Transportation
Some Bus Riders Do Secretly Just Want a Car
But a sharp new study also shows that plenty of others truly prefer their transit trip.
The talk of the public transit world yesterday centered on a report by Laura J. Nelson and Dan Weikel of the Los Angeles Times spotlighting a troublesome decline in local bus and rail ridership. The news shouldn’t have been a shock: dips in U.S. bus travel, very likely the result of service cuts, have been out there for all to see. But the story revived the impassioned debate about whether transit riders are really just would-be drivers who can’t afford a car.
USC’s James E. Moore II, a longtime L.A. rail critic, clearly thinks that’s the case. Via the Times: