Monday, March 9, 2009

Public transportation

Ridership appears to be way up in 2008.

The 10.7 billion transit trips Americans took last year amounted to a 4 percent increase over trips taken in 2007; at the same time, Americans drove measurably less, according to the Transportation Department.

The increase is significant because cheaper gas and job losses tend to drive transit ridership down. Almost 60 percent of transit riders go to work.

Okay, this is a good thing, but wasn't gas hugely expensive during most of 2008? I know it got cheap in the fall, but last summer was $4/gallon gas, right? Didn't this drive a lot of people to public transportation?

UPDATE: An enormous thanks to Cory for catching an unfortunate typo, which is now fixed.

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