in fact, work.
If 350 million people have to have cars then that'll boost the economy. >travel times It seems we are talking about 4 minutes (na vs we). That hardly warrants destroying whole ecosystems. You probably also need to take into account that you need to spend time exercising to account for all the car travel.
30,000 people die in car collisions every year in this country. 30,000 people smashed, mangled, and blunt-forced to death. It does not work. We have an epidemic of transportation deaths- most notable due to automobile usage. From cars colliding into each other, to endangering other road users (running over pedestrians, or hitting cyclists), who have just as much a right to use a public-right-of-way, but aren’t afforded the same comforts or safety features that cars are afforded. Cars are a financial burden- insurance, ownership costs, gas, and maintenance, a huge difference from the average transportation costs that people in other countries face. Cars take up too much space- having every person drive a 2 ton heavy piece of machinery, producing a significant carbon footprint, all to go drive to get a haircut, is abhorrent. It’s a deeply flawed, inefficient, and dangerous system that dominates and perpetuates every facet of our lives. Sure it moves people, but it does not work. It’s not what we should strive for; and we almost certainly should not try to justify it.
Cars make a lot of sense considering the size of the US, it's population density, and era of development. I dunno if it's "car culture" as much as it is a culture that allows cars to thrive. For better or worse
This is by design though. US city planning has made people travel further distances and made the only viable options for those distances cars. (YouTube channels like climate town have tons of easily digestible info on this if you're curious). It forces cars to thrive and is in no way 'natural' development. It's also definitely for worse almost exclusively.
City planning is largely the way it is because that's the way people want it. And typically not because of cars, just because of space. Spread our suburbs with yards exist in the numbers that they do because millions upon millions of people vastly prefer them.
You should watch that channel I recommended, because what you're saying simply isn't entirely true. Zoning laws, for example, have a long history of classist, racist and financial motivation. And on top of that they can also just be dumb. But yes, it's a flawed system upheld by people believing it is the american dream to be forced to move everywhere by car. That doesn't make it good.
The population density of US cities, at least the top 50 is high enough for supporting public transit, and better walking and biking infrastructure. It's not like we're saying build it in every little town, but cities Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, etc having 5 million or more people and still at +85% car dependent is just an abomination. Not to mention, this car dependency gives another reason for the developers to spread out establishments, because every establishment needs parking spots for cars coming, which in turn means anyone even trying to walk or bike has to go further to do the same thing they could have done more easily. So fewer people walk or bike, instead drive, which increases the car's share. (Example, if a grocery were 500ft away v 1500ft away, your more likely to walk in the first case than in the second.)
What do you expect public transportation in a place like Atlana or Houston to look like? As sprawling as those cities are there is just no way for it to be anything but wildly inconvenient
Just start actually building it in the interior parts instead of sprawling outwards again. And again. And again.
There are already tens of trillions of dollars of houses and infrastructure there though. Building in wouldn't remove what already exists, and most interior city centers are already pretty dense
When I said "it", I meant build public transit. Both cities have some. Build more.
There just isn't a lot of purpose in building more stuff on the interior of cities when that isn't necessarily where most of the travel is taking place. It's all of the travel through and within the suburbs that makes up a good chunk of it, and can't really be replaced with public transit
So because some travel is being done in location X that is amenable to transit and some travel is being done in location Y that isn't amenable to transit, we shouldn't build transit in location X? Am I understanding you correctly?
You know Atlanta already has a metro system, right? They just haven't given it any funding to expand in decades, and the land use isn't good near most of the stations. Houston also has public transportation that thousands rely on. It's just not robust enough yet for more people to rely on.
They haven't expanded it because it isn't remotely useful to the vast majority of people living there. Sprawling cities like that just aren't remotely well suited for public transit and it doesn't make sense to invest extraordinary amounts of money in something that only a small fraction of the population would be able to use.
See, I already addressed this when I said land use isn't good around the stations. Transit is used in places like Europe and Asia because they build dense housing mixed in with retail close to train stations and bus stops. Here, we build only single family homes and legally mandated parking lots and don't remove the legal barriers to actually build developments that are actually conducive to transit use. The mistake is in thinking that our built environment is fixed and can never be altered or further developed. If you think we can't build mass transit and develop densely later then I present to you Queens when the subway was first built through it https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/Queens_Boulevard%252C_New_York_City_%25281920%2529.jpg/640px-Queens_Boulevard%252C_New_York_City_%25281920%2529.jpg&tbnid=qYLKl1699_DLWM&vet=1&imgrefurl=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Queens_Boulevard,_New_York_City_(1920).jpg&docid=nmJ_2lSBs5wHpM&w=640&h=347&source=sh/x/im/m1/1&kgs=1f9554bcb113cd12&shem=trie
They built suburbs because people wanted OUT of the cities. Some of them at least. The "American dream" of home ownership may not apply to everyone but it was enough to support the urban sprawl. I'm not defending or attacking either but I think it's disingenuous to frame this as a "car culture" vs a byproduct of housing demand and accommodation.
It’s a chicken and egg situation. Your density follows your building patterns, and if you build wide and spread out, you’ve gotta eat the ever mounting highway cost and play catch-up on the transit game when economics starts making car ownership prohibitively expensive, as it’s starting to become.
They wouldn't have built plotted housing suburbs if people didn't want them.
Averages suck here. We need the median dammit!
This weird slicing up of regions without further info is not beautiful... Also, how does the world Avg. car percent go up to 51% when only North America is listed above that % on the chart?
Those Eastern European communists... /s
The world average is higher than every region listed except US/CAN? Last I checked only about 5% of the world population lives in those two countries, must be a lot of cars in Africa
I dunno if it's "culture" when the government makes only one form of transportation possible
Put this against population per square mile (or km, whatever), and I bet you see a correlation. It would probably be even more clear if you take out unsettled areas, like vast tracts in Canada, Siberia, Africa, and Australia.
I feel that the asterisk about excluding Mexico should be much larger, it makes a huge difference in the data.
And they say America is far because of food. If they walked it would be same as europe.
The original source, The ABC of Mobility, is available free online and seems well documented. They specifically say that they’re looking at transport within cities.
This information, while very interesting in a way, is also misleading too. The breakdown would ideally isolate some of the individual metropolitan areas, from the regions as a whole.
Lol, what is this nonsense. The EU average transit mode share is 13%, so just a bit better than the than the US, [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1381193/modal-share-of-public-transportation-by-country/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1381193/modal-share-of-public-transportation-by-country/) All the rich countries in Europe have not only a lower transit mode share (surprise-surprise because they can afford cars), but that already lower transit mode share has actually been dropping for a decade now.