Comments on: a glaring trend toward transit

By: Capricious Commuter

Capricious Commuter — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 20:26:19 +0000

You have a point about increased auto ownership, Roy, but your friend Alan Pisarski did volunteer that theory about boomers and immigrants being a bit more partial to transit that other folks. The point of the article was not that we're all going transit-crazy, but that the death-grip that the automobile has on us seems to be loosening a bit.

By: Roy Nakadegawa P.E.

Roy Nakadegawa P.E. — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 20:16:46 +0000

I would not attribute the “Transit Record ridership could be attributed to aging baby boomers driving less” as mentioned in your (Dec. 6 news article's) sub-title but the simple fact in what you also quoted of my friend Pisarski that car ownership is increasing. Meaning more cars are in use and congestion is rising. Also our economy is improving and along with congestion, they both have a greater bearing on transit use than on miles driven. Roy Nakadegawa P.E. Fromer BART & AC Transit Board Member of 32 years And worked with Pisarski on a review Board overseeing a Transit Reseach Report

By: david vartanoff

david vartanoff — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 05:57:02 +0000

New York Subway ridership is way up. And as to 1940′s ridership full employment and gas rationing during WW II “distorted” the market but CalTrain several years ago claimed to have surpassed the WW II figures.

By: Capricious Commuter

Capricious Commuter — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 01:22:25 +0000

T-D, I’m not at all surprised that NYC subways are not in record territory. They’ve been around longer than BART, long enough to see the days when car ownership wasn’t as high as it has become. Such historic reality is even more glaring when it comes to railroad ridership. If you go back before the days of Amtrak, you can throw all the records out the window. Train ridership in the 1940s was very high, especially on a per-capita basis. Or so I’m told.

By: transit-dependent

transit-dependent — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 21:19:23 +0000

I want to second South Bay Resident’s comment. Airline workers were given money to make up for the increased costs of BART, but airport wokers (who are lower-paid) were not.

Also, NYC’s subway ridership hit its all-time high; the last subway ridership record there was from the 70s.

By: South Bay Resident

South Bay Resident — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 07:52:46 +0000

Unfortunately, most of the new riders added by BART on the SFO extension were already taking the much less expensive buses provided by SamTrans.

By: Capricious Commuter

Capricious Commuter — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 01:26:51 +0000

Also, a caveat for that record quarter cited for BART: Linton Johnson points out that BART’s core ridership, i.e., not including the new San Francisco International Airport/Millbrae extension that opened in 2003, was actually higher in 2001. So while ridership has been climbing steadily, we have to give the infamous SFO extension a good bit of credit for the ridership record.

By: Capricious Commuter

Capricious Commuter — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 01:23:42 +0000

Sandy, thanks for catching that confused thought, which I have attempted to clarify. Considering that it takes 1 hour and 40 minutes to get from Rockridge to Fairfield right now, I sincerely invite the rest of the country to telecommute at the earliest opportunity.

By: FTSandy

FTSandy — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 22:34:44 +0000

I have a question about the fourth paragraph from the end:

“At the same time, people are taking transit more. Mind you, people outside of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut still amount to a small fraction of commuters, but this could be a turning point of historic proportions.”

Do you mean “small fraction of TRANSIT commuters”? Or is the entire rest of the country telecommuting?

By: South Bay Resident

South Bay Resident — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 21:32:59 +0000

oops, I made an error. The average house size in the Western U.S. for 2005 is 2422 ft^2, which is somewhat larger than I stated before.