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Serving a “Rainbow” Ridership – Designing and Providing High-Quality Public Transit for a Demographically
Diverse Population
Lyndon Henry
COMTO Conference
Austin, Texas
11 July 2006
“Rail for the rich, buses for the poor?”
Challenging Issue:
• Provide basic, affordable service for transit-dependent travelers (many lower-income or mobility-impaired)
• Provide high-quality service to attract more affluent urban and suburban travelers out of motor vehicles – to alleviate dependency on private motor vehicle transportation and to reduce demand for peak roadway and parking capacity
Objectives of major transit investments
• Investment in high-quality public transit improvements – particularly rail – seems to have paid off
• Has led the way to a dramatic revival of public transportation across the USA
“Rail carries a higher percentage of higher-income riders.”
“Clearly, more individuals with low incomes rely on bus service and more high-income individuals rely on rail service ….”
Criticism
Original bus route: 5,000 riders, 80% low-income…
= 4,000 low-income riders
New rail service: 12,000 riders, 50% low-income…
= 6,000 low-income riders … i.e., 2,000 ADDITIONAL low-income riders … 6,000 higher-income riders
This is bad?
Math Exercise
Does rail transit just suck resources (and passengers)
from the transit system?
Change in Ridership
Change in Passenger-Miles
Case Studies
• Los Angeles
• Denver
• St. Louis
• Minneapolis
• San Francisco (BART)
Los Angeles
• Rail investment program and 3-year transit fare rollback mandated by voters
• Bus Riders Union lawsuit resulted in Consent Decree addressing bus crowding
• Bus ridership 88.5% minority, rail ridership 84% minority
• Subsidy per passenger-mile lowest on rail, highest on bus
Los Angeles (continued)
Blue Line LRT
Green Line LRT
MetroRapid Rte. 720 Bus
Denver
• Approximately 53% of LRT passengers reported incomes at or below the median level
• Suggests “Rainbow Ridership”
Denver (continued)
St. Louis
• Proportion of ethnic minority riders on rail is quite high – i.e., 60%
• Number of ethnic minority and transit-dependent riders only 12% less than on parallel bus routes
• Rail attracting a “Rainbow Ridership”
St. Louis (continued)
Minneapolis
• 11% of LRT riders ethnic minority, 28% of bus riders
• 55% of LRT passengers reported incomes at or below median, compared with 73% of bus passengers…
= greater diversity
• 67% of rail riders vs. 64% of bus riders would have found some form of private motor vehicle transportation as alternative
• 31% or rail riders indicated they would need to transfer, compared with 45% of bus riders
Minneapolis (continued)
San Francisco (BART)
• Lawsuit complains Caltrain rail gets $13.79 per rider subsidy for clientele 60 percent white, BART rail gets $6.14 per rider subsidy for clientele 43 percent white, while AC Transit bus system gets $2.78 per rider subsidy for clientele 21 percent white
• Caltrain has 40% ethnic minority ridership, BART 57% minority – actually, a majority of riders
• Longer trip lengths on rail
• Subsidy per passenger-mile:
…Caltrain 68 cents
… BART 49 cents
… AC Transit 84 cents
San Francisco – BART (continued)
Conclusions
High-quality transit services, especially rail, attract middle- and higher-income ridership – “the very people who would otherwise make up the majority of automobile users, clogging freeways and streets and contributing to an increased need for expansive roadway expansion and construction of parking facilities”
Effectively serve two different types of service needs:
(1) Basic, affordable service for transit-dependent travelers
(2) High-quality service capable of attracting more affluent urban and suburban travelers out of their motor vehicles
• Higher-quality transit service actually produces a far more diverse ridership than is experienced with typical bus services alone
• Far from promoting inequity, these kinds of transit services foster a “Rainbow Ridership”
