Americans Take More Than 10 Billion Trips on Public Transportation for the First Time in Almost Fifty Years

Over the last decade, public transportation’s growth rate outpaced the growth rate of the population and the growth rate of vehicle miles traveled on our nation’s highways.

Locally, ridership on AATA fixed-route service increased 9.4 percent from 2005 to 2006, reaching a record 5,397,987 trips. Including demand response service, AATA provided 5,559,141 trips for an overall increase of 8.9 percent.

“Reaching this milestone is a result of the quality of service we provide in helping people get to destinations important to them,” said AATA Executive Director/CEO Greg Cook. “In addition, many riders realize the benefits of saving money from rising fuel costs and avoiding congestion. They also like knowing that their transportation choice is contributing to help reduce global warming and America’s dependence on foreign oil.”

Public transit use is up 30 percent since 1995. That is more than double the growth rate of the population (12 percent) and higher than the growth rate for the vehicle miles traveled on our roads (24 percent) during that same period. In 2006, public transit ridership grew 2.9 percent over 2005. To put the 10.1 billion public transportation trips in perspective, transit trips outnumber domestic airline trips by 15 to one.

“Public transportation is a proven way to meet our national, regional and local transportation goals,” said Cook. “As Congress and our state and local elected officials look to find ways to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil, we call on them to increase investment and include incentives to encourage further increases in transit ridership.”