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Public Transit Ridership in the United States

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Asking for an opinion is not a pledge to stand mute on the issue.   My political views - I am essentially apolitical - are irrelevant to the discussion.   I have not argued for means testing of public transit per se.  However, I believe and suggested that it would be appropriate for commuter rail.  Public transit in the United States is a user fee based system.  However, the fees are not sufficient to cover the cost of the service and, therefore, must be augmented from general tax funds, i.e. sales taxes, property taxes, etc.  I presume randian is a reference to Ayn Rand.  I have never read Atlas Shrugged or any of her books. According to Table 1-41, National Transportation Statistics, U.S. Department of Transportation, five (5) per cent of the U.S. population used public transportation to commute to work. The percentages have remained fairly constant since 1989, i.e. 4.8 per cent in 1989, 4.9 per cent in 1999, 4.7 per cent in 2005, and 4.9 per cent in 2007.  FY09 is the last year for complete statistics.  Work is the major reason people use public transit. It also includes students traveling to and from school, and it includes all modes of public transit, i.e. bus, streetcar, subway, railroad, and elevated trains.   Although the percentages vary from location to location, approximately 90 per cent of all public transit trips are for work. This is especially true on weekdays.  In Chicago, for example, approximately 87 per cent of Metra users are traveling to and from work. Thus, if you divide 5 per cent by .9, it gives us 5.6 per cent for the nation as a whole.  As is the case with any statistic, peeling back the onion skins can reveal additional information.  Moreover, as noted, the percentage of people who use the system in major metropolitan areas is somewhat higher, by in no instance is it the major mover of people. To claim that the figure, which is generated from a government database, is obviously absurd, without offering any supporting information, is unfounded. It is simply a rant.
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