Why People Don't Ride Public Transit in Small Cities

[finehoe]

...even if the city could find the money for a new light-rail line, would people use it? Like most Americans outside the biggest cities, people in Nashville are accustomed to using their cars. According to Census data from 2009, fewer than 3 percent of workers in the Nashville metro area used public transit to commute to work, making the city less public-transit-friendly than Houston, Richmond, Memphis, Tampa, and Kansas City, to name a few.

Evidence from other cities indicates that even if Nashville somehow finds the money to put into light rail or bus rapid transit, it could be challenging to get people to use those systems. And though transit may reduce congestion temporarily, commuters will return to the roads once they see traffic is down.

In most metro areas of less than 1 million people (Nashville has roughly 659,000), just 1.5 percent to 2.5 percent of residents use transit, according to David Hartgen, a emeritus transportation professor at UNC Charlotte. Many of these places have tried to increase the share of their population that use transit, but few have succeeded.

Even Charlotte, which is seen as a poster-child for public-transit advocates because it invested heavily in transit over the last two decades, has not seen a significant increase in ridership when compared to the region's astronomical growth, he told me. And, when gas prices go down—as they have in recent months— ridership decreases. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/nashville-charlotte-public-transit/412741/

[Ocklawaha]

The fact is some people won't use public transit, some don't fly, some (including me) hate FREEways but see them  and use them as a necessary evil, others won't go near them. We had a maid in Colombia that would commute the length of the valley on local city buses, but wouldn't go near the Medellin Metro for fear of 'the trains.'

The anti-transit crowd has tried to package this as 'smaller cities,' 'low density cities,' 'cities with fully functioning roads and bridges' 'cities that _______________won't use transit.' If these are 'rules,' then there are amazing exceptions. Locally we only need to go as far as St. Augustine to find a record breaking, award winning, nationally featured small city transit system.

More? Clay transit is doing so well that a line to Starke is promised and Starke isn't even in their service/funding area.

More? Putnam County is also riding a wave of success so much so that they have developed their own bus capable of maintaining scheduled service on rutted sand-trap country roads. This is far enough along that videos have been shot of their prototype bus and national/international builders are considering a Palatka plant location.

If the article uses Nashville's commuter train as an example (it's NOT light-rail) there are reasons for its light usage. It only runs during the rush hours and no more then 6-7 times daily. It was built along a shortline railroad that never served the population centers of the metro. As if JTA started a commuter train from Jacksonville Terminal/PO to Blount Island 6 times a day, ignoring the Philips, Roosevelt and Beaver Street Corridors... No riders? No wonder!

[Ocklawaha]

Oh shit! I just realized I gave JTA a new way for rail to fail idea.

[Adam White]

I reckon a lot of it is due to incentives. There isn't as much of an incentive to ride public transport when the traffic isn't ridiculuous, when there is plenty of parking and where there aren't financial disincentives to do so. People ride public transport in major cities because it makes sense. It's the obvious option.

I could drive to work, but it would take me longer and cost a hell of a lot more and take significantly longer. And be extremely stressful. So the bus or train makes perfect sense.

[Tacachale]

I was in Nashville this weekend and it seems to reflect our experience pretty closely. They're currently trying to entice people to use the bus with free rides on some days, we actually took it once. But yeah, we were almost the only ones on it.