To: tejek who wrote (774832 ) 3/14/2014 1:20:32 PM From: Brumar89 Respond to It turns out that all of the increase in transit ridership took place in New York City transit in the rest of the nation declined by 8 million trips. light-rail and bus ridership both declined in Portland , which is often considered the model for new transit investments. Light-rail ridership grew in Dallas by about 300,000 trips, but bus ridership declined by 1.7 million trips . Charlotte light rail gained 27,000 new rides in 2013, but Charlotte buses lost 476,000 rides. Declines in bus ridership offset part or all of the gains in rail ridership in Chicago, Denver, Salt Lake City, and other cities. Rail ridership declined in Albuquerque, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Sacramento, and on the San Francisco BART system, among other places . construction of expensive transit projects with federal funds is not guaranteed to boost transit ridership . In many cases, overall transit ridership declines because the high costs of running the rail systems forces transit agencies to cut bus service its associate members are rail contractors who depend on federal grants to build obsolete transit systems. Light-rail lines being planned or built today cost an average of more than $100 million per mile, while some cities have built new four-lane freeways for $10 million to $20 million per mile, and each of those freeway lanes will move far more people per day than a light-rail line. Transit only carries about 1 percent of urban travel, yet it already receives more than 20 percent of federal surface transportation dollars . Since most of those federal dollars come out of gas taxes, auto drivers are being forced to subsidize rail contractors, often to the detriment of low-income transit riders whose bus services are cut in order to pay for rail lines into high-income neighborhoods cato.org
