The Minneapolis Star-Tribune frets that “getting around the Twin Cities is nearly as costly as housing.” According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer expenditure survey, the average resident of the Twin Cities spent $10,359 on shelter in 2012 and $9,897 on transportation.
“In 2007, the annual cost of housing was $3,173 more than annual transportation costs,” says reporter David Peterson. “By 2012, the gap had shrunk to $462.” Without any grounds for doing so, Peterson speculates that “rising transport costs may also be due in part to our sprawling development patterns, leading to lots of long and congested single-motorist drives.”
Let’s test that theory. The BLS estimated that the average consumer spent $8,806 on transportation in 2011. Thus, the 2012 costs were 12 percent higher than in 2011. Does Peterson really think that the Twin Cities sprawled enough in one year to drive up transport costs by 12 percent?
Let’s test it another way. According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the average commuter in the Twin Cities took 23.4 minutes to get to work in 2011 and 23.8 minutes in 2012. That represents a 2 percent increase, which can only account for a tiny portion of the increase in what consumers spent on travel.
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What else changed between 2011 and 2012? The number of employed people grew by 10.5 percent, leading to a 10.2 percent increase in the number of commuters. Do you suppose that a 10.5 percent boost in employment could account for an increase in spending on transportation?
It is important to understand, first, that Bureau of Labor Statistics’ numbers are based on surveys and subject to wide error, and second, that the costs are averages and certainly do not represent any minima that people have to spend. Just as people can buy a house for less than the median home in the Twin Cities, they can buy a used car, carpool, and do other things to reduce transportation costs.
That said, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that public transit expenditures in the Twin Cities declined by 10 percent between 2011 and 2012. Did Metro Transit reduce fares by 10 percent? Or did some of the people who formerly rode transit decided that driving was a better deal? The answer seems to be that people abandoned transit for driving.
According to the American Community Survey, the number of Twin Cities auto commuters grew by 11 percent between 2011 and 2012, 0.8 percent more than the growth in commuters. Meanwhile, the number of transit commuters declined by 3 percent. I can’t wait to see the Star-Tribune‘s article on the declining importance of transit in the Twin Cities.
Not sure what geography you are using, but for the 7-county metro, where transit is available, the drive-along mode share rose 3% between 2011 and 2012 (ACS 1 year). By contrast, the non-single-occupancy-vehicle modes rose a combined 2.3% (walking was up 12%). Transit use fell 6%.
You’re quick to point out the averages used by BLS. Commuting distance is also an average, over a very large metro and millions of commuters. A small increase can easily hide some nuance. Finally, ACS 1 year data has a pretty high margin or error (25% sometimes), so for small mode shares like transit, we really don’t know the one-year change.
The Antiplanner wrote:
What else changed between 2011 and 2012? The number of employed people grew by 10.5 percent, leading to a 10.2 percent increase in the number of commuters. Do you suppose that a 10.5 percent boost in employment could account for an increase in spending on transportation?
There are a lot of cities and states that would kill for this much of an increase in employment.
It is important to understand, first, that Bureau of Labor Statistics’ numbers are based on surveys and subject to wide error, and second, that the costs are averages and certainly do not represent any minima that people have to spend. Just as people can buy a house for less than the median home in the Twin Cities, they can buy a used car, carpool, and do other things to reduce transportation costs.
Regarding surveys that lead to the BLS published statistics – I was told by a BLS staff person some years ago that their nonfarm employment numbers co me directly from FICA and payroll tax data (nonfarm because agricultural employees are not covered by Social Security). If the BLS staff person told me correctly, then it means that the county-level and state-level employment statistics are going to be quite accurate.
Maybe I”m just too cynical but I suspect too much of the media is caught up in repeatedly regurgitating Metro Transit press releases on “record” ridership on the old Hiawatha LRT and the zombie-like Northstar commuter rail line to inform the public that overall transit use is dropping in the Twin Towns.
That’s not to say coverage is 100% abysmal. Finance and Industry had an article on the cluster fuck that the proposed Southwest LRT line has become. They did a great job of touching on the nuances of situation. I don’t normally like to swear but that phrase was taylor made for summing up the situation on that line. Regardless of one’s ideological stance on something like rail, a series of poor decisions has lead the project into a quagmire. If Vegas took bets on these projects, I’d be putting my money behind it dieing a silent death.