It makes sense that in times of a fuel crisis where we are being told to conserve fuel by carpooling or riding the bus, ridership would go up.  On top of conserving fuel, some drivers simply cannot afford to drive their cars because of high fuel prices, so they are also using mass transit to get from one place to another.

Even this, however, is causing problems.  According to a U.S. Government report regarding rising fuel costs and the impact on mass transit, the majority of mass transit systems are experiencing an overflow that they cannot keep up with.

Because people are opting to use mass transit – especially buses – the system is overcrowded and can’t handle the number of individuals it now needs to serve.  One would think that because there are more riders, there is more revenue and, as a result, there could be extra buses on heavily used routes, especially during peak hours.

The issue is that fuel prices have increased for everyone, not just individuals.  Mass transit systems are paying much more for fuel than they had projected in their budgets.  Many cities, such as Denver, have had to eliminate various routes or scale back from ongoing service to service only once or twice per day.

American Public Transit Association (APTA) William Millar has stated that the “mass transit system in the United States is woefully underfunded.”  That, plus the skyrocketing costs of fuel has caused some cities to cut their routes more than once this year as well as increasing fares, in an effort to continue service.
Millar says that Congress needs to provide financial assistance to help the mass transit systems provide services for those who need it, and he says that Congress needs to do this “now, before the recess that will go into next year.” 

With ridership on the rise – in most cases as the only means of getting to work and maintaining employment – it is essential that these services are continued to avoid adding to the financial woes that the country is already in.  More unemployment will only increase the problems, and if people can’t get to work because there is no public transportation their unemployment is in jeopardy.

Hopefully Congress will hear Millar’s plea and help mass transit now before their fall session ends and leaves transit systems and their riders stranded until next year.

Tags: congress, fuel crisis, fuel prices, mass transit, public transportation

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 10:07 pm and is filed under Gas Prices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.