More Americans are Using Public Transportation Today

A great number of Americans are again using public transportation today, with figures that are comparable with mid-1950s data. According to the latest ridership data released by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) on Monday, there were 10.7 billion trips in 2013. This is the highest number of trips since 1956.

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The plunge made by the Great depression and the cutbacks before due to the dip in the economy caused ridership to fall. However, it has fully recovered from that slump. The services have been restored and public transport ridership is steadily increasing.

People today have more options to get around, outside of having a car. The situation is boosted by the expansion of trains and bus networks.

Light-rail trains in Los Angeles County gained a 6% increase in ridership over its 2012 figures, gaining 9 million more trips in 2013 for a total of 478 million. Caltrain commuter rail service, connecting Silicon Valley and San Francisco is also one of the California transit systems that posted high ridership, according to last year’s total figures.

Annual ridership figures are also very good in Houston, San Diego, Denver, Miami and Seattle. New York’s huge transit network posted the highest gain, with the state’s figures three times larger than the national figures.

New shifts in urban development

According to Michael Melaniphy, the President and CEO of the APTA, this increase in patronage is helped greatly by the urban development around transportation hubs. He added that housing developments, universities and businesses are moving to where transit hubs are located. More and more Americans are also getting more comfortable riding trains and buses. Most of the areas that posted an increase in ridership are those locations that in recent years have opened new transit lines. This is also a proof that the economy is steadily improving. Mr. Melaniphy also added that the leaders of the communities very well know that investing in public transportation further increases the opportunity to revitalize the economy and power the growth of a community.

Commuting to work

Work commutes account for close to 60% of the trips taken last year. While ridership can be affected in the short term by expanded access, gas prices and employment rates, in the long run the public transport ridership is still on the rise, and has been steadily increasing for almost 20 years. Overall, the increase in ridership since 1995 is even bigger than the population growth in the country.

Likewise, American do less driving since 2004. This can be attributed to the increasing cost of owning a car and the congestion they face every time they use their car. It seems that although the realization is slow in coming, Americans nowadays do realize that they can still get to where they want to go using public transport.

While it is truly better to use public transport in biggest gainers such as Washington, D.C. and New York, the association points out that significant riderships are also realized in smaller areas, such as Lewisville in Texas, Alaska and Anchorage as well as in Cleveland, Ohio.

Of course the increase in ridership is not universal as there are also cities is the U.S. where the transit agencies report falling figures.

Photo credit: Taken by Hudconja under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.