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Congressional Research Service

Survey: Transit riders like convenience, but want more reliability

Bart Jansen
USA TODAY

People rode mass transit nearly 11 billion times a year because of cost-effectiveness, convenience and because they dislike driving, according to a national survey Thursday obtained by USA TODAY.

But four in five of those passengers said they would ride buses, subways and trains more often if they were more reliable, cleaner and less crowded, according to the survey by HNTB Corp., which plans, designs and manages transportation construction projects.

A Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Green Line subway train moves along the track in Boston on June 18, 2015.

“People increasingly recognize the value delivered by public transportation,” said Michael Townes, a senior vice president at HNTB who deals with transit. “They want a modern, effective system that meets their needs today as well as into the future.”

The HNTB survey comes as House and Senate lawmakers negotiate to complete a six-year highway bill that authorizes transit funding by Nov. 20.

The federal government has spent about $10 billion per year on public transportation since 2009, according to the Congressional Research Service. The Senate version of the transportation bill has "some growth" in bus and rail funding, but the House version is "much tighter" and limits certain funds to start new projects, according to Michael Melaniphy, CEO of the American Public Transportation Association.

"America urgently needs more investment in transportation to replace and improve our aging infrastructure, and to meet  the demands of our growing population and growing economy," Melaniphy said.

But Randal O’Toole, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, criticized both versions of the pending legislation for continuing discretionary funding, which he argued led to greater spending, rather than dividing money by formulas.

“The problem with public transit is not a shortage of funds – it’s that they have too much money and they’re spending the money in the wrong places,” O’Toole said. “I think we could have better transit for far less money if the agencies were given incentives to get more transit riders than spend more money.”

Transit programs nationwide have an $86 billion maintenance backlog, the Federal Transit Administration estimated in 2013, after estimating that 40% of buses and 25% of rail equipment were in marginal or poor condition.

The HNTB survey called “America Thinks” was conducted by Kelton, which polled a nationwide sample of 1,002 Americans who were at least 18 years old from Sept. 15 to 25. Each response had a margin of error of 3.1%.

The responses found passengers disagree about the convenience and speed of completing their public-transit trips.

The most popular reasons for riding rather than driving were cost-effectiveness (38%) and to do something else -- either working productively or relaxing (37%), according to the survey. Other reasons riders gave in the survey were for convenience (30%), reducing their carbon footprint (23%), because they don’t enjoy driving (20%) and for safety (16%).

But among the 80% who said they could be motivated to ride more, nearly half (45%) said the reliability needed to improve, 36% wanted cleaner equipment, stations and restrooms, 35% asked for wi-fi and 33% sought less crowding, according to the survey.

People who have access to transit, but didn't take advantage of it during the last year, cited inconvenience (42%) and slowness (33%) as the main reasons, the survey found.

Suggestions for improving the systems included improving equipment and stations (40%), new payment options (31%), added amenities (29%), and bike-docking stations (14%), according to the survey.

“Transit agencies are struggling to find the capital needed to balance maintaining the state of good repair of their systems, and to meet ever-increasing demands from the public for improved service,” Townes said.

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