WASHINGTON – Hurricane Sandy exposed decades of neglect of transit systems, and some transit advocates think the storm’s impact has the potential to dramatically reshape how and where people live and how they get to work.
A recent U.S. census report showed an increase in population in city centers across the country. The number of miles Americans drive peaked in 2007 and has since declined, reversing a decades-long increase. And the struggling economy or higher gasoline prices aren’t the only explanation; younger people are waiting longer to get drivers’ licenses and are buying fewer cars.
Instead, they’re choosing to live in places closer to where they work and riding public transit wherever they need to go.
“Transit has come a long way in the last generation,” said Michael Melaniphy, president of the American Public Transportation Association. “It’s become a choice. People look for it as a primary choice.”
No city drives less and relies more on public transportation than New York, and Sandy’s aftermath drove the point home for many commuters who jammed into cars, buses and trains this week, or when they couldn’t, walked miles to get to work. The city already had begun an effort to find even more alternatives to driving, including expanded public transportation and bike lanes. The storm’s difficulties could accelerate the changes.
“Even if they go back to where they were, things were moving in the right direction anyway,” said Rob Puentes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a center-left Washington policy group.
The difficulties wrought by the storm highlight the need for a rebalance in transportation investments, experts say. The days of the country building farther and farther out on the exurban fringe are over, and more attention must be paid to long-neglected transit systems such as New York’s, they say.
The city is building a new subway line with protections against the kind of flooding that swamped the system this week. But rebuilding the existing network would be difficult, and expensive.
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