The Mystery of the Missing Bus Riders

[Admiral Beez]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...-bus-riders.html?referringSource=articleShare

Here‘s an extract for those without a subscription or access to the NYT.

By late 2019, through nearly seven straight years of decline, national bus ridership in America was at its lowest level since the mid-1970s, a trend that has left service already weakened as transit agencies brace for a public health crisis.

The bus started to lose ground many decades ago as Americans bought cars, suburbanized and spread out. But the timing of this recent free fall has been more perplexing. The economy was strong in this period, meaning more people had jobs to commute to. And many of these metro areas have been growing in population — that means more commuters, too.

What has been happening then, across all of these places, at the same time?

In Miami and Atlanta, neighborhoods with more college-educated residents had steeper declines in bus ridership. And one demographic pattern appeared across all four cities: Whiter neighborhoods have been losing the most ridership.

“That made us think, ‘What are the changes in the behaviors of people who are white?’” Mr. Berrebi said.

He and Ms. Watkins believe they may be taking greater advantage of new alternatives to the bus, like Uber and Lyft or bike-sharing. Other research shows that bike-sharing has eaten into bus ridership (while surveys in some cities report that bike-sharing riders skew highly educated and white).

 

[Johnny Au]

Miami and Atlanta also have rapid transit systems (Miami-Dade Metrorail and MARTA Rail, respectively) and both promote biking to supplement taking the train.