Do you know how the American Public Transit Association determined that mass transit use increased more than vehicle miles traveled in 2007?  I cannot find data from the Department of Transportation for the second half of 2007.

I have seen data on public transit miles traveled and personal vehicle passenger miles traveled through 2005.  This data shows that mass transit's share of miles traveled has continued to decline, and was about 1.5% in 2005.  That's down from a 1960 share of 7.1% and a 1975 share of 2.9%.  

Oh, and JD? Nice straw man. How about looking at the growth in road miles vs. growth in transit miles over the same time period? I might be wrong, but I'm thinking we built a few more roads than transit lines...funny how that'll drive down your miles traveled on transit, eh?

Why do you think we've built more roads than transit lines?  Could it be that's what people want?

The 45 mile Trinity Railway Express (TRE) connects Dallas, Irving, and Fort Worth Texas.  Its high speed trains are never full.  About 4,400 round trip passengers per day use it.

Interstate 30 and State Highway 183 connect the same cities, running parallel and nearby TRE.  Approximately 200,000 vehicles travel each way daily on these highways.

Why should north Texas build any more transit lines that won't be used?

We built highways for a half century, because we didn't understand what we were getting into--that congestion, pollution, and sprawl would be the result of such an unbalanced approach to transportation. What's that they say about doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results?

Oh, I agree that there is demand for the building of rail transit.  But there is just not enough demand for the use of rail transit once built.  Voters who favor mass transit either mistakenly believe they will use it or, more likely, mistakenly believe everyone else will use it.

I disagree that the pool for mass transit is tiny.  15% of the federal gasoline taxes collected from vehicle drivers is dedicated to mass transit funding.  Mass transit commuters are much more subsidized than highway commuters, who pay for most of their highways and all of their fuel.

I disagree that sprawl causes congestion.  Increasing population density causes congestion.  

Dallas-Fort Worth is probably the most sprawled major metropolitan area in the nation.  I drive 24 miles into the center of Dallas every day.  My commute time is under 35 minutes.  Each morning my wife drives across three suburbs, each with populations exceeding 100,000.  Her commute is also less than 35 minutes.

Los Angeles is the most dense metropolitan area in the U.S.  Most residents there would love to have a 35 minute commute.

The argument for trains has many parts, I'll just try a few here: 1) Oil prices will eventually go through the roof. Electrified rail, not diesel, is a way around this, which leads to 2) Rail can be part of the solution to mitigate global warming, assuming a) they are electric, b) the electricity comes from renewable sources; 3) definitely, as you point out, the main problem seems to be putting the buildings close together; I don't know what Dallas deals with this situation, and I don't know what happens to Dallas when gasoline heads toward $10 per gallon and finally, 4) as pointed out, transit has been starved compared to highway, which actually, has been starved compared to the military, financial bailouts, etc.  When bridges are collapsing, it doesn't seem appropriate to argue against at least maintaining existing infrastructure.  However, and maybe this is finally, 5) we have to decide as a society, what kind of urban structure we want.  Maybe people don't want it now, maybe they do, we need to have a general discussion about whether we want to move toward town/city centers instead of sprawl, and if we do, then trains need to be part of the mix, whether or not they pay off in the short-term -- this is a long-term problem.

Who is this "we" that has to decide where I am going to live?

Most home buyers have been deciding they want to live in suburbs for many decades.  They're still deciding this, even with rising gasoline prices.

The solution to reducing commuting travel is to move jobs close to housing.  That's exactly what is happening in Dallas, in Houston, in Phoenix, in Denver, in Atlanta.  I suspect it's happening in Chicago and Boston as well.  And in Paris and Milan.

Jon Ryan: "whether we want to move toward town/city centers instead of sprawl, and if we do, then trains need to be part of the mix"

Sprawl is a solution to congestion and pollution.  It is not a problem.

There is no reason why Dallas and Phoenix need to look like New York and Boston.

As I pointed out in a different post, putting office buildings outside of the city center is a recipe for greater energy use and longer commute times, not less, unless everybody who works in the office building lives in a particular community, which is doubtful.  I think simple graph theory would show that having a group of destinations in the middle of a circle minimizes travel from the periphery of the circle, while having destinations on the outside of the circle maximizes them, since because of sprawl everyone must be presumed to live in different areas.

The "we" that you referred to is simply the public, engaging in a society-wide discussion of the way we would like the future society to work -- which is exactly what we are doing here, I think.  I'm simply suggesting that it would be helpful if these kinds of discussions were a normal part of social conversation (yes, ha ha, lol).

It's a little hard to say that people "voted" for sprawl, and while certainly a large percentage of the public would prefer that, I don't know if they would when oil prices keep going up, or the climate is being changed as a result.  But the main point is that the original "sprawlification" of the country was never adequately discussed; when buying a nice house in exurbia is the only decent alternative for a family, I would hardly call that a choice.  

The decision to structure our living arrangements is fundamentally a social one, and should be participated in by the public.  That means that the government must be the instrument of public choice, because that is the government's job, as imperfect as it is.  So if the public consensus is that public transit and mixed use dense town/city centers are the way to go, then the government should be given the task, in partnership with the private sphere, to turn the society in that particular direction.

I disagree.  Theoretically, a central business district could minimize travel distance, but never travel time.  A significant amount of energy and time is wasted when commuters sit on congested freeways and congested access roads trying to squeeze into central business districts.

In practice, a central business district does not even minimize travel distance.  All across the nation, commuters have moved close to workplaces.  When workplaces are dispersed across a large geographical area, that's possible.  When workplaces are located close together, it is not.  There is simply not enough land in the immediate vicinity of central business districts to accomodate the type of housing which the nation's overwhelmingly prefer.

Would you have the government force families to live in housing arrangements they would not otherwise choose?  For me, freedom to live where one desires and where one can afford should trump all the goals of urban planners.  

But if the only alternative for good housing is the suburbs, I'm being "forced" to move to the suburbs as well.  The idea is to give people a choice -- which is made much more difficult by looming climate change and peak oil crises, because, rationally speaking, that should tilt the governmental encouragement -- not forcing -- of the buildup of town/city centers.

In NYC, it's easy to commute to a central business district because of the subway (and bus, even).  That's the beauty of high-capacity public transit, you can have lots of people living at a fair distance from their jobs, with very little energy or distance traveled for the commute.  And the commuter lines into NYC are also packed (as I can tell you from personal experience), so it's even possible to move people efficiently into a central district -- and I don't think it should be necessary to be as dense as NYC.

Sprawl does cause congestion. The per capita cost of congestion is far higher for residents of the Dallas and Houston metropolitan areas than it is in, say, New York. And the statement that Los Angeles is the densest metropolitan area is highly misleading. If you compute a weighted average, in order to reflect the density at which the average resident lives, New York is twice as dense as LA.

Frankly, I have no problem with cities building themselves as they choose. If Houston wants to continue to build itself in its current manner, then fine. I only ask that commuters pay the cost of the pollution they create, and that the federal government allow cities who'd like to build transit to have the same funding options as those who want to build highways.

You put driving and transit on a level playing field, and we'll see what the market actually wants.

First, let me apologize.  You are correct that new York is denser.  The Los Angeles PMSA is denser than any other in the U.S. - except for New York, Jersey City, and a couple of other PMSA'a in the greater New York area.  

Nevertheless, Los Angeles is very much denser than Dallas, Phoenix, Houston, and several other large, newer cities.  The denser, older cities in the U.S. - New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago - all have longer average commute times than do the sprawled cities of Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Denver, and Atlanta.

http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Products/Ranking/2003/R04T1 ...

Why are commute times shorter in sprawled cities than those in dense cities?  One major reason is because it is so easy to live close to workplaces in sprawled cities.

Mr. Avent, I have worked in New York, Philadelphia, Houston, and Dallas.  I have engineered peak hour express courier routes in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, and Dallas.  My employer depended on me to understand peak hour traffic congestion, and I performed that job very well.  Based on my experience, I can confidently write that congestion in the dense cities is much worse than that in sprawled cities.

Ryan, I do not dispute that transit ridership has increased.  After all, the U.S. working population has increased.  At the same time, billions have been spent to increase rail transit's reach.

My argument was that mass transit share has declined tremendously since 1960.  It has continued to decline even after the federal government began to syphon 15% of federal gasoline taxes away from highways and spend on mass transit.

Can you point to specific metropolitan areas where increased gasoline prices have limited growth in vehicle miles driven?  Are these metropolitan areas ones that are growing in population?  

You certainly do seem convinced that you are right and everyone else posting here is wrong. You are nearly obsessed with commute time as opposed to long term sustainability. Regardless, your comments are a good read.  It reminds me of listening to my father when he has too much Rush Limbaugh is his system. I especially liked the part where you gushed about how you and your wife have commutes that are under 35 minutes.  What a coincidence!  My commute is under 35 minutes as well!  Unless it rains.  Or snows.  Or construction projects muck up any route I can take.  Oh, yes, there are those traffic accidents that can turn the highway into a parking lot.  I am sure none of these things ever befall you or your wife.  And this does not even address the fact that our "35 minute" commutes are wholly dependent on wholly unreliable oil.  Even if you reject peak oil as a concept, it is rather more difficult to reject the fact that big oil producing countries tend to be a wee bit hostile towards the US of A.  If your car ever ceases to be a viable option, how are you going to get from Outer Suburbia to where you need to be?        

Living in the Twin Cities it is really hard not to chuckle when seeing someone claim that sprawl is a solution to anything.  The traffic here has not been helped even incrementally by our incredible sprawl.  As real estate has gone south and gas prices have gone up, the property values in outer ring suburbs have started to collapse.  I live with my wife and children in densely populated inner ring suburb Edina, MN.  Unfortunately my highly specific job is located in densely populated St. Paul, MN.  Here in ostensibly progressive Minnesota I can easily get to work via public transit right?  If I could I would sell one of our two cars today.  Light rail here takes you to the Mall of America, downtown Minneapolis, the airport and approximately 2 other places.  The buses are full and often have weirdly circuitous routes.  It would take 1 ½ to 2 hours for me to go 20 miles to work.  I have no choice but to drive here, whereas all of the times I have been in NYC I have never once driven a car.                

When you ask "Why do you think we've built more roads than transit lines?  Could it be that's what people want?", it really is touchingly naïve.  Or defiantly obtuse.  Or both.  Are you honestly suggesting that "people" have been given a choice?  Here in the Twin Cities, we watched a major bridge collapse recently.  Outside my office window is another bridge that has been classified as perilous.  It might get fixed next year.  Maybe. On my commute in I go through a science fiction scale highway expansion that will be filled to capacity the moment it is completed and will solve precisely nothing.  All of this is incomprehensibly expensive and largely self-defeating.  Light rail was voted in here, yet the State Legislature continues to pour endless amounts of tax dollars into the black hole labeled "Roads". I am having some trouble seeing the silver lining.  

Robert Moses tried to deal with this "problem", if I understand the situation correctly, by stuffing the boroughs with freeways, but his "vision" would have had to destroy the central city.

When I lived on the upper west side of NYC, I could get to my midtown office in 10 minutes.  NYC, and any city that developed its modern form before the automobile age, is much better adapted to transit, because rail was the dominant form, than sprawl cities; conversely, sprawl cities are better adapted to automobiles, at this point.   This may explain the disconnect going on here; clearly, more transit would be better for transit-oriented cities; the question is, is there a place for transit in sprawl cities, particularly if "we" want to move to a less energy-intensive form.

The simplest way to reduce energy consumption is to live close to one's workplace.  That can be accomplished two very different ways:

1. pack all jobs and housing into a very dense geographical area; or

2. disperse jobs and housing throughout a sprawled, much larger georgaphical area.

Increasing density leads to unwanted congestion.  Dispersal of housing and workplaces leads to shorter commutes for those who choose to live close to workplaces.  Can't help those who won't take advantage of the gift that sprawl provides,  of course.

As I understand it, the data on commute times I linked to includes all commuters - those who used personal vehicles as well as those who used mass transit.

When I worked for Chemical Bank in NYC, few people I worked with had commutes anywhere close the 10 minutes you enjoy.  That was 24 years ago, but I don't think commuting for Manhattan workers has improved.  The Census Bureau survey shows the average NY metro commute to be 38 minutes, the highest in the nation.  It shows the average commute for Dallas to be just 24 minutes, lower than my own commute of 35 minutes.

I'm not sure how to read the commuter statistics, although I'm looking for ones dealing with transit.  NYC is the biggest economic area in the US, so it stands to reason that there would be a lot more people coming in, so the congestion would be worse -- which is one reason they are considering congestion pricing.  There are also people who come into NYC who are scattered even 2 hours away, so again, I'm not sure how to take those figures.  

If you're in a dense area like NYC, and you are going to a job in NYC, and you're near a subway, not only is the commute shorter, but your need for any form of transport is vastly decreased because you can simply walk to a store.  That is simply not possible in a sprawled area.

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to believe an industry lobbying association is presenting an objective argument when it states:

"there is one root cause of congestion: too many vehicles crowding available road space coupled with a lack of travel options."

Yes, our nation's road funding has lagged the demand for roads.  Gasoline taxes have not kept pace with inflation and with increases in vehicle fuel efficiency.  Further, mass transit now syphons away 15% of highway funds.

It should be no surprise that the "solution" prescribed by the mass transit lobbyist is to put more money into mass transit.  The solution for teh highway lobby would be to put more money into highways.  Want to read some of highway propaganda just to get a balance of views?

Not sure I understand what you mean.  The whole inhabited country is already covered by roads.  That's why rubber-tire vehicles - whether personal or public - are so much more efficient than trains.  A motorcycle, a Prius, an SUV, a van, a bus, an ambulance, a fire truck, or a police car can reach every home and business in the nation right now.  To do the same with trains would require trillions in capital spending - and still leave us with a requirement for roads.

Please don't misunderstand the meaning of my posts.  I am not opposed to mass transit - just to trains.  I road express buses in Houston 30 years ago.

http://www.globaltelematics.com/pitf//newdirections.htm

Here's what is incredibly stupid.  A new light rail extension is being built - at a cost of a couple of $billion - to serve the northwest corridor of Dallas.  That corridor is already being served by express buses, which will be eliminated when light rail service is available.  Because of the number of rail stops along the soon-to-be built light rail extension, bus commuters travel times will increase.  Why are they doing this extension?  Because the suburban cities along that corridor have been paying for light rail for 20 years.

I also agree with him that for many if not most communities wishing to reduce their dependence on automobile transit, buses are the way to go. Here are some thoughts on that:

1. Steel wheels on track may be more efficient but there is a difference between efficiency and efficacy. Buses offer vastly greater flexibility both in geography and in timing of service. It's extraordinarily easy to lay on specially intensive bus service for, say, a major sporting event. Light rail - not so much.

2. Buses can be routed to serve existing needs. The huge capital investment of light rail tends to generate relatively expensive new development - condos and offices - rather than servicing existing (poorer, older) neighborhoods. Where it does connect with older communities it can produce the social ills of gentrification. Poorer residents with the greatest public transportation needs get displaced away from the transit stops.

3.  Bus systems can operate a wide range of vehicle scales over the same infrastructure and with the same personnel, from large articulated units down to nimble 16-passenger jitneys.

4. Buses have the potential for huge gains in energy and operational efficiency from new technology. Hybrid diesel/electric engines with regenerative braking are obviously the future of stop/start city bus services (that's not even counting fixed-route all-electric trolley buses). On-the-fly radio dispatching has been used in European cities for years to optimize service and reroute buses around congestion. GPS tracking systems are providing up-to-the-minute service updates for users, even via cell-phone alerts, which offers huge benefits in convenience and personal safety.

The buses also need to be quiet and not "smelly", i.e., mostly electric.  It helps if there are overhead electric lines -- but then we're talking about "fixing" the lines once again.  And it also helps considerably to have bus-only lanes -- but if they are set off by dividers, again, that's more "fixing".

So clearly there are a whole set of grades of public transit, and at some point BRT looks very much like light rail.  My sense at this point is that light rail makes sense mostly were you almost have the density for subway -- but you don't want to dig one or have an elevated system.

BRT generally uses existing highway corridors.  I'm not sure why "quiet" matters, unless one insists that BRT be accompanied by high density housing.

Right now, an all-electric BRT system would probably require a huge investment in dedicated power lines.  Implementing a diesel BRT along HOV lanes is much, much cheaper and much faster to implement.  Those who wish to reduce the congestion and carbon impact of personal automobiles should think about achieving the most bang for the bucks.

If - or when - electric buses can operate without dedicated power lines, then I agree electric power should be the preferred option.