Public Transportation Usage Rose In 2011

Americans took 10.4 billion rides on public transportation in 2011 — a billion more than they took in 2000, and the second most since 1957, according to a report being released Monday by the American Public Transportation Association, a nonprofit organization that represents transit systems. The increase in ridership came after the recession contributed to declines in the previous two years.

Read the whole story at The New York Times

Comments

[edgeninja]

04:32 PM on 03/12/2012

There are way too many cars on the road. WAY too many cars.

There's a family that lives next door to mine that owns at least five cars. They have so many cars, they don't even have a practical place to park all of them. Whenever one of them wants to go somewhere, another one or more has to go out and move THEIR cars so that the first one can get their car out of the driveway. And then the other two have to move their cars BACK. And the ritual repeats itself as soon as the first guy comes home. I don't know how that family maintains their sanity.

[luvsox]

10:04 AM on 03/12/2012

But, but, doesn't socialized transportation make Americans less free? ;-)

[Gudrun]

12:26 PM on 03/12/2012

That's why they say. As for me, riding on the bus leaves me FREE to read my book! :)

[luvsox]

05:26 PM on 03/12/2012

I'd NEVER drive if I didn't have to!

[kyeshinka]

09:52 AM on 03/12/2012

Americans becoming more economical and environmentally conscious? Never thought I'd see the day.

[Gudrun]

10:03 AM on 03/12/2012

Bad news for Republicans, they are anti-public transportation.

[shankapotomus]

09:49 AM on 03/12/2012

Of course it is, people can't afford O's energy policies.

[Gudrun]

10:04 AM on 03/12/2012

Read the article. People are using public transport to get to WORK.

[shankapotomus]

10:08 AM on 03/12/2012

But thats the reason why, no wonder 50% of Americans say hes a failure and 68% say his economics are a failure.

[shankapotomus]

11:17 AM on 03/12/2012

Just bsaying you people are the ones that want to "Change it"

[scottishboy]

09:43 AM on 03/12/2012

You can't tell me Obama's plans don't work.

[Jacques Theron]

09:31 AM on 03/12/2012

used cars windhoek www.usedcarsnamibia.net

[Nutter Butter]

08:53 AM on 03/12/2012

lol, who would have that that by gutting the U.S. economy and driving up gas prices to record highs, more people would be forced to commute via public transit...Seriously sometimes i think you Iibs have lost touch with reality

[BlueBird55]

09:01 AM on 03/12/2012

Didn't read the article, I see. Typical.

[DoctorGreeves]

09:04 AM on 03/12/2012

Who "gutted" the U.S. economy? Apparently you've managed to forget the sub-prime real estate bond fiasco that took place during the Bush Administration that led to an almost complete collapse of the United States economy in 2008.

Who drove up gas prices to over $4.00 per gallon in the spring of 2008, ten months before President Obama was sworn into office? Just exactly whose reality are you talking about?

And lastly, could you overcome your innate laziness and have the courtesy to spell out the whole word, Liberals, the way some of us Liberals spell out Conservatives?

[BVictor1]

08:26 AM on 03/12/2012

And yet the funding for public transportation has been significantly reduced.

In fact the republicans have slashed tons from the proposed Transportation Bill.

If it's good for the people, republicans don't like it.

[MrBadExample]

08:19 AM on 03/12/2012

We will HAVE to build more mass transit in coming years if wages don't get un-stuck. Almost half the jobs created in the 'recovery' pay subsistence wages a little above minimum. A worker with those sorts of wages can't afford gas for the car. This will be an enormously expensive project, since most of America is built as suburban sprawl that doesn't have enough population density to support mass transit. That this truth causes so much acrimony is a testament to how deeply in denial Americans have become.

[lofttypeofaview]

08:35 AM on 03/12/2012

I know I live in the suburbs and I have to take the bus but some places that I have to travel to, don't have a bus route.

[stopgov]

09:45 AM on 03/12/2012

If you want "mass transit," pay for your own services, it's only fair. They should privatize it, then you would pay for it, and the cities wouldn't run large empty busses. I moved to the country to get away from the high taxes and excessive city regulations, and our taxes still go to support it. It's funny how the left argues the rich need to pay their fair share, well maybe you should pay for what you use, like you would if flying a commercial airline.

[kyeshinka]

09:54 AM on 03/12/2012

We should privatize road building, too, since not everyone uses those.

[Matt Hotz]

10:31 AM on 03/12/2012

I pay my taxes to live in an environment that functions for everyone, especially those who need the access that so many (yourself included) take for granted. That is my civic duty as a tax payer living in a democracy.
You are free to drive however many miles a week you do to get your things. You have privatized your adventure and you apparently are well off enough or in an area that does not have the option period to shut your mind off to the realities the rest of us who have the option in front of us. Just know that it is you who are contributing more pollution by way of doing so than us who are using public transportation.

[edgeninja]

08:14 AM on 03/12/2012

I've never understood Republicans' hatred of trains.

[DoctorGreeves]

09:12 AM on 03/12/2012

I share your lack of understanding. This Republican hatred of trains is especially hard to understand when we consider that 19th Century Conservative capitalists who built the trans-continental railroads, subsidized by and made rich by massive Federal land grants across states like Montana. During the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s, vast checkerboards of Federal lands were given as incentives to the Northern Pacific Rail Road, for example, just to get the tracks built. But now those same railroads are seen by Conservatives as some kind of Liberal conspiracy. America. A strange land, indeed.
[fanned for raising a good point.]

[kcwookie]

09:18 AM on 03/12/2012

You know where all the gold baring geese went?

Conservative tables at the holidays. Conservatives will never be in favor of public programs because they can't make a profit on all aspects of it. They are also hoping to kill the unions, so what they can build is at minimum wage costs. If Americans understood economics, they would vote very differently.

[First Blast]

08:02 AM on 03/12/2012

More popular or more necessary?

[edgeninja]

08:13 AM on 03/12/2012

Both.

[DoctorGreeves]

09:20 AM on 03/12/2012

Both.

[Matt Hotz]

10:44 AM on 03/12/2012

Both. People are realizing taking the choo choo or the bus to work is actually a pretty wonderful option, because they do not have to deal with rush hour traffic and its nattering morning drive radio shows and white knuckled drivers. They can read. They can put on their makeup, which from afar is funny to watch TMI happening. They can do a crossword. They can walk more to and from their stop. They can see their neighborhood and be a part of it as opposed to driving through it. It is living in ecstacy, because you have a better chance of being exposed to empathy. And they can actually be somewhat on time and not require spending upwards of 30$ or more a day on parking and gas.

[MIKEinNYC]

07:55 AM on 03/12/2012

We're sick of driving our cars with the traffic, over-priced gas and, in Manhattan, exorbitant parking fees, not to mention the ticket-crazy metermaids. Plus, in New York at least, the subways have gotten much, much better.Perhaps we have Bloomie to thank for this.

[Cacey]

07:48 AM on 03/12/2012

For two decades I lived in and around a city with one of the best public transportation systems in the nation, San Francisco. While I live in The City the only time I used my car was to get out of town or for those errands that involved picking up items too large to carry easily. When I lived in the suburbs, I used the car for much the same reason adding that I drove to the BART stations to get into The City most of the time. The best and healthiest form of public transportation are your own two legs. Use them.

[lofttypeofaview]

08:39 AM on 03/12/2012

The best and healthiest form of public transportation are your own two legs. Use them.

Depends upon how far even with a bike, one has to go, how much they have to transport and if they are physically able.

[stopgov]

09:48 AM on 03/12/2012

good post

[evilchihuahua]

07:46 AM on 03/12/2012

I remember being in Berlin.
The public transportation was fantastic to say the least.
Safe, convenient, and best of all it didn't have that permanent urine small.
If half of the time and effort that goes into boondoggle light rail projects get reinjected into real beneficial projects like they have in Europe and China we might, pardon the pun, just get somewhere.

[prudencehall]

07:45 AM on 03/12/2012

When I lived in NYC I always took the subway and loved it - it's gets you where you going so quickly and don't have to worry about parking. I wish we had a rail system where I live in California now.