Climate Change Will Reduce Transit Ridership

Here’s the latest breathtaking finding from University of Oregon researchers: Fewer people (the article says “less people,” but it was written by journalists) ride transit during extreme weather events. As if we needed a university research study to tell us that.

There’s a flood, forest fire, tornado, or hurricane near your home today. Why aren’t you out riding transit? Photo by Howard Pelling.

Scholars at the University of Oregon Planning School wanted to know how climate change will affect transit ridership. Since everyone knows that climate change is going to increase severe weather events, they examined how such events affected ridership over the last 17 years. No one should be surprised to learn that ridership fell during such events.

Leave it to urban planners to ask stupid questions and then come up with the wrong policy prescriptions. The researchers decided that, if fewer people were riding transit, the solution is to spend more money on transit!

Light rail trains, for example, have to slow down during hot weather because the wires transmitting electricity to the cars tend to sag. The solution, the researchers suggested, is to “update” the infrastructure. With what? Third rails in city streets?

The real solution is to stop trying to make people dependent on obsolete, unsustainable, and non-resilient forms of transportation when automobiles are far more resilient during extreme weather events. When you have to travel during such weather, it is much better to use a form of transportation that will go when you need to go, can follow alternative routes if some are closed off, and can take you to places that transit doesn’t reach.

In short, climate change is just one more reason to eliminate subsidies to public transportation systems that won’t help us deal with such changes.