America’s transit systems carried nearly 75 percent as many riders in November 2023 as the same month in 2019, according to data released on Friday by the Federal Transit Administration. This is the most riders transit has attracted, as a share of pre-pandemic levels, since the pandemic began in March 2020.
Transit’s failure to carry even three-fourths of its pre-pandemic passengers stands in contrast to Amtrak, which carried 3.1 percent more passenger-miles in November 2023 than 2019, and the airlines, which carried 4.3 percent more riders in November than in 2019. Release of airline passenger-mile data tends to be more than a month later than passenger numbers, but in September domestic air routes carried 6.0 percent more passenger-miles than the same month in 2019. November highway data are not yet available but an update will be posted here when they are.
November’s ridership reached post-pandemic record levels partly because November had one more business day in 2023 than in 2019. Transit numbers were just under 74 percent in September and October and I suspect will be under 74 percent again in December, which had one fewer business day in 2023 than in 2019.
Conventional buses did better than average at 80 percent but commuter buses were much worse than average at 51 percent. Commuter rail was also poor at 66 percent while light and heavy rail both came in around 70 percent.
Total transit ridership was helped by the New York urban area, where more than 45 percent of all U.S. transit ridership takes place. New York saw nearly 78 percent as many riders in November as in the same month of 2019. Doing even better were Los Angeles (82%), Dallas (86%), Houston (85%), and San Diego (93%).
A big surprise is Cincinnati, where transit carried 102 percent of 2019 riders, and it apparently did so without cutting fares to zero as Kansas City (97%) and a few other regions have done. Another surprise is Washington DC, which managed to reach 77 percent despite having record high downtown office vacancies.
Major urban areas where transit is still doing poorly include Atlanta (58%), Detroit (57%), Phoenix (59%), and St. Louis (57%). Slightly better are Philadelphia (65%), Boston (66%), San Francisco-Oakland (62%), Minneapolis-St. Paul (64%), Denver (63%), Baltimore (68%), and Portland (66%).
Will transit ridership ever exceed 75 percent of pre-pandemic levels without the benefit of a month with one more business day than in 2019? Probably, but keep in mind that all other modes of travel have fully recovered to pre-pandemic numbers and are now growing at roughly pre-pandemic rates.
As of October, most downtowns still have a long way to go before they are recovered from the pandemic. Until they do, transit won’t fully recover either. I suspect transit ridership has leveled off at around 75 percent of pre-pandemic numbers and any growth beyond that will depend on ordinary population and economic growth — but maybe I think so only because that is what I predicted in 2020 when I wrote, “it seems likely that transit will lose at least 25% of its total riders” due the changes brought about by the pandemic.
As usual, I’ve posted an enhanced version (19.8-MB) of the FTA’s November ridership spreadsheet. The raw FTA data are in cells A1 through JM2284. Annual totals from 2002 through 2023 are in columns JN through KI. Column KJ compares November 2023 with November 2019. Column KL compares November 2023 with November 2022. Column KM compares January through November 2023 with the same months of 2019.
National and mode totals are in rows 2290 through 2309. To show New York’s importance, row 2314 shows the percentage share of ridership that takes place in the New York urban area. Transit agency totals are in rows 2330 through 3319. Urban area totals are in rows 3321 through 3811. These enhancements are on the ridership (UPT for unlinked passenger trips) and service (VRM for vehicle-revenue-miles) worksheets.
Since I began doing this, the FTA added new worksheets with calendar year totals for ridership and vehicle-revenue-miles. It would be nice to think they added this in response to my work. However, their annual totals are by transit agency and mode but not for transit agency or urban area totals.
An experienced marketer (whose name I’ve long since forgotten) was asked, “How do you discontinue a product?” He responded, “Raise the price and keep raising the price until the last customer finally leaves.”
If transit was required to live on farebox revenues, this would happen automatically. The way it is now, we will have to wait until the government goes broke — errr — runs out of money — errr — loses it’s tripple A bond rating — errr — succumbs to a taxpayer revolt.
I was going through old Antiplanner posts (as we all do from time to time) and found something pretty funny (or sad, if you think about it too much), where he is blaming pedestrians for their own deaths because they are drunk, homeless, or not crossing at crosswalks:
“My review of Denver accident data was commissioned by the Colorado Auto Dealers Association, which as posted it on their web site. Feel free to let me know if you have any comments on the report.”
https://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=20625
janehavisham,
It’s fun that you call it “blame” when I point out that alcohol was a factor in pedestrian deaths. I suppose you believe that automobile drivers shouldn’t be blamed if they are drinking when they get involved in a fatal accident. Or do you have a double standard?
Guilty as charged! I *do* have a double standard! I believe it should be perfectly legal to walk through the city drunk, homeless, in a wheelchair or a child who is too young to understand how dangerous cars are.
On the other hand, if you are driving a car in an urban environment where people can be expected to exercise their RIGHT to be walk, and you kill them with your car, you were either driving too fast, too distracted, or too intoxicated, and you should lose your PRIVELIGE to drive.
I have a strong pro-alcoholic, homeless, disabled person and child bias which I appreciate you calling out! I will try to be better in the future.
I only wish I could be as fair-minded and impartial as you and the Colorado Auto Dealers Association.
Antiplanner: Vision Zero won’t work
Warsaw: https://twitter.com/YIMBYPoland/status/1744761929011491284
“Warsaw has recorded a single-digit pedestrian death toll for the first time in modern history..
Katowice and other Polish cities shared similar numbers recently.”
In the end, we all have to be responsible for ourselves. You can walk relatively safely far more impaired that you can drive safely but somebody wanders around so impaired they may stagger in front of a passing car shouldn’t be used as an excuse to restrict the driver’s ability to drive. If I pass out on railroad tracks does that mean trains should not be allowed?
I think it is vital to treat Inter-urban Transit entirely different than Intra-urban transit. We need mass Interurban transit, but in most cities we do not need mass fixed rail Intra-urban transit. NYC is an exception. There should be no discussion of Intra-urban Transit which includes NYC since NYC is sui generis.
Buses are the best form Intra-Urban Transit. If vehicle and buses are too slow, that means parts of the urban area are far too dense. Decentralization and de-densification will be required to have adequate bus service.. Fixed rail mass transit are designed to make the construction industry wealthy — not to benefit the public.
I’ve been reading old Antiplanner posts, too, and it’s clear that “Jane Havisham” is a troll along the lines of Dan Staley. I know the AP won’t block the troll as he should do, so best just to ignore the very obvious troll.