Did you know that only 5% of U.S. workers use public transportation?

The proportion is slightly higher if you live in a major city with good public transportation, such as Washington, New York, Chicago, or San Francisco, and lower if you live in a suburb or rural area.(1)

Did you know that ditching your car and switching to public transportation is one of the easiest and fastest ways to decrease your household’s carbon footprint?1

Getting rid of one car can lower your household greenhouse gas emissions by 10%! And that is in addition to all the money you will save. (1)

Below are five ways to increase public transportation awareness and ridership in your community.

1. Host a Free Ride Day. 

   As part of a regional campaign “Try Transit,” the Manatee County Area Transit in Florida held “Try Transit Day,” enabling residents to ride public transportation within the county for free. They offered this complimentary service as a way to show community members the benefits of taking public transportation to work, such as increased productivity time, reduced commuting stress, and indirect savings in auto maintenance and insurance. 

2. Set public transportation goals, and let your community see the progress that is being made.

   The City of Fort Collins, Colorado, has created an online Community Dashboard to measure the city’s progress toward achieving certain goals, such as voluntary code compliance, reduced energy use, fewer traffic crashes, and more transit passengers. This dashboard also allows community members to see how the city is measuring up to the transportation goals it set for itself in early 2013. So far, Fort Collins appears to be exceeding every one of those goals!

3. Don’t be afraid to create new routes.

   To reduce parking congestion caused by employees who work in the downtown area, Columbus, Indiana, created a bus system modeled after the popular “Park & Ride” systems that are used to decrease congestion to, from, and around airports. This programhas been a huge success! In the thirteen-week pilot program, ridership increased from five to fifty, and the riders are thrilled with the service. 

4. Make driving more expensive, and use money to create public transportation innovations instead of just maintaining current systems.

   The City of Chicago has created a comprehensive regional plan, which includes extensive transportation planning across the entire metropolitan region. As part of this transportation planning, the city has implemented congestion pricing, increased gas taxes, and explored public-private partnerships to help fund new transportation projects in the region.

5. Let community members innovate with your public transportation data.

   If communities open up their data to the public or host civic hack-a-thons, public transportation can benefit! When San Francisco began making more of its data available to the public, residents developed all kinds of apps, including one that linked all the different public transportation providers in the greater San Francisco area, making it easier for people to get around using public transportation.

As we come to the end of 2013 and start making New Year’s resolutions, consider making increased public transportation ridership one of your goals. If you have any questions about public transportation or transportation in general, please comment on this blog post or start a lively discussion on our transportation topic page.

1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/23/public-transit-workers-cities_n_978496.html

Best,

Robin Saywitz

ICMA Knowledge Network Intern

rsaywitz@icma.org