Public transit carried 6.4 percent of 2021 motorized passenger travel in the New York urban area. It also carried 1.6 percent in Honolulu, 1.5 percent in San Francisco-Oakland, 1.4 percent in Seattle, 1.2 percent in Chicago, and 1.1 percent in Salt Lake City. In every other urban area it carried less than 1 percent; nationwide, transit carried just 0.7 percent of all motorized urban travel.
Chicago transit carried 1.2 percent, autos the other 98.8 percent of motorized passenger travel.
I calculated these numbers by comparing passenger-miles in the 2021 National Transit Database, which was released last fall, with daily vehicle miles of travel (DVMT) by urban area in table HM-72 of Highway Statistics, which was recently released by the Federal Highway Administration. To make the numbers comparable, I multiplied DVMT by 365 to get annual data and by 1.7 to account for vehicle occupancies, 1.7 being the result when dividing passenger-miles by vehicle-miles in Highway Statistics table VM-1. These numbers don’t include walking, bikes and e-bikes, or scooters, but they do include motorcycles.
To be fair, the highway data are based on calendar year 2021 while the transit data are based on transit agency fiscal years, which in most cases began in April or July 2020, at the depths of the pandemic. Transit shares should improve by perhaps 50 percent in 2022 and a little more in 2023. But even in 2019, transit carried just 1.5 percent of motorized urban travel and less than 1.0 percent in all but 15 urban areas.
This is part of the reason why I have to laugh when I read, for example, elected officials saying that a new light-rail line in Baltimore will be a game changer or transit officials claiming that new light-rail lines promote economic development. Something that is so costly and carries so few people cannot produce any regional economic benefits.
Or Honolulu, After Feds dished out for a Train going around Pearl Harbor area……Project will inevitably fail when Taxpayers stuck paying 100 Million a year to upkeep for a ridership base of few thousand a day….
“Since the federal government won’t allow the city to simply stop running the trains without demanding that it repay … ”
How about this … HART tells the feds to shove it because the Feds have had decades of failed experience and knew or should have known how low ridership would be, more importantly that Build it, and they will come philosophy doesn’t always work.
Solution transportation concerns and healthy neighborhoods….
1: Reduce Highway and transit funding to expected revenues.
Highway spending exceeds revenue accumulated via Gas taxes and tolls. Thus fewer lanes, fewer leviathans. No more big Digs, No more light rail boondoggles.
2: Cities build garages: Anti-car zealots, reminder.
Paris/Pompidou banned side street parking & retail COLLAPSED.
Amsterdam spent $160M for bike parking, 16K per space, as much as car spots.
Portland. Oregon spent Billions on “transit” oriented development. Failed until they spent 130 Million on 5 garages. Garages work.
And they can be built to blend to the architectural layout city surroundings.
https://architecturehereandthere.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/figure-12.jpg?w=640
And… Garage can accommodate secondary uses.
Here Montgomery Bell Academy, Parking garage roof for the school, functions as Soccer field without additional land.
https://i0.wp.com/www.theparentco.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/MBA-Garage-Field1.jpg?resize=1080%2C675&ssl=1
3: Privatized transit: Government HEAVILY regulates automotive transit. That’s why paratransit service is expensive & limited to seniors or disabled people.
Transit has evolved into such a bureaucratic monster its no longer serving its purpose.
Deregulated paratransit can move anyone cheaply. New Jersey is running adequate Jitney service little as a Dollar…….But Children can be accommodated effortlessly, by same transit system, parents maintain “netflix” style subscription and vanpool picks em up to take them to desired destinations, Parks, Malls. Anyone under 16 cant drive.
3: Walking/Cycling connectivity: Walking and cycling are viewed as “Inferior” forms of transportation, For adults with shit to do they Are. However for children who are endless balls sugary energy; this is inconsequential.
The Problem is, Sidewalk Ends where development entrance. Once outside walking, cycling…become.
Difficult
Take my town, the Pinnacle Urban development.
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1311031,-76.5148724,3a,75y,40.84h,96.52t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sR88Er1-0GM9usxeQ0aoLng!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DR88Er1-0GM9usxeQ0aoLng%26cb_client%3Dsearch.revgeo_and_fetch.gps%26w%3D96%26h%3D64%26yaw%3D132.90111%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
No crosswalk despite bar, restaraunt, 7/11, Hair place right across the Street, plenty space accommodate recreational spots for children and teens.
“Protected bike lanes will take 10 years, minimum – Government”
Oh, it’s protected car lanes? Give us 10 days.”
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/6/29/23773421/nascar-chicago-street-race-concrete-barrier-fence
4: Even in neighborhoods where children aren’t dominant, Children and activity come first.
Connectivity builds social roots and psychologically healthy habits. More importantly burns never ending supply calories modern food makers cram into.
The problem w/ playing is that it is the easiest, most organic way for kids and TEENS to make friends/fight psychosomatic loneliness.
That’s a problem???
Yep. Because it has NO MARKETING BUDGET.
Adult-run activities have money behind them. They win out. Adults have their activities, Games, Pornography, bars, clubs and events and shows. These cost money, these require transportation.
The result of kids isolation in suburban environments has been studied extensively and it’s worse now; school year 5-8 hours a day and summer 12-15 hours a day parked in front of technology. Without cars their own, minimal transportation and paranoid parents. Away from people they must socialize and play with. Play mitigates those circumstances, but “Play dates” and “sleep overs” often require transportation.
Connected neighborhoods and publicly accessible venues make kids mobile.
Most kid programs have someone running them, so they represent someone’s salary and perhaps even a business. That someone, or business, naturally must market their program. So they do. This in turn is like adult venues, it requires money and requires transportation. Which in turn defers and ostracizes children of lower income households. “Childrens entertainment” is distraction from social play integration. It’s been marketed but does little to socialize and educate. When adults take charge, they skip over the hard, annoying stuff — the squabbling and compromising that the kids would otherwise have to do. That means the kids don’t get as much chance to practice the skills of getting along and logical deduction and problem solving, i.e. LIFE. The road ahead is bumpier for kids like this.
It’s not “free play” if there’s an adult watching “like a lifeguard”. We need to go back to “I’m goin’ out to play, Mom!”/”Okay, be home before dark!” Kids need lots of time outside, roaming beyond their own yard, with zero adult surveillance. It worked for millennia.