I’m back from Japan and mostly recovered from jet lag. I may write about my Japan experiences next week but first it’s time to look closely at the July transit data posted by the Federal Transit Administration the day I left the states.
Based on a quickie analysis on my iPhone I previously reported that transit carried only about 64 percent as many riders in July of 2024 as the same month of 2019. However, I warned that I wasn’t certain about this as I was having trouble analyzing a 15 megabyte spreadsheet on the phone. In fact, the number is 71.1 percent, which is better than 64 percent but worse than any month since July 2023.
It appears that a major reason for lower ridership is that several major transit systems, including those Baltimore, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Memphis, Jacksonville, Nashville, Tucson, and several smaller urban areas failed to report any numbers before the FTA released these data. Ridership in these regions totals about 2.5 percent of nationwide ridership, so the correction may bring July ridership up to 73.6 percent of July 2019, which is still lower than any of the previous eight months. The August spreadsheet should update these numbers for certain.
Of those major urban areas with complete reports, ridership remained below 60 percent of pre-pandemic levels in Atlanta (57%), Detroit (59.6%), Phoenix (56%), San Francisco (53%), Minneapolis-St. Paul (58%), and Tampa-St. Petersburg (58%). It was below 70 percent in Chicago (67%), Philadelphia (68%), Washington (68%), Boston (66%), Riverside (66%), and San Antonio (67%).
Ridership was above average, at nearly 77 percent, in Seattle. This may be boosted by Amazon’s order that all its office workers (many of whom work in downtown Seattle) must return to workplaces five days a week. At least 33,000 Amazon employees have protested this policy, and it will be interesting to see how the debate affects transit ridership.
Welcome back to the land of freedom, AP! I was worried sick about you, being over in one of those places where mobility is so highly restricted, making it one of the most hostile places in the world for automobile drivers, despite the clear superiority of cars as measured in billions of miles per year traveled.
I’m guessing Jane was using that sarcasm thing I heard about.
What fails regarding travel in Japan is heavily curtailed by urban policies like Japan new scooter laws.
Fortunately ajapanese have plenty of cars illustrated by its blade runner esque multi stack highway overpasses.
You can live in the most transit and walk friendly cities like Tokyo or Paris, ur stuck on either transits timetables or walkings geographic constraints
Or you’re stuck paying car loans, which have just surpassed student loans as the second-highest household debt.
https://www.motor1.com/news/733955/auto-loans-second-highest-household-debt/#:~:text=Among%20major%20expenses%20in%20the,so%2Dslightly%20in%20recent%20months.