Public transit is for losers. Fact is no matter what the price of gas is 1/3 of commuters will not give up their SOV (single occupant vehicle)… higher gas prices will just make cars smaller, same as the 70’s oil crisis.

TOD's (transit oriented developments) are not happening naturally because if you have kids, you're life is car based (taking a stroller on a bus is ghetto). Europe is exactly the same, except for smaller cars and better developed transit in the city cores (the greater city regions are car dependant just like North America).

MTA's Ridership Up With Gas Prices

By Hemmy So, Times Staff Writer, April 25, 2006

Soaring gas prices have prompted a higher number of commuters to use Metro buses and trains, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said Monday.

From January through March, ridership rose more than 11% on Metro trains and 7% on buses compared with the same period last year, the MTA said.

Citing past experience and statistics, the agency linked the increases to high gas prices, MTA spokesman Dave Sotero said.

"It does correlate with the increasing gas prices. We've seen that over several occasions," he said. "We're making an assumption that ridership gains are parallel with rising gas prices."

The MTA also has anecdotal evidence, he said: Metro parking lots are filling up earlier, and traffic on the MTA's website rose by 10% in March.

A $3 MTA day pass allows unlimited rides on Metro buses and rail lines. "When the price for a single gallon of gasoline equals that of a day pass, it becomes much more affordable for people," Sotero said of public transit in Los Angeles.

The Metro Red Line subway, which runs between North Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles, experienced the highest gains, with ridership up nearly 14% to 3.4 million average monthly boardings, during the January through March period.

The Metro Blue and Orange lines also saw significant growth. Ridership on Blue Line trains, which run between Long Beach and downtown Los Angeles, rose almost 11%, and the San Fernando Valley's Orange Line busway's 18,000 weekday passengers are about triple first-year ridership projections, the MTA said. The busway opened in October.

Thanks for the links, louismeier. I have been following this story for the past 10 years. During my junior year of high school in Milwaukee, my class studied the transit options that were on the table (road improvement, carpool lanes, light rail, etc). In fact, a reporter from the JournalSentinel interviewed our class, and I was quoted as saying that I didn't think "light rail was very necessary." (I was 16 - give me a break.)

A lot has changed in Milwaukee in the past 10 years, but I still don't think there is enough demand to support an extensive non-bus transportation system. It's not like 94 gets backed up for hours. I think I was stuck in a 30-second traffic jam once - that's it.

Howevever, I now live in DC and love taking Metro. As for its impact on architecture... I'll have to think more about that one...

Since public transit requires urban density if it is to replace, rather than augment, SOV travel, my hope is that increasing land value and fuel prices may work together to encourage increased density through market forces, since policy changes require political will that's not there as long as we focus only on the short term, and since they would be seen as a threat by large segments of the economy, who have entrenched intrest in the status quo.

That said, I strongly believe that all zoning should be eliminated, along with publicly mandated parking spaces and public funding of new roads (esp. highways).

Now that I think about it, there are some policy changes that have been quite effective on this front recently: witness Ken Livingstone's congestion charge in London. Incentives (or disincentives) do work! If only more American politicians had such chutzpah.

I'm not holding my breath for either the market forces or the policy changes in the USA. They are, of course, highly intertwined anyway, but I do dearly, dearly wish for the day when it's once again cheaper to live in a city than on its perifery, and when cars are once again a luxury.

Which do you all think will have the most effect in the long term? Policy or market forces? What about in the short term? I realize that it's a false dichotomy, unless you live in a place with no government, but it's something to think about.

I'm not sure what architects can do about encouraging mass transit, other than working to elect forward-looking politicians at all levels of government and leading by example. If you refuse to work on projects in the suburbs/exurbs, which I would do out of principle, that won't stop them from being built, as long as the demand (both real and perceived, "natural" and legislatively encouraged) remains. As long as we keep subsidizing private automobiles —through road-building, tax incentives for companies relocating to your suburbs, and, lest we forget the elephant in the room, our enormous expenditures on our oil-protecting war machine— the true costs of the way we live now will never be appreciated by the general public.
So lead by example! Ride your bike to work every day! Take the bus!

Check out: Hidden in Plain Sight - Capturing the Demand for Housing Near Transit and other research/publicatons from the Center for Transit Oriented Development, including their book The New Transit Town

Actually Queen of England getting my kid+stroller on and off a bus in Philly - even in snow - was easier than dealing with the damn multi-buckled carseat every time I need to make a stop.

Also, in my experience, bike commuting is wonderful if there is a designated place for the bikes to go. Car drivers are just so nasty, the bike commute can be more stressful than driving almost. But being on a bike path or at least in a designated lane is such a fun way to get to work.

Of course as assbackward (my favorite new screen name BTW) said, cars are soooo subsidized in our country, not only by public infrastructure. I recall a story about a guy who worked in the suburbs and biked to work in a free-standing office building. His employers did not provide bike locks, and would not allow him to bring his bike into the building. So he drove his beater truck to work on Monday and left it in a parking space all week, using its bumper to lock his bike to every day. Hilarious and so utterly stupid that an employer can provide a free 24/7 parking space (for a beat-to-hell eyesore of a car no less!) but nowhere to put a bike.

When I lived in Portland I recall employers could be reimbursed for reimbursing their emplyees for monthly transit passes. Don't know if that program is still in place.

I think Public Policy is the key here. Afterall, it is Public Policy that created this problem in the first place. Markter demands are just a convenient excuse to get us all to buy more cars.

The Connector isn't devised to address traffic on 94. It doesn't reach out to the western suburbs (or suburbs at all). It is designed to connect residential areas with work, link milwaukee attractions, and spur development. They want it to serve the people who live there and the people who visit. Eventually one line will extend to the airport (releaving some of the $25 taxi ride).

This proposal is being thought of in conjunction with a commuter rail line. Extending Chicago's metra train up from Racine into Milwaukee.

As for the bike commute, that's my method too. A great way to wake up in the morning.

Good points by all. If Milwaukee wants a good case study they can look to the west at the relatively new light rail in Minneapolis. Their estimates for ridership before opening have proven to be far too conservative, being eclipsed about 2 fold.

The route follows along a road that was quite derelict before the train and now is seeing much new residential growth. There are some mid-rise condo towers sprouting up on the southern end of the line between the airport and the mall. Downtown Minneapolis was in the midst of a condo boom before the light rail so I wouldn't account much downtown growth, but definately along the remainder of the line.

Due to its great popularity, plans for future commuter heavy rail lines have been reborn and a light rail link between Mpls & St. Paul is probably years ahead in planning. Granted, this is all expensive (1st line was $1B) but after getting one section, people start demaning more. The public now sees the benefit of it.

I'll agree with the Queen that it doesn't do a damn thing for traffic. Chicago has an excellent system and their traffic sucks, as does DC and even Portland. It does however have a profound benefit on development, property values, etc. I also agree that scrapping traditional zoning and other regulations would help create better urban environments, but disagree it will make people use public transit. In my opinion, only market forces have that power.