The Benefits Of Urban Mass Transit
Where the automobile is a major competitor to mass transportation, the use of transit has declined, reducing revenues available to pay the costs of these systems and services, and—in a setting where government subsidies are essential for sustaining mass transit—political support has eroded as well. As more people rely on the automobile, their interest in directing public resources to improving the highway system dominates their concern for subsidizing transit.
For those who can use the automobile for quick and reliable transportation, this trend simply represents the evolution of urban transport from collective riding to individual riding, from the economies of sharing a relatively high-speed service in a corridor where travel patterns are similar or the same, to the privacy of one’s own “steel cocoon,” which can go anywhere, anytime, without the need to coordinate travel plans with the schedule and routes of a transit operator attempting to serve large groups of people. The automobile has captured a large share (more than 95 percent by 1983) of urban trips in the United States, and only in some cities of more than two million people does the mass transportation share reach or exceed 10 percent of the trips.
If the automobile provides superior service for the majority of riders, why not let the market operate without government intervention, perhaps leading to the demise of transit? While this has happened in some medium-size and small American cities, mass transportation can be important for a number of reasons.
First, some portion of the urban travel market is made up of people who cannot use the automobile to travel because they are handicapped, elderly, or too young to drive. Some people cannot afford to own and operate a car, and the young, the old, and the handicapped often fall into this category. If these people are to have the mobility essential for subsistence and satisfaction in their lives, some form of public transportation is necessary.
Second, transit provides a community with a way to move potentially large numbers of people while consuming fewer resources. A single bus, if it is full (50 to 80 passengers), can carry as many people as 50 or 60 cars, which normally operate with fewer than 2 occupants. The bus requires less street space, equivalent to 2 or 3 automobiles, and, when it is full, it requires much less energy to move each person. Because emissions from internal-combustion engines are proportional to fuel consumption, a full bus will produce less pollution per person-trip than an automobile. Finally, because they are operated by professional drivers, buses have a lower accident rate than automobiles. Electric rail rapid transit trains produce even less air pollution and are far safer per person-trip than either automobiles or buses.
Typical capacities of urban mass transportation modes
vehicle type | guideway type | persons per vehicle | "train" length | "trains" per hour | average speed | passengers per hour | |||
seated | crowded | low | high | low | high | ||||
auto | streets | 1.2 | 3 | 1 | 450 | 900 | 20 | 540 | 2,700 |
auto | freeways | 1.2 | 3 | 1 | 900 | 1,800 | 30 | 1,080 | 5,400 |
bus | streets | 50 | 80 | 1 | 1 | 60 | 8 | 50 | 4,800 |
bus | separate | 50 | 80 | 1 | 1 | 30 | 20 | 50 | 2,400 |
light rail | streets | 80 | 100 | 3 | 6 | 30 | 10 | 1,440 | 9,000 |
light rail | separate | 90 | 120 | 4 | 4 | 30 | 25 | 1,440 | 14,400 |
heavy rail | separate | 100 | 120 | 8 | 4 | 40 | 30 | 3,200 | 38,400 |
commuter rail | separate | 100 | 150 | 10 | 1 | 12 | 35 | 1,000 | 18,000 |
These benefits accrue not only to transit travelers but also to other residents and to the owners of land and businesses. Indeed, a major benefit of mass transportation services goes to automobile travelers, who experience less congestion and shorter travel times. There is no monetary market for these broadly distributed public goods produced by mass transportation. There is no practical way to sell clean air or lower accident rates to city dwellers to raise funds to subsidize and expand mass transit or to restrict access to these benefits only to those who pay for them. Some communities do raise revenues for transit and other purposes by levying special fees on properties particularly well-served by fixed-guideway transit (for example, in downtown areas or near rail stations) to capture some of the increased value produced by raising their accessibility with public transportation.
These public transportation benefits provide the justification for government subsidies. Their generation is strongly dependent on the utilization of mass transportation. The heavier the use of public transit, the larger will be the benefits produced. Yet even if only a small portion (5–10 percent) of the travel market uses transit in the rush hours, a major reduction in congestion can result. On the other hand, buses and trains running nearly empty in the middle of the day, during the evening, or on weekends do not produce sufficient benefits to the community to justify the high costs to provide these services.