New Report: Atlanta Has Worst Transit Coverage for ‘Zero-Vehicle Households’

[marmar]

from the Infrastructurist:



New Report: Atlanta Has Worst Transit Coverage for ‘Zero-Vehicle Households’


Last week Brookings released an analysis (pdf) of car ownership and transit access in the 100 largest metro areas in the United States. Some of the report’s findings were encouraging: of the 7.5 million households without access to a private vehicle, over 90 percent live in neighborhoods serviced by public transportation. This figure suggests that, broadly speaking, “transit service aligns with households who rely on it most,” writes Brookings, which is exactly what it’s supposed to do.

At the same time, more than 700,000 of the “zero-vehicle households” in the metro regions analyzed by Brookings don’t have any access to transit at all. The worst offender among major metro areas is the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta region, where nearly 38,000 households have neither a car nor good transit access. All told, Atlanta’s “zero-vehicle household” transit coverage rate is 68.5 percent — well below the other major cities that rounded out the top five: Dallas (71 percent), Houston (73), Phoenix (81) and St. Louis (82).



The findings should serve as a “wake-up call” to metro areas like Atlanta with major coverage gaps in their transit systems, says Brookings. That or a bucket of cold water. As Yonah Freemark recently pointed out, transit carries less than 4 percent of work trips in the Atlanta metro region today — down from nearly 17 percent in 1960. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.infrastructurist.com/2011/08/22/new-report-atlanta-has-worst-transit-coverage-for-zero-vehicle-households/

[onehandle]

1. We're the 'one person in a giant SUV' capitol of America. Longest commute times of all. nt

[Overseas]

2. Mass transit should be part of our defense budget.

To reduce our need for oil.

[jpak]

3. They know what MARTA really stands for....

and that's not sarcasm

yup

[SoCalDem]

4. Usually poor people and young people ":take the bus".

They are probably of little concern to people who decide these issues..

Most cities HAD pretty decent public transportation until the auto/tire/asphalt/etc lobbyists "took care of them".

one article of many:
http://www.lovearth.net/gmdeliberatelydestroyed.htm

The StreetCar Conspiracy

How General Motors Deliberately Destroyed Public Transit

by Bradford Snell

The electric streetcar, contrary to Van Wilkin's incredible naïve whitewash, did not die a natural death: General Motors killed it. GM killed it by employing a host of anti-competitive devices which, like National City Lines, debased rail transit and promoted auto sales. This is not about a "plot" hatch by wild-eyed corporate rogues, but rather about a consummate business strategy crafted by Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., the MIT-trained genius behind General Motors, to expand auto sales and maximize profits by eliminating streetcars. In 1922, according to GM's own files, Sloan established a special unit within the corporation which was charged, among other things, with the task of replacing America's electric railways with cars, trucks and buses.

A year earlier, in 1921, GM lost $65 million, leading Sloan to conclude that the auto market was saturated, that those who desired cars already owned them, and that the only way to increase GM's sales and restore its profitability was by eliminating its principal rival: electric railways. At the time, 90 percent of all trips were by rail, chiefly electric rail; only one in 10 Americans owned an automobile. There were 1,200 separate electric street and interurban railways, a thriving and profitable industry with 44,000 miles of track, 300,000 employees, 15 billion annual passengers, and $1 billion in income. Virtually every city and town in America of more than 2,500 people had its own electric rail system.

General Motors sought to reduce competition from electric railways through a variety of measures, including the use of freight leverage. GM, for decades, was the nation's largest shipper of freight over railroads, which controlled some of America's most extensive railways. By wielding freight traffic as a club, GM persuaded railroads to abandon their electric rail subsidiaries. With a pack of notorious mobsters, GM helped purchase and scrap the street railways serving Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Members of GM's special unit went to, among others, the Southern Pacific, owner of Los Angeles' Pacific Electric, the world's largest interurban, with 1,500 miles of track, reaching 75 miles from San Bernardino, north to San Fernando, and south to Santa Ana; the New York Central, owner of the New York State Railways, 600 miles of street railways and interurban lines in upstate New York; and the New Haven, owner of 1,500 miles of trolley lines in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

snip

[Donnachaidh]

5. and what little there is in those areas is being both cut and prices increased

The buses in Cobb County were few and far between before - but now routes are being cut and fares raised by a minimum of 25%.