Neighborhood Notes

Public transit is a big part of our neighborhood with both the streetcar and buses operating here. If you live here, my guess is its likely you are in favor of mass transit. You understand the benefits, use it at sometime or another, and believe that more mass transit is a good thing.

It seems that gas prices are driving more people to public transit.

Two recent articles, one in The Oregonian the other in The New York Times, highlight sharp increases in riders since gas prices reached $3.50 per gallon. It appears that money is a big motive for people to turn to public transit.

Many argue that cars are still the most economical means of transportation. On Portland Transport you can read all kinds of arguments showing cost per passenger mile and other measures to prove that cars are more economical than streetcars or buses. What these people never address is how to reduce congestion and where to put all the cars. They also base their calculations on a relatively low price of fuel.

It seems that more people find public transit a viable alternative, given the current high price of gas. Ridership is up on Trimet, gas sales have dropped, and miles driven have dropped. All this while the population and number of jobs has increased.

If gas prices drop we will see people move back to driving. This is a cycle that has occurred in the past. The numbers, however, show a definite trend in Portland to use cars less and public transit more. Lets hope this continues even if gas prices decline significantly (I’m not holding my breath that they will).

Public transit is about more than cost per passenger mile. It is about livability. We already know that more cars means more congestion, more time spent stuck in traffic, more pollution, and more sprawl. Public transit can relieve the pressure from all of those.

Read The Oregonian article.

Read The New York Times article.