Transit Report Card Archives - Transportation For America

How does U.S. transit support compare to our peers?

Our Transit Report Card analyzes how states compare on transit access and support. To understand how our figures match up in the context of other countries, we took a look at one of our peers: Australia.

In part 1 and part 2 of this series, we compared U.S. states’ support for transit based on funding and access. Those figures are hard to understand without context, so we found ourselves asking: how do U.S. states compare to similar jurisdictions in other countries when it comes to transit policy?

But “similar jurisdictions” don’t exist in many other countries. Most other industrialized countries either control all transit policy at the national level (think the United Kingdom, France, and Japan) or cede only limited power to sub-national governments (think Germany, Mexico, and India).

We were, however, able to find one country with sub-national governments that have primary control over transit policy. That country is Australia, which funds its transportation infrastructure much like the U.S. does. Their national government distributes transportation funding directly to states and territories in the form of block grants. States and territories, in turn, direct that funding to specific projects, including public transit. Though the Australian system is different from ours in meaningful ways (like their more streamlined federal investment approach), their structure is similar to our own, where state governments dictate the vast majority of transportation spending and policy.

So we partnered with Movement & Place Consulting, a Melbourne-based transport consulting firm, to rate Australia’s nine internal states and territories on some of the same metrics that we used to rate U.S. states.

VMT

Americans drive more miles and ride less transit than Australians. Pre-pandemic, over 76 percent of Americans drove alone to work, compared with only 62 percent of Australians. On the other hand, 5 percent of Americans used public transit to get to work, compared with 12 percent of Australians commuting by train or bus.

To better understand this phenomenon, we measured how much Americans and Australians drive, measured in annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per capita in each U.S. and Australian state.

As we explained in part 2 of this series, most American states see over 10,000 miles per capita, with just a few exceptions. Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, DC, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island all had less than 8,500 VMT per capita in 2019, the year before the pandemic changed driving patterns around the country. But how does that compare to other countries?

Australia, despite being far more sparsely populated than the U.S., does not even come close to our VMT per capita. The highest VMT Australian state, Western Australia, drives about the same amount (6,430 miles per person per year) as the lowest VMT U.S. state, New York (6,373 miles per person per year). And every Australian state fits within the lowest category of our U.S. map. So the Australian map looks stark in comparison:

Average vehicle miles traveled per person in Australia. The entire map is the same color of gray, showing that every state has less than 8,500 VMT per person. Specific highlights listed in the paragraph above

Australians are able to have a significantly reduced VMT per capita as residency is highly concentrated within a single point in each state. While in most U.S. states, 20 percent of the population lives in their largest city, approximately 67 percent of Australia’s population lives in each state’s capital city.

These sort of dense land use strategies are proven to help reduce carbon emissions by making it easier for people to drive less. They are also proven to help grow local economies, improve access to recreation and exercise, and prevent traffic deaths (in all sorts of communities, not just urban ones).

Access

VMT per capita provides the most straightforward comparison between the U.S. and Australia, but what about access? For our U.S. analysis, we took a look at federal data to get a sense of how well transit was connecting people to their essential destinations. This gave us a transit access index, which we converted into state rankings.

Australia does not have a database equivalent to what we used in our U.S. access analysis. But we can learn a lot about Australians’ access to transit by examining its land use strategies. Land use is in fact so central to transit quality that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has made it a core priority.

Let’s compare two metro areas of roughly the same population: Greater Phoenix (pop. 5.01 million) and Greater Melbourne (pop. 5.03 million). Melbourne’s transit system, Public Transport Victoria, carries around 600 million riders per year. Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (which reduced transit ridership across the country), the Phoenix region’s transit system, Valley Metro, carried only about 66 million people per year.

Why do Melburnians ride public transit so much more than Phoenicians? Funding is certainly part of the equation, but perhaps more importantly, Melbourne’s land use is much denser and overall more conducive to transit access. Greater Melbourne has 1,305 people per square mile, compared to Phoenix’s 332 people per square mile. Melbourne’s denser population is much easier to connect by transit. In addition, Public Transport Victoria has constructed an interconnected system of heavy rail, trams, and buses in a way that connects even the most remote suburbs.

By comparison, Valley Metro operates only one light rail line, and while the city operates a bus network as well, frequent service is few and far between. Even the most frequent lines operate 15 minute headways during peak hours and 30 minute headways off-peak, not even close to the frequency or reliability of Melbourne’s transit network.

So the question of why Melburnians ride more public transit than Phoenicians becomes obvious: there’s more of it. Melbourne runs faster transit, of more variety, and with more frequency. And while Phoenix might be just one example, its story is all too familiar in cities across the United States.

Funding

Our funding analysis of U.S. states is much harder to compare to Australia’s, but that’s kind of the point. Australian states spend much more on transit overall, but it’s not because they have more money to work with.

The U.S. earns most of their funding for transportation through gas tax revenue. However, the vast majority of U.S. states restrict the amount of funding that their legislatures can allocate to transit systems. This creates a counterintuitive cycle. Without efficient and convenient public transit service, Americans are forced to drive more, leading to more money spent on gas taxes that then cannot be invested in alternative forms of transportation.

In comparison, Australia’s constitution does not explicitly discuss transportation funding—states are able to fund public transport as they deem appropriate. Furthermore, funding for Australian transport infrastructure is supported mainly by general taxation revenue and council rates rather than depending largely on gas tax.

Restrictions on usage of gas tax revenue by state in Australia. The entire map is gray, indicating that no state has a restriction on the usage of gas tax revenue.

The result: Australian states devote much more of their resources to public transit than U.S. states. Even Australia’s most remote and sparsely populated territory, the Northern Territory, spends more on public transit per capita per year ($183.48) than every U.S. state except for New York ($255.90), Massachusetts ($238.76), Hawaii ($220.98), and Maryland ($198.72).

Lessons learned

Even the best U.S. states have a long way to go in comparison to their international peers. This point became clear in our conversations with Australian experts while doing this research.

It’s easy to dismiss international transit comparisons as “apples to oranges.” But that excuse crumbles when the comparison is being made to a true peer like Australia. Both countries are large, developed, constitutional republics with low national population densities and strong sub-national governments.

While Australia’s transit system is far from perfect, the United States can learn a lot from our friends across the Pacific. We can have suburbs while still increasing density to support transit. We can have a robust highway system while still giving people other high-quality options. And we can do it by integrating transit systems to create a convenient user experience.

We can, and we must.

Learn more about our state-by-state analysis of transit support and availability, and see a full table of results. Click here >>

We received support in writing this blog from Movement & Place Consulting, a Melbourne-based firm that conducts analysis on land use and all modes of transport planning, parking, and economic development. Follow them on LinkedIn to stay informed on their work.

Is your state missing the bus? Evaluating state transit access and ridership

Transit riders representing a range of ethnicities board a bus in the state of Washington

The state you live in plays a major role in the quality of transit near you. Back in February, we took a look at state financial support for transit. This post focuses on the results of those investments.

We partnered with the National Campaign for Transit Justice and the Labor Network for Sustainability to assess the quality and support of transit systems across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

In our first post of this series, we focused on state transit funding. But the level of funding transit has received doesn’t necessarily line up with how easily residents are able to use transit on a regular basis. To understand that piece of the puzzle, we focused on two metrics: quality of transit access and how often residents choose driving over transit.

Measuring transit access

Public transit becomes a viable option only when people are able to rely on it for quick, convenient travel to their essential destinations. But, as we wrote back in 2021, while about 80 percent of people in the US live within areas classified as “urban” (which includes the suburbs of urban centers), less than 10 percent of Americans live within walking distance of reliable, high quality transit that comes every 15 minutes. And 45 percent of Americans have no access to transit at all.

To get a better understanding of transit access in each state, we took a look at data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Smart Location Database to get a sense of how well transit was connecting people to their essential destinations. The EPA collects the number of jobs within a 45-minute drive and the number of jobs within a 45-minute transit ride. From that information, we were able to compare the number of jobs accessible by driving and the number of jobs accessible by transit.

But we couldn’t stop here. We found that some states, like New York, have dense, transit-rich cities with more jobs accessible within a 45-minute transit ride than within a 45-minute drive. This didn’t mean transit access was well-distributed across the state.

To better understand transit access for all state residents, we looked at regional parity, meaning the average person’s access to jobs by transit compared to the most transit-rich areas around them. We found that New York and Hawaii, which initially scored near the top for transit access, did not have consistently strong transit networks throughout the state.

Map of quality of transit access by state according to our research (described in the above paragraphs of this section). Results in the last two paragraphs of this section. — *Map is not drawn to scale.*

We took the average of these combined factors to determine the quality of transit access in each state, shown on the map above. Oregon and DC had the highest transit access, while 20 states (Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin) had the lowest access scores.

These scores don’t include Puerto Rico because the EPA’s Smart Location Database doesn’t include data on access to jobs via car or transit for Puerto Rico. The EPA, and the federal government as a whole, should work to capture this information for all U.S. territories in order to provide a stronger picture of the return on federal investments.

Transit ridership (or lack thereof)

Vehicle miles traveled (VMT) is the measure of the total miles driven by all vehicles on a given state’s roadway in a given year. VMT is usually used as a measure of roadway usage, but here, it functions as a proxy measure for transit usage by measuring its inverse: car usage. We assume states with more driving on average also have less transit ridership on average.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, more people drove less often and transit ridership also dipped dramatically. To provide a more a relevant picture of travel habits, we looked at travel data from 2019.

Eight states and territories had less than 8,500 VMT in 2019, and so transit ridership in these states is likely high. They include: Oregon, Illinois, Washington, Alaska, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Rhode Island, New York, and DC. The areas with the highest VMT (and therefore lowest transit ridership) were Puerto Rico, Wyoming, and Alabama.

Map of vehicle miles traveled by state. Key findings in the paragraph above. — Map is not drawn to scale.

What’s next?

In the final part of this series, we’ll share the combined scores for each state so you can see how your state ranks overall in transit support and availability, including the specific data we used for our analysis. Stay tuned!

Follow the money: Where does your state stack up on supporting transit?

A passenger hops onto a bus on a sunny day

Even though transit service is a localized experience, the state you live in actually has a massive impact on your access to frequent, reliable transit. As with interstates, ports, or other vital parts of a state’s transportation network, state governments have a major role in supporting the planning, operations, and maintenance of public transportation service. But the financial commitment to transit varies widely from state to state.

In partnership with the National Campaign for Transit Justice, we assessed the quality of transit support and availability across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. We’ll unpack our four criteria in a series of blog posts. This first post focuses on the dollars and cents: transit spending and restrictions on state tax dollars.

At a time when transit agencies are facing heavy financial stress, state support can be a key source of funding that allows transit to continue delivering reliable service. Most large transit systems, many of which are vital for supporting the largest regional economy in a state, operate with some level of support from their state. But that’s not always the case. There are statewide policies that impact a state’s financial commitment to transit, which can range from robust support down to almost nothing.

Transit agencies across the nation are nearing a fiscal cliff in 2023 as Covid-era relief packages expire. Click here to learn more.

Transit spending

If you’ve ever wanted to know what your state’s priorities are, take a look at the budget. That’s one of the first places we looked to assess state support for transit.

The 2021 infrastructure law increased federal transit spending, but in almost every case (with the exception of small agencies), these funds are not permitted to be used on operations, which means they don’t cover expenses like bus drivers’ salaries or bus maintenance. These expenses account for two-thirds of transit agencies’ total expenses, and without federal support, the burden of this funding can only realistically come from a few sources: state funding, local funding, and farebox revenue. The amount of state funding can have a major impact on the reach and quality of transit, especially in rural areas that don’t have as much local funding to supplement state dollars.

Click here to learn how transit spending on operations impacts local driving habits.

In the first graphic below, transit spending refers to each state’s total spending on public transportation in 2021—adjusted to per person rates to fairly compare states of varying size. We identified six bands of state transit spending per person:

Less than $12
$12.50-$25
$25-$50
$50-$100
$100-$200
More than $200

To see where your state lands, take a look at the figure below.

Map of state transit spending. For more information, see the text under "Transit spending." A table showing each state's spending will be available in our upcoming report, The Transit Report Card. — *Map depicting statewide spending on transit per capita (or per person) in each state in 2021. Map is not drawn to scale.*

While the map above shows each state’s most current spending levels (from 2021) on public transit, it’s not a full picture. Annual transit spending is also volatile, subject each year to the whims of state legislators, so these numbers from 2021 could look very different today. To get a stronger sense of long-term transit funding, we had to take a look at one of the frequent key sources—gas taxes.

State restrictions on gas tax revenue

Gas taxes are the taxes you pay every time you fill up a tank, and they’re the bedrock revenue stream for most states’ transportation systems. In fact, this is how we fund transit capital improvements nationally, by devoting a small share of the 18.4¢-per-gallon federal gas tax to a trust fund for transit. Yet in many states, it’s illegal to use state gas taxes for public transit.

Restrictions on gas tax revenue create a counterintuitive cycle, where all gas tax funding goes only toward building more roads, resulting in people having to drive more, which means more gas sold, which means more money spent on only new roads and no other travel options—leading to more driving and more spending. Without the reliable source of funding fuel taxes would provide, many transit agencies have had to rely on sales taxes, which are an incredibly volatile funding source subject to the swings of the economy. As a result, transit agencies can be forced to raise fares or cut service to stay afloat.

Gas tax restrictions can come from state statutes or state constitutions. Statutes are laws that can be written, passed, and repealed by state legislators. On the other hand, to repeal any law in a state constitution, an amendment needs to be passed. It is more difficult to pass a constitutional amendment than to repeal a statute.

In seven states, gas tax revenue is restricted by state statutes. Though these prohibitions can be a frustrating roadblock for advocates and transit agencies, they can be repealed. In the figure below, these states are shown in medium blue.

23 other states have a clause in their state constitution prohibiting gas tax revenue from being spent on public transit. Edit 2/23/2023: Three additional states (MI, OK, and CO) have partial restrictions on the majority of gas tax revenue being spent on transit. All of these states are shown in dark blue below. Though constitutional restrictions are much more difficult to overturn, advocates who see their states have these restrictions shouldn’t give up. In some cases, the language may be vague or flexible enough to leave room for transit to receive funding, even if the law hasn’t been interpreted that way in the past. For example, Colorado advocates were able to win transit support by making their fight about the way their gas tax law was interpreted.

States with no restrictions, like California, Virginia, South Carolina, and New York, are shown in light gray. These states allow gas tax revenue to be used for transit, which can serve as a lifeline in times of economic stress.

Map of gas tax revenue restrictions by state. For more information, see the text under "State restrictions on gas tax revenue." A table of each state's restrictions will be available in our upcoming report, The Transit Report Card. — *Map depicting restrictions on usage of motor fuel tax revenues in each state as of 2022. Map is not drawn to scale.* **Edit 2/23/2023:** A previous version of this map erroneously included Illinois, Wisconsin, Florida, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Louisiana as states with constitutional or statutory restrictions. These states have no restrictions.

The bottom line

State spending is a strong indicator of state priorities, and low spending (coupled with a lack of funding options) is a clear sign that transit service is not at the top of state legislators’ minds.

Across the country, the transit fiscal cliff is looming. To weather the storm, agencies require financial assistance, or they’ll be forced to cut valuable service. Now is the time to increase transit spending at the state level. States with statutory and constitutional restrictions on funding for transit will need to think critically about how well these restrictions are serving them and their residents.

Keep an eye out for our next post in this series, which will focus on transit access and driving levels in each state.