Transportation
What's Behind Declining Transit Ridership Nationwide?
Pick a culprit: The rise of ride-hailing services, budget cuts, cheap oil, or bad service.
New York City’s subway system has posted its first dip in ridership since 2009, according to data from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The news follows a news week full of reported transit passenger declines in Los Angeles and San Francisco. And, for years, nearly every city in the U.S. (with a few notable exceptions) has posted negative percent changes, too.
Which raises two questions as old as public transit itself: Where do the riders go, when they go? And how can cities bring them back?