(The following story by Annie Martin appeared on the Southwest Observer website on October 1.)
CHICAGO — David Boyce, like most other public transit commuters in the Chicago area, has noticed that his morning commute is more crowded than it used to be.
There used to be a seat for everyone on the Metra/Union Pacific North District Line, even during the morning commute, said Boyce, who teaches civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University. Now, all of the seats and even the aisles are filled during the 8 a.m. trip.
He’s not imagining things.
Metra officials said about 5% more people were riding their trains in July than did a year prior.
Meg Reile, a Metra spokesman, said that even though the trains are more crowded than they used to be, it’s rare for customers to be turned away on the platform. The system is limited in what it can do to increase capacity, but Metra has considered removing the bathrooms from some cars to create more space for riders.
The trains are so crowded that in August Metra discontinued its bar car, or “refreshment car” services to make room for increased ridership. Until Aug. 29, when the last bar car rolled into the station for the last time, there were 10 trains with bar cars running on just a few lines, including the Rock Island District, and Chicago was just one of two cities (New York the other) where commuters could buy drinks aboard a commuter train.
This influx of passengers is likely driven by high gas prices. Boyce speculates that they might stick around even if the cost of fuel drops: Commuting via public transit might prove to be a convenient and economic way to travel for the masses.
“If they hadn’t tried it before, or hadn’t tried it recently, and they’re pleased, they’ll stay,” Boyce said.
Metra isn’t the only public transit system seeing an influx of customers. The American Public Transportation Association said earlier this year that the number of public transit trips in 2007 was the highest in 50 years.
In April, May and June, the number of trips increased more than 5% above the number of trips in those three months last year.
On the flip side, drivers are seeing fewer of their peers behind the wheel. Travel on roads and streets in July was about 3.6% less than it was the previous July.
Since gas prices have risen, fewer people have been killed in cars.
The drop in vehicle fatality rates is very possibly a byproduct in the decrease of miles driven, according to Joseph DiJohn, director of the Metropolitan Transportation Support Initiative at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Nationwide, the number of people who died in traffic accidents in 2007 was the lowest since 1994, according to the Department of Transportation. The drop in fatalities from 2006 to 2007 was about 4%, though in Illinois the change was less than 1%.
The Regional Transportation Authority’s Seniors Ride Free program has probably also affected the shift to public transportation in Chicagoland. Since the program was implemented earlier this year, the number of seniors on the region’s public transit systems has increased, DiJohn said.
But it’s probably gas prices, not special programs or environmental concerns, that are drawing people to public transit, DiJohn and Boyce said. Those issues have been well-known for a long time, DiJohn said, so it’s probably the elevated cost of fuel that turned people on to public transit.
“For the first time, people are really changing their habits,” DiJohn said. “They’re driving less.”