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Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Michael Medved :: Townhall.com Columnist
Most mass transit riders in 50 years: Good news or bad?
by Michael Medved
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A few weeks ago I noticed a startling story in the “Money” section of USA TODAY.

The main head announced purportedly good news: RIDERS CROWD PUBLIC TRANSIT SYSTEMS, and then came that surprising subhead: HIGHEST USE SINCE THE 1950’s AT MORE THAN 10 BILLION TRIPS.

Sure enough, the body of the article explained that the American Public Transportation Association reported that ridership rose in 2006 some 2.9%, to reach the highest levels since 1957.

Did you know that there were more people using mass transit during the ‘40’s and early ‘50’s than there are today? I most certainly did not. This is an astonishing revelation when you think about it.

First of all, the population of the country was barely half what it is today—and yet more people rode mass transit.

Moreover, during the last 50 years we’ve poured literally hundreds of billions of dollars into the most expensive, glitzy, ambitious mass transit projects in history--- BART in San Francisco, MARTA in Atlanta, MetroRail in LA, plus impressive new projects in Minneapolis, Portland and Washington DC, and nearly everywhere else. With all these elaborate new systems, with high-tech buses, with propaganda about global warming and government policies designed to force you out of your car, it’s astonishing to think that more people used mass transit when America had half the people it has today – and none of the high-tech, new rapid transit systems.

No, we didn’t use buses and subways more frequently in the long-ago ‘50’s because the service was better: by most measures, it wasn’t as good, the buses weren’t as comfortable, and some of the huge systems we enjoy today didn’t even exist.

There was only one reason that more people used buses and trains in those days ---and that was because they were relatively poor, and couldn’t afford to own or operate their own cars.

As recently as 1960, Americans owned less than 400 cars per one thousand population: many families had no cars at all, and owning more than one car per household represented a privileged rarity. Today, we possess more than 800 cars per 1000 population – approaching one car for every man, woman and child, with two or three vehicles in a typical family.

Of course, many social planners and environmentalists want us give up all those gas guzzlers and get back on the bus like we did fifty years ago. But the change in automobile ownership still gives some indication of the vast distance traveled by ordinary Americans in their journey toward wealth, choices, and personal freedom.

Despite the endless whining to the effect that “we’ve never had it so bad,” the number of citizens who own their own homes has soared from barely 50% in 1950 to 70% today, and the typical home itself is more than 50% larger than fifty years ago. In 1950, 24% of homes didn’t have flush toilets, and less than 2% had air conditioning. Today, virtually 100% of the places we live enjoy flush toilets (what a relief) and more than 80% of homes boast air conditioning. Continued...

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About The Author
Michael Medved's daily syndicated radio talk show reaches one of the largest national audiences every weekday between 3 and 6 PM, Eastern Time. Michael Medved is the author of eleven books, including the bestsellers What Really Happened to the Class of '65?, Hollywood vs. America, Right Turns and, most recently, The Ten Big Lies About America.
 
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Just the Facts.
Medved's argument is not valid because he fails to mention:
a) Cities had a larger population back then, and declined after the baby boom. Take Philly for example:
1920 3 1823779
1930 3 1950961
1940 3 1931334
1950 3 2071605
1960 4 2002512
1970 4 1948609
1980 4 1688210
1990 5 1585577
http://physics.bu.edu/~redner/projects/population/cities/ph iladelphia.html

Mass transit was mainly centralized in cities back then.
b) Gas prices were expensive back then. Prices didn't break the sub $2 mark until 1961 (adjusted for inflation). Which means that gas was the same price in 1961 as it is today.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_history_of_gasoline_p rices_in_the_US
c) Median household income (40's through 60's) was 10-20% less than it is today. That means families had less to spend on gas that was more expensive than it is now.
Conclusion: So you mean to tell me fuel was higher on average (40's - 60's) than today, people made 10-20% less median income, and 500-600K more people (i.e. Philly as an example) lived in the city? Well no kidding it took 50 years of increasing population to finally even out on mass transit. It's clear that the author has no concept of the history of transportation and will try to distort facts in order to prove his lame point.
All in all, when done right: mass transit is more efficient (financially, faster, environmentally friendly) than individual vehicles in densely populated areas. Sadly the author fails to realize this point and prefers to take a fantasyland attitude (mass transit = lower standard of living) based on his broadly narrow point of view.
Medved, I challenge you to try out Hong Kong's mass transit (best in the world) and then try to claim that it sucks. Good luck.

Partial exlplanation for traffic problem
Short and sweet, it is the illegal alien problem, which continues to be ignored by our national Congress. We have suffered a great strain on our public and private transportation issues. The figure for these illegal aliens now is being quoted at about 20 million illegal felonious folks looking for a nicer way to live. Can't say that I would blame them, if they had followed the rules and entered our country when our government invited them in. With their gate crashing attitude and then begin demanding their legal rights, while they have not yet become citizens, is totally helping to clog our welfare. Planning project for a city, was done with a projected growth for city. Take Atlanta and Los Angeles as our example. The illegal aliens flocked to those two cities and the crime rate moved up. Stolen cars took illegal aliens to other parts of the country, Atlanta was one of them, and for those who came across the border into Arizona, the car theft rate in Tucson was one every five minutes. The folks that come here from across a border, are not the wealthy, but the poor and they all have the idea that all Americans are rich and can afford to buy another car when they "liberate" the one you are driving now. Even those Americans who do not have much, have far more than these people had, therefore in the eyes of these illegal aliens, you can afford to help them out. Los Angeles is a zoo, with many gangs and corrupt officials who aiding them in their illegal entry to this country. Our streets were parking lots, even while most of the illegal population was yet to come to the cities. I spent more than thirty years in Los Angeles, please do not contradict what I have seen with my own eyes, and my life has been threated several times, just by walking my dog in the early hours, going into MacDonald's to eat, talking with my Hispanic neighbors, for yea, I did live within an area considered a barrio. I saw the children riding bicycles all night, delivering drugs for the pushers and much more. Our buses looked as though they had come directly from Mexico, with few white residents riding them. Our walls were covered nightly with graffiti from two different gangs and murder and drive-by incidents were almost nightly or daily occurences. Most of the cars had Latino drivers, our low cost housing, and HUD projects were filled with illega aliens. When we attended a fast food restaurant, the size of the crowd was always Latino and the predominant spoken language was Spanish. Our ballots were printed in 20 languages. The city was a sanctuary city, which means that from the Mayor on down, they were offering sanctuary to law breakers in our country. Raising taxes to help pay for those services that clogged our emergency rooms in our hospitals until one by one they were forced to close their trauma centers because they could not afford to keep them open. The entire city was gridlocked far too often and the officials could not find a solution, after throwing multimillions into searching for solutions. At certain times of the day, our freeways became five to eight lanes of parking lots, that ran for miles. With all the freeways available to our transportation, they were all full. Too often the population was hours late in getting home. The problems kept expanding and things were not getting better. Finally, I had a chance to sell my house, which had been burglarized by the Latino's that lived in our area. While they trashed the house, and this elderly man could not even walk through his home to say goodbye to it, I still got money for it and left California and relocated here in a southern state. We are still facing illegal aliens here, hired to work in our plants, at a lower wage than the local people. Our citixens are undergoing a form of silent rage, but one that I fear could errupt and the consequences will be indeed harsh. Our streets here are clogged and I do not even need to turn my head any longer, I can judge who is driving next to me. Don;t ask, you already have the answer. Our system was not designed to absorb the effects of a sudden influx of roughly twenty million illegal alien invaders. The solving of the problem will be up to the voters in November. Remember your responsibility as you step into the polling booth and cast a ballot that will help solve the problem or find some very unpleasant events to errupt within our borders. Our Congress needs to work on solving our problems, not going to Syria, worsening the pressure on our military. I choose to elect a proven problem solver as my candidate and hope that when you investigate Mitt Rommney, you will find a candidaate to your liking also. Solve problems with problem solvers.
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