Transit ridership dropped by 2.9 percent in 2017 despite a 0.7 percent increase in transit service (as measured in vehicle revenue miles). This isn’t big news to Antiplanner readers, but it’s a little more official with the release, earlier this week, of the 2017 National Transit Database. While we’ve previously looked at calendar year or July through June ridership numbers, the database uses the fiscal years of the individual transit agencies, which may range anywhere from July 2016 through June 2017 to January 2017 through December 2017, so the numbers won’t be exactly the same.
The full database also includes fares, costs, energy consumption, and other information not previously available for 2017. For example, transit used an average of 3,376 BTUs per passenger mile in 2017, a 2.3 percent increase from 2016. Greenhouse gas emissions per passenger mile also increased by about 1.0 percent. These increases, of course, are due to the increased vehicle miles combined with a 2.6 percent fall in passenger miles.
Transit’s 3,376 BTUs per passenger mile is just about tied with light trucks (pick ups, SUVs, full-sized vans), but well behind the average car. In 2015, cars used only about 3,030 BTUs per passenger mile and may have been even more energy efficient in 2017. Continue reading
