Organizations in the transportation industry are obsessed with safety.
When those organizations are heavily focused on cars, drivers, and highways, that makes a lot of sense.
And while safety is obviously still important for people on transit and on bikes and feet, unless cars get in those people’s way, those people are largely extremely safe.
Still, it’s not surprising that so many people have a fear or concern when they hear their loved ones are preparing to walk or bike somewhere. Transportation organizations largely feed that perception with an endless barrage of mindless safety messages. Their time and money would be much better spent on actually inspiring people to take transit or try walking and biking.
We’ve reported before on earlier research that has shown that transit trips are 10 times safer per mile than car trips (with one study finding that heavy and light rail is about 30 times safer than driving).
A new study by the American Public Transportation Association convincingly backs all this up some more. As reported in Government Technology Future Structure:
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported more than 37,400 traffic deaths in 2016, a 5.6 percent increase above the previous year. And the number of traffic deaths per 100,000 people in major cities tend to fall as the number of transit trips per capita increases.
“Simply put, a small increase in public transit use can result in a dramatic decrease in traffic fatalities,” Skoutelas said.
The study shows that in cities with public transit, traffic fatalities can be reduced 40 percent when residents increase their public transit trips to 40 annual trips per capita from 20 trips per capita.
Transit provides an option for riskier drivers — inexperienced, distracted, drowsy or elderly — which when used, can help to make roadways safer, say experts.
“Public transit even benefits those who do not use it and are otherwise safe drivers and reduces the risk of being the victim of other drivers’ mistakes,” said Bella Dinh-Zarr, member of the National Transportation Safety Board.
The findings come as transit agencies across the nation struggle to reverse trends of falling ridership. During the first quarter of 2018 transit ridership declined 3.9 percent, compared to the same period in 2017, according to APTA statistics.
Ridership fell across all sectors. Bus ridership fell 5.0 percent nationwide, while ridership on subways and elevated trains fell 3.8 percent. Ridership on light rail — which includes streetcars and trolleys — fell 5.6 percent.