The American Public Transportation Association released its fourth quarter 2018 ridership report showing what Antiplanner readers already know: transit lost 2 percent of its riders last year. While admitting the decline, the accompanying press release focused on the few places where ridership grew, such as Columbus, the Long Island Railroad, and West Covina, California. You know they’re desperate when they have to go to West Covina — population 108,000 — to find good news.
Although APTA did issue a press release, it isn’t visible on the lobby group’s home page. Instead, the top “news update” is a March 18 press release demanding that taxpayers pony up $232 billion for transit infrastructure. As previously noted here, this is just a wish-list of transit project, most of which are new and don’t fix the $100 billion maintenance backlog with existing infrastructure.
The ridership press release barely hints at the really bad news, such as the 24 percent decline in Baltimore heavy-rail riders, the 20 percent decline in Boston light-rail riders, or the 12 percent decline in Atlanta bus riders. Unlike the few positive results APTA reported, these aren’t rare exceptions; more likely they are bellwethers of things to come for the few transit agencies that have seen ridership gains. Continue reading
