The Great Debate: Do Millenials Want Cars, Or Not?

Most want cars, some can't afford them. So they have found other ways. However, make all else equal (mainly, cost) and just about all of them would prefer to have a car.

 

I think it largely comes down to the fact that younger generations don't romanticize cars in the way that our fathers did. While they can still be beautiful, at the end of the day they are a mode of transportation. Rather freedom embodied.

Also, that into account that a car that in mid 1900s America, a work of art could be purchased off the show room floor by a lower-middle class citizen. Today, most cars look as many things do... like dime-a-dozen, mass produced garbage that bring years of debt, insurance payments, inspection renewals, registration renewals, etc.

 

Gen Y has a lot in common with the builder generation. They both prefer collective/communal living, and not segregated suburban sprawl. If forced to purchase a car, Millenials prefer it to be more like purchasing a MacBook. No sales pressure, efficient and consistent product, innovations galore, and top-notch maintenance/support programs. So far, the car industry just hasn't been able to put together something that matches both their expectations and their relatively weak buying power. Couple that with their preference for mass or pedestrian transit, and there you have it. It's a little from column A and a little from column B. A generation that sees cars as more burdensome than liberating, and an industry that is notoriously sluggish to adapt.

 

Even if that is true, which I don't expect you to be able to document, they can get bonds to pay for the original construction because they can credibly project toll revenue and demonstrate the existing demand. The Federal government could never do that with mass transit expansion, they fund it because they print their own money and are only accountable to the public every November, when there are much bigger issues to think about. They would never get sufficient political support or user demand to justify transit expansion to the point of "not having to drive anywhere."

Streetcars were around as were horse-drawn carriages. Car usage made both of those and passenger trains commercially obsolete. Surburban expansion was inevitable, and is somewhat irreversible now as you will always be able to own property there more cheaply and safely than you can rent in the city.

 

Eventually they'll all turn 30, get married, have kids and start wondering about their place on the socioeconomic ladder. Piling into a bus that stops at every other street with a bunch of riff-raff will not fit into that vision.

 

I get a speeding ticket almost every year. I'd much prefer public transit where I don't have to worry about gas/maintenance/registration stickers/state inspection/tires/car wash/windshield repair/coolant/transmission fluid/ etc.......

 

I don't think that guy gets out much, to be honest.

Take the 4/5/6 train from Upper East into Midtown on a weekday morning for example. The train is packed with highly paid financial services employees.

Same goes for SF - I take the 30X bus from the Marina into the Financial District in the mornings. Almost everyone on my bus is dressed business casual, and most of them use the 20 min ride to catch up on emails, or peruse the WSJ/FT.

 

Just stopping in to say I'm a Millenial and own 2 cars. One of them consumes a liter of gas just turning the engine.

 

Please don't pretend to care about racial issues beyond defending your transit fantasies. It's thinking that's backed up by basic observation of transit ridership. I rode the 30, 77, 68, 2, 80, 42 and 82 all through college and maybe once or twice I saw a caucasian get on the bus and sit in the front seat.

 

This is a discussion about expanding transit in cities where it is not already used, to the point that people don't "have to drive anywhere." New York and San Francisco have the population density and land values that would make car ownership or parking space cost prohibitive for most of the population, and really aren't relevant examples (irrespective of how much I "get out").

 

Problem is Gen Y isn't big on marriage or kids. They're also less materialistic than their parents.

 

The generalizations are strong with this one.

How is this "The Great Debate?" anyway? Yawn. Buy one or don't.

 

The initial discussion was on"Do Millenials Want Cars, Or Not?" Millenials don't like wasting time sitting in traffic. These days you have trains/buses equipped with wifi, you have tablets with data plans, etc - so you don't have to sacrifice productivity just to get to/from the office.

 

It's all about living in a stress-free non polluted environment, don't you want that? Mandatory public transit would eliminated that, not completely but it will definitely help.

 

That is the nature of a discussion about, you know, entire generations of people.

 

I take the rail and busses all over the Denver metro area and eagle county. There is always an extremely diverse group of people from elderly couples wearing suits and dresses to maids to college kids to doctors.