Since 1970, the number of workers needed to operate America’s public transit systems has increased by 180 percent while the inflation‐adjusted cost of operating buses, light rail, and heavy rail (the only modes whose costs are known back to 1970) increased by 195 percent. Yet ridership on those modes increased by only 32 percent.
Flickr photo by Bradlee9119.
Each transit worker produced 53,115 transit trips in 1970, but only 26,314 trips by all modes in 2008. The real cost per rider grew by 124 percent, while subsidies (fares minus operating costs) grew by more than 8 times. Though capital cost data prior to 1992 are sketchy, capital costs also grew tremendously, almost certainly by more than operating costs. By any measure, then, transit productivity has declined more than 50 percent. “It’s uncommon to find such a rapid productivity decline in any industry,” noted the late University of California economist Charles Lave.
(All transit data are from the 2010 Public Transportation Fact Book, tables 1, 12, and 38. 1970 dollars adjusted for inflation using the GDP deflator.)