[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%

[KC Burke]

Comparing a public transportation right of way to an extra traffic lane shows that it typically carries 20% of what the traffic lane would carry and costs 5 to 15 times as much. The ridership may be growing by percentage, and even in numbers, but it is still a very small percentage.

There are some land locked major cities where it is a very sensible use of public money. But the urge of the next 50 cities in size to latch onto the Federal teat of Mass Transit money is often a boondoggle for airport authorities and trade unions that local politicians want to pay off with government projects (pork) that they can bring to their local economies.

Often, short-sightedly.