Gas Prices Send Surge of Riders to Mass Transit - New York Times

stoweboyd — Sat, 10 May 2008 07:13:13 PDT

"“It’s very clear that a significant portion of the increase in transit use is directly caused by people who are looking for alternatives to paying $3.50 a gallon for gas.” Some cities with long-established public transit systems, like New York and Boston, have seen increases in ridership of 5 percent or more so far this year. But the biggest surges — of 10 to 15 percent or more over last year — are occurring in many metropolitan areas in the South and West where the driving culture is strongest and bus and rail lines are more limited. Here in Denver, for example, ridership was up 8 percent in the first three months of the year compared with last year, despite a fare increase in January and a slowing economy, which usually means fewer commuters. Several routes on the system have reached capacity, particularly at rush hour, for the first time. “We are at a tipping point,” said Clarence W. Marsella, chief executive of the Denver Regional Transportation District, referring to gasoline prices." That's all it takes to get people to move from the car culture to one that is more sustainable: raise the price of gas. So clearly, if the feds want to channel behavior in the right way we should start to slowly, slowly increase taxes on gas, and divert the money to building more mass transit.

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Tags: mass transit, gas taxes, gas prices, green, new york, boston, denver, metro

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Gas Prices Send Surge of Riders to Mass Transit - New York Times