There is No Renaissance in Public Transit Use

MinnPost ^ | 4-9-14 | Katherine Kersten

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Are we seeing a renaissance in public transit use by Americans? The answer is yes, if you believe a new report from the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), the transit industry's lobby group.

In fact, APTA's report is a textbook example of how deceiving statistics can be.

The report states that in 2013, the number of transit trips was nearly 10.7 billion nationally--the highest since 1956, according to APTA. Michael Melaniphy, APTA's CEO, hailed what he called "a fundamental shift" in how Americans choose to get around.

But even strong supporters of public transit like Michael Manville, David King and Michael Smart, of Cornell, Columbia and Rutgers Universities, respectively, label APTA's numbers "deceptive." Most transit use occurs in a "handful of dense cities"; New York City alone accounts for a third of all transit travel, they say.

Though U.S. transit trips increased by 115 million in 2013, they add, trips in New York City rose by 123 million. Their conclusion? Transit use outside New York actually “declined in absolute terms last year.”

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And this latest ‘summer of recovery’ will see the jobless rate at a new record low.

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High Speed to Insolvency-Why liberals love trains.

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/27/high-speed-to-insolvency.html

To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they—unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted—are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make.

Time was, the progressive cry was "Workers of the world unite!" or "Power to the people!" Now it is less resonant: "All aboard!"

Will nailed it.