Transit ridership dropped sharply with the onset of the COVID pandemic in 2020. The slow rebound in the years that followed has prompted discussion, sometimes in hushed tones, as to whether transit had entered a “death spiral.” That ominous description refers to a situation where a decrease in ridership leads to lower farebox revenue, which in turn leads to service cuts, which further reduces ridership, and so on in a vicious downward cycle.
There are historical examples, notably in rust-belt cities that experienced significant loss of population and jobs as their downtowns hollowed out. However, a careful examination of trends in Washington State reveals both similarities and significant differences. Perhaps the biggest difference is the strong growth in transit agency revenue, which increased from $2.15 billion in 2012 to $5.19 billion in 2022. The increase in funding is mostly due to an increase in sales tax revenue and federal grants.
The trend in hourly operating costs is not so encouraging. For example, King County Metro’s operating costs have increased from under $150 dollars per service hour in 2011 to over $235 per hour in 2022, an increase of 20% adjusted for inflation. The statewide averages have also increased steadily, rising from $148 per hour in 2012 to $215 per hour in 2022, an increase of 14% after inflation.
Another worrisome trend has been the decrease in service productivity. In 2012 bus service in Washington State averaged 31.4 passenger boardings per service hour, but by 2022 that had fallen to just 15.96 boardings per hour. For King County Metro productivity was fairly steady until about 2015, after which it began to trend downward, falling off steeply with the COVID pandemic in 2020.
These trends show that transit in Washington State is not in the typical “death spiral” of decreased revenue leading to service cuts leading to lower ridership. Rather, the problem is that costs are spiraling up while productivity has been trending down.
It follows that finding additional sources of subsidy, which has been the most common transit agency response, will not reverse these unfavorable performance trends. Indeed, more revenue may simply move the agencies farther down the slope of diminishing returns.
Read the rest of this piece at Washington Policy.
Charles Prestrud is director of the Coles Transportation Center. Charles brings more than thirty years of transportation experience to the position, including serving as WSDOT’s planning manager for King and Snohomish Counties, and earlier in his career, as planning manager for a transit agency. He has served on several Transportation Research Board committees as well as National Cooperative Highway Research Program study panels. Charles graduated from the U.W. where his studies focused on economics and geography.
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Productivity
Putting aside the funding and labor practices, one element of transit productivity is the increased "mainstream" accommodation of passengers with various disabilities. This policy-driven adaptation obviously has an effect on stop-and-start speeds.