According to the American Public Transit Association, or APTA, our fellow countrymen and women took 10.3 billion trips on public transportation in 2007, the highest level in 50 years. That’s a 2.1% increase over the previous year. The organization chalks the increase up to high gas prices, woeful gridlock and expanded service. Light-rail service saw the highest ridership increase with 6.1 percent. In areas with a population of less than 100,000 people, bus ridership increased 6.4 percent. That’s worth taking into account for the metro region’s outlying areas that may be looking into improving mobility for its residents and making better use of the roads that are already available.
The association also says:
- Communities who choose to invest in public transportation reduce the nation’s carbon emissions by 37 million metric tons annually — equivalent to the electricity used by 4.9 million households. To achieve a similar reduction in carbon emissions, every household in New York City, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Denver and Los Angeles combined would have to completely stop using electricity.
- This “leverage effect†of public transportation, supporting efficient land use patterns saves 4.2 billion gallons of gasoline — more than three times the amount of gasoline refined from the oil we import from Kuwait.
This news arrived in my inbox literally minutes after reading this on The Arc of Time, an excellent local blog that showcases, among other things, one Atlantan’s experiences riding MARTA on a daily basis.
From today’s post:
i continue to be bemused by how long it took me to discover the beauty of commuting this way and wonder aloud why others haven’t either. every morning i look out of the windows of the bus/train and watch the cars plying their way along the highway. i know the frustration and boredom that all of those drivers are bound for. and i know they are now paying north of $3.50 per gallon, which is now something like 17.5 cents per mile, just for gas. the irrationality of entrenched habits sometimes knows no bounds — at least that was true in my case.
speaking of savings, i also won another $25 from the clean air campaign’s commuter rewards program last month. two months in a row.
That’s poetry and progress.
