A couple transit articles that aren't from the Reason Foundation

Older people on transit. Image from The Economist.

The Economist has a piece on the increasing use of transit in the U.S., obviously "driven" by the rise in the cost of gasoline. See "All aboard! Light rail and buses beckon. But will Americans really abandon their cars?" The article is based on a report from the American Public Transportation Association, on public-transport passenger numbers, covering the first quarter of 2006. From the article:

... user-figures for public transport rose more than 4% in the first quarter of 2006 over a year earlier. Those are strong figures for a sector that typically slugs along at 2%, slightly ahead of population growth. Rider-figures for light rail were up 11.2%, and even buses carried 4.5% more passengers.

Americans have not always embraced public transport. “We had people carrying signs saying ‘Light Rail Kills Babies’,” recalls John Inglish, head of the Utah Transit Authority, which has 19 miles of track around Salt Lake City. Proponents were likened to communists, he says. Now the system has almost too many riders—up 39% in May from a year earlier. Last autumn the crowds were so great that the trains' suspensions dropped, and carriage doors at a few stations in Salt Lake could not close unless half the passengers leaned over to one side. (Siemens, the manufacturer, has since fixed the problem.) The true test of Utahans' enthusiasm will come in November, when voters will decide whether to pay higher property taxes to support an $895m expansion into four new light-rail routes.

Light rail is hugely expensive. The federal government can cover 80% of the cost, but it is so deluged with applications that 50% is more typical. On the local level, higher taxes are always a hard sell—and several municipal governments are often involved, which complicates matters.
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An interesting thing about the GWU tourism course I mentioned yesterday, is that I thought that the section on transportation was biased. While it did mention that all transportation modes are subsidized by the government to some extant, the language about the perennial money losing railroads was stronger, even though data was presented stating that since 1990, overall the airline industry has not made a profit. Interestingly, 74% of all tourism-visitor trips are made by car.
Modes of transportation, domestic-person trips. GWU slide. Note that the mode split for international visitors shows a much higher use of buses (motor coaches).

Roads are subsidized, and so is gasoline just in terms of the military cost of foreign policy.
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2. The New York Times also reports about transit usage in the NYC region, which is the highest in the U.S. Although it's all relative, most people drive. Just not in NYC. See "Mass Transit Grows as Commuters’ Trip of Choice." From the article:

In the metropolitan region, which for years has been home to the nation’s longest average commute, tens of thousands of workers have stopped driving to their jobs and switched to riding subways, trains, buses and ferries, according to an analysis of the data released this week by demographers at Queens College.

More than 2.5 million residents of the region — about 2 of every 7 commuters — regularly rode some form of public transportation to work in 2005, up from about 2.2 million in 2000. The share of commuters driving themselves or riding in private cars fell, a trend that could bode well for America’s energy consumption if only it were taking hold nationally. ...

The latest figures reinforce just how unusual New York is in its reliance on public transportation. No other American city makes half as much use of mass transit. Of the 6.2 million transit riders in the country, more than 40 percent live in the metropolitan region, which, by the federal government’s definition, includes the city and 18 surrounding counties in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

There are at least two reasons why commuters to NYC have amongst the longest trips. One, the jobs pay better, so people are more motivated. Two, the jobs pay better so people might live farther away. Three, the transit system is better, albeit crowded, which encourages use. Likely the longest commuting trips are made by train and motor coach.
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And yes, the same Reason Foundation editorial was published in the Friday Washington Times, "Bleak Congestion Future," as well as a not Reason Foundation anti-WMATA op-ed screed in the Examiner, "Melanie Scarborough: Reform mismanagement at Metro first, then we can look at a bailout." Maybe the Examiner is trying to develop street cred with automobile advertisers... You'd think as a conservative that Melanie Scarborough would be reading The Economist.

Clearly, there is no question that there is a mathematics crisis in the United States. Automobile-focused transportation can't be accommodated in a way that limits congestion without bankrupting the country as well as devoting more and more land to freeways. Compact development, requiring less dependence on single occupancy vehicle trips, is the only way to go.
Editorial cartoon, Marshall Ramsey, Jackson Clarion-Ledger (MS).

Note: this editorial cartoonist is really really really good. The Washington Times used the cartoon above to illustrate the Reason Foundation op-ed. But I just looked at his archive of cartoons (til early May), and he is prolific and really great. Many cartoons on the local scene (apparently they have "issues" with their mayor, among which he carries a gun...), on Mississippi, and broader issues. Plus he has a blog which includes drawings that don't make the paper.

Index Keywords: transit; mobility