Commuters Ditched Public Transit for Work From Home. Now There’s a Crisis.

If the MBTA only has 75% of the pre-pandemic ridership, then it actually has a capacity increase of 33% and can therefore support even higher population densities than before. Zoning in transit-rich areas should be modified to address the ample service capacity within our mass transit system.
 
king_vibe said:
If the MBTA only has 75% of the pre-pandemic ridership, then it actually has a capacity increase of 33% and can therefore support even higher population densities than before. Zoning in transit-rich areas should be modified to address the ample service capacity within our mass transit system.
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It’s still not running anywhere close to its published schedule besides maybe commuter rail.
 
Its only a crisis if we think the transit agencies exist for their own sake. They exist either to get people from their homes to their jobs or to reduce road congestion.

Either way, the goal has been achieved. This is a good thing. The agencies should take stock of the situation and revamp their approach entirely.
 
DominusNovus said:
Its only a crisis if we think the transit agencies exist for their own sake. They exist either to get people from their homes to their jobs or to reduce road congestion.

Either way, the goal has been achieved. This is a good thing. The agencies should take stock of the situation and revamp their approach entirely.
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Excellent response
 
DominusNovus said:
Wish I had an idea what revamping looks like.
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Also, there is still a significant part of the population who have to work on site. They just tend to be spread out throughout the day, including when there is no service (like restaurant/bar workers, cleaning service workers, etc.).

And we have not fixed the road congestion problem. We have less total people commuting, but most are doing so by SOV.
 
Its so disheartening that public transit use has had this steep decline from the pandemic. After decades and decades of underinvestment it really seemed as though the us had finally turned a corner. With LA going from 0 to building out the 2nd biggest metro in the country, to seattle building out their own massive metro, to even many smaller cities building smaller street cars, a lot was really happening. To have this huge drop off happen right when many big projects were hitting their strides Im scared is going to lead to many places backing away, which is the worst thing that could happen.

If anything we need to be doubling and tripling down on transit and transit oriented development. Suburbanization and sprawl is unsustainable from a cost standpoint, not to mention environmentally, but I just have no faith that were going to make the right changes. It really couldnt have happened at a worst time and that really sucks.
 
Many US and Canadian cities cut transit service during 2020, and did not restore full service for over a year. Due to years of lower farebox revenues since 2021, and the end of federal COVID relief funds, many US and Canadian transit agencies will have to cut transit service back or raise fares.

This issue of public transit facing a fiscal cliff seems to be more of problem specific to America. Techniclaly Europe has some of these issues, but it's nowhere near as severe. Lower percentage of WFH, and lower transport costs for European office workers. The same labor shortage at the MBTA that cuts Red Line service to every 30 mins and cancels bus routes, but in Europe, that same labor shortage means the metro comes every 7.5 minutes instead of every 6.

nymag.com

America’s Trains and Buses Are Speeding Toward a Cliff

As COVID-relief funds dwindle and ridership remains low, mass-transit systems are poised for financial crisis.
nymag.com nymag.com

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1658137795154653188
 
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DominusNovus said:
Its only a crisis if we think the transit agencies exist for their own sake. They exist either to get people from their homes to their jobs or to reduce road congestion.

Either way, the goal has been achieved. This is a good thing. The agencies should take stock of the situation and revamp their approach entirely.
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I am going to have to disagree with the last point there, at least from the Boston Area/MBTA perspective: road congestion is as bad as it ever has been (if not worse) and is pretty much constant 7 days a week now. This to me implies people here are still going into the office but opting out of public transit, thus meaning the goal is not achieved. I also don't blame anyone, either. I barely take the T myself anywhere. Living on the Ashmont end of the red line and the current state of headways and travel times is abhorrent and I am not going to waste my time if I don't have to.

We do see ridership coming back more quickly on bus routes and the lines that are in better shape - well, we did on the Blue although it was also recently hit with slow zones. If the MBTA wants its ridership back it needs to fix its product, otherwise, anyone who can opt to sit in gridlock in their car will, since the current service the T is proving to be worse than that.
 
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Delvin4519 said:
This issue of public transit facing a fiscal cliff seems to be more of problem specific to America. Techniclaly Europe has some of these issues, but it's nowhere near as severe. Lower percentage of WFH, and lower transport costs for European office workers. The same labor shortage at the MBTA that cuts Red Line service to every 30 mins and cancels bus routes, but in Europe, that same labor shortage means the metro comes every 7.5 minutes instead of every 6.
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My understanding is that the rest of the world has gone back to the office. The US is largely alone where a large % is still WFH.
 
jklo said:
My understanding is that the rest of the world has gone back to the office. The US is largely alone where a large % is still WFH.
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It really varies by location. Netherlands, Ireland, most of Scandinavia still have a huge wfh component. Many people even telework cross-country in the EU.
 
jklo said:
My understanding is that the rest of the world has gone back to the office. The US is largely alone where a large % is still WFH.
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JeffDowntown said:
It really varies by location. Netherlands, Ireland, most of Scandinavia still have a huge wfh component. Many people even telework cross-country in the EU.
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It's a lot more nuanced. Office occupancy is about 45% in many US cities, compared to 80% in parts of Europe.
 
bakgwailo said:
We do see ridership coming back more quickly on bus routes and the lines that are in better shape - well, we did on the Blue although it was also recently hit with slow zones. If the MBTA wants its ridership back it needs to fix its product, otherwise, anyone who can opt to sit in gridlock in their car will, since the current service the T is providing is worse than that.
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This is very much backed up by the data. Rapid transit is showing very strong correlation between service levels and ridership.
Red: 57% service, 45% ridership
Orange: 63% service, 47% ridership
Green: 85% service, 63% ridership (and climbing)
Blue: 81% service, 72% ridership (though this is the only way to get into Boston from Eastie via transit)
The T having the commuter rail accept Charlie Cards in the rapid transit service area has also effected rapid transit ridership on the Orange and Red Lines albeit less significantly.

Bus service is more nuanced as some routes serve largely elderly or wfh communities that have dropped off ridership despite full return of service. Others had mediocre service before the pandemic and when the same service returned after then people didn’t bother. Overall though, service=ridership.

Delvin4519 said:
Many US and Canadian cities cut transit service during 2020, and did not restore full service for over a year. Due to years of lower farebox revenues since 2021, and the end of federal COVID relief funds, many US and Canadian transit agencies will have to cut transit service back or raise fares.
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Edmonton and Calgary are good examples of NA cities that have done recovery right as they returned to full service relatively quickly on buses and their ridership is back to around the same as before the pandemic.
 
Koopzilla24 said:
Rapid transit is showing very strong correlation between service levels and ridership...
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Employers owed their workforce much more flexibility and autonomy than they tended to give pre-pandemic. WFH and hybrid is a big part of that flexibility. However, it really only is part of the story, and it is a shame the other missing part is getting lost in the debates. Autonomy = being able to work from home when that's most ideal for you; Autonomy also = being able to be with your colleagues and collaborators when you want to. And there are people who hate commuting who still value some amount of face-to-face, yet there's (understandably) only so much of a price they're willing to pay for that face-to-face. When transit (and commuting in general) absolutely sucks, it robs knowledge workers' autonomy just as does a bad boss who wants to chain you to your office desk.

Yes, part of the ridership -to- service levels correlation comes from people who have in-person-requisite jobs who are still commuting but switching modes (e.g., to cars) because the service sucks, but some fraction of that ridership drop is simply people exercising choice. When you look nationwide, there is a correlation between cities' average commute times and their in-office participation, suggesting this choice correlates with how bad the commute is. It's all part of flexibility and autonomy manifesting itself.
 
bigpicture7 said:
Yes, part of the ridership -to- service levels correlation comes from people who have in-person-requisite jobs who are still commuting but switching modes (e.g., to cars) because the service sucks, but some fraction of that ridership drop is simply people exercising choice. When you look nationwide, there is a correlation between cities' average commute times and their in-office participation, suggesting this choice correlates with how bad the commute is. It's all part of flexibility and autonomy manifesting itself.
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It goes a lot deeper than that. On the North American side of things, we are locked into long work days with many jobs not having mid-shift breaks, and many of those that do being unpaid. What people naturally want to do is spend as little of their time doing work related things as possible so that they can indulge in leisure activities. This means of course that people would want to spend as little time on a commute as possible. Here in North America, we are spoiled by highways that tear through downtown to drop cars coming from further outside of the city center to their places of work.
In the best case traffic scenario driving to work will always be faster than public transport because public transport has to make stops. We have some of the lowest commute times in the world due to our downtown highways and automobile use. Domestically, the cities with the best transit have some of the highest commute times because transit it inherently slower. Now because the time of commute is a part of the work day people want it to be as short as possible.
Introduce traffic from the other commuters and in some cases transit is faster but not in a lot as buses are stuck in the same traffic and trains have longer dwell times, etc. Yet transit still gets a higher mode shared in places where it’s good. This is because in short, driving to commute sucks, and taking transit allows it to feel less like part of the work day and more like leisure time for a lot of people. In other countries, transit commute time on trains is counted as part of the work day and compensated. An 8hr work day with a 1hr train commute each way in those places becomes 6hrs at the office, again making the transit commute much more desirable. This is in contrast to it being more like a 10hr work day here in NA. When work from home is introduced as a possibility, people here are for sure going to jump on the opportunity as it means they can get those 2hrs back in leisure time or additional work to make more money. Globally, this stacks up as well from this study. Though European countries put the increased free time into care. These longer commutes are the norm there and people are more willing to make these longer commutes because they know they’ll still have the free time they need to feel more fulfilled.
If the T was fixed to make transit fast, frequent, and reliable, going in to work wouldn’t be as bad. And it’d feel better than driving.

TL;DR skip to here

Office return rates are lower in the US than the rest of the world because of the relentless work grind and lack of free time during the work week to do anything besides commuting to work and working. Make commuting less of a chore and people are more willing to do it.
 
Koopzilla24 said:
It goes a lot deeper than that. On the North American side of things, we are locked into long work days with many jobs not having mid-shift breaks, and many of those that do being unpaid. What people naturally want to do is spend as little of their time doing work related things as possible so that they can indulge in leisure activities. This means of course that people would want to spend as little time on a commute as possible. Here in North America, we are spoiled by highways that tear through downtown to drop cars coming from further outside of the city center to their places of work.
In the best case traffic scenario driving to work will always be faster than public transport because public transport has to make stops. We have some of the lowest commute times in the world due to our downtown highways and automobile use. Domestically, the cities with the best transit have some of the highest commute times because transit it inherently slower. Now because the time of commute is a part of the work day people want it to be as short as possible.
Introduce traffic from the other commuters and in some cases transit is faster but not in a lot as buses are stuck in the same traffic and trains have longer dwell times, etc. Yet transit still gets a higher mode shared in places where it’s good. This is because in short, driving to commute sucks, and taking transit allows it to feel less like part of the work day and more like leisure time for a lot of people. In other countries, transit commute time on trains is counted as part of the work day and compensated. An 8hr work day with a 1hr train commute each way in those places becomes 6hrs at the office, again making the transit commute much more desirable. This is in contrast to it being more like a 10hr work day here in NA. When work from home is introduced as a possibility, people here are for sure going to jump on the opportunity as it means they can get those 2hrs back in leisure time or additional work to make more money. Globally, this stacks up as well from this study. Though European countries put the increased free time into care. These longer commutes are the norm there and people are more willing to make these longer commutes because they know they’ll still have the free time they need to feel more fulfilled.
If the T was fixed to make transit fast, frequent, and reliable, going in to work wouldn’t be as bad. And it’d feel better than driving.

TL;DR skip to here

Office return rates are lower in the US than the rest of the world because of the relentless work grind and lack of free time during the work week to do anything besides commuting to work and working. Make commuting less of a chore and people are more willing to do it.
Click to expand...

It certainly runs much deeper than my post, and I agree with almost all of your deeper dive. My one pushback would be the "leisure activities" aspect of your third sentence; for a lot of people, especially those with kids and caretaking responsibilities, it's not just about having more free time, it's about making the regular grind (the kids care and logistics piece) much less painful.

But I definitely agree with the work culture aspect. In North America, we have made work painful. I've done international work, in some other places it is simply seems as though people hate their jobs less and are more likely to want to hang out with coworkers. This is anecdotal, but it is backed up by the large scale statistics on in-workplace participation. When collaborating internationally in Europe, there were multiple workday breaks, and multiple instances of people "hanging out" voluntarily.

But this still connects to my overarching theme, which was that flexibility/autonomy is not just about helping people finding ways to avoid their workplace, it is also about enabling people to be with coworkers without a gargantuan sacrifice (i.e., egregious commute).
 
Ah forgot to mention this is besides lower or lack of car ownership this is just about the mode switch as that’s the topic at hand. Though I should note that to do anything in most of the US you need a car so most people own cars and a lot of rail is served by park n rides. This means that people would rather take transit than drive so much that they pay for transit passes on top of car insurance, monthly lease or loan payments, gas, etc. just for it to sit in their driveway most of the week or drive the short hop to the train station and back.
 
bigpicture7 said:
It certainly runs much deeper than my post, and I agree with almost all of your deeper dive. My one pushback would be the "leisure activities" aspect of your third sentence; for a lot of people, especially those with kids and caretaking responsibilities, it's not just about having more free time, it's about making the regular grind (the kids care and logistics piece) much less painful.
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Yes 100%. By free time I mean all time away from work so including chores, errands, child/eldercare, etc. I did not make that clear. The study shows that in the USA and Canada a lot less of the time saved by working at home goes towards “care” though.
78510645-2FBE-4802-9746-19BCD9D98897.jpeg

I’m not really sure what to attribute this to exactly whether it’s daycare culture or something else.
 
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