Unless you have been living in a cave for the past couple months, you are well aware of the rising price of gas. The rising costs have affected many aspects of daily life for Americans from car buying to vacation plans. One area that has seen a big change is in the way Americans are using public transportation.

The amount of trips taken on public transportation in the past year has increased dramatically. Recently the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) came out with their 2008 1st quarter ridership statistics.

Throughout major cities across the country ridership on public transportation was recorded and compared to rates from 2007. From the report a few conclusions can be seen:

• 2.6 billion trips were taken in the first three months of 2008 (about 85 million more than the first quarter of 2007).
• During the first quarter of 2008 public transportation in the USA rose by 3.3%.
• Increases were seen in light rail (10.3%), commuter rail (5.7%), heavy rail (4.4%), and bus ridership (2.0%).

I produced a dataset in Finder! that visually displays ridership data across the country. “American Public Transportation Association, Public Transit Ridership Statistics, USA, 1st Quarter 2008 & 2007“.

This dataset gives you the ability to go to a number of major urban centers across the country and see if public transportation ridership has increased. It is also very interesting to compare the rates of increase to current gas level prices across the country. “Retail Gas Prices By State, May 27th, 2008”.

In the state of Michigan the regular price of gas was $2.89 a gallon in July. A year later the price is now at $4.10. This is a substantial increase of 41.9% and is one of the highest increases of any state in the nation. To save money many natives of Michigan have decided to turn to public transportation as a way to survive escalating fuel prices. The chart below shows public transportation agencies ridership increases from last year throughout major cities in Michigan.

These cities are well above the national average of a 3.3% increase in ridership. It seems to be very apparent that the strong increase in gas prices is causing more people to turn to public transportation and less people to pay extraordinary prices at the pump.

As a nation we are finding new ways to handle the rise of gas prices. The cost to commute has raised greatly and driving to work in a car is being replaced by the use of public transportation. By using public transportation people are discovering cheaper and more energy efficient traveling methods.

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