Transportation
The Real Barriers to Abundant, All-Day Transit Service
Despite clear benefits, too many transit agencies seem to be hanging by a thread.
How important is it that mass transit run all the time — midday, evenings, and weekends? In places like San Francisco or Manhattan, all-day service is obviously essential. In low-density suburbs 40 miles away, it's equally obvious that transit's main role is the rush-hour commute.
But as wealth moves into urban cores and lower-income people are pushed out to suburbs, the needs for transit are changing faster than our transit politics. All-day, all-week mass transit is becoming an urgent need not just in the core, where it supports diverse and sustainable low-car lifestyles, but also across a suburbia where travel needs are no longer strictly nine-to-five.