As Gas Prices Fluctuate, Support for Mass Transit Rises

Americans made nearly 10.7 billion trips on public transit in 2013, the country's highest ridership point in more than half a century. The mark is largely the result of increased investments: bigger systems in some cities, more off-peak service in others. We can and should discuss whether the public costs of these projects matched the ridership return, but the trend is at a minimum in the right direction.

At the end of the day, though, improving trains and buses alone can only attract so many riders. The bigger changes in travel mode won't occur until local governments pair such transit incentives with automobile disincentives. The latter involves removing the social discounts that encourage driving — chief among them, an artificially low gas tax that doesn't cover the cost of our roads.