Transit Ridership

During the 19th century, changes in public transport technology shaped transit affordability and ridership in the United States. In the 1820s and 1830s, only wealthy individuals could afford to ride the first type of public transport in U.S. cities—horse-drawn rectangular boxes on wheels called omnibuses. Steam railroads, initially introduced in the 1830s, were able to lower operating costs over time and by the middle of the 19th century became affordable for the middle class for commutes from the suburbs to the city center.

The horse-drawn railcar—essentially a horse-drawn omnibus on rails—and later the electric streetcar made urban transit within cities affordable for all but the poorest. Replacement of streetcars with motorbuses began in the early 1900s. Overall, public transport in the United States experienced a steady growth in passengers until the 1920s, when ridership declined during the Great Depression that saw high unemployment and bankruptcy of transit systems.

After initial declines in patronage during the 1920s and 1930s, public transport ridership surged during World War II. Public transport reached its peak ridership with about 16 million passengers per year during that time. The rise in transit use during the war was fostered by wartime fuel and tire rationing and the use of automobile factories to construct military vehicles instead of automobiles.

The decline of transit demand that had started in the 1920s and 1930s was only interrupted during World War II, however. After the end of the war, in the face of rapid suburbanization and skyrocketing automobile ownership, demand for public transport in the United States fell sharply, from 16 billion passengers per year in 1945 to 5 billion passengers per year in 1973. Moreover, in many parts of the country, public transport, and especially buses, became the mode of transport of last resort. Ridership was often limited to those who could not afford an automobile.

Since the 1970s, public transport demand has increased steadily and reached 7 billion passengers per year in 2010. Fluctuations in public transport ridership between 1973 and 2010 were related to economic cycles and gasoline prices, with higher levels of ridership during economic booms and periods with higher prices for gasoline.

In 2010, Americans made about 25 trips by public transport per year. This compares with much higher levels of transit ridership in Switzerland (237 trips per year), Germany (139), Sweden (139), the United Kingdom (116), Belgium (100), Norway (96), France (87), Spain (78), Finland (73), Italy (65), and the Netherlands (51). Even Canadians, America's neighbors to the north, made twice as many transit trips per year (51).

In spite of increasing total ridership annually, public transport in the United States has not increased in terms of share of trips, because of a still growing number of trips by automobile. As a result, since the 1970s, public transport in the United States has accounted for roughly 2 percent of all trips.

By contrast, public transport's market share in Europe is much higher, reaching 10 percent in countries such as Germany, Sweden, Great Britain, and Norway, and 5 percent to 10 percent in the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, and France. In Switzerland, over 20 percent of all trips are by public transport. In Canada and Australia, public transport accounts for 1.5 to two times higher shares of regular commuters than in the United States. Trends are also more favorable in European countries and Canada, where public transport has increased its share of all trips over the last two decades.

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