Four (or Five!) Reasons Why

…Surging Oil Is Hurting Public Transportation

1. Unlike their European counterparts, North American cities have been designed and built around the car. Residential areas, particularly in the suburbs, are hard to meaningfully serve with public transportation as they were constructed without this in mind. As more people consider alternative forms of transportation with surging gas prices, the warts of current systems become apparent.

2. While city officials around the continent are urging people to use public transportation, many commuters are finding that existing infrastructure is not up to the task. Many cities are seeing little slack in their systems and capacity needs to be increased in the face of rising demand. In San Francisco, for example, commuters are finding trains more packed than ever, leading officials to experiment with removing seats on some cars to make more room more riders.

3. You have to worry when politicians get involved. John McCain recently proposed repealing the federal gas tax ($28 savings per person for the three-month moratorium), with seemingly little consideration about the impact on public transportation. The American Public Transportation Association recently responded by noting that, “At a time when more and more Americans are using public transportation to beat the high cost of gas, the federal government needs to increase its investment in public transportation. If instead, the gas tax was suspended for the summer, it would eliminate $1.4 billion of federal funding for public transportation and severely restrict the industry’s ability to add and improve transit services for a growing number of Americans.”

4. More expensive oil means more expensive operating costs, which leads to either higher fares or reduced service levels.

5. Public transportation systems have not been designed to be more than utilitarian. There’s needs to be a dialog about how to make it more enjoyable and convenient, not just about how to move more people around. The question remains as to whether the motivation exists for governments to make the required investment.

More: Take a quick look at “The Role of Public Transport To Reduce Green House gas Emissions and Improve Energy Efficiency” by the UITP European Union Committee. The graphs on pages 2 and 3 are enlightening!

More more: Toronto seems to be suffering as well. Article here.