US Urban Public Transport:
1990-1995 Ridership
By Metropolitan Area

CONTENTS

HIGHLIGHTS: 1990-1995

Summary: Public transport ridership and ridership per capita continue to decline in the United States. The decline is widespread, though there are areas in which substantial increases are occurring (Las Vegas, up 288 percent, Orlando up 68 percent and Denver up 23 percent). The largest decreases are occuring in the metropolitan areas with the greatest public transport ridership.

• In metropolitan areas of more than 1,000,000 population, the 1990-1995 ridership decline of 534 million annual boardings now exceeds the loss during the entire decade of 1980 to 1990. This is in the face of inordinately high ridership in 1980, which resulted from the petroleum allocation crises 1n 1979-1980 (Chart: Ridership: Metropolitan Areas over 1,000,000).
  
  
• The annual rate of decrease in boardings has more than doubled, to -1.5 percent compared to the -0.7 annual rate of the 1980-1990 decade (Chart: Annual Change: 1980s v. 1990s).
  
  
• The annual rate of decrease in boardings per capita has increased to 2.6 percent, compared to the 1.9 percent annual reduction in the 1980-1990 decade (Chart: Annual Change: 1980s v. 1990s).
  
  
• The St. Louis 1995 boarding figure appears to be artificially high in relation to 1990. The increase in St. Louis boardings include a significant number of forced transfers to from bus to the light rail line that was opened during the period. As a result, the passenger mile data is considered more reflective of the trend, an increase of 1.1 percent (though there may have been a small decline in passenger journeys). See: Analysis of St. Louis Trend Factoring Out Light Rail Double Counting

Population: The total population of the 44 US metropolitan areas (hereafter refereed to as "metropolitan") with more than 1,000,000 residents increased by 5.6 percent. The population in other areas increased 5.6 percent, while the national population increase was 5.4 percent (Table #1).

Ridership: Annual public transport boardings dropped by 534 million annually in metropolitan areas --- a decline of 7.3 percent. Boardings rose 105 million in other areas, for an increase of 23.2 percent. Nationally, total boardings dropped 429 million, for a reduction of 5.5 percent (Table #2).

Annual Per Capita Ridership: Annual metropolitan per capita boardings dropped from 53.3 to 46.8, down 12.2 percent. In other areas, per capita boardings rose from 4.0 to 4.7 for an increase of 17.3 percent. Nationally, boardings dropped from 31.0 to 27.8, a drop of 10.3 percent (Table #3).

Ranking of Ridership: The New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island metropolitan area continues to use public transport most intensively, with more than 2.5 billion annual boardings per capita --- down 9.7 percent from 1990 (Table #4). New York and six other metropolitan areas (Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Boston) comprise more than 70 percent of the nation's public transport ridership. Ridership declined at all of these seven systems. The largest system to register an increase was 9^th ranked Seattle.

Ranking of Per Capita Ridership: New York has the highest annual boardings per capita, at 127.5 --- down 11.1 percent from 1990 (Table #5). The second highest per capita ridership is achieved by a metropolitan area with less than 1,000,000 people, Honolulu, at 83.2, down 5.4 percent since 1990 (Table #7). Other metropolitan areas with greater than 50 per capita annual boardings are San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose (67.5, down 6.9 percent), Washington-Baltimore (66.7, down 8.5 percent), Chicago-Gary-Kenosha (63.6, down 24.5 percent), Boston-Worcester-Lawrence (59.5, down 5.6 percent), New Orleans (57.0, down 10.9 percent) and Philadelphia-Wilmington-Atlantic City (56.6, down 10.3 percent). No metropolitan area except for Honolulu with less than 1,000,000 population has per capita annual boardings exceeding 30.

Ranking of Change in Per Capita Ridership: Per capita ridership increased in nine of the 44 metropolitan areas.

• Las Vegas produced the greatest increase, at 190.4 percent, while Orlando increased 47.6 percent. Denver (9.2 percent), Sacramento (7.8 percent), Miami (5.4 percent) and Portland (5.1 percent) all achieved increases of greater than five percent.
  
  
• The largest declines in annual per capita ridership occurred in Kansas City (-25.8 percent), Cincinnati (-25.9 percent), Detroit (-26.2 percent), Austin (-27.9 percent) and Nashville (-31.0 percent). Among the seven largest systems, Chicago experienced the greatest decline, at 24.5 percent.

Change in Ridership by Quartile: The top quartile of metropolitan areas (11) experienced an 8.6 percent reduction in ridership. The second quartile lost 5.3 percent. The third quartile experienced an increase of 7.0 percent, however the increase in the Las Vegas system alone was greater than the increase for this quartile (which includes Las Vegas). The fourth quartile lost 2.2 percent. Other areas experienced an increase of 23.2 percent in ridership.

Quartile Analysis of Ridership: The 44 metropolitan areas comprise 92 percent of the nation's public transport ridership. The top quartile of metropolitan areas (11) includes 77 percent; the second quartile 10 percent, the third four percent and the fourth 1.6 percent (Chart: Distribution of Ridership).