[KC Burke]

There is efficiency and common sense to look at bus lanes and HOV lanes and related improvements to produce mass transit. However, most of the light rail and similar systems have had Rider Usage fall 66 to 85% below initial forecasts and capital expense run 15 to 50% over projections thus yielding a cost per rider times the forecast that most of these things are built from.

A study by Heritage Inst. in '98 says:

While commanding 20 percent of federal surface transportation dollars, public transit today provides only 3.19 percent of the daily trips to work, down 20 percent since 1990. By 1995, more people walked or bicycled to work (2.33 percent and 0.43 percent) than went to work by bus or metro (1.76 percent and 0.9 percent). The chief reason transit's share of the federal budget exceeds its share of the market is its high cost. According to the Congressional Budget Office, commuter vans cost 12.5 cents per mile, and buses 35 cents, while light rail systems cost a staggering $3.40 per commuter mile—nearly ten times more than buses and 27 times more than vans.

Transit's minuscule share of the commuting market is not for want of trying or the result of underfunding. Since 1960, state, federal, and local governments have invested an estimated $350 billion (in 1998 dollars) in transit. Over that same period, however, American commuters have been rejecting this turn-of-the-century transportation technology at the same pace as past generations.

[Willie Green]

Over 14 million people use public transportation on a typical weekday, a 20% increase since 1995. Public transportation delivered more than 9 billion trips in 1999, representing the highest level of ridership in nearly 40 years. Most significant is that public transportation ridership rose at a faster rate than automobile use (2 percent) and domestic air travel (3 percent) in 1999.

The majority of people using public transportation take two trips per day (one to work in the morning and one home in late afternoon or evening). A small proportion--perhaps 5%--make only one public transportation trip (e.g., they ride public transportation to the airport and then fly out of town, or they ride public transportation in the morning to work, but ride home with a friend in an automobile at night). A somewhat larger proportion (primarily the public transportation-dependent) take 4, 6, 8, or even 10 trips per day.

Purpose of Public Transportation Trips by Population Group

POPULATION OF URBANIZED AREA/ URBAN PLACE	WORK	SCHOOL	SHOPPING	MEDICAL	SOCIAL	OTHER
Under 50,000	20%	9%	8%	34%	27%	2%
50,000-199,999	39%	22%	12%	6%	9%	12%
200,000-500,000	46%	19%	13%	5%	8%	9%
500,000-999,999	51%	15%	11%	5%	6%	12%
1 million and more	55%	15%	9%	5%	9%	7%
NATIONAL AVERAGE	54%	15%	9%	5%	9%	8%