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Killed by the Pandemic: Virginia Railway Express

By | | Policy brief, Transportation
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Transit was hit hard by the pandemic, and one of the hardest-hit agencies was the Virginia Railway Express (VRE). Ridership in April and May 2020 was only 2.5 percent of what it had been the year before. By November 2021, ridership was still only 17.5 percent of pre-pandemic numbers.

Click image to download a three-page PDF of this policy brief.

VRE operates commuter trains from northern Virginia to Washington DC’s Union Station. It has two lines, one heading west to Manassas and the other heading south to Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania. It is a true commuter-rail operation, with trains heading into Washington in the morning and heading out in the afternoon but not providing on weekends or other times of the day. Continue reading →

November Transit Reaches 56.2% of Pre-Pandemic Riders

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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The nation’s transit systems carried 56.2 percent as many riders in November 2021 as in November 2019, according to data released by the Federal Transit Administration on Friday. Though an improvement over October’s 53.5 percent, transit still lags behind the airlines, at 84.0 percent, and Amtrak, at 76.6 percent.

Amtrak numbers from its Monthly Performance Report; airline numbers from the Transportation Security Administration; November highway numbers will be available in a week or so.

Transit bus ridership numbers were up to 60.5 percent of pre-pandemic levels while rail numbers reached 52.2 percent. Ridership has still failed to reach 50 percent of pre-pandemic numbers in Detroit (35.4%), San Francisco-Oakland (45.0%), Washington DC (45.5%), Sacramento (48.4%), San Jose (49.1%), and Chicago (49.8%). At the other extreme, ridership has recovered the most in Los Angeles (72.1%), San Diego (64.7%), Tampa-St. Petersburg (63.9%), Las Vegas (63.4%), Dallas-Ft. Worth (62.6%), Houston (61.2%), and San Antonio (60.6%). The New York urban area, which produces about 45 percent of all transit numbers in the U.S., was slightly above average at 58.3 percent. Continue reading →

Derailed by Lies

By | | Transportation
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The Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority (WMATA) has announced that it is “taking swift actions” to “combat the omicron variant.” What are those actions? It is cutting weekday bus service to Saturday schedules. Plus it is keeping rail service on limited schedules.

A train of derailment-prone 7000-series railcars.

How will these actions combat the omicron variant? They won’t. But WMATA doesn’t want to admit that, as a contender for the title of worst-managed transit agency in America, it purchased a bunch of rail cars that are duds and keep falling off the tracks. Because those railcars make up more than half the agency’s fleet, service alerts (at the time I am writing this) urge rail riders to “expect delays and consider MetroBus alternatives.” Continue reading →

Transit Agencies Can’t Spend Money Fast Enough

By | | Transportation
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You have to feel sorry for transit agencies. Congress gave them $69 billion COVID relief funds and $40 billion in the infrastructure bill on top of a $14 billion annual federal subsidy. But, due to labor shortages, agencies can’t find enough workers to drive around their nearly empty buses and trains.

The Washington Metrorail 7000-series cars don’t look much different from earlier series of cars. But, in addition to falling off the tracks a lot, they also come with the “feature” that they can’t be operated in tandem with earlier cars, whereas all earlier cars were compatible with one another. Another great example of your tax dollars at work. Photo by Swagging.

This threatens “the recovery of city life,” warns the Washington Post. Give me a break. Most workers aren’t going back to work in the cities and most of those who are don’t want to take transit. For some reason, though, reporters think that transit, unlike any private business, should be exempt from having to cut back service just because few people use it. Continue reading →

Transit’s Fiscal Cliff

By | | Transportation
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Transit officials in the San Francisco Bay Area say that transit there faces a “fiscal cliff” because ridership is so slow to recover from the pandemic. The Bay Area Rapid Transit District is in particular distress, say officials, because pre-pandemic fares covered a much higher percentage–the article says two-thirds but in 2019 it was actually 72 percent–of its operating costs than most transit agencies, so a loss of patronage means a greater loss of revenues as a share of its budget.

Some transit riders wear masks, but many more aren’t riding transit. Photo by OC Transpo.

Of course, those officials don’t mention that, unlike bus agencies, BART spends more money on capital replacement each year than it does on operations. Since capital replacement is essential to keep the trains running, fares actually covered only 36 percent of its costs. Continue reading →

New York MTA Spends $1.1 Billion on Overtime

By | | Transportation
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New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is proud to say that it has reduced the amount of overtime it pays its employees from nearly $1.4 billion in 2018 to a little more than $1.1 billion in 2020. That’s still way too much.

MTA spent $24 million installing finger-print ID time clocks such as this one to reduce overtime abuse, but many employees aren’t using them. Image from UKG.

Overtime is a big issue for transit agencies. Many transit employees, from bus drivers to train conductors to maintenance workers, significantly boost their incomes by working overtime. Agencies could save money by hiring more employees, but unions have successfully gone on strike to prevent agencies from doing so. Continue reading →

Transit 2020: The First Year of the Pandemic

By | | Policy brief, Transportation
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Transit agencies in 2020 carried 40 percent fewer riders than in 2019, according to data released last Friday by the Federal Transit Administration. To do so, they provided 86 percent as much service (measured in vehicle miles or hours) at 97 percent of the cost.

Click image to download a four-page PDF of this policy brief.

According to the database, transit carried 5.9 billion trips in 2020. We know from the FTA’s monthly reports that transit carried 4.5 billion trips in calendar year 2020. The difference is that data in the annual database are based on transit agency fiscal years, not the calendar year. Continue reading →

September Transit 53.6% of Pre-Pandemic Levels

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Nationwide transit ridership in September was 53.6 percent of September 2019, according to data released yesterday by the Federal Transit Administration. This is the first time since the pandemic began that ridership exceeded half of pre-pandemic numbers.

Airline passenger numbers are from the Transportation Security Administration; Amtrak numbers are from its September performance report.

This compares with 76.3 percent for air travel and 67.1 percent for Amtrak. The number of miles of driving in September will not be related for another week or so. Transit’s low ridership numbers are in spite of transit agencies providing more than 86 percent as much service (measured in vehicle-revenue miles) as in September 2019. Continue reading →

A Data-Driven Approach to Transportation Safety

By | | Policy brief, Transportation
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About 20,160 people died in traffic accidents in the first half of 2021, according to an early estimate released last week by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). This puts this year on track to being the first since 2007 to have more than 40,000 annual fatalities.

Click image to download a four-page PDF of this policy brief.

Historically, fatality rates peaked at more than 450 per billon vehicle miles in 1909, and then declined fairly steadily to 10.1 in 2014. The 2021 rate of 13.4 represents a 33 percent increase over 2014 levels. This increase is partly due to changes in driving behavior during the pandemic, but rates had increased even before the pandemic, reaching 11.4 fatalities per billion miles in 2016. Although the evidence isn’t clear, many experts believe much of the increase, both before and during the pandemic, was due to people being distracted by smart phones. Continue reading →

August Transit <50% of Pre-Pandemic Levels

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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Transit’s recovery falters as ridership in August was just 49.97 percent of August, 2019 numbers, according to data released yesterday by the Federal Transit Administration. This is only slightly above July’s 49.13 percent of July 2019.

I’ll post Amtrak and driving data when they become available.

August data are not yet available for Amtrak or driving, but both were well above transit levels in July. August flying fell slightly from July, probably because of worries about a new wave of COVID and associated health mandates. These factors may have also depressed transit ridership for the month. Continue reading →