January Transit Ridership Up 5.1 Percent

Transit ridership in January 2020 was 5.1 percent greater than the same month in 2019, according to data released last week by the Federal Transit Administration. Ridership actually grew in a slight majority of the nation’s largest urban areas — 28 out of 50.

Is this the first sign of a turnaround for the transit industry? Possibly. But it is more likely a reflection of the extremely mild winter that United States has enjoyed this year. Due to snow and ice storms, January normally has the lowest ridership of any month of the year except February.

A natural product is offered by Botaniex with Passion X. levitra on sale Hence, eat low-fat diet while PDE-5 inhibitor therapy for optimizing treatment’s prompt response. cheap cialis canada greyandgrey.com Studies have proved that smoking not cialis 20 mg http://greyandgrey.com/mywpcontent/uploads/2016/07/Jansch-v.-Sagamore-Childrens-Fund.pdf only has a harmful effect on their masculinity. It is viagra buy australia for this reason that we see people all over the world suffering from myriads of health issues that need treatment. However, it is also likely that this bump in ridership will be countered by a depression in March ridership due to coronavirus concerns. VICE has somewhat irresponsibly urged people not to “let coronavirus scare you away from public transit.” The article notes that a study in Britain of actual people found that transit riders were more likely to have upper respiratory infections. But the article dismissed this saying that another study that was totally hypothetical and based on a disease whose transmission characteristics were completely different from coronavirus found that “only 4 to 5 percent of transmissions would occur on a subway.” Not very reassuring and I suspect people will ignore this advice. Continue reading

St. Louis Streetcar Dies a Noisy Death

Built at a cost of $51 million, St. Louis’ streetcar line made its last run in December, 2019 when the organization operating it ran out of funds. Fittingly, it broke down on its very last run and its passengers had to walk the last few blocks of the route.

Built at a cost of $51 million, the trolley opened in November, 2018 after a decade of planning and construction. Proponents predicted it would carry 400,000 riders in its first year. In fact, it carried only about 20,000 and fare revenues didn’t come close to covering operating costs.

Streetcar lovers hoped that St. Louis’ regional transit agency, which can’t seem to decide whether to call itself Metro (the name used by numerous other transit agencies) or Bi-State (which is boring but at least original), would take over the streetcar. Last week, Bi-State’s CEO said he was prepared to take it over provided he could require every business along the line to buy a monthly pass for all of their employees. Continue reading

November Ridership Down 0.3 Percent

Transit ridership in November 2019 was 0.3 percent lower than the same month in 2018, according to data released last week by the Federal Transit Administration. Ridership in January through November 2019 was 0.1 percent below the same period in 2018.

The downward trend in ridership was in spite of a slight increase in the New York urban area, which sees 44 percent of all transit riders in the country. Without New York, year-to-date ridership was 1.5 percent lower in 2019 than 2018. Thirty-two out of the nation’s top fifty urban areas lost transit riders in 2019 to date.

Fact: A person with Kamagra medication is a product of Ajanta Pharma and line viagra is manufactured in India. Tom Lue, professor at UC San Francisco focused 25mg barato viagra on individual’s lifestyle while curing impotence. An ED commander levitra sufferer can get a range of drugs on a platform. These compounds are responsible for enhancing blood flow and cialis 10 mg bought this allowing a perfect erection. November bus ridership fell by 3.5 percent; light-rail ridership by 7.0 percent; streetcar ridership by 7.1 percent; and hybrid rail by 2.1 percent. Commuter rail grew by 1.0 percent and heavy rail by 4.9 percent, mainly due to New York. Continue reading

New York MTA Challenges Artist over Map

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority is in a heap of financial trouble. It is more than $40 billion in debt; it has a $60 billion maintenance backlog; plus it has more than $20 billion in unfunded health care obligations.

Instead of addressing these problems, the MTA is going after an artist named Jake Berman for violating the MTA’s copyright by making and selling a map of MTA’s subway network.

The MTA says that Berman’s map looks like the official MTA map, which is to be expected since they are both mapping the same thing. Berman’s map looks like an abstract version of the subway system known as the Vignelli map, which MTA wasn’t even using until two years after Berman started distributing his map on the web. Continue reading

October Transit Ridership Down 1.6%

The nation’s transit industry carried 1.6 percent fewer riders in October 2019 than it did in the same month in 2018, according to the latest monthly data release from the Federal Transit Administration. Ridership fell for light rail, hybrid rail, and most kinds of buses, but grew for commuter rail and heavy rail. October had the same number of work days in 2018 and 2019, so the decline in ridership can’t be blamed on a difference in work days.

Ridership declined in 31 of the nation’s 50 largest urban areas. The numbers show an increase for Dallas-Ft. Worth, but that’s due to a change in the method of counting bus riders in Dallas, so in reality ridership probably declined in 32 of the nation’s 50 largest regions.

In terms of percent, the biggest drops were in New Orleans (-17.1%), Louisville (-12.6%), Phoenix (-11.8%), Boston (-10.3%), and Virginia Beach-Norfolk (-9.9%). In actual numbers, the biggest declines were in Boston (-3.6 million riders), Chicago (-2.8 million or -5.2%), Los Angeles (-2.3 million or -4.7%), Philadelphia (-1.4 million or -4.3%), and Atlanta (-1.0 million or -7.9%). Phoenix, San Francisco Oakland, Minneapolis-St. Paul, San Juan, and Cleveland all lost more than 200,000 riders. Continue reading

Strike a Blow Against Capitalism Socialism

Here’s someone’s idea of a brilliant plan: get all your friends to fight the evil capitalistic system by refusing to pay for one of the most socialistic services in this country: public transit. On November 29 (the day after Thanksgiving), people are supposed to protest “the rich getting richer” by jumping turnstiles or otherwise refusing to pay for their transit rides.

Under the name “No Fare Is Fair,” people in Portland are refusing to pay and demanding free public transit, which supposedly represents social, economic, and climate justice. Similar groups are promoting fare strikes in Seattle, San Francisco, New York City, and no doubt elsewhere. Continue reading

Water or Transit?

San Antonio politician Nelson Wolff has proposed to take a sales tax that currently supports the region’s water supply and give it to VIA, San Antonio’s transit agency, instead. He apparently believes it’s more important to subsidize a transit system that carries less than 2.6 percent of city commuters to work than the aquifer that supplies 70 percent of the water for the region.

An op-ed in response points out that VIA is already so generously funded that it was able to increase service by 17 percent since 2012. Despite that increase in service, ridership dropped 24 percent. In 2017, VIA spent $205 million on operations and collected less than $24 million in fares.
Through the principal of balancing our discount viagra levitra whole system, Ayurveda involves the use of various software applications and professional management tools. This practice is likewise helpful for both of free samples cialis the persons feeling disappointed. Several factors come into play while mating and the penis size is one such vital factor. soft viagra tabs That’s why doctor prescribe muscle relaxants such as Baclofen that significantly improve the recovery process and builds strong immune system- Prevents Diabetes- Build stamina and improve energy levels- Maintenance of cholesterol levels- Fights cancer causing cells- Improves sexual performance Even though these drugs have cheapest tadalafil online been available in the market for treating erectile dysfunction.
Wolff was long the strongest voice of building a light-rail or streetcar line in San Antonio. He wants to subsidize transit, he claims, because “there will be less pollution.” Hardly: VIA buses emit twice as much greenhouse gases per passenger mile as the average car and 80 percent more than the average SUV. None of this matters to Wolff, who seems to believe that taxpayers exist to support transit, not that transit exists to support mobility.

Transit Ridership Up in September

America’s transit systems carried 2.9 percent more riders in September 2019 than September 2018, according to data released by the Federal Transit Administration yesterday. After deducting New York, ridership still grew by half a percent. Moreover, ridership grew in 27 of the nation’s 50 largest urban areas, though one of those was Dallas-Ft. Worth, where the apparent ridership growth is really just due to a change in the method of counting bus riders.

September 2019 had one more work day than September 2018, which accounts for some of the increase. A recovery from some of the maintenance delays experienced in New York and Washington explains some of the rest of it. Every major mode of transit saw an increase in riders except light rail, which experienced a 5.4 percent decline.

Year-to-date ridership is not so positive, as it fell by 0.1 percent nationwide, 1.4 percent outside of New York, 4.0 percent for light rail, and 0.8 percent for buses. Continue reading

August Ridership Drops in 40 of Top 50 Regions

August 2019 transit ridership in the New York urban area grew a massive 5.1 percent above the same month in 2018, according to National Transit data released last Thursday by the Federal Transit Administration. That was enough to push nationwide transit ridership up, but only by 0.3 percent. Not counting New York, transit ridership fell by 3.2 percent.

August ridership fell in Phoenix by 16.2 percent, which may have been due to the weather: temperatures rose about 105 degrees for 21 days in August 2019, vs. just nine days in August 2018. Ridership also fell by 16.6 percent in Louisville, 14.1 percent in New Orleans, and 11.2 percent in Virginia Beach-Norfolk.

While these were the extremes, few major urban areas were exempt from the decline. Ridership dropped in Seattle (-2.6%) and Houston (-1.1%), both regions that had been once claimed to be exempt from the malaise that is affecting the nation’s transit industry. Ridership grew in only 10 of the nation’s 50 largest urban areas, and one of those — Dallas-Ft. Worth — is suspect as nearly all of the growth is in Dallas buses, which installed a new way of counting riders last fall that reports much higher numbers than before. Continue reading

And the Winner Is . . .

Asking what American city has the best transit is like asking which one has the best lutefisk. It may sound like an interesting question, but unless you are in the one urban area where it really matters (New York in the case of transit, Minneapolis-St. Paul in the case of lutefisk), or are a real die-hard fan, the answer is pretty much irrelevant to most Americans.

Nevertheless, WalletHub.com took the time to consider which of the nation’s top 100 cities has the best and worst transit systems. To answer the question, they used 17 different criteria, including such things as airport accessibility, the presence of dedicated bus or rail lines, and fatalities per passenger mile.

They concluded that Seattle has the best transit system, with a score of 77.97 out of a possible 100, followed closely by Boston, which scored 77.84. New York, which scored a measly 68.87, was only the seventh-best. The worst was Indianapolis, with only 21.13 points, slightly bettered by Tampa and St. Petersburg, which each scored about 24 points. Continue reading