The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) reports that 2007 transit ridership reached “10.3 billion trips . . . the highest level in 50 years, representing a 2.1% increase over the previous year.” APTA’s press release quotes its president, William Millar, saying, “Now with gas prices predicted to rise to $4 a gallon, there is a greater urgency for higher federal funding to expand U.S. public transportation systems so Americans have an affordable transportation choice.”
The Antiplanner is willing to admit that 2.1 percent is not miniscule. But let’s put APTA’s numbers into context. I’ll try not to repeat the points I made in response to APTA’s press release about 2006 transit ridership, most if not all of which are still valid.
APTA admits that high gas prices, not federal investments into transit infrastructure, are playing a large role in boosting ridership. The federal government has invested billions of dollars in transit every year since before 1990, yet transit ridership actually dropped every year from 1990 through 1995 (when gas prices were low), so more federal investments are not going to make much difference.
Yet high gas prices are not having as big an effect on American’s travel habits as they did in previous decades. According to this table of California gasoline prices, after adjusting for inflation, gas prices grew by 22.2 percent in 2006, yet APTA says transit ridership grew by only 2.5 percent that year. By comparison, when gas prices grew by 25.6 percent in 1974, transit ridership grew by 4.4 percent, and when gas prices grew by 26.7 percent in 1979, transit ridership grew by 6.6 percent. So growth rates of 2 to 2.5 percent are not spectacular by historic standards.
Even with recent growth, transit is still a mere blip on the totality of American urban mobility. According to the Federal Highway Administration, American’s drove 1.97 trillion miles in urban areas in 2007. Assuming an average of 1.6 occupants per car, that’s 3.15 trillion passenger miles. Transit, by comparison, carried about 50 billion passenger miles, or about 1.6 percent as many as autos.
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Let’s say transit continues to grow by 2.1 percent per year and driving grows only at the rate of population growth, or 1.0 percent per year. Then transit will grow to 10 percent of total urban motorized travel after a mere 178 years. I can hardly wait. Until then, transit is pretty irrelevant in any cities not named New York.
In all fairness, I have to point out that urban driving actually declined by 0.39 percent between 2006 and 2007. The growth in American driving has historically hiccuped when gas prices go up. Then Americans buy more fuel-efficient cars, and driving starts growing again.
The APTA press release claims that, since 1995, transit has grown faster than driving. As the Antiplanner has previously pointed out, transit serves only urban areas, and transit ridership has not grown faster than urban driving since 1995. According to US DOT data, urban driving grew by 32 percent between 1995 and 2007, while transit passenger miles (a better measure of mobility than trips) grew by only 27 percent.
Finally, it is worth noting that APTA’s recently released numbers are only estimates, and those estimates are often later revised downwards. For example, in 2007 APTA breathlessly reported that 2006 ridership had increased by 2.9 percent over 2005. But it has since revised its 2006 numbers down to a 2.5 percent increase over 2005.
APTA is a giant lobby (2005 budget: $21.5 million) that cares only about getting more money for its members (which include railcar manufacturers, engineering firms, and construction companies as well as transit agencies). While it does a pretty honest job of reporting transit numbers, any interpretation it makes of those numbers should be viewed with total skepticism.
One possible reason that gas prices are less important the most people assume is that the majority of the cost of driving is fixed:
(using 2005 AAA average data:)
Depreciation……………..$3,392
Insurance………………….$926
license, registration, taxes…$535
TOTAL fixed costs…………$5,569
At 15,000 miles/year that is…37.1 cents/mile
Gas ($2.41) is ……………..9.5 cents/mile (25 mpg)
As you can see, gas is relatively small. In fact that 9.5 cents is out of a total cost per mile of 52.2, or only 18% of the total cost (2005, when gas was $2.41/gal.) For each $1 increase in gas you add only $0.04 per mile cost (25 mpg).
To make gas 1/2 the cost of driving, it would have to increase by about $8/gal to about $10.50.
Anyone want to give me odds on how much supply will come to market at $10.50/gal? (Tar sands, coal gasification, CO2 from air + H2 from water)
A disclaimer: the above uses AAA which is a highball number because they are attempting to replicate their member’s driving, not the average American’s.
More can be found at:
DebunkingPortland.com/Transit/AAA_method.htm
Thanks
JK
gas prices grew by 22.2 percent in 2006, yet APTA says transit ridership grew by only 2.5 percent that year. By comparison, when gas prices grew by 25.6 percent in 1974, transit ridership grew by 4.4 percent, and when gas prices grew by 26.7 percent in 1979, transit ridership grew by 6.6 percent. So growth rates of 2 to 2.5 percent are not spectacular by historic standards.
Maybe I’m reading this wrong, but these numbers seem to suggest that transit ridership might be very sensitive to gas prices.
A 15.3% increase in the growth rate in gas prices (from 22.2 to 25.6) is associated with a 76% increase in the growth rate in transit ridership (from 2.5 to 4.4)
A 4.3% increase in the growth rate in gas prices (from 25.6 to 26.7) is associated with a 50% increase in the growth rate in transit ridership (from 4.4 to 6.6)
A 20.3% increase in the growth rate in gas prices (from 22.2 to 26.7) is associated with a 164% increase in the growth rate in transit ridership (from 2.5 to 6.6)
JK, Gee, your gas is cheap! We were paying over $3 a gallon (95 Octane) 10 years ago. Now we are paying over $6 dollars. NZAA estimates all other auto costs at between one-third and two-thirds of the figures estimated by AAA. However our annual mileage is only that of the US although per capita car ownership and road miles per capita are only slightly less than the USA. So the fixed cost per vmt is much the same as the USA but the gas cost is more than double, accounting for 37% of the cost of driving. From a psychological perspective it may be significant that a $1 dollar increase makes gas a quarter of the cost of auto ownership and doubling the price makes it one-third. But how many people actually work these sorts of things out? Maybe the shock threshold is $50 to fill ‘er up, or $100? I can assure you that when you do cross that $100 threshold you too will mutter expletives under your breath… and then you might either start by less more often to avoid the ouch factor or actually start using less (trip chaining, short shifting, paying more attention to the traffic further in front of you, etc, etc).
The impact on urban auto and transit use is pretty much the same as the figures antiplanner provided for US cities. Would Americans consume enough gasoline at $10.50 to make it worthwhile investing in oil from tar sands, coal gasification, CO2 from air + H2 from water? Or even oil from Iraq for that matter.
To paraphrase Disraeli, there are lies, damn lies, and press releases. I question how the APTA came up with “…2.1% increase over the previous year” when they report all public transit modes increased by 2.06%, not to mention the misleading use of unlinked passenger trips as the equivalent of ridership. As for agency totals, I’ll note two that published their numbers last month: the NYC MTA, the nations’s largest transit agency, with the third larget subway system in the world, reported a 2.7% system-wide increase from 2006 to 2007 (APTA came up with +2.92%, while reporting 1 million more subway riders a day than the MTA); Milwaukee Co. Transit reported a -9.00% (APTA, -6.63%). I’ll wait for the revisions.
d4p —> Maybe it’s too early in the morning for me but I fail to see the significance of your numbers. It means nothing to look at a percentage increase of the percentage increase. If it did you’d see it used a lot more. You’re measuring the numbers, not the data.
As for driving, we need to stop talking about gas prices. The real problem is that transit doesn’t work for most people. The lion share of job growth has occurred outside of downtowns. Yet most transit systems devote themselves to serving the downtowns. Most jobs aren’t downtown. It’s just not practical for most people to use transit. For example, I live in the city in a neighborhood built originally in the 1890s. I can walk to Walgreens or the liquor store. I live in the sort of density that supposedly makes it possible for me to not have to drive. The problem is there’s only a limited number of jobs downtown. For my new job I would spend 40 minutes on the bus + waiting for the bus + walking the last 1/3 mile to work each day. So instead of a 15 minute drive for a 9 mile trip, I’d be spending 50 minutes… each way! I’m patient and all for some extra walking but gas prices would have to get pretty high for me to put that extra hour a day into taking the bus.
What if transit riding is increasing? All this would show is that higher vehicle costs translate to increased transit use. Vehicle use is preferred meaning that increased transit use translates to a decrease in mobility/living standards. In other words, the people you see substituting the bus for the car are not the same people shopping at Barney’s. Why transit advocates or anyone would look favorably on the stratification of mobility is beyond me. Ever try to watch a woman tote a few heavy objects and a couple of kids on the subway? When I see that I don’t think “wave of the future”, I think “I really wish this person had access to a car.” Wake me when the “Real Housewives of “the OC/ NYC” are seen on public transit.
prk166 brought up two interesting points.
1) The transit service structure, these days there is still a lot into town thinking, as appose to around town. The concept of reverse commuting isn’t quite grasped by every one.
2) The built environment which has a lot of highway based planning(the kind of hypocritical stuff that the A.P promotes) that deliberately increases the costs of providing more transit services(and just deliberately increases costs in general).
Perhaps prk166 should bring up paratransit operation aspects with his area or ask his employer pay for his taxi fare since they “chose” to locate in a semi-remote area.
Veddie Edder said:
“What if transit riding is increasing? All this would show is that higher vehicle costs translate to increased transit use. Vehicle use is preferred meaning that increased transit use translates to a decrease in mobility/living standards. In other words, the people you see substituting the bus for the car are not the same people shopping at Barney’s. Why transit advocates or anyone would look favorably on the stratification of mobility is beyond me. Ever try to watch a woman tote a few heavy objects and a couple of kids on the subway? When I see that I don’t think “wave of the futureâ€Â, I think “I really wish this person had access to a car.†Wake me when the “Real Housewives of “the OC/ NYC†are seen on public transit.”
Wow, what you wrote almost sounds like it was taken from a screenplay of “Triumph of the Will”.
I’ve always found it ironic that liberals and libertarians are the people that hate liberty the most.
I’m just a sucker for allowing people to get around easily. This makes me a hater of liberty?
The government could put into place policies that increase electricty rates, and it can add taxes onto cooling units that increase the cost of air conditioning. Voila!, this would have the effect of increasing fan usage and decreasing central air usage. And the trust fund babies in the enviro movement could pat themselves on the back that they have “proved” that the great masses could be induced to turn away from air conditioning and to energy sipping fans. To me all this would prove is that enviro movement is staffed by a bunch of mean people with recession proof access to air conditioners.
“1) The transit service structure, these days there is still a lot into town thinking, as appose to around town. The concept of reverse commuting isn’t quite grasped by every one.”
Reverse commute? Heck, decades ago the normal commute became suburb to suburb and that’s just not there going into place today.
” 2) The built environment which has a lot of highway based planning(the kind of hypocritical stuff that the A.P promotes) that deliberately increases the costs of providing more transit services(and just deliberately increases costs in general).”
How in the name of Samuel T. Satan does building highways increase the cost of building and operating transit? Because of the distances? In case you haven’t noticed, anyone that wants to build in-fill projects in the city with any sort of density usually get shot down (unless the project is in downtown or one or three select neighborhoods where tall buildings are ok). How is it that cities would’ve been able to cope with an influx of 5,000 to 25,000 new households a year when they barely let more than 100 or so units in on the few brownfields they have for redevelopment and are not allowing developers to tear down existing properties to add significant density?
“Perhaps prk166 should bring up paratransit operation aspects with his area or ask his employer pay for his taxi fare since they “chose†to locate in a semi-remote area. ”
Semi-remote? That’s the thing. The areas been developed for decades and is just north of the giant complex of federal buildings. The issue isn’t that there isn’t transit, there is, the issue is amount of time that it takes to use it instead of just driving. That is, it’s no wonder transit’s growth is so slow when it’s significantly less convenient than driving. In my case when taking into account wear and tear on my vehicle and the cost of the bus and time, I’d save about $75 / month but that would cost me @33 hours of my time.
Hey I have no problem if you want to drive, but don’t whine about traffic congestion and the pittance that transit receives in funding.
In my case when taking into account wear and tear on my vehicle and the cost of the bus and time, I’d save about $75 / month but that would cost me @33 hours of my time.
The GF and numerous others in her office take their laptops on the train & place a higher value on the time spent on the train.
Many folks have figgered this out. I suspect you can too.
DS
Dan, prk166 said the bus would “cost me @33 hours of my time.” His time, not his company’s. Do they really have braodband access on commuter trains and buses these days? If you’re not working or surfing what’s the point of taking your laptop with you.
Maybe prk166 likes to spend time with his children before he leaves for work. You can’t do that on a train. Many folks have figured this out. I suspect you can too.
Kevyn, I didn’t attribute value. I merely stated there was a value to being able to do something other than sit there.
I bet his kids love him when he gets home, too, all wound up from being trapped in a box, surrounded by angry idiots for 45 minutes, unable to do anything but sit there. Now that’s fraydum.
DS
Trapped in a box with idiots? Ever ride the 6 train Dan? Or the PATH? Do you think standing in a tunnel for an hour crushed against people is relaxing?
VE wrote:
Trapped in a box with idiots? Ever ride the 6 train Dan? Or the PATH? Do you think standing in a tunnel for an hour crushed against people is relaxing?
Small world; I’m on the 4 or 5 train a couple of times a week –the 6 is fine; since it’s local, it’s usually half empty. The PATH is always what I imagined soviet transit to be. MetroNorth, however, still provides gold-standard service; not surprising considering the clientele. I do have one word for regular NYC public transit users: iPod.
Of course, one person’s h*ll is another person’s salvation.
I have a choice to choose between options, which is the point. The point is not to paint my choice as h*ll just because you don’t want to do it.
Well, I guess it’s the point if my choice makes your ideological choice look silly, but still. Not many buy the point though.
But to the italicized in 17: as compared to what? Is expressing personal freedom by sitting in a box moving at .025 mph behind an accident, made late to an appointment/meeting more relaxing? Sure. My choice of being stuck behind an accident because I chose it is better than your choice of riding on a crowded train. Sure. Keep it up. I enjoy the comedic gold.
DS
Pomposity + self-righteousness = the attitude for theperfect planner. Comedic gold.
Oooh! I like the position:
Folk are…uh…pompous, see, because they point out the difficulty in supporting the important ideological ‘freedom to choose’ argument by using the ideologically important ‘freedom to choose’ argumentation. Yup.
And folk are self-righteous, y’know, because they point out the difficulty in supporting the ‘rightness’ of a particular ideologies’ choice as opposed to others’ choices! That is: it’s self-righteous to say that its tenuous at best to assert “maintaining freedom means that my freedom to choose only one option is much better than your freedom to choose between multiple options”. That’s a winner in anyone’s book, surely. Yuh-huh!
Keep ’em coming. Tell me your profession, Unowho, and I’ll try to have play by relating the tenuousness of your argumentation to your profession – that way you can call me pompous or some other namie-name & we can keep it going, like this: “Gee whillikers, plumbers sure are self-righteous, aren’t they, because that Unowho is such a self-righteous prig! Yessiree!”. Sure.
DS
Hey, didn’t mean to cause you to come unglued. I thought you’d take “the perfect planner” as a compliment. Anyway, until the APA has it’s way it’s a free country — you’re free to imagine who I am, or that driving a car consists of going .025 mph behind an accident. Me, I always imagine that an anonymous dude that prattles on about his “GF” on the web is actually describing the “personality” of his inflatable female mannequin (not that there’s anything wrong with that, just sayin’).
Hmmm.
As much as I dislike binary argumentation, Ukw, either you must purposely mischaracterize to have play in your mind, or I need to avoid polysyllabic replies in favor of monological imperatives.
Nonetheless, one observes that all that tacking hasn’t filled your sails with a fresh breeze, and all that puffing you’re doing as a result isn’t doing much to propel your widdle boat forward out of the doldrums. But perhaps “your” ideas just need a different vehicle for expression, eh? Sort of a rhetorical mode switch, if you will.
DS
Now that’s the Dan I know. I’m glad we’re friends again.
Um, my point is a narrow one: namely that the real life experience of using mass transit is rarely relaxing. It’s also not quick and it’s not convenient. That’s why our betters who hector us to use it never do so themselves.
Unowho: Small world! You’ll recognize me on the Lex. line as the guy surreptitiously reading Ayn Rand. I’ll be standing of course, through sickness and health, sweltering days and freezing ones, and dreaming the dream of the second avenue subway that will never come…
My point also was narrow (albeit most other transit systems aren’t as packed as NYCs*):
Choose between two transit modes, neither or both of which may be relaxing, depending upon your POV:
1. Stuck alone, unable to do much of anything else because you must watch the road.
2. Stuck with people you don’t necessarily like, but at least there is something to do, such as book, newspaper, laptop, game, people watch, adjust tinfoil hat.
Choices. Why are choices bad. Anyone can choose choices. Lots of people do choose to have choices. Choosing choices that differ with the conclusions of a particular ideology doesn’t negate the choice. One of my clients was relating the fact that her son just moved into a house close to the train station, and he takes the train every day and loves it – no fighting traffic.
DS
* Presuming this is NYC, as I haven’t been there in ~20 yrs,
Yipee I agree with the AntiPlanners! I agree that investment in transit needs to be increased for it to be a viable alternative. If the transit systems receive enough investment (and hopefully some strategic increases in density), then we will see a significant increase in ridership. So I whole heartedly agree with the transit hater idelogues that transit investment is not sufficient. To compete with autmobiles we need better transit systems. There are certainly tipping point factors with regards to transit vs. the auto and I am glad the anitplanners have finally come around.
Dan, if you could feel relaxed standing shoulder to shoulder with teeming humanity on the PATH or the 4 or 5 trains — which by the way is the situtaion at ALL TIMES (really, I encourage you to experience your future firsthand) — then you have reached nirvana and can feel that way under any condition.
My point has never been that we should dismantle or not grow a transit network. I think cars have enormous utility. No device can hold a candle to the freedom, in all senses of the word, that I have accrued by the ability to use a car. A place like NYC needs both more auto capacity and more transit capacity. I don’t fetishize one over the other. I do object to the notion that we are moving to the utopia of a car-less world, both because I’m hopeful we’re not moving there and, more importantly, because it wouldn’t be any kind of utopia.
Dan, It warms the cockles of my heart to discover your appreciation of the underlying flaw in the auto versus transit debate.
“I bet his kids love him when he gets home, too, all wound up from being trapped in a box, surrounded by angry idiots for 45 minutes, unable to do anything but sit there. Now that’s fraydum.”
Yep, doesn’t matter which type of box you spend 45 minutes in. The reality is that if you lived closer to where you work you would spend less time stressed out and more time enjoying your kids. In fact if you lived within walking distance of where you work you wouldn’t even need to choose a box to be trapped in. But single use town planning took that freedom away you.
In fact if you lived within walking distance of where you work you wouldn’t even need to choose a box to be trapped in. But single use town planning took that freedom away you.
A-aaamen bruddah. I recently got passed by the city PC my attempt at oversoming single-use zoning. By the time I’m done this summer, we’ll have ~15% of incorporated area free of this scourge.
DS
In regards to what Veddie Edder said, the 2nd Avenue subway isn’t so much new, as in it is a long delyed replacement for an elevated line that once existed above.
The elimination of the 2nd Avenue line in the first place is akin to jumping out of the back of a plane at 10,000 feet with no parachute. Though this can also be said about any rail line that was trashed.
“But single use town planning took that freedom away you.”
Does that really occur anymore? Perhaps because I’ve lived in Texas and Tennessee most of my adult life, it is difficult to understand what happens in Maryland, Virginia, California, and other “smart” places.
Geographic dispersion of workplaces across Dallas-Fort Worth allows workers to live close to their jobs in the affordable housing they desire. That has to be why commute times here are shorter than every other large U.S. city, and why housing is so cheap.
Some more about transit’s de minimis role in national transportation, and APTA’s simplistic attempts to spin its way out.
As reliably as the robins appear every Spring around April Fools Day APTA puts out a press release like this year’s. In recent years readers typically were supposed to believe a 2 percent or so increase in transit’s miniscule ridership somehow proves transit use is growing twice as fast as highway use. As noted transit isn’t in the same league in real numbers; highway use is about 50 times larger. Thus actual highway riders typically are 25 TIMES higher than transit. And this assumes a transit boarding equals a highway trip. Actually more than 2 boardings are usually needed to complete a transit trip as noted above.
As noted for 2007 highway use decreased. Surprisingly APTA did not take credit for all. Perhaps it saw its 2.1 percent passenger-mile increase was less than 9 percent of highway’s decrease. In fact to further illustrate highway dominance, the tiny .39% reduction is 30% of transit TOTAL passenger miles. APTA boasts that transit saves 1.4 billion gallons of gas per year. The .39% reduction in highway use saved about .41 billion or 30% transit’s claim. In fact just a single mpg improvement in highway vehicle use saves 4.8 billion gallons; 3.4 TIMES transit’s boast. Rather easily accomplished by phase in of already available energy efficient autos, a more sensible way to face the future energy crunch. It’s about time the “T†in APTA is changed to mean “Transit†describing the Lobby it really is, rather than the public service it tries to look like!
Walt, I agree with your overall argument. But it always a good idea not to make the same mistakes as those on the other side of a debate. Transit mainly operates in larger urban areas. These areas account for roughly one-third of auto vmt. If the .39% reduction occurred equally in all sizes of urban areas and in rural areas it can hardly be credited to transit in any way. However if there was no reduction in rural areas and smaller urban areas then the reduction in larger urban areas would be 1%, still equal to 30% of transit TOTAL passenger miles. Thus the 2% increase in transit trips accounts for just 6% of the reduction in vmt if that reduction occurred entirely in the transit equipped larger urban areas.
The other 94% of the reduction? Probably trip chaining, less recreational travel, more car pooling or van pooling. Tactics that have no financial cost or political lobbyists promoting them!
Dan –> Take my laptop on the bus or train? Well, if you’re talking about the train here in Denver you need it to be relatively empty. The seats aren’t wide enough to do anything when someone’s next to you. The same with the bus. Also that time isn’t as productive as being in an environment more condusive to working. Even if you do put your nose to the grindstone, what do you do? I wouldn’t have any network connectivity. I can’t catch up on emails or test code. I did do this when I took the train sometimes. I wrote some rough documentation or wrote some new code. But with the train that was about 20 minutes of work. Much of my time was spent walk, waiting, and transferring. And now when I could be taking the bus, I can leave my apartment, lock the door, wait for the elevator, brush the snow of my car, drive, park, walk in to work and be in my cube in a tad under 20 minutes. The 50 minutes on the bus doesn’t make up for that since a good chuck on that time is walking to and from the bus stop, waiting for the bus, and waiting to transfer to another bus. That is, what limited work I can do while on board isn’t the whole picture. The time difference between those non-work times and the time I spend driving is zero. So why not just spend that time working at work or home where I can do everything that needs to do be done? And sure, I have used that time to read books. I like to read so it’s not bad. But again, would you rather read in a nice comfy chair at home. But not everyone can do that without getting motion sick.