Transit is “obsolete and costs taxpayers billions, yet its ridership and productivity continue to decline,” observes an op-ed in Governing magazine, concluding that, “we should stop subsidizing it, saving taxpayers’ tens of billions of dollars a year.” More data supporting this position can be gleaned from the March ridership data recently published by the Federal Transit Administration.
In addition to ridership numbers, the FTA spreadsheet also includes revenue-vehicle miles. I’ve now enhanced that worksheet to include annual, agency, and urban area totals and have uploaded the result. (If you downloaded yesterday’s file after about noon Pacific Time, it already includes this update.)
Previous data have shown that, as some cities build light rail, they cut bus service, thus losing more bus passengers than they gain in rail riders. That may influence March numbers, but it is not the only factor. For example, Los Angeles Metro increased light-rail service by 3.7 percent while it cut bus service by 2.7 percent. Yet both bus and light rail lost riders: light rail declining 7.5 percent and bus 9.6 percent.
Charlotte, which opened a light-rail extension in mid-March, increased light-rail service by 75.4 percent and got a 45.4 percent boost in light-rail riders. It cut bus service by a mere 3.0 percent, yet bus riders declined 28.6 percent. Since there are a lot more bus riders than light-rail riders, the overall result was a 15.4 percent decline. It seems doubtful that a 3 percent decrease in service is solely responsible for a 28 percent decline in riders, so there are probably other factors involved.
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Yet there is a strong correlation between changes in service and changes in ridership for the 1,200 transit agencies and modes tracked in the spreadsheet. Comparing March 2018 with March 2017, the correlation coefficient between revenue-miles and passenger trips is 0.74.
In looking at these numbers, I found a major error in the revenue miles data for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey subway lines. From 2005 to 2009, the spreadsheet reports 300 million to 350 million vehicle-revenue miles per year, but after 2009 this drops to around 12 million, which is the right number. I used National Transit Database data for the years in question to fix the annual totals, but I don’t have the numbers to fix the monthly totals.
After making this correction, the data show that revenue miles have increased since 2009 for all major forms of rail, but declined by about 4 percent for buses. During the same period, bus ridership fell by 12 percent. This suggests that declining bus service has played a role in falling transit ridership, but it is not the only or even the most important factor.
Citylab: The Stark (and Hopeful) Facts About Bus Ridership
It’s not a death spiral—at least, not yet. Examples abound of how city leaders can turn the numbers around.
Any frank conversation about building better bus service in American cities must address one fact at the outset: Ridership is in free fall across the country.
Numbers released last month from the Federal Transit Administration’s National Transit Database show a 2.5 percent decline in total transit ridership from 2016 to 2017, with bus ridership leading the way with a 5 percent drop. This nationwide decline in transit ridership has been in progress since 2014, despite growth in U.S. population and employment.
The result? More cars on the road, more traffic deaths, more lost time in longer commutes, and more pollutants in the atmosphere.