(The following article by Larry King was posted on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on May 1.)
PHILADELPHIA — Think the current gas-price pain will become SEPTA’s lasting ridership gain?
Think again.
In September, when the average price of regular gas hit $3.11 a gallon in Southeastern Pennsylvania, SEPTA rode a wave of new passengers – an 18 percent pop over September 2004.
But by December, with gas prices down to $2.22, SEPTA’s wave had crashed. Nearly all of the new riders had vanished.
“From a purely business standpoint, we love to see these spikes in gas prices,” SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said. “It gives us a chance to introduce new riders to the system.”
Keeping them is tougher.
In the last two years, fluctuations in gas costs have had little permanent effect on Philadelphia-area mass-transit use, statistics show.
From March 2004 through last month, the average cost of a gallon of regular gas climbed from $1.74 to $2.40 – a 38 percent increase – in Philadelphia and its Pennsylvania suburbs. Yet weekday SEPTA ridership went up by only 2 percent during that span.
Most of the gain has been on SEPTA’s regional rail lines, which have steadily added riders while bus, trolley and subway use, in contrast, has remained relatively flat.
(Nor did SEPTA’s week-long strike last fall have much impact. First, the strike did not involve the Regional Rail, which has a different union and, second, statistics show that mass transit does not permanently lose riders unless a strike continues for two weeks or longer.)
In New Jersey, weekday PATCO ridership increased 3 percent during the same period.
Only New Jersey Transit has shown bigger gains. Despite a fare increase last summer, it posted a 10 percent gain in statewide ridership from December 2003 through December 2005.
New Jersey Transit spokeswoman Penny Bassett Hackett credited the addition of more buses, trains and rail stations.
This month’s $3-plus gas prices have already provided a boost in the region.
Nationally, some early reports are trickling in, said Virginia Miller, spokeswoman for the American Public Transportation Association. “Some places are seeing double-digit increases, some are seeing single digits, but something is happening,” Miller said.
But SEPTA officials say convenience and lifestyle habits have more effect than cost on commuters’ long-term choices.
“When a sudden spurt in prices is a major media story and people are talking about it, some people will hop on the train and ride it for a few days,” Maloney said. “But it takes a change in mindset to get a permanent commuter.”
As in, giving up the monthly parking space and committing to a monthly rail pass.
Choosing the convenience of riding over the flexibility of driving. Understanding that if you spill coffee on yourself and are running late, the 7:17 train won’t wait like the car in your driveway.
“It will take them a good month, maybe six months, of riding public transportation before it becomes second nature,” Maloney said. “But once they come aboard for that long, we have them.”
John McGee, SEPTA’s ridership expert, said ridership figures from this week will provide the first true measure of the impact from this month’s gas spike.
Although those numbers won’t be available until at least the end of next week, transit riders are reporting shortages of elbow room.
“It’s usually crowded anyway, but now there are a few more people standing, fewer seats available,” said Pamela Parks, 40, a managed-care intake worker who takes the R-3 from Gladstone to Center City.
Although most riders reported only moderate increases, one man at PATCO’s Haddonfield station said his train had been so full that some passengers have had to wait for the next train, delaying their commute.
“If you get here early enough, you may be able to get to work on time,” said Creighton Riggs of Lawnside, attributing the crunch to higher gas prices.
Established riders, however, said gas costs were only a minor part of their transit choice.
When Brent Moore, 25, moved from Erie, Pa., to Wayne in late January, the data analyst crunched the commuting numbers.
A monthly TrailPass to his job at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania retails for $1,500 a year. Between $43 a week for premium gas and $100 monthly for parking, he saw that driving to work would cost nearly $2,000 a year more than taking SEPTA.
Moore has driven to work just once. “When it came down to it, it was just easier on a daily basis to jump on a train,” he said.
For Bill Cella, 59, the cost of parking and the aggravation of I-95 led him to abandon his car 12 years ago for the R-7 from Holmesburg to Market East.
Today, he can’t imagine driving. He would pay a subsidized daily rate of $8.50 to park along Delaware Avenue, then have to take a company shuttle to his security job at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.
With SEPTA, “you get on and there’s always a seat. It’s cool in the summer; it’s warm in the winter. You can read, you can sleep,” Cella said. “And if I know the conductor, he’ll wake me up so I don’t miss my stop.”
If too many people start thinking like Moore and Cella, SEPTA could well face a space crunch. During last September’s gas-fed spike, some trains were standing-room only.
SEPTA’s McGee said high gas prices are hitting at a convenient time. Ridership tails off in May as college students depart, and shrinks even more as summer vacations hit. But if gas prices continue rising through the summer, he said, “we could be in a whole new area.”
And if they plateau at current levels?
“Most people, after a price goes up, get used to it, and unless there are other circumstances, will return to the automobile,” Maloney said. “For people who have those options, the attractiveness of public transportation is generally not the economy of it, but the speed, comfort and efficiency of it.”