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Category Archives: Transportation

Transit’s Ride into Irrelevance

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Just 3.5 percent of American workers commuted to work by public transit in 2023, according to American Community Survey data recently released by the Census Bureau. That’s down from 5.0 percent in 2019. Since transit ridership so far in 2024 is only about 4 percent more (when measured as a share of 2019 numbers) than it was in 2023, the 3.5 percent number is not likely to improve much in the future.

The increase in remote working has permanently shifted transportation patterns and particularly devastated transit ridership.

According to the survey data, the share of people working at home in 2023 was 13.8 percent, down from 15.2 percent in 2022 but up from just 5.7 percent in 2019. As I’ve noted before, the increase in remote working has a double impact on transit ridership. First, the downtown workers who were transit’s main customers before the pandemic are more likely to work at home than many other people. Second, the reduction in congestion resulting from increased remote working will lead some people who were avoiding congestion by riding transit to return to driving. Continue reading →

August Transit Ridership 74.5% of 2019

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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America’s transit systems carried 25.5 percent fewer riders in August of 2024 as in the same month of 2019, according to data released by the Federal Transit Administration last Friday. Transit ridership has hovered around 75 percent of pre-pandemic levels since November 2023.

I previously reported that July transit ridership was only 71.1 percent of 2019, but warned that several major transit agencies had not yet submitted July numbers. Those agencies, I estimated, made up about 2.5 percent of U.S. transit ridership so I guessed that the real number would be 73.6 percent. I was off by a bit: all major agencies have report July numbers and July ridership was 73.9 percent of 2019. Continue reading →

Amtrak Recovers to 99.7% of Pre-Pandemic PMs

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Amtrak carried 99.7 percent as many passenger-miles in August 2024 as in the same month of 2019, according to the state-owned company’s monthly performance report. This was up from 85.1 percent in July. While Amtrak was still slightly short of pre-pandemic levels, domestic airline flights comfortably carried 8.7 percent more passengers in August 2024 than in 2019, according to TSA passenger counts.

The Department of Transportation has not yet posted August highway or transit data but when it does the results will be reported here.

While Amtrak numbers are in passenger-miles (which is the preferred measure) and airline numbers are in passenger counts, data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics show that these follow one another fairly closely. In June, the most recent month for which such data are available, domestic flights carried 6.8 percent more passenger-miles than in June 2019. Continue reading →

The Shinkansen and Japan’s Lost Decades

By | | Transportation
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Japan is known for many things, but two of them are the Shinkansen high-speed trains and the nation’s three Lost Decades of slow economic growth. Unfortunately, most tourists who go to Japan see the former and don’t see the latter and especially don’t see the connection between the two.

The distinctive noses of Japan’s first high-speed trains led people to call them bullet trains, a name that has endured even though later trains were shaped quite differently.

Yesterday’s 60th anniversary of the first revenue runs of the Shinkansen generated many laudatory articles about the trains. “Bullet trains changed the world of rail travel forever,” said CNN. The Guardian called it “The train that helped rebuild the idea of a country.” Continue reading →

$650 Million Plus $17 Million a Year for 1,100 Daily Riders

By | | Transportation
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In 2004, Denver’s Regional Transit District persuaded the region’s voters to support a sales tax increase to pay for six new rail lines that together would cost about $3.5 billion to build. The agency claimed to be surprised when costs doubled soon after the election. Since then, the $7 billion RTD has spent on rail capital improvements was only enough to build five lines, while the sixth line, which was supposed to connect Longmont and Boulder with downtown Denver, remains unbuilt.

A Denver commuter train connecting the airport with downtown. Photo by Jarrett Stewart.

While all of the rail lines were idiotic, there were good reasons to delete the Longmont line. First, the Boulder part of the line was duplicated by a bus-rapid transit line that has probably been the most successful of the projects funded by the 2004 tax increase. Second, RTD’s own analysis found that the line to Longmont would be so expensive and carry so few passengers that the cost of carrying one rider would be more than $60 compared with under $10 for most other FasTracks lines and no more than $22 for any other line. The line was projected to cost a third as much as all of the other lines put together yet carry only 7 percent as many passengers. Continue reading →

July Transit Ridership 71.1% of 2019

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I’m back from Japan and mostly recovered from jet lag. I may write about my Japan experiences next week but first it’s time to look closely at the July transit data posted by the Federal Transit Administration the day I left the states.

Based on a quickie analysis on my iPhone I previously reported that transit carried only about 64 percent as many riders in July of 2024 as the same month of 2019. However, I warned that I wasn’t certain about this as I was having trouble analyzing a 15 megabyte spreadsheet on the phone. In fact, the number is 71.1 percent, which is better than 64 percent but worse than any month since July 2023. Continue reading →

$336,000 to Go Back to School

By | | Transportation
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The Honolulu Rail Authority just gave its CEO a 22% pay raise on the condition that she goes back to school to learn about how to be a CEO. In her three years as CEO she has harassed employees, offended board members, and overseen escalating costs, yet the board decided she is worth $336,000 a year.

Honestly there is no point in me making any jokes about this because the whole thing is a joke. Such as the fact that she has no prior CEO experience but instead previously worked for HDR and other rail contractors that helped cause some of the cost overruns. Or the fact that the board will pay for her to spend much of two years at UC Berkeley learning how to do her job. Or the fact that the board will also pay for her to receive executive “coaching,” which is a scam in itself.

And finally there is the fact that the board excused her whopping pay raise simply because it is her first raise since they hired her in 2021. Has your pay gone up 22% in the last three years?

July Driving 99.2% of 2019

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Americans drove 99.2 percent as many miles in July 2024 as the same month in 2019, according to data published by the Federal Highway Administration yesterday. This is one of the few times that monthly highway traffic data have been released before transit ridership data.

July transit data are not yet available.

Except in April 2024, when driving dipped below 94 percent of pre-pandemic levels, miles of driving have been 99 percent to 103 percent every month for the last year. As usual, rural driving was more: 3.5 percent above 2019, while urban driving was 2.8 percent less than in 2019. However, driving on urban interstates grew 1.4 percent.

Amtrak Ridership Nosedives in July

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Airlines carried 4.5 percent more passengers in July 2024 than the same month in 2019, according to TSA passenger counts. But Amtrak numbers dramatically dropped, carrying nearly 15 percent fewer passenger-miles than July of 2019, according to the state-owned company’s monthly performance report.

July transit and highway data are not yet available.

The report shows that Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor carried 11 percent more riders in July than in 2019, but state-subsidized trains carried 8 percent fewer riders and long-distance trains carried 15 percent fewer. State-subsidized train ridership fell despite the fact that Amtrak added two new routes and extended a third one. Continue reading →