[PRCo] Re: will western PA survive?

[John Swindler]

Try this article.  And as usual, I would not bet the farm on the facts listed, but might still be of interest.
 
 
Texas Drivers' Miles Going Downhill 

Michael A. Lindenberger 
The Dallas Morning News 
 
TEXAS - America's long love affair with the automobile has apparently cooled - and the relationship may have been on the rocks long before gas prices began breaking records this year.
 
All across the country, Americans began driving fewer miles on average as far back as 2005, and they may have crested as early as 2002, according to a national study by the Brookings Institution in Washington.
 
"As a nation, we may be reaching a saturation point in terms of just how many miles each American driver can tolerate," said Adie Tomer, a co-author of the report and a research analyst with Brookings' Metropolitan Policy Program. "We may have actually reached a peak."
 
Long before gas prices began shooting up in 2008, per capita miles driven in many of the nation's 100 biggest cities had begun slowing, the report says. Drivers logged fewer miles in 2006 than in 2002 in 26 of the 100 cities. Since 2006, the trend has accelerated, according to the report.
Nowhere has it been more noticeable than in some of Texas' fastest-growing cities, including Dallas, Houston and especially Austin, where per capita miles driven fell 12 percent, the biggest decline among the top 100 metro areas in the country.
 
Transit one reason
 
Why the decline? And why especially in Texas, where the romance with automobiles has always seemed especially committed? After all, Houston is the same city that for much of the last year featured billboard advertisements touting the city's idea of mass transit: an extra-large SUV.
 
But Mr. Tomer suggested that many of the fastest-growing cities in America, including Houston and Dallas, feature rail systems that have only just begun reaching maturity. For residents in those cities, regular rail ridership has become a real possibility for daily commuters.
 
That's an especially viable explanation in Dallas, where transit ridership spiked over the summer, when gas prices soared, and has yet to subside.
On Tuesday, DART officials announced another month of growth across its system. Average weekday ridership on its TRE commuter line was up nearly 13 percent compared with November 2007. Average weekday demand for light rail was up 14 percent, the agency said. Total bus ridership declined slightly but only because the month had fewer workdays than a year ago, officials said
 
"We've found that most of the people who tried using transit ended up staying," DART's Rob Smith said.
 
Parking lots, he said, remain packed along much of the Red Line, though crowds have come down some from their highs earlier this year. November is always slower than August and September, Mr. Smith said.
 
The DART system is also growing, with theagency overseeing the most aggressive rail expansion in North America, including the Green Line running to Carrollton by 2009 and the Orange Line, which will eventually run through Irving and reach Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
 
The increased demand for DART service doesn't surprise legal secretary Linda Barnum of East Dallas.
 
"I've been riding since 1979, but it wasn't until my kids were out of the house, in 2003 or so, and I didn't need to run around to their practices or ball games, that I began to ride full time," she said. "Now I walk down to the corner by 8:10 every morning, and I am dropped off at the front door of my work downtown by 8:40."
 
She said she loaned her son her car around Halloween and hasn't seen it since. "It's OK. The less I drive, the nicer and happier I am."
 
Among other factors easy to see in the Dallas area was the speed with which employers moved to the suburbs to be closer to the workforce, a trend represented by Richardson's tech center or Las Colinas' business hub. And a look at Uptown's condominium market, or the growing number of lofts downtown, show that some residents prefer dense living, even in cities like Dallas where suburbs have been king for generations.
 
But while the early signs of the drift away from driving were first seen in cities like Dallas and Austin, they have since become more widespread, Mr. Tomer said. Big shifts in American demographics have finally neared the end of their cycles, he said. For instance, the number of cars owned by each household, which steadily increased for decades, has tapered.
 
Too many highways?
 
Planners in Dallas and other fast-growing cities continue to call for more funding to build more highways. But if Americans are falling out of love with driving, won't they need fewer highways?
 
The answer is yes, said Mr. Tomer, though he said cities like Houston and Dallas have huge freight transportation needs that will require more highways. But he said just how many more is a matter for reflection, and he urged planners to re-examine whether highways should continue to dominate funding.
 
"If the first sign of the flu is a sore throat, then we feel like these numbers are the first indication that there is very real potential that we may be building too much highway infrastructure," he said. "Certainly, in areas like the Port of Houston, and like the city of Dallas, both of which are major freight hubs, there is going to be a need for continued investment. But we do feel that this is a very big neon sign warning cities to reassess what their growth projections are in terms of local driving."
 
DART RIDERSHIP: Upward trends
Average weekday trips in November Percentage gain from Nov. '07
Trinity Railway Express 10,567 12.8
Light rail 70,690 13.9
Bus 161,327 2.7
SOURCE: DART
 
 
 
 
 
 
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