[PRCo] How many people ride transit...

[Fred Schneider]

While we look about Pittsburgh and how many people ride the T ...  
something over 25,000 a day in fiscal year 2006 according to the  
figures PAT submitted to the FTA ... now think for a few seconds  
about what big really is.
New York City Transit Authority counts over 6 million fares on a  
normal weekday in the subways ... that is 1 thousand 5 hundred times  
more than Pittsburgh.

They also moved 3 million more people a day on buses compared to  
PAT's 60,000.

It simply boggles the mind.

When a friend of mine pointed out that mass transit was a "big city  
thing," I studied it to prove or disprove his point.   The most  
recent nationwide data I could get by company was the 1907 U. S.  
census of electric railways.   After I put every company's passenger  
counts in a spreadsheet arrayed by city size, and in 1907 I assumed  
that a city of 100,000 or more was a BIG CITY, I found that 80  
percent of the nickels fell into conductor's mitts in big cities.  My  
friend, curmudgeon first class from New Jersey, was absolutely  
correct.   And looking at the numbers for New York, Washington,  
Chicago ... isn't has not changed.   If anything, it might be 90  
percent today.

By the way, if any of you want a list of all the current light rail  
lines and subway lines in the United States, I am attaching it to  
this message.   The server should pull it off and make a separate  
link to it.   It is a Excel file so you will need Excel to open it.    
However, the April 27th version of the same list is on the East Penn  
Traction Club web site and this one will eventually get there.

If any one wants updated passenger figures for all the light rail  
lines, badger me and I might just put that on this web site too.  I'm  
testing the waters.

Fred Schneider





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