Quote:
Originally Posted by jmecklenborg
No, every mode creates its own market. Our country's massive urban freeway networks induce demand. Similarly, NYC's huge subway system induces demand. The subsidization of ride share by the Saudi Royal Family induces demand.
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Rail is a solution to high bus ridership, not to low bus ridership. As long as US cities continue to build rail "to induce demand" and "create its market" when faced with declining bus ridership, their transit ridership will continue to decline.
New York has the highest rail ridership in the country. It also has the highest bus ridership in the country. They need rail because otherwise the bus ridership would be too high, not because bus ridership would be too low.
Cities like Cleveland don't need rail at all. They just wasted their money building that line and they are wasting their money keeping it open. Expanding the bus service would do so much more for transit riders.
US systems lost so much ridership in the post-war era, and now they are losing even more thanks to this rail obsession. Places like Seattle and Las Vegas should be the role models for smaller systems, not Cleveland. 18,500 per weekday for a 31km heavy rail line is just ridiculous. It should be 400,000 or 500,000 per weekday at least (e.g. Toronto's 26.2km Bloor-Danforth Line averaged 508,404 boardings per weekday in 2011). 18,500 would not be acceptable numbers even for light rail, let alone heavy rail (e.g. Seattle's new 35.3km LRT system averages 84,000 per weekday).