Monthly Archives: December 2007

I’ve played with the 2006 transit data (previously) some more. The summary file now breaks down trips and passenger miles in each urban area by the main modes: buses, trolley buses, light rail, heavy rail, and commuter rail.

I then transcribed these numbers to my rail transit data file, which includes data from all rail urban areas dating back to 1982. This file also includes miles of driving, but the Federal Highway Administration hasn’t published 2006 data yet. The file also lists the number of route miles of each form of rail transit, but I wasn’t able to interpret the “fixed guideway” file that came with the 2006 data, so I didn’t fill these numbers in for many cities.

Still, we now can compare trends in transit ridership and passenger miles in the various rail cities. Here are the results.

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The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has published “provisional” data for 2006, including transit ridership, passenger miles, operating costs, energy consumption, and similar numbers for almost every transit system and mode of transit in the country. The data tables are not exactly straightforward, so the Antiplanner has compiled a summary showing the most important numbers by agency and mode and totals by urban area. Don’t say I never did anything for you.

Earlier this year, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), the transit industry’s lobby group, was thrilled to report that 2006 transit ridership exceeded 10 billion trips for the first time in 49 years. As exciting as this sounds, it was only 2.9 percent more than in 2005, even though 2006 fuel prices were a lot higher than in 2005.

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