Americans Park Cars, Look to Public Transit

June 3, 2008— -- If you've recently decided to start commuting to work on public transportation, instead of driving, you've probably already noticed that you're not alone.

As it becomes less affordable to fill up the gas tank, more Americans are turning to buses, subways and commuter trains instead of getting on the highway, according to numbers released Monday by the American Public Transportation Association.

Americans logged 2.6 billion trips on public transportation in the first three months of this year alone, the group's report stated. That's nearly 85 million more trips than people took on public transit during the same period in 2007.

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"Certainly, taking public transit is the quickest way to beat the high gas prices," said Rose Sheridan, vice president of the American Public Transportation Association.

But while public transportation may be a wise economic and environmental choice, today's shift away from cars has some people questioning whether the nation's public transit system can handle the surge.

Robert Puentes, a fellow with the metropolitan policy program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., said that while increased ridership is "a good problem to have," city transit systems are "in dire need of major investment."

That's not the case in other developed countries.

"Certainly, Europe for decades has invested heavily in public transit," Sheridan said. "And we are seeing now that China and India are right now significantly investing in public transit and expanding their services there."

But in the United States, Puentes said, "Many cities and metropolitan areas are not prepared for the surge."

He pointed to the suburban sprawl of the 1950s as the time when Americans started to rely more on their cars, and a time when national transportation policy started favoring highways.

"The interstates wound up turning into America's main streets," Puentes said. "The nation has built itself over the last 50 years on the promise of cheap driving."