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Category Archives: Useful Data

February Driving Up 2.3 Percent from 2019

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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After accounting for Leap Day, Americans drove almost 2.3 percent more miles per day in February 2024 than in the same month of 2019, according to data released by the Federal Highway Administration on Friday. Rural driving was 9.7 percent more than before the pandemic while urban driving was 0.8 percent less. At least some of these differences are due to people moving from urban to rural areas.

The February 2024 line for driving is obscured by the line for Amtrak, but both are approximately 102 percent.

While Amtrak, air travel, and driving have all fully recovered from the pandemic, transit has not. When I posted February 2024 transit data last week, someone commented that “Some areas have nearly recovered” while “areas like the Bay Area drag the data down.” It’s true that a handful of areas have recovered, in many cases because they are giving away transit rides for free. But most have not, unless you define 80 percent as “nearly recovered.” As of last week’s February data, out of the nation’s 50 largest urban areas, only 2 have fully recovered and only three more saw 90 percent of pre-pandemic ridership. Continue reading →

Is It Safe to Ride Transit?

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Less than half of New York City residents feel safe riding the subway today, down from 82 percent before the pandemic. Subway crime is so bad that New York’s governor called out the national guard to patrol subway stations. Crime is up on San Francisco BART trains despite the agency putting more police on trains. A few days ago, a mentally ill person stabbed someone to death on a Portland light-rail train.

Will putting more police in subway stations solve the crime problem? Probably not if BART’s experience is any guide. Photo by Elvert Barnes.

Some people say transit crime is dropping so it’s safe to ride transit. Others say it is getting worse. Who’s right? We can get some answers from the Federal Transit Administration’s Major Safety Events Database, which was recently updated with data through the end of 2023. Continue reading →

Transit Daily Riders Down 24.2% from 2019

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Transit carried 78.5 percent as many riders in February 2024 as the same month of 2019. However, 2024 being a leap year February had one more day than in 2019. Adjusting for the extra day, transit’s daily ridership was only 75.8 percent of 2019, according to data released by the Federal Transit Administration yesterday. This means it continues to lag about 25 percent against all other major modes.

Meanwhile, Amtrak carried 3.2 percent more daily riders in 2024 than February of 2019, according to its monthly performance report. Transportation Security Administration passenger counts say that daily air travel was up by 7.2 percent above 2019. Highway data will be posted here soon, but will also be around 100 percent of 2019 driving.. Continue reading →

Europe More “Auto-Dependent” Than U.S.

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Before the pandemic, Europeans relied on automobiles for 70 percent of their travel, compared with 77 percent for U.S. residents. But after the pandemic, in 2021, the European share of passenger travel that used automobiles climbed to 80 percent, while the U.S. share increased only to 78 percent (and dropped to 74 percent in 2022), according to a recently released report from the European Union. That means that Europe is more auto-dependent than the U.S.

Click image to download a 12.4-MB PDF of this report.

Although the report is labeled “2023,” it actually was released in late January 2024 and includes data through 2021. The title of the report is “key figures,” which is literally true: it consists almost solely of figures as in charts, with little or no actual data. However, the charts are clear and can be read to the nearest percent or so. Meanwhile, National Transportation Statistics table 1-40 shows the share of passenger travel in the United States that relies on autos, airplanes, rail, and other modes. Continue reading →

Transit Carries 74% of 2019 Riders in January

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Driving and flying have been hovering around 100 percent of pre-pandemic levels for the last year and Amtrak has been around 100 percent for the last six months, but transit is still stuck at just below 75 percent, according to monthly data released by the Federal Transit Administration yesterday. Transit first reached 73 percent last March and 74 percent in September, and even exceeded 75 percent in November (a month that had more business days in 2023 than 2019), but it doesn’t look like it will get significantly above 75 percent for a long time.

When measured as a percent of pre-pandemic travel, transit continues to lag well behind all other modes of travel. Highway data for January 2024 should be available soon. For more on Amtrak and air travel, see yesterday’s post.

The results vary by urban area, of course. Above-average areas include New York (80.5%), Miami (90.5%), Washington (80.6%), San Diego (80.6%), Tampa-St. Petersburg (83.4%), Las Vegas (83.6%), Cincinnati (96.7%), Austin (82.8%), and Richmond (113.1%). Remaining well below average are Chicago (62.6%), Atlanta (53.0%), Boston (62.0%), Detroit (54.7%), Phoenix (50.4%), San Francisco-Oakland (59.0%), St. Louis (58.6%), Pittsburgh (54.5%), and Jacksonville (56.9%). Continue reading →

January Air Travel 109.6% of 2019

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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The airlines carried nearly 10 percent more travelers in January 2024 than in the same month of 2019, according to checkpoint counts made by the Transportation Security Administration. Meanwhile, Amtrak carried 98.2 percent as many passenger-miles in January as in 2019, according to its monthly performance report released early this week.

Transit and highway data for January 2024 should be available soon.

Don’t let the closeness of the airline and Amtrak lines fool you. Airline passenger-miles are not yet available for December and January, but in the 12 months ending in November 2023, the airlines carried 128 times as many passenger-miles as Amtrak. And that’s just counting domestic air travel; when international travel is counted, airlines carried 232 times as many passenger-miles as Amtrak. Continue reading →

Transit Use Shrinks to Insignificance

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Transit in 2022 carried less than 1 percent of passenger travel in 461 out of the nation’s 487 urban areas and less than half a percent of passenger travel in 426 of those urban areas. It carried more than 2 percent in only 7 urban areas and more than 3 percent in just two: New York and San Francisco-Oakland. These numbers are calculated from the 2022 National Transit Database released last October and the 2022 Highway Statistics released last month, specifically table HM-72, which has driving data by urban area.

Highways were a little less congested in 2022 than before the pandemic. Oregon Department of Transportation photo.

In 2019, transit carried 11.6 percent of motorized passenger travel in the New York urban area, a share that fell to 8.5 percent in 2022. Transit carried 6.8 percent in the San Francisco-Oakland area in 2019, which fell to 3.6 percent in 2022. Transit carried around 3.5 percent in Chicago, Honolulu, Seattle, and Washington urban areas, which fell to 2.5 percent in Honolulu, 2.1 percent in Seattle, and less than 1.8 percent in Chicago and Washington in 2022. Anchorage, Ithaca, and State College PA are the only other urban areas where transit carried more than 2 percent of travel in 2022. Continue reading →

New Panic Over Farmlands

By | | News commentary, Useful Data
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The Department of Agriculture’s latest Census of Agriculture has generated new fears about “disappearing farm lands.” The census found that the United States had 22 million (2.8 percent) fewer acres of farm lands in 2022 than in 2017 and 40 million (4.3 percent) fewer acres than in 2012. The census is conducted every five years in years ending in a 2 or a 7.

Oregon Public Broadcasting responded to the release by reporting that “Oregon continues to lose farmlands” which “raises red flags for some agricultural land conservation advocates.” However, a closer look at available data is needed before panicking. Continue reading →

December Driving 96.9% of 2019

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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U.S. residents drove 96.88 percent as many miles in December of 2023 as in the same month in 2019, according to estimates released yesterday by the Federal Highway Administration. Though this is down from 104.3 percent in November, driving has been hovering around 100 percent of 2019 levels all year.

In fact, the estimates indicate, Americans drove 100.1 percent as many miles in 2023 as they did in 2019 and 102.0 percent as many miles in 2023 as in 2022. I would judge that driving has completely recovered from the pandemic and is now growing at pre-pandemic levels. Decreases in rush-hour driving due to remote work are made up for by increases in non-rush-hour driving by remote workers running errands, going out for coffee, or attending meetings as well as by people moving from urban to rural areas or from some states to others. Continue reading →

Transit Carried 73.7% in December

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Transit carried 73.7 percent as many riders in December 2023 as the same month in 2019, according to data released by the Federal Transit Administration yesterday. As I predicted last month, this was a slight decline from the 74.9 percent reported for November because November had one more business day in 2023 than 2019 while December had one fewer.

Amtrak ridership, as a share of 2019 levels, declined from 103.1 percent in November to 93.6 percent in December according to Amtrak’s monthly performance report released last week. This may suggest that holiday travelers are still wary of taking trains. It also raises questions about why Amtrak numbers have been bouncing up and down so much over the past several months. Air travel has not been so bouncy: according to TSA passenger counts, air travel grew from 101.2 of 2019 levels in November to 103.1 percent in December. Continue reading →