Transit carried 78.5 percent as many riders in February 2024 as the same month of 2019. However, 2024 being a leap year February had one more day than in 2019. Adjusting for the extra day, transit’s daily ridership was only 75.8 percent of 2019, according to data released by the Federal Transit Administration yesterday. This means it continues to lag about 25 percent against all other major modes.
Meanwhile, Amtrak carried 3.2 percent more daily riders in 2024 than February of 2019, according to its monthly performance report. Transportation Security Administration passenger counts say that daily air travel was up by 7.2 percent above 2019. Highway data will be posted here soon, but will also be around 100 percent of 2019 driving..
Sadly, neither transit agencies, many reporters, nor many politicians are willing to recognize that transit isn’t working anymore. A recent article reported that “California is getting real about transit.” That would be true if the state were going to significantly reduce subsidies. Instead, they want to throw more money at transit “as foundational to broader social and environmental goals, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions, expanding access to opportunity, supporting housing development, and reducing gridlock.”
Spending money on transit isn’t going to accomplish any of those goals. Effectively, urban transit today is 10 percent about transportation and 90 percent about political patronage.
Those who are interested in the data can download my enhanced spreadsheet showing transit data with totals by year, mode, transit agency, and urban area. See last month’s post if you need help interpreting the spreadsheet.
MUNI lost HALF it’s ridership.
solution: Run 19th century transportation tech
At it’s peak Chariot owned by Ford carried 7000 daily riders on 100 van fleet thru SF AT profit, So a fleet of 1000 or 500 plus larger buses could have handled HALF of BART’s work commute
& Govt bureaucrats shut it down
Govt cronyism 101: What competes with us must go
Efficient transit should have their own passageway.
Some areas have nearly recovered.
Areas like the Bay Area drag the data down.
“EFFICIENT” by transit definition is off.
They define efficiency by how many people they can cram into a train.
Thanks to Defund the Police, urban liberal policy and pandering to third World IQ they’ve basically turned our subways into open air mental asylums.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GKamhY5WoAA7DcZ?format=jpg&name=4096×4096
That has a lot to do with the management of the local areas not the transit systems itself.
Urbanism in a nutshell is historical revisionism we just Bulldozed buildings with people inside full of poor and blacks when Reality is most these buildings were already predominantly empty as people left city in droves. The GREAT REPLACEMENT Hit cities like Baltimore/Detroit long ago; as hundreds thousands left the cities when black crime became intolerable and public services/infrastructure decrepit. Cities built freeways, to attract suburban commuters by bulldozing predominantly abandoned areas.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2024/04/06/french-revolution-cyclists-now-outnumber-motorists-in-paris/
The city’s socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo has pushed through a great many anti-motoring measures during her two administrations—such as reducing the number of parking places, restricting access by SUVs, and closing some major roads to motorists—and the latest survey will be validation for her policies, none of which have caused the kind of protests that the French capital has long been famous for.
In short, culling cars has been far more popular than her petrolhead critics predicted, with Paris becoming cleaner and healthier to boot.
Paris socialist twatts mayor.
Paris isn’t implementing SUV tax because of the environment. They’re doing it because they’re up to their ass in debt.
Meanwhile I can drive a twin turbo V8 powered BMW… Sedan. or a W12 powered Bentley.
If The Paris ‘SUV Tax’ Is Really About Cars Being Too Big Then It Should Tax EVs, Too which many are large or very heavy.
The real reason is Paris is heavily in Debt, despite the 7.7 Billion euros on the books, it doesn’t cover the vast public funding health/pension obligations which are orders higher and OFF the books.
I said it Before… “When a city is at the precipice of financial turmoil or fiscal oblivion, their first instinct for survival is scrape together cash; Cash they need.”
Years ago they had bill o’reilly on an interview, remember what he said.
He said the Government had gotten in so much debt, Taxation of income no longer works. TO pay for the bills it takes to keep the govt running; so the government will start Confiscating resources to pay for the inalienable promises they made to their public contributors.
SO what you see is what I call the “Fee, Fine and Taxation Era” of urban evolution. Things you never saw before. Fines for mundane crimes shoot up 10-20 times their original cost (AND THAT ASSUMING they have interest in enforcing it or target specific people who’re harmless but pockets full to shake). Fee’s for things that were largely free crop up (Parking, etc). And taxes on new behaviors and consumer goods (Vaping, plastic bags, soda) begin to creep into legislation discussions. For example an illegal alien dumping hazardous waste in a creek, is a losing issue, gotta pay for translator, court, arrest, clean up. But a yuppie with a cell phone, while driving and didn’t signal his turn…….is a money making opportunity.
It’s not about green, environment, or making paris “Healthy” its about late stage city whom can no longer afford to keep it’s financing regime; because socialists chased all the jobs and industry away. They always do.
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” ? Margaret Thatcher
https://boingboing.net/2024/04/03/americas-roads-now-more-dangerous-than-russias.html
“And for those who say the reason more people die on US roads is just that Americans drive more, that’s incorrect.
The US-vs-the-rest multiple in these charts is the same for both.
Per million people: US 141 vs non-US average 49.8 (2.8x)
Per 100mn miles: US 1.45 vs 0.518 (2.8x)”
https://x.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1775671778104287388