Unsustainable Transportation

Is is possible that some transit advocates are figuring out that financial sustainability is a prerequisite for sustainable (meaning non-automobile) transportation? You would think so from a recent article about the San Francisco Bay Area’s transportation problems.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission‘s annual report projects that the region needs to find $1 billion a year to support transit. Since 1997, the Bay Area’s transit funding has increased by more than 50 percent (net of inflation), yet transit service has grown by only 16 percent and ridership by just 7 percent. “That is a terrible return on our region’s transit investment,” the annual report points out, “and it should cause us to think long and hard before committing future funds to such a low-yield strategy.” As a result, the report concludes, “the current transit system is not sustainable.”

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