Public transportation delivers public benefits

President Obama was elected to harness a national will to do things better.  One thing I think Americans would like to see improved is how transportation serves the communities in which they live.

We love our cars, but sometimes there can be a better way to get to work or to the beach, or simply to the drug store.  And providing Americans with those choices can also be good for the economy.

In one study done in the San Antonio, each 1% of regional travel shifted from automobile to public transit increased regional income about $2.9 million, resulting in 226 additional regional jobs. Other economic benefits include increased productivity, employment, business activity, investment and redevelopment.

Cities with well-established rail system, according to a study produced for APTA, have less traffic congestion, lower traffic death rates, lower consumer expenditures on transportation, significantly higher per capita transit ridership, lower average per capita vehicle mileage, and higher transit service cost recovery than otherwise comparable cities with less or no rail transit service.

Moreover, whether in Houston, Texas, or Portland, Oregon, rail transit systems not only provide economic, but social and environmental benefits.

Social benefits of transit include improved public health, greater flexibility in trip planning and accessibility for non-drivers.

Rail travel consumes about a fifth of the energy per passenger-mile as automobile travel. Electric powered rail produces minimal air and noise emissions.

Many criticisms of rail transit investment are based on inaccurate or incomplete analysis. For example, transit critics often cite operating costs. This overlooks the significant returns that rail transit offers. In 2002, for example, rail transit required about $12.5 billion annually in public subsidy. However, these costs were offset several times over by $19.4 billion in congestion costs savings, $8.0 billion in roadway cost savings, $12.1 billion in parking cost savings, $22.6 billion in consumer cost saving, and $5.6 billion in reduced crash damages.

Developing public transportation increases choices, for drivers as well as riders. Developing public transportation makes sense.

Comments

[Jarrett]

Bravo.

I would note only that while "rail" is an understandable political shorthand for "good public transit" when talking on this level, there is a crucial place for both rail and road-based modes in a sustainable future. Rail is the answer for many corridors but not all of them, and if we focus too exclusively on rail we prematurely cut off many markets that deserve our attention.

I hope that FTA continues to support serious rapid transit of all modes, and that the criteria for Federal funding continue to encourage local governments to select the mode that delivers the most effective outcomes -- both economic and environmental. This will often be rail, but not always.

Thank you for your leadership on these issues.

[J. Lucas McKay]

Thank you, Secretary LaHood! Now, could you please talk some sense into the legislature down here in Georgia? We badly need your help.

Thanks,

J. Lucas McKay
Atlanta, GA

[Andrew]

If only every endeavor that generates such cost savings had a story showing the statistics available on the internet maybe we could blow away some of these people who think the government cant turn a profit.

[Paz]

You hit the nail on the head, and it is extremely exciting to hear this talk coming from the DOT. This is going to be a great administration for passenger rail!

[Richard Campbell]

Great point!

People who use public transit also walk more and thus are more physically fit. As such, health care costs savings should also be added to the list of economic benefits of public transit.

[William Walling]

Mr. LaHood and DOT personnel,
Accolades extended for your support of Public Transportation within America at this time!
Please do exercise caution avoiding 'stumbling blocks' to any Public Transportation discussion absent integration for ALL forms of Air, Land and Sea industries or methods.
Admittedly todays domestic local or intercontinental Rail System represents a long disparaged land transportation medium dismissed at the express favor of alternate human conveyance methods.
A National embarrassment that America's Capital (Washington, D.C.) is serviced by a lauded 'Metro' Subway System employing FOREIGN sourced hardware and technology!
This within a country who landed Mankind on another planetary body employing technology, techniques, treasure and risk deemed 'infantile folly' in 2009.
Clearly the current state of Rail System dysfunction represents an ill considered affront to America's forebears and future progeny!
Historical note, as a youngster I recall leadership in domestic Public Land Transportation, bus and rail hardware or systems, the accepted providence of todays bankrupt General Motors Corporation.
Commentary regarding our domestic Automobile and Truck industry or policies has been forwarded to appropriate Government and Media principles.
In closing, America demands a well functioning Transportation System employing an holistic approach to integration of disparate assets, industries and security for PUBLIC benefit!

[Tracy]

Public transit certainly has benefits but saving time is not always one of them. I live less than 10 miles from the downtown in my city, and my overall commute is 12 to 13 miles to my job downtown. We have a major bus and rail system in the metro area. If I take public transit it takes me 75 to 80 minutes each way to commute to work. If I drive I can get to work in 30 to 35 minutes. Neither I, nor many people I know, have an extra 90 minutes a day (round trip) to spend commuting. Maybe I can read while commuting on transit once on the bus/train, but if I drive I can use those same 90 minutes for whatever I need to do and not only reading.

Public transit is not a panacea, and for many people the time loss is too much. Time is a valuable resource and should be considered in the discussions of transit investments in the interest of accurate and complete analysis.

[Jesse]

Kudos to Secretary LaHood for sharing these impressive statistics on rail. I agree with you that rail is far more efficient than automobiles. And rail systems complement pedestrian/bicycle travel as well.

Even though I have a driver's license, I refuse to drive because I hate it. Automobile travel is bad for the environment and human body. I love walking, biking, and riding rail on a daily basis. Rail is far more pleasant and enjoyable.

We need more rail travel in this country! I hope the federal govt dedicates more money to rail travel. It's about time that rail gets the same amount of money as highways/roads, which receive roughly $42 billion annually.

Ray LaHood - Keep up the great work on rail systems and pedestrian/bike travel!

[michael willis]

The Michigan Central Railway Station (presently abandoned-adjacent to Interstate-75)could be the major hub for rail-transit/bus/taxi/limo/park&ride for Metropolitan Detroit and Windsor, Canada,(generating much needed urban-infrastructure-employment and post construction transport service jobs). A secondary hub located in the far East side of Detroit at the under-utilized Detroit-City-Airport(acres&acres of parking capacity, adjacent to Interstate-94))could be linked by rail to the Michigan Central Railway Station and Wayne County Metropolitan Airport(adjacent to Interstate-94), thus giving travelers EQUAL ACCESS to rail or air.

[Nathanael]

We need rail in busy corridors. Rail is good for moving a *whole bunch* of people. The more people, the longer the train -- it scales efficiently.

A congested road is a road which needs a rail line parallel to it-- it's usually as simple as that.

Buses are good when you're just not moving enough people along that route to fill up a big modern streetcar regularly. And when you're not moving enough people along that route to fill up the buses, *then and only then* should we be using cars (though when possible we should be able to walk or bike).

Of course people take a whole lot of "unpopular trips" like that -- but those are the trips on two-lane city streets and rural roads, not the expressway or boulevard trips.

But of course public transit is no good if it sucks. Local buses, stopping every block, are usually too slow to be worth even considering.

Rail has to be put on fast, direct routes, with stations spaced out appropriately so that trains can pick up speed. Stations also have to be located at good locations, within walking distance of lots of jobs or activities, or within walking or park-and-ride distance of lots of residents going to said jobs and activities.

Unfortunately public transportation planning has been damaged by a focus on reducing the *initial* capital cost. Often spending more upfront to get a better route will make for a more popular system which is cheaper to run. Double-tracking Baltimore Light Rail from day one would have saved a lot of time, trouble, and money. This is one reason the transportation funding schemes need to be changed; they give very inaccurate assessments of how worthwhile spending actually is.

For some reason highway funding never works that way -- huge sums are spent routinely to build massive interchanges and road widenings, even extremely unhelpful and unnecessary ones.

Of course, you have to check that you're spending to get a *better* route, not just doing something stupid. One example is in New York City. While new Hudson River rail tunnels are essential, they should go to Penn Station; the giant cavern station planned by NJ Transit under 34th Street is a waste of money.

Several studies have shown that a track connection between Penn Station and Grand Central Station, with through-running operation of the LIRR and NJT, and of Metro-North and NJT, would be well worth it and would eliminate any reason for the deep cavern station. In fact, through-running between the LIRR and NJT, with no track construction would eliminate most of the need for the 'new station' all by itself.

Through running and a rail link would eliminate overcrowding of trains at both stations (by replacing all 'reverse-peak' runs with through trains and eliminating reversing movements) *and* it would massively reduce overcrowding of passengers at both stations (because people could go direct to the station of their choice) *while* reducing pressure on the subway (currently used to interchange between the two parts of town), and it would be much cheaper to operate than the current system, to boot.

This is identical in design to the improvements made in Philadelphia ("Center City Connection"), Berlin ("Hauptbahnhof"), Paris ("RER"), and soon London ("Crossrail"). But of course this was thrown out of consideration because of turf wars. (It would also require retrofitting of a lot of trains with both third rail and catenary -- but this is entirely feasible, already having been done for Metro-North's New Haven Line, and rather cheaper than the deep cavern station.)

Which is why our rail system needs centralized, national or at least regional control and planning. A central government can plan Berlin's Hauptbahnhof; SEPTA, controlling almost all the rail lines in Philly, could plan the Center City Connection; the fragmented agencies in the New York City area can't make a comprehensive, unified rail plan.

Sigh. We have a very long way to go before we have a decent rail *or* mass transit system in this country.

[netdragon]

I think if we combine rail backbones with something like personal rapid transit and streetcars, the automobile won't be as necessary in large metros. Of course, as mentioned by a previous comment, it will probably still be needed in small towns, but it's efficient there. The automobile just doesn't make sense in large metros like Atlanta.

[rta]

While I agree that public transit is important and worthwhile, in my opinion it does not really solve all that much. My personal position is that instead of spending billions of $'s on capital projects for mass transit why not invest a minute fraction of that into promoting car and van pools? It's potentially a much more effective means of reducing congestion, requires no capital investment in new infrastructure, would have an immediate impact on air quality and would also have an immediate impact on the participants wallets (commuters and employers). The money we would not be investing in more questionable transit projects could instead be diverted to education or other areas where it could be used to create more jobs. Car and Van pools have the potential to cut our peak time congestion by as much as 50% for a capital investment of exactly $0. Car and Van pools would reduce the impact on our existing roads and infrastructure and would in turn reduce the ongoing costs associated with their upkeep. By getting more people into fewer cars we would reduce the number of traffic related accidents and the associated costs. We would also eliminate the political battles over who gets what, with the car and van pool concept everybody gets an equal benefit.

It just seems so simple and obvious. Am I missing something? Of course none of the approaches to traffic and congestion reduction are going to work as long as we keep building more and more free, or subsidized parking.

[Yolanda Caldera-Durant]

I am glad that as a nation we finally have a president who wants to have this dialogue and understands how vital it is for the U.S. to be globally competitive. For states that are overly developed, like CT for example, bus transit, shuttle service to and from fixed rail lines, and busy commercial routes need to be included in any national transportation planning. In addition, we also need to explore making our own trains and buses in the U.S. We are overly dependent on foreign production for these important vehicles. This could be a major part of the U.S. economy's recovery in the 21st Century.

[John Lawson]

Good news, but not yet even reflected on this web page, which has information links for air and road, but nothing for public transit information.

[Sue]

Do you like buses or trains? Would you use them if you could? Tell us what you think about public transportation. We want to change the way buses and trains help young people get to where they need to go. Take just a couple minutes to give us your thoughts on how we can improve transportation for you by going to the link below and answering a couple questions. Your opinion matters!!!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=SXANzMR34XwSLj4R5_2bNINQ_3d_3d

[Hasan Abdullah]

As a young recent graduate, I depend heavily on mass transit due to cost reasons and sustainability issues. I recently started an internship at a company called TransLoc (www.transloc.com) which creates interactive live bus maps for riders. I now take the bus to and from work on many days and will soon become an everyday rider.