US Public Transit Ridership In 2013 Highest Since 1956 - NYT

[hatrack]

PHILADELPHIA — More Americans used buses, trains and subways in 2013 than in any year since 1956 as service improved, local economies grew and travelers increasingly sought alternatives to the automobile for trips within metropolitan areas, the American Public Transportation Association said in a report released on Monday.

The trade group said in its annual report that 10.65 billion passenger trips were taken on transit systems during the year, surpassing the post-1950s peak of 10.59 million in 2008, when gas prices rose to $4 to $5 a gallon.

The ridership in 2013, when gas prices were lower than in 2008, undermines the conventional wisdom that transit use rises when those prices exceed a certain threshold, and suggests that other forces are bolstering enthusiasm for public transportation, said Michael Melaniphy, the president of the association.

“Now gas is averaging well under $4 a gallon, the economy is coming back and people are riding transit in record numbers,” Mr. Melaniphy said in an interview. “We’re seeing a fundamental shift in how people are moving about their communities.” From 1995 to 2013, transit ridership rose 37 percent, well ahead of a 20 percent growth in population and a 23 percent increase in vehicle miles traveled, according to the association’s data.

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/10/us/use-of-public-transit-in-us-reaches-highest-level-since-1956-advocates-report.html

[earthside]

1. Because there are more people.

There is much less to this story than the headline suggests.

USA Today has a more elucidating explanation of this report:

((Alan Pisarski, editor of the Commuting in America series)) notes, however, that while transit carried more trips last year than at any time since the Eisenhower administration, its share of the transportation mode – that is, the percentage of commuters who take transit versus driving, walking, etc. – is still well below what it was in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

In 1960, 12.1% of commuters took public transportation. That dropped to 8.9% 10 years later to 6.2% in 1980, Pisarski says. By 2000, the percentage was 4.6%, but it rose at the end of the decade. Transit's share of the transportation mode was 5% in 2012.

"It's probably not fair to expect them to do those kinds of numbers again," Pisarski says. "You're talking about a society where probably 30% of the society didn't own a vehicle. Now, less than 10% of households don't have a vehicle, and only 3% of households with workers don't have a vehicle."

As a Denver area resident, let me tell you that though the NYT article highlights our new trains, we are paying big-time for this progress back to the 1920s. Fixed rail is fixed, it is inflexible, building it is highly disruptive to established neighborhoods and communities and ... still even with the lines that are already finished, hardly anybody uses it (because a fare is expensive -- these trains are no alternative to not having a car and light rail is not for the poor or lower income individuals).

In Denver we would have had a complete mass transit system up and running now for half the project cost of the trains if we had utilized high tech 'bus rapid transit' (BRT).

But the choo-choo train fantasy dies hard, now we are going to be stuck with billions of dollars in tax liability and few riders.

We would have been much better off with BRT and putting the rest of the intracity train money into seed dollars for intercity high speed rail.

[cprise]

3. Denver is a sprawl nightmare

Build denser and you'll have the kind of efficiencies that make urban living worthwhile.

I was on a bus tour in NYC recently. After an hour of inching along and the tour guide running out of things to say in that neighborhood, he started to relate his personal experience with the subway and how it was the only decent transit deal in the city and the cars clogging our path were virtually all from non-Manhattan residences. Then he turned to us and exhorted us to abandon the bus and get on the subway.

Yeah... he actually did that. This was on the 'Greyline' which advertises itself as a transportation alternative... "hop on and hop off".

So, in a real urban environment, buses suck. That's why China is considering buses on stilts (really!) to roll over the traffic.

Cities like Denver need to decide if they can make it as a real urban environment, or if they are going to keep slogging it out with extended commute times, bigger traffic jams and that dayglo-nightmare suburban dream. Get your real estate developers on board and build upward.

[hatrack]

5. Oh, agree - percentage of Americans using public transportation wld have been far better

Which reminds me . . .

Report: 98 Percent Of U.S. Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others
News • Science & Technology • trends • automotive • public transportation • ISSUE 44•27 ISSUE 36•43 • Nov 29, 2000

WASHINGTON, DC–A study released Monday by the American Public Transportation Association reveals that 98 percent of Americans support the use of mass transit by others.

"With traffic congestion, pollution, and oil shortages all getting worse, now is the time to shift to affordable, efficient public transportation," APTA director Howard Collier said. "Fortunately, as this report shows, Americans have finally recognized the need for everyone else to do exactly that."

Of the study's 5,200 participants, 44 percent cited faster commutes as the primary reason to expand public transportation, followed closely by shorter lines at the gas station. Environmental and energy concerns ranked a distant third and fourth, respectively.

Anaheim, CA, resident Lance Holland, who drives 80 miles a day to his job in downtown Los Angeles, was among the proponents of public transit.

"Expanding mass transit isn't just a good idea, it's a necessity," Holland said. "My drive to work is unbelievable. I spend more than two hours stuck in 12 lanes of traffic. It's about time somebody did something to get some of these other cars off the road."

EDIT

http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-98-percent-of-us-commuters-favor-public-tra,1434/

[happyslug]

2. Oil prices at at their highest level, except for 2008, since the Civil War.

Last edited Mon Mar 10, 2014, 01:34 PM - Edit history (1)

Around 2006, someone pointed out the price of oil had exceeded what it had been during WWI, but then you never heard of that factoid afterward. The reason was simple, WWI was the highest price, in real terms, since the Civil War. Thus the price of FUEL TODAY is higher then in the days of Streetcars. Thus the high price for oil leads to people, especially lower income people, to look at other alternatives to driving.

Side note: Around 2006 I read reports that the price of oil had reached prices not seen since WWI, afterward no such comments were made, for when you do look at the price of oil adjusted for inflation, it is the highest it has been since the Civil War and there is NO prospect of it ever dropping down to WWI prices let along post WWI prices.

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=F000000__3&f=A

Post 1913 Inflation calculator:
http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

For prices at the time of the Civil War, you must understand that prior to 1934 the US had a policy of $20 to one ounce of gold. Thus all prices from 1874 to 1934 are viewed as "Inflation free". 1860 is on that list, but in 1862 the US started to have inflation do to Congress deciding to go off the gold standard in December 1861. This Inflation peaked in 1864, then went into a steady decline as Congress tried to restore the Dollar to the $20 to an ounce of Gold Standard (Which Congress did by 1874).

Price of Gold, was as high as $300 for an ounce of gold in July 1864 (but that was a temporary jump caused by an act of Congress that was repealed within two weeks). The price before and after the jump was $200 an ounce. The US went back on the Gold Standard of $20 to an ounce of gold in 1874 (and was the chief cause of what is called the "Long Depression" of 1875-1896).

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-02/how-congress-learned-perils-of-shutting-a-market-echoes.html

http://www.nma.org/pdf/gold/his_gold_prices.pdf

Thus you can use 1913 for 1859, 1860, 1861 and post 1874 prices for oil, for you had no real permanent inflation between those dates and 1913. The Civil War prices are trickier for inflation was massive, but you had Gold Dollars being minted at $20 to an ounce of gold (and no one every saw these things) and Paper Dollars for everything else. Thus in terms of Gold, you had NO inflation, but also no domestic usage of Gold Coins. As to paper Dollars, you had some inflation, but not the 1000% inflation one would assume if you look at the market of Paper Dollars to Gold Dollars in 1864.

This is complicated by the price of Silver. In 1849 you had the California Gold Rush, this lead to gold inflation world wide (What you could buy with an ounce of Gold in 1849 is a lot more then you could buy with an ounce of gold in 1860 do to this massive gold inflation. Silver followed a similar inflationary action after the Silver Mines opened up in Nevada. In 1857 the US had reformed its coinage system, setting up the Silver Dollar containing just a hair less then one dollar of silver. By 1900 the Silver in a Silver Dollar was only worth 55 cents (and most of this inflation occurred in the 1860s). Remember Dollars were valued in terms of gold, thus in term of gold, Silver had lost almost half its price starting in 1857 (This was the reason for the Call for "Free Silver" in the 1880s and 1890s, Silver Dollars were technically valued the same as Gold Dollar but cost less to produce and thus by minting Silver Dollars you would have inflation and give the economy a kick, that it needed. The free Silver movement died as the economy did get a kick with Gold Inflation when the South African, Alaskan and Australia Gold booms of the late 1890s).

I bring all of the above up, for adjusting the value of money is complicated by the pre 1934 Governmental policy of trying to stay on the Gold Standard when Gold is NOT money but a commodity that is bought and sold. When you have low production, gold tends to act as a drag on the economy, when you have high production Gold can push an economy into overdrive (as it did in the 1850s, probably the best decade for the US economy prior to the 1920s and in some ways beats out the 1920s, so you have to go to the 1950s and 1960s to beat it out). Low production of gold and the refusal of the US Government to get off the Gold Standard is the reason the Long Depression lasted the almost 2 decades it did and only ended when you had a sudden increase in world wide gold inflation in the late 1890s.

Back to the price of oil. I went into the above to show that any pricing is hard for no one kept any statistics as to the prices of goods till 1913 when the Department of Labor started, to do so. What prices we have for goods vary so much that it is hard to determine if what was the inflation rate was (and from 1874 to 1898 what the Deflation rate was, but to a degree we have an idea but it is based on limited number of goods, not what most people purchased on a day to day basis).

In 1913 the price of oil was 95 Cents a barrel. In 2013 Dollars that is $22.35 a barrel. In 1874 price of a barrel of oil was $1.17 a barrel, in 2013 dollars that is $27.53 a barrel.
Year $.............Dollars in 2013 dollars
1860 9.59................$225.56
1861 .49................$ 11.53
1862 1.05.................$ 24.71
1863 3.15.................$ 74,12
1864 8.06.................$189.66
1865 6.59.................$155.07
1866 3.74.................$ 88,01
1867 2.41.................$ 56.71
1868 3.62.................$ 85.18
1869 5.64.................$ 90.83
1870 3.86.................$ 44.96
1871 4.34.................$102.12
1872 3.64.................$ 85.65
1873 1.83.................$ 43.06
1874 1.17.................$ 27.53
1875 1.35.................$ 31.77
1876 2.52.................$ 59.30
1877 2.38.................$ 56,00
1878 1.17.................$ 27.53
1879 0.86.................$ 20.24

Then the price of oil stayed below $1 ($23,23 in 2013 dollars) till WWI. Reaching a peak price of $3.07 in 1920 ($35.76 in 2013 dollars). Except for a brief time in the early 1930s, when it fell to below $1 a barrel, oil prices stayed under $2 a barrel and above $1 a barrel till 1948, when it hit $2.60 a Barrel ($25.13 in 2013 dollars). The price of oil then ran from $2.50 a barrel to $3.00 a barrel till 1970 when it hit $3.09 a barrel ($18.55 a barrel in 2013 dollars). The price stayed under $4 ($24.02 in 2013 dollars) a barrel till it hit $6.87 in 1974 ($32.46 in 2013 dollars).

1975 7.67............$33.21
1976 8.19
1977 8.57
1978 9.00
1979 12.64...........$ 40.88
1980 21.59..........$ 61.60
1981 31.77...........$ 86.55
1982 28.52...........$ 69,33
1983 26.19
1984 25.88
1985 24.09

Thus, adjusted for inflation and using $94.52 as the price per barrel of oil, the present price exceeds all prices since 1871, and all prices prior to that date EXCEPT for 1864, 1865, 1860 and 1859 (the first year we have data for the price of oil). If the price of oil goes over $102,12, then we have to go back to 1860 (the 1864 and 1865 prices were driven by the problems the US had with Gold in those years, given that oil had already become a huge export for the US by that time period even as we were fighting the Civil War).

Prices for a barrel of oil was NOT this high during WWI and WWII and the price is NOT retreating even as demand falls do to the high price. That all indicates a tight oil market, which is the main product of peak oil. This is the best explanation for the increase in public transportation, it is getting to expensive for some people to use anything else.

[madokie]

4. If we had bus services around here I'd use it

every chance I got. The few times I've lived in the city the buses were the highlight of those times.