Can mass transit rescue America? asks ABC News. Short answer: No.
Journalists are all gaga over reports of a 4 percent decline in driving and a 3.4 percent increase in transit ridership. But do the math: transit only carries about 1.5 percent of urban travel. Increase that by 3.4 percent and you can’t come close to making up for a 4 percent decline in the other 90-some percent.
Put it another way: APTA reports 86 million more transit rides in the first quarter of 2008 over the same quarter of 2007. The average transit ride is about 5.3 miles, so that’s about 455 million passenger miles.
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Oh yes, that 4 percent drop in driving? It was for March, 2008 (the declines in January and February were only about 1 percent). But APTA’s report for March shows a 0.8 percent drop in transit ridership from March 2007. That’s some rescue!
Transit is not replacing driving because transit doesn’t go where people want to go when they want to go there. Instead of substituting transit for driving, people are trip chaining, carpooling, or just skipping low-priority trips.
Even to the extent that a few people take transit instead of driving, they aren’t saving energy. As the Antiplanner has shown, most transit uses as much if not more energy as cars. So if you ride transit, you are merely making someone else pay your fuel bill.
Even to the extent that a few people take transit instead of driving, they aren’t saving energy. As the Antiplanner has shown, most transit uses as much if not more energy as cars.
1. Your comment appears to address all forms of transit, yet the paper you link is entitled “Does Rail Transit Save Energy or Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions?”.
2. Doesn’t transit’s energy efficiency increase with the number of riders? You make it sound like transit can never be more efficient than cars, but isn’t there a point at which ridership levels render transit more efficient?
D4P> “2. Doesn’t transit’s energy efficiency increase with the number of riders? You make it sound like transit can never be more efficient than cars, but isn’t there a point at which ridership levels render transit more efficient?”
Of course there is… but that’s why most statements about transit on this site are qualified with “except in New York”. We are supposed to believe on this blog that successful transit is the exception, and that all transit is bad and nothing can be done to make it better. This is actually an easy statement to make when you cherry pick examples of transit systems that agencies have unsuccessfully attempted to adapt to areas with sprawl-induced development, where a car IS the only viable form of transportation simply by its nature. Trying to string a bus route along a series of massive gated neighborhoods on a 4-lane corridor is futile, and everyone, antiplanners and diehard urban proponents, know and understand that.
With that in mind, maybe this increase in transit shows that people really do want to make the effort to get out of the cars. Many of them are willing to try transit, at least for a time, even though it may be more difficult in the mode of urban development where they live. Perhaps the combination car/transit/walk is the way to accommodate us all.
1. AP’s auto and SUV energy intensity estimate is derived from some questionable assumptions. If more realistic assumptions (from household travel surveys, etc) it increases urban auto energy intensity by 50%. This is only sufficient to change the proportion of transit systems that more energy intensive than auto travel from two-thirds to one-third. That one-third could easily be reclaimed over the next five years if the shift in auto buyer preferences evident over the last two years continues and is accompanied by a modest increase in trip chaining.
2. Transit’s energy efficiency does increase with the number of riders, but only if transit services aren’t increased. Once you start adding more buses to cope with the demand or more frequent services or more marginal routes to try to leverage the current ridership increases then you risk worsening transit’s energy efficiency.
IIRC AP does point out some ways to increase efficiency for transit that aren’t dependent on more riders. This would be things like dropping LRT feeder buses and running smaller buses during non-peak hours on many routes.
hkelly1, it is fair to say that it’s going to be tough for transit given how things are currently constructed. But it’s not cherry picking. Outside of NYC’s and maybe urban LA and Chicago, let’s face it, there’s little hope of being successful; there just isn’t the density needed (nor is there likely to be for the foreseeable future). That’s not cherry picking. That’s just the way things are today.
I don’t think it’s proper to make transit agency’s out to be a victim of medium density planning (IMHO, low density is 5 acre lots with septic and wells; that’s “low”). If they want to become relevant again they need to find new approaches. For example, decades ago the tech center became the single largest concentration of jobs in Denver. Downtown employment has been flat for 3 decades. Yet every single new route, other than completing the 225 route, serves downtown. And the Tech Center is ripe for the pickings. There are no east-west freeways serving it. If RTD could find an east-west route or two for LRT to serve the DTC, they wouldn’t be competing with freeways which should make the service time competitive. But they don’t do it. Their plans are to continue to serve the single largest employment center in metro Denver with a few bus routes and single light rail line. They’re just as much victims of their own incompetence as the obstacles America’s urban landscape presents them.
As a layman it’s always funny to look at these discussions and see the acronyms flying around in the battle of statistics and competing theories. I recall something about forest and trees that could be in play here.
Transit will not solve our problem. Drilling will not solve our problem. Conservation will not solve our problem. The fact is there is no silver bullet for the problem we face (some don’t even think it’s a problem).
I have been saying for years it will take a hundred 1% solutions to solve our problem and each of the things mentioned are part of that hundred. If transit merely takes 1% of drivers and puts them on buses already running we are saving fuel. If drivers slow down to 65 mph from 70 mph we are saving fuel. If we drill in ANWR we are adding to supply. If we build a nuclear power plant we are creating energy. If we develop the Bakken oil shales we are adding supply. The list goes on.
Rather than play a game of which is best why not do them all and get the maximum benefits of new technology, new resources, and conservation at the same time? The market mechanisms are in place for this to happen without too much government interference. If government will kindly step out of the way the complete package could come together quickly.
Will driving save us from high gas prices?
Fish in a barrel A.P. We could come up with a huge list of things that contribute to high gas prices… or we could focus on the aspects we love to hate.
D4P:
You rely on the title of my report to tell you what it says in the report? Shame on you. Table 1 of the report presents the energy efficiency of buses, trolley buses, ferries, and other forms of transit.
Further, the report also emphasizes that transit agencies can increase energy efficiencies by increasing the number of riders (or reducing the size of vehicles). Modern transit policies, such as the notion that every auto-laden suburbanite should have transit service within a quarter of a mile, discourage high load factors. That is one of the reasons why the current transit model is broken and needs to be replaced. Even if we did reform transit, it wouldn’t save us from high gas prices, though it might save a few transit agencies from same.
Thanks for the explanation. A couple points:
1. If the report is about transit (rather than just “rail transit”), you might want to change the title of the report.
2. On one hand, you argue that transit is bad because it isn’t as convenient as cars (because it doesn’t pick people up at their house, doesn’t drop them off at their destination, etc.). On other hand, you seem to criticize “Modern transit policies” for trying to make sure that “every auto-laden suburbanite should have transit service within a quarter of a mile”, because such policies “discourage high load factors”.
So, it sounds like you’re criticizing transit for not having enough service, and for having too much service.
And the Tech Center is ripe for the pickings.
I agree, altho I’d argue that 225 serves the DTC, despite your assertions (sure are a lot of people getting off on Yosemite or DTC Blvd in the morning…).
The thing is the politicians want to bring people downtown at night to spend their money in their buddies’ businesses, and there’s not much of an evening economy in the DTC, and the demographic with houses there won’t ride the bus. There’s no Pepsi Center or Coors Field there, either…
DS
Even with the high fuel costs, the customers seem to be choosing door to door service and autos over transit!
Despite all the studies and reports.
Even with the high fuel costs, the customers seem to be choosing door to door service and autos over transit!
Given that the customers already invested thousands of dollars in the autos, this isn’t surprising.
Despite all the studies and reports.
Huh. So these unnamed reports disagree with your claim. Evidence of such a report that disagrees with your claim, plz.
DS
In Silicon Valley/San Jose more people wrote busses 25 years ago than now. 80% of funds have been going to transiit, for 20 years, which provides one of percent of trips. Now it looks like we are going to try 90% for transit and increase the cost of driving by fees, etc. by five times. That should stop growth but not sure it will provide transit riders.
D4P wrote:
“Doesn’t transit’s energy efficiency increase with the number of riders? You make it sound like transit can never be more efficient than cars, but isn’t there a point at which ridership levels render transit more efficient?”
If N is the number of people on the bus (on average, over the whole day), S is the fuel efficiency of the SUV (mpg), B is the fuel efficiency of the bus (mpg), X is the average number of people in the SUV, break even occurs when:
N times B = S times X
N = S times X over B
Pick some numbers –
S = 20mpg
B = 6mpg
X = 1.5
N = 5
(!)
D4P wrote:
“2. On one hand, you argue that transit is bad because it isn’t as convenient as cars (because it doesn’t pick people up at their house, doesn’t drop them off at their destination, etc.). On other hand, you seem to criticize “Modern transit policies†for trying to make sure that “every auto-laden suburbanite should have transit service within a quarter of a mileâ€Â, because such policies “discourage high load factorsâ€Â.”
Even with large numbers of regular buses, it can be impossible to get enough people on each bus. Demand Responsive Transport (people ring up, and the bus diverts to pick them up from their front door) may work better.
Or, use park & ride, with the cars concentrating people where they can connect to transit. It does, of course, require that parking at the park & ride is cheaper than parking in town, otherwise car drivers will drive straight past. The impression that I get is that the USA is still over-provided with free car parking.
Have Europeans been saved from their $8/gallon gas?
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IINM my 5th foul:-)
Doesn’t transit’s energy efficiency increase with the number of riders? You make it sound like transit can never be more efficient than cars, but isn’t there a point at which ridership levels render transit more efficient?
See Anthony Downs Thomson-Downs paradox.
prk and Dan,
A couple of years ago I had the occasion to attend a conference in the Tech Center area. I stayed in Greenwood Village, about a mile from the conference hotel. Since it was close, I decided to make a concerted effort to avail myself of public transit services. Around that time, a new ciruculator service was being offered to serve the DTC area. This worked nicely for the one weekday I was there, but after that I had to fall back on the half-hourly local bus service. Not nearly as convenient. During one of the nights I was there, there was a reception at a downtown hotel. Like Dan said, after work hours, that’s where the action is. There was shuttle bus service to and from the reception from the conference hotel, but this still left me a mile away from my hotel at 11:00 p.m. I ended up with a short cab ride home.
I also took a few opportunities to walk around the area. One of the things that caught my attention was a new gated community just east of an office/commercial area near I-25 and Orchard Road. I figured this was their idea of mixed-use development, but it seemed strangely out of place. Attractive and modern, yet sterile. When I walked the other direction, I could see the long, expansive valley, perhaps 10 miles, before the Front Range. There is a large population there and, as prk mentioned, a grid network of roads. But light rail? No freeways means not much congestion, as traffic is allowed to distribute itself among alternative routes. Also, there is no large activity center to connect to. Downtown and DTC were probably Denver’s best case for light rail, and this has already been exploited.
Steve,
To some degree, I agree with the “death by a thousand whacks” strategy. However two points come to mind. First, not all policies are equally effective, and there is an opportunity cost to pursuing the less effective ones first (or at all). Second, the higher prices go, the harder it will be for government to stand idly by and let markets adjust. Think of all the exhortation politicians are getting to “do something” when gasoline is only $4.00. Whomever the next president turns out to be, he will be obliged to do something, anything, right away. Chances are, that something will be something you and I don’t agree with. Just look at how congestion has been handled.