January transit ridership in 2024 was 79.8 percent as much as in 2019, according to data released late last week by the Federal Transit Administration. That’s the highest level since the beginning of the pandemic and may be due to an increased number of people returning to workplaces in Manhattan.
While transit in the New York urban area carried 88.2 percent of 2019 levels and the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority carried 90.5 percent, transit in the rest of the country carried only 73.1 percent. Transit ridership continued to be particularly dismal in Chicago (66.7%), Atlanta (48.0%), Phoenix (50.2%), San Francisco (65.7%), Minneapolis-St. Paul (64.5%), Tampa-St. Petersburg (59.7%), and St. Louis (55.4%).
The good news is that some public officials are skeptical of throwing more money at transit systems that carry only a tiny fraction of the populous of most urban areas. The Illinois legislature seems unwilling to fund the $779 million Chicago transit agencies say they need when Congressional COVID relief funds run out in 2026. Bills in the Texas legislature propose to cut funding to Dallas’ transit agency and kill Austin’s light-rail fantasies.
The bad news is that some officials still think the solution to transit’s problems is to throw more money at it. A California state senator has proposed a plan to spend $2 billion to supplement funding for transit in that state. Since transit today is more about supporting construction companies and public employee unions, it seems unlikely that legislators like this will ever learn the lesson that spending more on transit won’t increase ridership, reduce congestion, or relieve other social and environmental problems.
In any case, you can find out how well transit is doing in your urban area by downloading my enhanced spreadsheet that includes all of the FTA raw data along with totals by year (since 2022), mode, transit agency, and urban area.
Small typo: 2019 not 2029?