Are we building too little transit and is it too late? Yonah Freemark provided a report this month indicating that cities across the United States added more than 1,200 miles of expanded transit service between 2000 and 2019. He goes on to indicate that all that construction is not keeping up with the need. These 1,200 miles of new transit service cost more than $47 Billion ($39 million per mile).
The growth and mileage of quality bus lines has not been matched by the spending local, state, and national government agencies have dedicated to transit. Indeed, over the past decade, only about 8% of transit expansion funds have been allocated to arterial rapid transit or Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) projects.
Unfortunately, what is unquestionably true is that American cities have under invested in expanded quality bus lines.
Remember that the average American consumer spends over $8,400 a year on automobile transit. It is well-known that ridership on public transportation throughout much of the U.S. has declined substantially over the past decade. One explanation is that many new American transit routes are poorly designed, inadequately integrated into urban development projects, and focus more on low density suburban areas than urban neighborhoods that are likely to attract more riders. This is coupled with the fact that American cities and states continue to invest in new roadways and need to do so because of the increase in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and the increase in automobiles.
Dedicated lane transit expansions are most likely to actually improve people’s commuting habits because they’re less likely to get stuck behind traffic. Dedicated bus rapid transit (BRT) lanes must be a major part of any transit expansion. The costs of removing parking signs and removing automobile lanes are actually the low-hanging fruit if you really and truly want to expand the use of public transit and discourage commuters from self-driving.
Over the past decade, the United States produced less than one-fifth of the dedicated lane transit mileage as France on a per capita basis, and about 50% less than Canada.
It is believed that every reasonable-sized city and county in the country should be identifying corridors for bus rapid transit, reallocating street space for that purpose, and reconsidering roadway expansion. The speed of implementing such improvements has been far too slow given the poor quality of most bus service throughout our country and the relatively low cost of making these changes and improvements.