The 51 percent decrease in transit commuters, from the #ACS tracks well with ridership data complied by
2019-2021
APTA is showing a 53% drop in riders, 2019-2020, and a 4% rebound, 2020-2021.
APTA is also showing a 36.4% increase in Q2 ridership '22 vs '21. Good!
The #ACSData transit commuters for 2020 might actually be too high?
(My general recollection is that work commutes comprise 40 percent of a region’s transit boardings. So, perhaps, we’ve seen an even more massive decrease in non-work transit usage, 2019 to 2020; and an even more massive recovery in non-work transit usage, 2020-2021 and into 2022!)
Still, however the 51 percent decrease in transit commuters, 2019 to 2021, is staggering.
Next years release of the 2022 #ACS should hopefully follow the ridership recovery trends shown by
<Table B transit.png>
State-level results: New York has the highest number of transit commuters, 2019 and 2021.
88% of the nation's transit commuters reside in these 15 states.
Washington State shows the steepest decline, 71% drop
(Why rank by number of transit commuters in 2021? This is because the market size really matters here. Large transit markets is where we have the highest investment in public transportation. Follow the numbers on transit commuters!)
<Table C transit.png>
Transit Commuting by County-of-Residence
Four largest transit commute markets are the Boroughs of NYC.
Steepest declines in San Francisco County, CA and King County, WA (-74%)
Other counties showing steep decreases: District of Columbia (-69 percent) and Cook County, Illinois (-61 percent).
<Table D transit.png>
Transit Commuting by Place-of-Residence
New York City has 36% of nation's transit commuters in 2021.
Steepest declines are in Seattle (-76%) and San Francisco (-74%).
Yonkers showed least decrease (-19%), 2019 to 2021.
<Table E transit.png>
Trends in US Transit Commuting, 2019-2021, continued.
Combined Statistical Areas (CSA) or "Mega-Region”
The 31-county New York region had 47% of nation's transit commuters in 2021.
CORRECTION: The 23-county NY region is for the MSA. The CSA comprises 31 counties!!
The 12-county San Jose mega-region had a 75% decrease in transit commuting. San Jose is the largest city by total population in the Bay Area, followed by #2 San Francisco and #3 Oakland. The Bay Area neighbor counties included in the CSA are Santa Cruz, San Benito (Hollister) and San Joaquin (Stockton). They’re a part of the Bay Area due to their high share (>15 %) of commuters working in the central Bay Area.
<Table F transit.png>
Metropolitan Statistical Areas are either stand alone metro areas, or parts of larger CSAs.
The five-county San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley MSA showed a 76% drop in transit commuters. The MSA includes: San Francisco, San Mateo, Marin, Alameda and Contra Costa Counties.
The Sea-Tac metro area is showing a 72 percent decrease in transit commuting, 2019-2021.
<Table G transit.png>
Transit commuting by Congressional District.
13 of the 15 districts with largest transit commutes are in New York City.
Rounding out top 15 are districts in Boston and Philadelphia.
<Table H transit.png>
Urbanized Areas ranked by transit commuters in 2021.
Just the urban portion of metro areas, omitting rural areas within the metro.
The New York UA has 46 percent of the nation's transit commuters in 2021.
/ / End of thread
335, <Table I transit.png>
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Ranking PUMAs by Number of Resident Transit Commuters, 2021.
I did check out the 2,378 PUMAs in the US. Of the top 50 PUMAs in the US (based on transit commuters, 2021), 45 are in NEW YORK CITY. Two are in Hudson County, NJ (#33, #42); one is in Westchester County, NY (Yonkers, #46); and two are in Chicago (#47, #50). It’s so very clear that New York dominates the United States public transportation market!
That’s all for today.
My r scripts for pulling this data is shared, here:
Feel free to adapt, correct, use these scripts.
Any additional work on charting this information, say, with the R package, ggplot2, would be very welcome!
Follow me on twitter: @charleypurvis
Chuck Purvis
Hayward, California
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