Transportation

The Problem with Energy Blinders

Randal OToole — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 11:42:56 -0500

Blinders are used to keep horses focused on the road ahead and not get distracted by people or other things on either side of them. Too many people who work on energy and greenhouse gases put on similar blinders that lead them to ignore many other social problems and goals.

A case in point is a recent study that found that people all over the world travel for about 1.3 hours, plus or minus 0.2 hours, per day. While this is just a confirmation of Marchetti’s constant, the point of the new paper was that “significant decreases in future energy consumption can only be achieved by reducing the average energy used per hour of human travel.”

In other words, people don’t substitute energy for time: if they use a slower but more energy efficient form of travel, they won’t travel more hours (thereby using more energy) to make up for the slower speed. The paper presents this as some kind of revelation: saving energy means forcing people to use more energy-efficient forms of travel. As a practical matter, this means emphasizing walking and cycling.

The problem is that such a policy ignores numerous other important social goals. Want to maximize productivity to keep the nation competitive with other parts of the world? Increasing the average speed of travel is a key component of national productivity.

Want to reduce income inequality? Increasing the average speed of travel among low-income people will give them access to more and better jobs. That necessarily means increasing auto ownership. The University of Minnesota’s Accessibility Observatory has found that the average resident of one of the nation’s 50 largest urban areas can reach almost three times as many jobs in a 20-minute auto drive as a 60-minute bike or transit ride, and more than three times as many jobs in a 10-minute auto drive as a 60-minute walk.

Read the rest of this piece at The Antiplanner.

Randal O'Toole, the Antiplanner, is a policy analyst with nearly 50 years of experience reviewing transportation and land-use plans and the author of The Best-Laid Plans: How Government Planning Harms Your Quality of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future.

Bicycles may be the most energy-efficient mode of travel, but that doesn’t mean they are always the best mode. Photo by Carlton Reid, under CC 2.0 License.

$1.8 Trillion for Nothing

Randal OToole — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 19:18:28 -0500

Congress sporadically handed out transit capital funds in the 1970s and 1980s, but in 1991 it made it systematic with creation of the transit capital investment grants program, also known as New Starts. Since then, federal, state, and local taxpayers have spent more than half a trillion dollars on transit capital improvements. Transit agencies have also spent nearly $1.2 trillion on transit operations, only $355 billion of which was covered by passenger fares.

These numbers are from the National Transit Database Historic Time Series, the 2024 edition of which the Federal Transit Administration released last week along with the 2024 annual transit database that was featured here yesterday. While the above figures are in nominal dollars, after adjusting for inflation to 2024 dollars using GDP deflators, taxpayers have spent more than $1.8 trillion subsidizing transit since 1991.

What have we gotten for this excessively generous subsidy? In 1991, the average urban resident rode transit more than 40 times a year. Transit ridership grew between 1991 and 2014, but so did urban populations, so trips per resident increased to just 42. Ridership fell after 2014 and by 2019 the average urban resident took only 36 transit trips per year. As of 2024, it was around 27 trips per year.

This does not seem like a great return on a $1.8 trillion investment.

Transit has not relieved congestion. It hasn’t reduced greenhouse gas emissions. It hasn’t helped many low-income people, the vast majority of whom have their own cars and don’t use transit. All this $1.8 trillion has done is enrich a few special interest groups.

The historic time series consists of five different spreadsheets. The first two, tables TS1.1 and TS1.2, focus on how much transit funding comes federal, state, or local sources. More interesting is table TS2.1, which lists operating expenses, fares, route miles, revenue miles, revenue hours, riders, and passenger-miles, all broken down by both transit agencies and modes for each agency. Table TS2.2 is the same but broken down only by transit agencies, not by modes. Table TS3.1 has capital expenses broken down by agency and mode while table TS3.2 inventories assets by agency and mode. I use mainly 2.1 and 3.1.

Previous issues have included most data back to 1991, though capital costs began in 1992 and fares in 2002. For some reason, this year the FTA began many of the time series in 2015, so I turned to the 2023 time series to get earlier years.

The American Public Transportation Association’s Public Transit Fact Book includes capital costs and fares for the years that are missing from the historical time series. Though APTA’s data aren’t broken down by mode, they add to the continuous series of national data.

Transit advocates talk endlessly about the advantages of transit over driving. Americans are paying for it but they aren’t using it.

This piece first appeared at The Antiplanner.

Photo: chart courtesy The Antiplanner.

For Most Commuters: Cars the Only Viable Choice

Wendell Cox — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 19:18:28 -0500

For some years, the University of Minnesota’s Accessibility Observatory has produced major metropolitan area (labor markets) job access estimates for the average worker, at various trip lengths and modes. The latest estimates (2023) cover 50 of the nation’s major metropolitan areas (over 1,000,000 million). Major metropolitan areas not in the 2023 data include Hartford, Honolulu, New Orleans, Omaha, Rochester, Tucson and Tulsa.

The data indicate auto access to jobs is far greater by car than by transit. This is shown below at the 30-minute job access level, which is slightly more than the average one-way work trip travel time of 26.8 minutes (about 60% of US workers reached work in 30 minutes), according to the American Community Survey. This does not include people who work at home, whose work trip travel time is zero minutes.). If people who work at home (zero minutes travel time) are included, the average one-way work trip travel time in 2024 was 22.9 minutes

The 30-minute standard is used by many planning agencies, with its historic roots. The 30-minute one-way work trip travel time has been called the Marchetti Constant, described by Italian physicist Cesare Marchetti. Jonathan English, writing in City Lab, provides a compelling history from 800 BCE to today.

Auto Access to Metro Area Jobs

The data indicate by far the best 30-minute access to jobs for the average worker is by car in the 50 major metropolitan areas (Table). The unweighted average 30-minute access for major metropolitan area workers is 54.7% of metropolitan area jobs.

The best auto access is in Salt Lake City and San Francisco, where more than 100% of jobs can be reached by car in 30 minutes. These impressive figures are likely made possible by the virtually continuous urban development in adjacent metropolitan areas, which creates a commuter market larger than is defined by the metropolitan area. For example, fully developed continues from the north Salt Lake City metro area boundary to the Ogden metro area, just north of downtown Salt Lake City. In San Francisco, the continuous urbanization spreads to San Jose on both sides of San Francisco Bay.

The least 30-minute job access for autos was in metro New York (14.86%), leading Chicago (22.70%), Atlanta (23.20%), Miami (25.81%) and Los Angeles (25.86%).

Auto Access Compared to Transit: On average automobile commuters can access 58.3 times (5,830%) as many jobs in 30 minutes than by transit in the major metropolitan areas. The five leading major metros in Auto-Transit 30-minute access are Detroit (210.2), Raleigh (160.6), Dallas-Fort Worth (150.1), Birmingham (144,1) and Riverside-San Bernardino (142.4). The major metro with the least 30-minute auto-transit job access is New York (auto access 7.8 times that of transit). This means that throughout the metro area, transit 30-minute job access is 1.3% that of cars. San Francisco (12.6), Boston (18.6), Chicago (22.0), Philadelphia (22.7) and Washington (23.9) round out the major metros with the least 30-minute auto job access compared to transit.

Transit Access to Metro Area Jobs

As noted above, the average transit commuter can reach 0.94% (less than one percent) of the metro area jobs in 30-minutes. The best transit access is in metro San Francisco, where the average commuter can reach 2.98% of the jobs in 30-minutes. In Milwaukee the average commuter can reach 2.66% of the jobs in 30-minutes by transit, followed by Salt Lake City (2.10%), San Jose (1.93%) and New York (1.90%). However, the job access is skewed higher in San Francisco, Salt Lake City and San Jose by virtue of adjacent metro areas that increase the number of jobs that can be reached in 30 minutes.

The least transit 30-minute access was in Riverside-San Bernardino (0.19%), ahead of Atlanta (0.23%), Dallas-Fort Worth (0.24%), Detroit (0.25%) and St. Louis (0.38%).

Bicycle Access to Metro Area Jobs

As noted above, the average bicycle commuter (low stress traffic, as opposed to medium stress) can reach 1.74% of the metro area jobs in 30-minutes. Perhaps surprisingly, this is nearly double the 30-minute access by transit. The best bicycle access is in metro Salt Lake City, where the average commuter can reach 4.43% of the jobs in 30-minutes. In Milwaukee the average commuter can reach 3.81% of the jobs in 30-minutes by transit, followed by Fresno (3.75%), San Francisco (3.67%) and San Jose (3.65%).

The least 30-minute bicycle access was in Atlanta (0.41%), ahead of Dallas-Fort Worth (0.47%), Riverside-San Bernardino (0.48%), Houston (0.51%) and Miami (0.84%).

This low-stress analysis indicates that all of the 5o major metros with the exception of New York have greater 30-minute job access than transit. Even in New York, the low-stress bicycle access(1.85%) is nearly as great as that of New York (1.90). Bicycles at medium stress have better 30-minute access in all 50 markets.

Overall, the average 30-minute auto access to jobs is 31.4 times that of bicycles (low-stress).

Walking Access to Metro Area Jobs

Among the modes included in the University of Minnesota analysis, the least 30-minute job access is by walking (0.29%).

Metro San Francisco has the best 30-minute job access by walking (0.70%), followed by Salt Lake City (0.63%), San Jose (0.60%), Fresno (0.57%) and Buffalo (0.53%). The least 30-minute walking job access was in Atlanta (0.08%), followed closely by Dallas-Fort Worth (0.09%), Riverside-San Bernardino (0.10%), Houston (0.10%) and Detroit (0.11%).

Overall, the average 30-minute auto access to jobs is 189.4 times that of walking.

Rejecting the Unavailable

The media and transit advocates often suggest that people are rejecting transit and commuting by car instead. The plain truth is that for the overwhelming majority of commuters, transit is simply not a viable alternative, due to its miniscule access relative to cars. The last thing that should be concluded from that transit should be expanded. Transit ridership is already concentrated in its best markets, principally to the nation’s largest job centers. Just six cities (municipalities, not metropolitan areas), New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco and Washington account for 60% of transit commute destinations in the US, in comparison with their less than six percent of jobs. Any material increase in transit service is likely to cost much more per passenger. Meanwhile, even the automobile has its limits, as the huge increase in working from home has indicated. Our increasingly digitizing economy could substitute for physical travel in the future.

Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He is a Senior Fellow with Unleash Prosperity in Washington and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. His principal interests are economics, poverty alleviation, demographics, urban policy and transport. He is author of the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey and author of Demographia World Urban Areas.

Mayor Tom Bradley appointed him to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (1977-1985), which was a predecessor agency to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro). Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appointed him to the Amtrak Reform Council, to complete the unexpired term of New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (1999-2002). He is author of War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life and Toward More Prosperous Cities: A Framing Essay on Urban Areas, Transport, Planning and the Dimensions of Sustainability.

Photo credit: Ted Eytan Flickr under CC 2.0 License.

Table back to reference

30-MINUTE JOB ACCESS BY MODE: 50 MAJOR METROS: 2023
	JOBS ACCESSIBLE IN 30-MINUTES: 2023				CAR JOB ACCESS OVER TRANSIT
Market (Metropolitan Area)	CAR	TRANSIT	BIKE	WALK	CAR JOB ACCESS OVER TRANSIT
Atlanta	23.20%	0.23%	0.41%	0.08%	100.6
Austin	59.96%	0.92%	1.96%	0.33%	65.4
Baltimore	52.72%	1.21%	1.82%	0.29%	43.7
Birmingham	57.76%	0.40%	1.28%	0.24%	144.1
Boston	28.38%	1.53%	2.32%	0.42%	18.6
Buffalo	79.07%	1.68%	2.96%	0.53%	47.1
Charlotte	38.10%	0.45%	0.94%	0.18%	84.6
Chicago	22.70%	1.03%	1.18%	0.24%	22.0
Cincinnati	55.99%	0.58%	1.14%	0.19%	96.4
Cleveland	62.49%	0.77%	1.35%	0.22%	81.5
Columbus	71.75%	0.94%	1.74%	0.27%	76.0
Dallas-Fort Worth	36.63%	0.24%	0.47%	0.09%	150.1
Denver	67.02%	1.26%	2.72%	0.41%	53.1
Detroit	53.27%	0.25%	0.86%	0.11%	210.2
Fresno	70.24%	1.45%	3.75%	0.57%	48.6
Grand Rapids	69.40%	1.40%	2.63%	0.38%	49.7
Houston	29.80%	0.39%	0.51%	0.10%	76.2
Indianapolis	62.25%	0.61%	1.38%	0.22%	101.9
Jacksonville	53.79%	0.40%	0.88%	0.20%	133.7
Kansas City	67.70%	0.50%	1.52%	0.22%	135.2
Las Vegas	89.42%	0.77%	1.90%	0.29%	116.1
Los Angeles	25.86%	0.58%	0.89%	0.15%	44.8
Louisville	73.24%	0.93%	2.24%	0.28%	78.6
Memphis	81.40%	0.79%	1.78%	0.31%	103.4
Miami	25.81%	0.52%	0.84%	0.18%	50.1
Milwaukee	86.56%	2.66%	3.81%	0.52%	32.6
Minneapolis	58.01%	0.81%	1.77%	0.21%	71.7
Nashville	37.15%	0.64%	1.35%	0.23%	58.5
New York	14.86%	1.90%	1.85%	0.33%	7.8
Oklahoma City	72.45%	0.65%	2.27%	0.31%	111.8
Orlando	55.22%	0.39%	0.85%	0.17%	139.9
Philadelphia	26.07%	1.15%	1.27%	0.22%	22.7
Phoenix	48.36%	0.46%	1.10%	0.14%	105.9
Pittsburgh	31.68%	0.88%	1.20%	0.20%	36.0
Portland	55.34%	1.55%	2.79%	0.41%	35.6
Providence	51.21%	1.15%	1.71%	0.40%	44.5
Raleigh	89.62%	0.56%	1.65%	0.28%	160.6
Richmond	72.49%	1.07%	2.33%	0.38%	68.0
Riverside-San Bernardino	26.52%	0.19%	0.48%	0.10%	142.4
Sacramento	60.13%	0.79%	1.94%	0.32%	76.1
Salt Lake City	127.42%	2.10%	4.43%	0.63%	60.8
San Antonio	59.98%	0.60%	1.14%	0.18%	99.2
San Diego	51.37%	0.64%	1.20%	0.26%	80.5
San Francisco	36.70%	2.98%	3.67%	0.70%	12.3
San Jose	110.73%	1.93%	3.65%	0.60%	57.3
Seattle	38.57%	1.56%	2.54%	0.49%	24.7
St. Louis	52.16%	0.38%	0.95%	0.16%	136.8
Tampa-St. Petersburg	39.25%	0.48%	1.03%	0.18%	82.3
Virginia Beach	49.48%	0.47%	1.09%	0.24%	104.4
Washington	27.50%	1.15%	1.56%	0.27%	23.9
Average (unweighted)	54.74%	0.94%	1.74%	0.29%	58.3
Derived from University of Minnesota data

August Driving Up 2.8% from 2019

Randal OToole — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 20:18:38 -0400

Americans drove 2.8 percent more mores in August 2025 than the same month before the pandemic, according to data released yesterday by the Federal Highway Administration. Apparently, data gathering is just as much an “essential service” in the highway agency as it seems to be in the Federal Transit Administration, which released August transit data earlier this month despite the federal government’s shut-down of non-essential services.

August driving was ahead of 2019 numbers on both urban and rural roads and on all categories of roads tracked by the monthly traffic volume trends: interstates, other arterials, and other roads. Driving exceeded 2019 miles in 30 states, urban driving exceeded 2019 numbers in 31 states, while rural driving exceeded them in 32 states.

Arizona saw the largest increase in driving: 39 percent overall with 26 percent in rural areas and 37 percent in urban areas. (Urban and rural count only driving on arterial roads while totals include driving on collector and local roads.) The next highest was Idaho at 19 percent overall with 21 percent in urban areas and 17 percent rural. Other states with more than a 10 percent increase in driving include Arkansas, Maine, and Texas. The greatest shortfalls were in DC (81%), Delaware (84%), Hawaii (87%), Rhode Island (84%), and West Virginia (89%).

The above chart shows that driving was the first form of transportation to recover from the pandemic, but since then it hasn’t grown as fast as flying or Amtrak. Some analysts think this is because Gen Z — which includes people born between 1997 and 2012 — is driving less than older generations. They may be more likely to work at home, rely on ride-sharing services when they leave home, and associate with friends on-line than in person.

Some of Gen Z’s reluctance to drive is also blamed on the high cost of driving. Previous generations know there are many ways to make driving more affordable, including buying used cars, settling for fewer luxuries, and getting basic rather than more comprehensive insurance. Maybe those techniques don’t work as well as they used to, but I suspect that as Gen Zers age they will increase the amount of driving they do.

This piece first appeared at The Antiplanner.

Photo: chart courtesy The Antiplanner.

August Transit Ridership Falls Below 78% of 2019

Randal OToole — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 20:28:38 -0400

Due to the shutdown of non-essential government services, web sites for the Census Bureau, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, and other statistical agencies all say that postings of new data will be delayed. But someone at the Federal Transit Administration must think that ridership data is an essential service, for they posted August data on Monday. I didn’t notice it until too late for yesterday’s Antiplanner, but here they are.

Note: August driving data will be posted at Antiplanner whenever it becomes available, or at least when I notice it becomes available.

The numbers show that transit carried 77.8 percent as many riders in August 2025 as in the same month in 2019. That’s the lowest since August 2024. Admittedly, transit data for Las Vegas are missing, but that will add only about 0.1 percent to the total. No other major urban area appears to be missing data.

Missing data were a bigger issue in July, when ridership numbers were missing for at least a dozen major urban areas. Those numbers are in the August report and I have updated the chart above to include them, increasing ridership (as a share of 2019) from 76.6 percent to 78.7 percent. To be complete, I updated the chart going back to the beginning of 2024; numbers before that were unchanged.

The chart shows that transit ridership has pretty much leveled off at around 80 percent of pre-pandemic numbers. Not counting February, 2024, which had a leap day (adjusted for in the chart), monthly ridership first reached 80 percent of 2019 numbers in October, 2024, and hasn’t ascended to 81 percent since then. It has declined for the last two months.

Although transit agencies are still providing 94 percent as much service as they did in 2019 (and more than 100 percent as much as in 2024), many agencies are complaining that they’ve run out of federal COVID relief funds and will have to cut service. In fact, this is a self-inflicted problem: instead of using relief funds to maintain their operations, most agencies used them to give employees large pay increases and especially to increase pay in the executive suites.

Yet worries about a fiscal cliff are leading to much hand-wringing on the part of many people who would never themselves ride transit. “A shortfall in federal transportation funding is threatening bus and metro systems across the country,” says PBS. Say what? There is plenty of federal transportation funding. The problem is a shortfall in riders.

Planetizen blames the problem on the theory that, “for labor-intensive industries, operating costs over time will rise faster than inflation.” But transit’s problem is much more severe: transit’s worker productivity (the number of riders carried per worker) has declined dramatically, mainly because agencies have hired new workers even when not justified by increased ridership. Since agencies get most of their funds from taxpayers, not riders, they haven’t been concerned about constraining labor costs.

Bloomberg is at least willing to ask if we should “let public transit die?” But that’s not really the question. The question should be: should we let transit subsidies die, or at least shrink? Rather than seriously consider such a question, Bloomberg simply asserts that there are unacceptable “economic and social costs of cutting service.”

Most of those economic and social costs are simply imaginary. Supposedly, transit uses space more efficiently than cars. Certainly that’s true in the case of subway systems, especially in New York City. Elsewhere, not so much. A bus with six passengers (the average number carried in 2023) occupies as much space as several cars. Besides, space is not in short supply in most American cities unless it has been made so artificially using such tools as urban-growth boundaries.

Read the rest of this piece at The Antiplanner.

Photo: chart courtesy The Antiplanner.

Annual US Report on Means of Work Access

Wendell Cox — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 20:28:25 -0400

The US Census Bureau has released its one-year 2024 American Community Survey (ACS). This article covers the overall national data and also the major metropolitan area data (the 57 with 1,000,000 more population in this decade).

US National Data

The largest gain was registered among those who work at home, with a 13.3% market share, up 133.0% from the 5.7% in 2019. The ACS figure measures the “usual mode” of work from home access. If that can be assumed to be 3 days per week, the number of people working at home at least part of the time would be higher. WFH Research estimates that 27% of full work days are at home, as of July 2025.

Carpools had a small increase, to 9.2% in 2024, up 3.6% from 8.9% in 2019. Carpools now account for 2.5 times the commuter demand of transit.

Driving alone continues to be down from before the pandemic (2019). In 2024, 69.2% of commuters drove alone to work, an 8.8% drop from the 2019 figure (75.9%).

Transit continues to have the largest losses, with a 3.7% market share, down 25.6% from the 5.0% in 2019. However transit’s “modal reliability,” which estimates how consistently a commuter uses their primary mode of travel , suggests a smaller share. According to the National Household Travel Survey, the actual use of transit is about 35% lower.

Major Metropolitan Area Data

Work access data is provided for the 57 major metropolitan areas in Table 1. Table 2 includes the rankings for each major metropolitan area. This edition adds a new major metropolitan market, Omaha, NE-IA. The top five and bottom five major metropolitan areas are highlighted.

Drive Alone

The highest drive alone share was in Birmingham (78.6%), followed by Tulsa, Memphis, Oklahoma City and Cincinnati (62.5%). The metros with the lowest drive alone shares were New York (44.5%), behind San Francisco (this does not include San Jose, despite the fact that the San Jose metro is virtually across the street from the San Francisco metropolitan area, on both sides of San Francisco Bay), Washington, Boston and Seattle. As has been the experience for years, no major metropolitan area had a drive alone share lower than its transit share.

Work from Home

The highest working from home share was in Raleigh (Durham is in a separate metropolitan area, despite the fact that some analyses refer to Raleigh-Durham, which is justified by the fact that the Research Triangle Park divided between the two metros), at 23.5%. Raleigh is followed by Austin, Denver, Portland and Washington. The lowest working at home shares were in Honolulu (7.7%) behind Fresno, New Orleans Tulsa and Memphis.

Car Pools

The highest work car pool share was in Honolulu (14.2%), followed by Las Vegas, Fresno, San Antonio and Salt Lake City. The lowest car pool share was in New York (6.6%), behind Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Cincinnati and Denver.

Transit

The highest transit market share was in New York at 27.2%, followed by San Francisco, Boston, Chicago and Washington. The lowest transit markets shares were in Oklahoma City, at 0.3%, behind Memphis, Tulsa, Jacksonville and Indianapolis. Overall, 18 of the 57 major metropolitan areas had transit access shares of 1.0% or less.

Bicycle

There seems to be outsized interest in bicycles, and so we are reporting the data. The highest bicycle market share is in San Jose, at 1.8%, followed by San Francisco, Portland, Boston and Honolulu. The lowest bicycle market share was in Memphis, at 0.1%, below Dallas-Fort Worth, Birmingham, Atlanta and Nashville. In each case, the bicycle market share is less than that of transit.

Walking

Surprisingly, walking is as popular or more popular than transit in most markets (36). This includes such markets as Austin, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus. Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Kansas City, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Nashville, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Diego and Tampa-St. Petersburg. Ironically a number of these metro areas have urban rail systems, and there have been proposals in others. Honolulu, Boston and New York had the strongest walking market shares. Birmingham had the lowest walking share, at 1.0%. Overall more people used transit than walked, with much larger transit shares in a few metros.

The Future

In the future, it is likely that the financial difficulties of transit will be the principal public policy issue in urban transportation. Transit has historically had costs that rose faster than inflation and its passenger revenue has been seriously eroded as a result of the large number of employees who work fewer than five days per week. Some of these employees now drive, while those that have remained on transit ride less frequently. At the same time, the problem is exacerbated by the large financial assistance provided by the federal government to ease the financial burdens of the pandemic. Most transit agencies face perhaps what could be overwhelming fiscal challenges in retaining service with considerably lower revenues. Private firms have faced such difficulties and survived. Transit may need to take a look at similar strategies.

Chart: U.S. means of work access, comparing 2019 data with 2024 data from American Community Survey.

Table 1 back to reference

WORK ACCESS BY MODE — 2024: MAJOR METROPOLITAN AREAS
Major Metropolitan Areas	Drive Alone	Car Pool	Work from Home	Transit	Bicycle	Taxicab	Walk
Atlanta, GA	67.8%	8.5%	18.8%	1.6%	0.1%	2.0%	1.1%
Austin, TX	62.1%	8.8%	23.2%	1.4%	0.5%	2.0%	1.9%
Baltimore, MD	68.4%	8.3%	15.1%	3.5%	0.3%	1.8%	2.6%
Birmingham, AL	78.6%	7.8%	10.8%	0.7%	0.1%	1.1%	1.0%
Boston, MA-NH	58.3%	7.5%	16.2%	9.8%	1.2%	2.3%	4.8%
Buffalo, NY	75.3%	7.6%	10.4%	2.4%	0.5%	1.5%	2.3%
Charlotte, NC-SC	67.9%	9.0%	19.0%	1.1%	0.2%	1.5%	1.4%
Chicago, IL-IN	62.5%	8.0%	14.9%	9.0%	0.7%	1.6%	3.3%
Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	75.6%	7.1%	12.7%	1.0%	0.2%	1.6%	1.8%
Cleveland, OH	71.8%	8.6%	13.5%	1.9%	0.4%	1.8%	2.1%
Columbus, OH	70.6%	8.0%	16.9%	1.0%	0.4%	1.2%	1.8%
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	70.5%	10.1%	15.6%	0.6%	0.1%	1.7%	1.3%
Denver, CO	64.0%	7.3%	22.6%	2.1%	0.6%	1.3%	2.1%
Detroit, MI	75.6%	8.0%	12.5%	0.8%	0.2%	1.7%	1.2%
Fresno, CA	71.6%	13.3%	8.4%	0.8%	0.3%	4.2%	1.4%
Grand Rapids, MI	75.5%	8.4%	11.4%	1.2%	0.2%	1.2%	2.1%
Hartford, CT	71.6%	8.1%	13.8%	3.0%	0.3%	1.7%	1.6%
Honolulu, HI	63.7%	14.2%	7.7%	5.5%	1.2%	2.2%	5.5%
Houston, TX	71.8%	11.0%	12.1%	1.7%	0.3%	1.8%	1.3%
Indianapolis. IN	74.6%	8.3%	13.6%	0.6%	0.2%	1.4%	1.4%
Jacksonville, FL	70.3%	8.0%	17.4%	0.5%	0.3%	2.2%	1.3%
Kansas City, MO-KS	73.4%	8.1%	14.7%	0.6%	0.2%	1.6%	1.4%
Las Vegas, NV	69.8%	12.0%	11.4%	2.3%	0.2%	2.6%	1.5%
Los Angeles, CA	67.0%	9.7%	14.9%	3.5%	0.6%	2.1%	2.3%
Louisville, KY-IN	75.1%	8.4%	12.5%	0.7%	0.3%	1.6%	1.3%
Memphis, TN-MS-AR	76.4%	10.8%	9.9%	0.3%	0.1%	1.4%	1.1%
Miami, FL	67.5%	10.8%	14.3%	2.6%	0.5%	2.6%	1.6%
Milwaukee,WI	72.6%	8.2%	12.9%	2.2%	0.4%	1.3%	2.4%
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	68.5%	7.5%	17.4%	2.1%	0.6%	1.6%	2.2%
Nashville, TN	70.5%	9.2%	16.8%	0.8%	0.1%	1.5%	1.0%
New Orleans. LA	71.5%	10.6%	9.2%	2.3%	0.6%	2.1%	3.6%
New York, NY-NJ	44.5%	6.6%	12.9%	27.2%	0.9%	2.4%	5.4%
Oklahoma City, OK	76.3%	9.9%	10.5%	0.3%	0.2%	1.3%	1.5%
Omaha, NE-IA	75.1%	8.8%	12.5%	0.6%	0.2%	1.3%	1.6%
Orlando, FL	68.9%	9.7%	16.8%	1.1%	0.3%	2.0%	1.2%
Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	64.1%	7.8%	15.4%	7.3%	0.6%	1.5%	3.3%
Phoenix, AZ	66.3%	10.5%	17.8%	1.2%	0.4%	2.4%	1.4%
Pittsburgh, PA	69.7%	6.8%	15.7%	3.4%	0.3%	1.4%	2.7%
Portland, OR-WA	62.9%	8.3%	20.0%	3.4%	1.3%	1.2%	2.9%
Providence, RI-MA	72.2%	8.8%	11.1%	2.5%	0.5%	1.9%	2.9%
Raleigh, NC	66.2%	7.0%	23.5%	0.6%	0.2%	1.5%	1.0%
Richmond, VA	70.2%	8.1%	16.1%	1.3%	0.3%	1.6%	2.4%
Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	73.8%	11.6%	10.9%	0.9%	0.3%	1.4%	1.2%
Rochester, NY	74.2%	8.0%	12.0%	1.2%	0.4%	1.4%	2.8%
Sacramento, CA	67.5%	9.2%	16.8%	1.8%	1.0%	1.6%	2.1%
St. Louis,, MO-IL	73.7%	8.3%	13.3%	1.7%	0.3%	1.1%	1.6%
Salt Lake City, UT	65.6%	11.8%	16.3%	2.5%	0.6%	1.1%	2.1%
San Antonio, TX	69.5%	12.0%	13.4%	1.4%	0.2%	1.5%	1.9%
San Diego, CA	67.6%	8.3%	16.1%	1.9%	0.4%	2.1%	3.6%
San Francisco, CA	53.4%	9.4%	18.9%	10.9%	1.6%	1.9%	4.0%
San Jose, CA	65.5%	10.9%	14.6%	2.8%	1.8%	2.0%	2.4%
Seattle, WA	60.3%	9.0%	18.5%	6.3%	1.0%	1.1%	4.0%
Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL	67.1%	8.6%	19.3%	0.9%	0.6%	2.2%	1.3%
Tucson, AZ	68.5%	11.6%	13.7%	1.6%	0.8%	1.7%	2.1%
Tulsa, OK	77.1%	10.5%	9.4%	0.4%	0.2%	1.1%	1.3%
Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC	75.0%	8.3%	11.3%	1.2%	0.4%	1.5%	2.2%
Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV	57.1%	8.6%	19.9%	9.0%	0.8%	1.7%	2.9%
SUBTOTAL	65.3%	8.9%	15.3%	5.6%	0.5%	1.8%	2.5%
OUTSIDE MAJOR METROS	74.9%	9.6%	10.5%	0.9%	0.4%	1.4%	2.3%
TOTAL	69.2%	9.2%	13.3%	3.7%	0.5%	1.7%	2.4%
PREPANDEMIC (2019)	75.9%	8.9%	5.7%	5.0%	0.5%	2.6%	1.4%
Derived from American Community Survey 2024 (1 year)

Table 2 back to reference

WORK ACCESS BY MODE — 2024: MAJOR METROPOLITAN AREAS
Major Metropolitan Areas	Drive Alone	Car Pool	Work from Home	Transit	Bicycle	Taxicab	Walk
Atlanta, GA	37	30	9	30	54	15	53
Austin, TX	52	24	2	32	22	14	29
Baltimore, MD	35	36	25	9	32	19	15
Birmingham, AL	1	49	50	48	55	56	57
Boston, MA-NH	54	52	19	3	4	6	3
Buffalo, NY	8	50	52	18	20	36	20
Charlotte, NC-SC	36	22	7	38	52	40	43
Chicago, IL-IN	51	46	27	4	11	32	8
Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN	5	54	39	41	50	28	32
Cleveland, OH	19	29	34	25	29	20	27
Columbus, OH	24	43	14	40	27	50	31
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	25	15	23	49	56	22	48
Denver, CO	48	53	3	23	17	47	23
Detroit, MI	6	44	40	44	43	25	52
Fresno, CA	21	2	56	46	31	1	40
Grand Rapids, MI	7	32	46	37	42	52	24
Hartford, CT	22	42	31	13	36	23	34
Honolulu, HI	49	1	57	8	5	9	1
Houston, TX	20	8	43	27	39	21	44
Indianapolis. IN	12	35	33	53	48	44	42
Jacksonville, FL	27	45	13	54	30	7	47
Kansas City, MO-KS	16	40	28	50	45	33	41
Las Vegas, NV	29	3	45	19	41	2	37
Los Angeles, CA	42	18	26	10	18	10	19
Louisville, KY-IN	10	31	41	47	33	29	46
Memphis, TN-MS-AR	3	10	53	56	57	42	54
Miami, FL	39	11	30	15	19	3	35
Milwaukee,WI	17	39	37	21	23	49	18
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI	34	51	12	22	13	30	21
Nashville, TN	26	20	16	45	53	39	56
New Orleans. LA	23	12	55	20	12	11	7
New York, NY-NJ	57	57	38	1	8	4	2
Oklahoma City, OK	4	16	51	57	46	46	38
Omaha, NE-IA	9	26	42	52	51	48	33
Orlando, FL	32	17	15	39	35	16	50
Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD	47	48	24	6	15	34	9
Phoenix, AZ	43	13	11	35	26	5	39
Pittsburgh, PA	30	56	22	12	34	43	14
Portland, OR-WA	50	38	4	11	3	51	12
Providence, RI-MA	18	25	48	17	21	17	11
Raleigh, NC	44	55	1	51	49	37	55
Richmond, VA	28	41	21	33	40	31	16
Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	14	7	49	43	37	45	51
Rochester, NY	13	47	44	36	25	41	13
Sacramento, CA	40	21	17	26	6	27	28
St. Louis,, MO-IL	15	37	36	28	38	53	36
Salt Lake City, UT	45	5	18	16	14	55	26
San Antonio, TX	31	4	35	31	44	38	30
San Diego, CA	38	34	20	24	24	12	6
San Francisco, CA	56	19	8	2	2	18	4
San Jose, CA	46	9	29	14	1	13	17
Seattle, WA	53	23	10	7	7	57	5
Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL	41	27	6	42	16	8	49
Tucson, AZ	33	6	32	29	9	26	25
Tulsa, OK	2	14	54	55	47	54	45
Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC	11	33	47	34	28	35	22
Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV	55	28	5	5	10	24	10
Derived from American Community Survey 2024 (1 year)

Off the Rails 2

Randal OToole — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 20:28:33 -0400

Rail transit is finally getting the attention it deserves in Washington, DC. Early this month, Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) released a report describing billion-dollar boondoggles. While the star is California’s high-speed rail, many of the projects criticized by the report involve rail transit, including Honolulu’s rail project and Maryland’s Purple Line. The projects are not only billions of dollars over budget, many of them are years behind schedule.

As a starting point, Ernst used a one-page Department of Transportation “annual report” of federally funded projects that the Biden administration had refused to release, but which was recently released by the Trump administration. The list included five Federal Aviation Administration-funded projects that had no cost overruns, three Federal Highway Administration-funded projects whose cost overruns averaged 75 percent, three transit projects whose cost overruns averaged 80 percent, and three Federal Railroad Administration-funded projects whose cost overruns averaged 395 percent.

I’m sure it is only a coincidence that the name of the report, Off the Rails, was also the name of a 2023 report I wrote about Minnesota’s rail transit boondoggles, one of which currently has an $800 million cost overrun. Ernst specifically calls out this project as one that should have been included in the DOT report but was not.

Of the projects in Ernst’s report, the one (other than California high-speed rail) with the greatest cost overrun is the Honolulu rail line, which is also expected to be completed 11 years late. The report didn’t mention that operating the Honolulu rail line last year cost taxpayers more than $70 for every passenger it carried. On a percentage basis, however, the Maryland Purple Line wins, as it had a 130 percent cost overrun compared with 94 percent for Honolulu.

Read the rest of this piece at The Antiplanner.

Photo: cover artwork from Off The Rails report.

From Drivers to Passengers: What We Lose When We Stop Taking the Wheel

Samuel J Abrams — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 20:28:38 -0400

The Road as America's Mirror

America has always defined itself by the road. Our highways are more than infrastructure; they are metaphors for freedom, movement, and agency. To take the wheel, to choose a route, to wander into the unfamiliar has long symbolized possibility and independence. Whitman sang of the open road. Kerouac mythologized it. Families once loaded into station wagons to see the country for themselves. Driving was not just about arrival. It was about charting your own course, testing your independence, and learning to inhabit a vast and varied nation.

That is why some of the most revealing portraits of the United States have come from those who traveled with a camera. Two moments, separated by seventy years, capture the changing meaning of the road. In the 1950s, Robert Frank and Todd Webb each received Guggenheim grants to document "the American way of life." Their journeys produced contrasting but complementary visions of a booming, self-confident nation. Seven decades later, Karen Knorr and Anna Fox retraced U.S. Route 1. Their project presents a very different country. Together, these bodies of work tell us how our civic life has shifted—from confidence to fragility, from taking the wheel to surrendering it, from seeing the road as a mirror to treating it as a pipeline.

Frank and Webb: Confidence Through the Windshield

Robert Frank's The Americans (1958) remains a landmark of twentieth-century photography. Out of 27,000 exposures, Frank distilled 83 images into a searing portrait of diners, jukeboxes, funerals, and flags. His was a harsh critique, but leveled from within a society secure enough to confront itself honestly. Frank's America was booming and dynamic and capable of absorbing criticism because it had confidence in its own strength.

Todd Webb's photographs provide a gentler counterpoint. A middle-aged Midwesterner, Webb traveled more slowly and did so on foot, bicycle, even by sail. He chronicled storefronts and small-town parades with affection. He could find beauty even in wreckage; one famous and memorable image transforms a junkyard of Packards into something sculptural.

Together, they captured a society still on the move. They didn't simply look at America; they traversed it, lingering in towns most people bypassed. They recorded a country tied together by rituals that bridged difference: parades, congregations, civic clubs, and Main Street habits. Their agency mattered. They chose their routes, stopped where they wished, met strangers along the way. The road was both mirror and classroom—a way of encountering America in its fullness.

Knorr and Fox: Fragility Along Route 1

Seven decades later, Karen Knorr and Anna Fox spent nearly a decade documenting U.S. Route 1. Their exhibition U.S. Route 1 (After Berenice Abbott)—currently at Les Rencontres d'Arles—brings together 150 color photographs that reveal a sobering America.

Their Route 1 is lined with shuttered storefronts, hollow strip malls, and abandoned motels. Billboards proclaim religious and nationalist slogans. Veterans are left behind. Some moments verge on the surreal: a wax figure of a slave displayed as kitsch, a clown wandering through a mall. Critics describe their work as confronting abandonment, gun culture, and division. Where mid-century photographers found promise, Knorr and Fox reveal fragility.

Even their decision to drive Route 1 carries significance. To take the wheel with intent, to encounter difference on the ground is increasingly rare. Americans, especially younger ones, delay or forgo licenses. They rely on parents or ride-shares that move them between curated points. Navigation is ceded to algorithms. The detour, the wrong turn, the unexpected diner, once common experiences, are vanishing. Knorr and Fox remind us what is lost when we stop making such journeys: the practice of seeing the country unfiltered, the humility that comes with encountering places not designed for us.

What Changed: From Joiners to Passengers

The difference between eras reflects deeper changes in civic life. Mid-century America was a society of joiners. People moved more, traveled farther, and encountered others unlike themselves. Shared rituals gave diverse communities a sense of belonging.

That fabric has unraveled. Americans now move less, join less, and know fewer people outside their circles. Religious attendance has collapsed, volunteering has declined, and loneliness has surged. In 1990, only 3% of Americans said they had no close friends. By 2021, that number quadrupled to 12%. Social media narrowed horizons further, reinforcing echo chambers.

For younger Americans, the decline in driving captures this trend perfectly. In 1983, 46% of 16-year-olds and 80% of 18-year-olds held driver's licenses. By 2021, only 25% of 16-year-olds and 60% of 18-year-olds were licensed. Among 19-year-olds, the licensing rate fell from 87% in 1983 to 70% in 2010. By 2023, only about 33% of teens 19 and under had licenses, down from 45% in 2003.

What was once a rite of passage has become optional. Even Uber's CEO recently noted his adult son hasn't acquired a license, preferring ride-shares. The message is clear: for a rising generation, taking the wheel is no longer central.

The Loss of Agency

The loss is not simply practical. It is cultural and civic. Without driving, young Americans have fewer encounters with the unexpected. They don't stumble into small-town diners or wrong-turn parades. They move from one curated node to another, carried by parents or apps, insulated from the unplanned.

Driving once provided not just mobility but humility: the realization that the country is vast, varied, and not designed to conform to you. Without it, empathy shrinks, resilience weakens, and civic trust withers. What is being lost is agency itself: the ability to choose, to discover, to see for oneself. A generation that no longer drives itself may be less prepared to steer the nation forward.

Roads as Pipelines, Not Mirrors

This is why Knorr and Fox's work matters so deeply. Their photographs remind us what happens when the road ceases to be a mirror. Frank and Webb could only make their portraits because they took the wheel, moved through America on their own terms. Knorr and Fox did the same. But most Americans, especially the young, no longer do.

When we stop driving, we cede agency. We allow algorithms to decide where we go and what we see. Roads without drivers are not mirrors; they are pipelines. They move us efficiently but show us nothing. We glide between curated destinations without inhabiting the places in between. The unexpected detour, the chance encounter, the human surprise vanish. And with them vanishes the civic practice of meeting difference face-to-face.

A society that does not drive is a society that no longer wanders, no longer discovers, no longer learns humility by being a stranger in a strange town. It is a society of passengers, not participants—discontented, disconnected, and blind.

Serendipity has become nearly extinct. Social media feeds us pre-digested itineraries and step-by-step scripts for experiencing every place and culture. We follow the same ten restaurants, photograph the same scenic overlooks, perform the same rituals of consumption masquerading as discovery. The algorithm has replaced the accident. The curated has conquered the unexpected. And in this endless reproduction of identical experiences, the genuine gifts of human encounter—surprise, discomfort, growth—wither away. We are all following the same maps to the same destinations, and the social world grows more impoverished with every perfectly planned journey.

Reclaiming the Road

America's roads remain mirrors. The arc from Frank and Webb to Knorr and Fox is not just about changing photographic styles. It's about civic health and the question of whether or not we are still willing to take the wheel, to encounter difference, to recognize ourselves in the process.

The lesson is clear: America can only be understood through its differences. Parades and picnics, junkyards and diners, strip malls and veterans' halls; all are part of the same civic fabric. To ignore them is to unravel who we are.

But younger Americans are losing the habits that once made the road formative. They inherit it not as a mirror but as a corridor of convenience, navigated by algorithms and driven by others. Without the practice of taking the wheel, they lose the civic muscle that comes from agency, discovery, and encounter.

That is the warning in Knorr and Fox's Route 1. They did what Frank and Webb did seventy years earlier; they took the wheel, chose their stops, lingered where algorithms would never lead. Their 150 photographs are not merely documents of decay but proof of what becomes visible when we still make such journeys. Each shuttered storefront exists because they drove there themselves, stopped, looked, and recorded. Their work is both portrait and demonstration showing not only what America looks like when we stop looking, but what we might still see if we reclaim the practice of looking for ourselves.

If we fail to heed this lesson, we risk raising a generation of passengers—young Americans who inherit Frank's critique and Webb's affection as museum pieces rather than living practices, who no longer know their own country because they no longer choose their own routes through it. This is not mere nostalgia for the open road. It's about the fundamental skills of democratic citizenship; the ability to navigate disagreement, to be comfortable with discomfort, to find common ground in unexpected places. These are precisely the capacities we need to bridge our political and cultural divides, yet they're the very skills a curated, algorithmic existence fails to develop.

The story these photographers tell, from Frank's 27,000 exposures to Knorr and Fox's decade-long journey, remains worth seeing precisely because they saw it themselves, unmediated and unfiltered. Each transformed the road from pipeline to mirror. And in doing so, they preserved not just images but a way of encountering America that is rapidly vanishing.

Making the deliberate choice to drive through difference, to seek the unexpected, to inhabit the uncomfortable is worth saving. Because without it, we lose more than mobility. We lose the very capacity to see ourselves.

Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a scholar with the Sutherland Institute.

Photo: Pexels.

Urban Transit Falls Flat in June

Randal OToole — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 20:28:38 -0400

America’s public transit systems carried 80.43% as many riders in June 2025 as during the same month in 2019 according to data released by the Federal Transit Administration yesterday. This is slightly down from 80.46 percent in May, which was slightly down from 80.73 percent in April, which was slightly down from 80.91 percent in March (these numbers are slightly updated from previous reports).

Transit agencies are almost all crying that they are in a fiscal crisis, yet they operated 97.9 percent as many vehicle-miles of transit services in June 2025 as they had done in June 2019. Of course, they spent a lot more money doing it because most of them had given employees hefty pay increases, especially at the executive level.

Transit continues to do better than average in the New York urban area, which carried 85.5 percent as many riders in June as before the pandemic. Others that did above average include Miami (84.4%), Dallas-Ft. Worth (84.1%), Houston (88.4%), and Washington (89.2%). Somehow Cincinnati is at 104.2 percent, Richmond is at 121.7 percent, and Tucson is at 123.6 percent.

Chicago (68.6%), Atlanta (55.4%), Phoenix (60.9%), San Francisco-Oakland (69.8%), the Twin Cities (63.0%), Denver (61.3%), St. Louis (52.3%), and Portland (69.6%) are all still well below average. The real basket case is Memphis at 37.6 percent.

Memphis transit has had its budget cut so it only was able to provide 67 percent of pre-COVID service. But some of these poor results are despite providing high levels of service: Chicago provided more than 100 percent of pre-pandemic service, while Atlanta, San Francisco, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Portland were all above 95 percent. Cleveland transit actually provided 112.8 percent of pre-pandemic service yet carried only 78.9 percent as many riders. Thus, spending more on transit to recover riders doesn’t always work.

The Federal Highway Administration still hasn’t published driving data for May, much less June. I’ll report those data here when they are issued.

As usual, I’ve posted an enhanced version (excel sheet) of the FTA’s spreadsheet. This includes the FTA raw data in cells A1 through KF2327; annual totals in columns KG through LD; mode totals in rows 2330 through 2351; transit agency totals in rows 2360 through 3359; and urban area totals in rows 3361 through 3851. Column LE compares June 2025 with June 2019; LF compares June 2025 with June 2024; and LG compared the year to date in 2025 with the same months in 2019.

This piece first appeared at The Antiplanner.

Graph: chart of public transit ridership statistics, compared to other modes of transportation, courtesy The Antiplanner

Coast-to-Coast High Speed Rail

Randal OToole — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 20:28:38 -0400

According to Newsweek, some nutty group called AmeriStarRail is proposing to run high-speed trains from New York to Los Angles, which it says can be done at a profit. Only they wouldn’t be high-speed trains and they almost certainly wouldn’t earn a profit.

The AmeriStarRail proposal is to run a train from New York to Los Angeles on existing tracks. The train would take 72 hours for an average speed of 45 miles per hour, which is hardly a high speed. The train would replace, not supplement, existing trains on the proposed route: the New York-Pittsburgh Pennsylvanian, the Pittsburgh-Chicago portion of the Floridian, and the Chicago-Los Angeles Southwest Chief.

I’m not sure why they didn’t choose the more obvious route, the Lake Shore Limited and Southwest Chief, which currently takes only 67 hours to get from New York to Chicago. Replacing the Floridian with this transcontinental train would leave that train, which continues from Pittsburgh to Washington and then to Miami, dangling. That’s not much of a loss as I doubt many people take it from Chicago to Miami anyway.

The twist that would supposedly make this profitable is that AmeriStarRail is proposing to carry trucks (and their drivers) as well as passengers, thus putting Amtrak in the freight business in competition with the railroads that would host the train. There aren’t enough trucks going between New York and Chicago to make this profitable, so the freight railroads probably wouldn’t care.

According to its web pages, AmeriStarRail consists of a “team” of four people: a bankruptcy attorney (which is appropriate), a former president of Amtrak, and two former transit agency employees. Somehow I don’t think that three people experienced in running money-losing organizations are going to come up with realistic proposals, but at least they’ll have the help of a bankruptcy specialist when the proposals fail.

Read the rest of this piece at The Antiplanner.

Photo: Courtesy the Antiplanner.