#transit1

According to a Pew Research report, in 2011, just two-thirds of young households owned a car.  Increasingly, the members of the creative class have shunned car ownership preferring to live in places where travel via public transit is easy. Three of the four rebounding cities (Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC) have extensive public transit networks serving over the quarter of their population daily.  Most of the other cities have modest rail networks ranging from Detroit’s People Mover with just 2.9 miles of track in a loop downtown to Cleveland’s RTA with 37 miles of track over three lines. 

Many of the future investments in these cities may come from Bus Rapid Transit rather than rail.  Indeed, Cleveland’s HealthLine opened in 2008.  However, existing systems and present ridership trends considered together may signal the