Chapter 2: U.S. Transportation System

Monday, September 10, 2012

Chester Ford

Livable Communities

One of USDOT's goals¹ is to improve and expand transportation's role in creating livable communities.² This section, in three parts, describes the characteristics of the U.S. transportation system that contribute to livable communities. The first part captures the transportation infrastructure in place and usage of the U.S. transportation system. The second part covers accessibility to the modes of transportation under USDOT mandate, including accessibility for the disabled. The third part describes transportation congestion trends and causes for each mode that disrupt passenger travel and inhibit economic growth.

Availability and Usage

One of the outcomes within the overarching goal of promoting livable communities is increased access to convenient and affordable transportation choices. A broad, connected network of transportation infrastructure and facilities that are kept in good repair keeps costs down and allows passengers to travel and goods to move without interruption. The number of facilities serving passenger and cargo modes tracked in this report remained relatively constant from 2004 to 2008 and declined only slightly for most modes in 2009 despite greater decreases in usage,³ with the exception of U.S. waterway facilities, for which the count declined from 2008 to 2009 due to new reporting methods (Table 4-1: Number of U.S. Airports, Table 4-2: Number of Stations Served by Amtrak and Rail Transit, and Table 3-2: U.S. Waterway Facilities).

Connectivity between facilities of different modes of passenger travel is measured in the Bureau of Transportation Statistics' Intermodal Passenger Connectivity Database.⁴ The database counts the number of passenger transportation terminals and the availability of connections among the various scheduled public transportation modes at each facility. As of 2010, there were 1,282 airports, ferry terminals, and intercity/commuter rail stations with intermodal connections, representing exactly 50 percent of total facilities under those modes (Table 4-3: Airport, Ferry, and Intercity and Commuter Rail Facility Intermodal Connectivity).

Another strategic outcome for the USDOT is an improved public transit experience. The usage indicators show that transit vehicle-miles grew most consistently, by about 2 to 3 percent per year, from 2004 to 2009. Use of all other modes grew modestly from 2004 to 2007 before declining with the onset of the economic downturn; however, transit vehicle-miles continued to grow by 137 million in 2008 and 100 million in 2009. Rail train-miles, which peaked in 2006, declined by 87 million, or 16 percent, from 2008 to 2009 (Table 4-4: U.S. Vehicle-Miles).

Measured in passenger-miles, the transit mode also showed relatively high growth in usage that outpaced the growth in vehicle-miles most years. From 2007 to 2008, travelers shifted away from passenger cars, light trucks, and air travel. Passenger-miles for transit, Amtrak, and bus increased by 4 percent, 7 percent, and 2 percent, respectively, as fuel prices increased (Table 4-5: U.S. Passenger- Miles, Figure 5-12: Fuel Prices).

Amtrak ridership measured in revenue passengers reached its peak in 2008 at 28.7 million riders after a period of growth starting in 2006 (Table 4-6: Amtrak Ridership).⁵ Public transit ridership, which shows seasonal variability, increased consistently from 2004 through 2008 but fell slightly in 2009 and into 2010 (Table 4-7: Public Transit Ridership). The largest transit agency by ridership in 2009 was the MTA New York City Transit, with 3.2 billion unlinked trips, followed by the Chicago Transit Authority, with 521 million unlinked trips, and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, with 481 million unlinked trips (Table 4-8: Top 20 Transit Agencies by Unlinked Passenger Trips).

Domestic passenger enplanements are very sensitive to the changes in the U.S. economy. During the period of economic growth from 2004 to 2007, total domestic passenger enplanements rose nearly 9 percent from 669 million to 726 million. Over that period, passenger enplanements at medium hubs increased by 14 percent, which is higher than the growth rates at small and large hubs. Although passenger enplanements at large hubs grew only 7 percent from 2004 to 2007, more than 69 percent of passengers (or more than 500 million passengers) were enplaned at large hubs in 2007. Impacted by the economic downturn, total passenger enplanements declined to 663 million in 2009, and then rose 1.1 percent from January through July 2010 over the same 7-month period in 2009 (Table 4-9: Domestic Enplanements at U.S. Airports).

Accessibility

Although use of other modes of transportation increased in the last 5 years, travelers in the United States are still largely dependent on passenger vehicles. The share of households with two vehicles, 37.6 percent in 2009, dropped by less than 1 percentage point from 2004. The percent of households without a vehicle remained practically unchanged from 2004 to 2009 at just under 9 percent despite the onset of the economic downturn (Table 4-10: Household Vehicle Availability). However, households headed by those aged 65 and older made up approximately 55 percent of the households without vehicles in 2009, indicating a pattern of decreased mobility for this age group.

Passenger vehicle is the most common mode of transportation to work in the United States; 76 percent of the workforce drove themselves to work in 2009, practically unchanged from 2008 (Table 4-11: How People Get to Work).⁶ A breakdown of the modes used to commute to work shows that 10 percent of the workforce chose to carpool, down from 10.7 percent in 2008; 5 percent of the workforce chose mass transit (bus, rail, streetcar, subway, or elevated trains), unchanged from 2008.

Carpooling as a mode of transportation to work was most prevalent across the southwestern and western United States in 2009. Washington, California, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, and Arkansas all had carpool rates of above 11 percent in 2009 (Figure 4-12: Percent of Workers Carpooling by Car, Truck, or Van). Commuting alone was most prevalent in the Midwest and South. Eighteen states saw more than 80 percent of workers commute alone in 2009 (Figure 4-13: Percent of Workers Commuting Alone by Car, Truck, or Van).⁷ Washington, DC, had the highest percentage of workers commuting by public transportation at 37 percent, but a roughly equal share of workers drove alone (Figure 4-14: Percent of Workers Commuting by Public Transportation).

The share of stations serving all transit modes that were Americans with Disability Act (ADA) compliant in 2009 was 75 percent, up from 70 percent in 2004.⁸ For rail transit, the share of stations that were ADA compliant to total stations increased by approximately 13 percent from 2004 to 2009 (Table 4-15: Transit Rail Stations That Are ADA-Compliant by Service Type). Buses also maintained a high level of ADA compliance from 2004 to 2007, at 98 percent every year except 2005, in which compliance dipped to 96.5 percent (Table 4-16: Buses That Are ADA-Compliant).

Congestion and Travel Times

Passenger Travel

Reducing congestion, as listed under the USDOT strategic goals, will lower transportation costs for producers and travelers as well as reduce pollution. The Texas Transportation Institute (TTI), a regional University Transportation Center at Texas A&M University, tracks urban road congestion in the United States and found that annual hours of delay per auto commuter remained steady around 45 hours from 2004 to 2007 before decreasing 13 percent to 39 hours in 2008 and 2009 due to the economic downturn and higher fuel prices.⁹ TTI measured annual delay per traveler as the extra travel time faced each year by drivers and passengers of private vehicles who typically travel in the peak periods (6 to 10 a.m. and 3 to 7 p.m.). TTI estimated that travelers in the Washington, DC, and Chicago, IL, metropolitan areas faced the longest average delays in 2009, at 70 hours per year per traveler. Commuters in McAllen, TX, experienced the shortest annual delays in 2009 at 7 hours per year per traveler (Table 4-17: Average Hours of Annual Delay per Auto Commuter).

Half of all workers in the United States began their commute to work between 6:30 and 8:30 a.m. in 2009 (Table 4-19: Departure Time: Leaving Home to Go to Work). Approximately 35 percent of workers had a (one-way) commute time of 30 minutes or more, no matter which mode of transportation they used (Table 4-20: Travel Time to Work). Commuters in New York, Maryland, and Washington, DC, had the highest mean travel times to work in 2009, all around 30 minutes (Figure 4-21: Mean Travel Time to Work in Minutes).

At U.S. borders, congestion for private passenger vehicles was largely on the rise from 2004 to 2008, but decreased cross-border traffic brought down wait times in 2009.¹⁰ At the northern border, the average wait time for private passenger vehicles at the gateways studied in 2009 was 3.3 minutes, up from 2.9 minutes in 2004 but down from the peak of 5.8 minutes in 2007. Seventy-five percent of northern border gateways showed a pattern of declining wait times for private passenger vehicles from 2007 to 2009 (Table 4-22: Average Daytime Wait Times for Private Vehicles at Selected U.S. Surface Border Gateways). For commercial vehicles, the average wait time at the northern border decreased consistently from 5.3 minutes in 2004 to 2.3 minutes in 2009. This was largely due to the 2002 implementation of the FAST (Free and Secure Trade) program by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection agency and increased enrollment in the program in subsequent years (Table 4-23: Average Daytime Wait Times for Commercial Vehicles at Selected U.S. Surface Border Gateways).¹¹

Transit modes also face delays, sometimes due to major and minor mechanical failures. Motor buses consistently had the highest rate of interruptions of service (measured as interruptions of service per 100,000 revenue vehicle-miles) from 2004 to 2009; while commuter rail systems had the lowest. However, all modes for which interruptions of service were tracked (motor bus, light rail, heavy rail, commuter rail, and demand response) showed short-term variation but little change in the long-term trend from 2004 to 2009 (Table 4-24: Interruptions of Service by Type of Transit).

The three busiest Amtrak stations in 2009, New York, NY, Washington, DC, and Philadelphia, PA, were all on the Northeast Corridor line. Over 7.8 million tickets were purchased to or from New York's Penn Station in 2009 (Table 4-25: Top 25 Busiest Amtrak Stations and Figure 4-26: Top 25 Busiest Amtrak Stations and Figure 4-27: Top Amtrak Stations in the Northeast Corridor). Amtrak's on-time performance remained steady at around 70 percent from 2004 to 2008 before improving by roughly 10 percentage points in 2009 and 2010. Amtrak's annual hours of delay peaked in 2007 before falling to 6-year lows in 2009 and 2010. Approximately 55 percent of the hours of delay in 2010 were attributed to hostrailroad issues such as track and signal related delays, power failures, freight and commuter train interference, or routing delays.¹²

In the first 7 months of 2010, 10 top U.S. airports provided services to 127 million and 32 million domestic and international passengers, respectively. Among these domestic passengers, about 41 percent traveled through the top three U.S. airports, which are Atlanta, Chicago (O'Hare), and Dallas/Fort Worth, while 48 percent of international passengers used either John F. Kennedy Airport,Miami International Airport, or Los Angeles International Airport (Table 4-28: Top U.S. Airports Ranked by Domestic Scheduled Passenger Enplanements and Table 4-29: Top 10 U.S. Airports Ranked by International Scheduled Passenger Enplanements).

From 2004 to 2009, U.S. airlines scheduled between 6 and 7 million flights annually, and on average, about 20 percent of flight arrivals were classified as delayed by arriving 15 or more minutes later than scheduled. However, from 2008 to 2009, the average length of delays declined from 56.8 minutes to 54.2 minutes in 2009, respectively, indicating that U.S. airlines have improved their performances and reduced delays. From 2004 to 2009, the percentage of delays in arriving flights declined to 19.2 percent in 2009 from a peak of 24.8 percent in 2007. The main reasons reported to have caused delays were:

National Aviation System orders to delay for various reasons, 37 percent;
aircrafts unavailable at the time needed, 33 percent; and
the airlines themselves, due to mechanical problems or other factors, 27 percent (Table 4-30: Airline Delays by Cause and Table 4-31: Airline Delays by Length of Delay by year).

Freight Transportation

Reducing congestion, as listed under the USDOT strategic goals, will lower transportation costs for producers and travelers as well as reduce pollution. The Texas Transportation Institute (TTI), a regional University Transportation Center at Texas A&M University, tracks urban road congestion in the United States and found that annual hours of delay per auto commuter remained steady around 45 hours from 2004 to 2007 before decreasing 13 percent to 39 hours in 2008 and 2009 due to the economic downturn and higher fuel prices.¹³ TTI measured annual delay per traveler as the extra travel time faced each year by drivers and passengers of private vehicles who typically travel in the peak periods (6 to 10 a.m. and 3 to 7 p.m.). TTI estimated that travelers in the Washington, DC, and Chicago, IL, metropolitan areas faced the longest average delays in 2009, at 70 hours per year per traveler. Commuters in McAllen, TX, experienced the shortest annual delays in 2009 at 7 hours per year per traveler (Table 4-17: Average Hours of Annual Delay per Auto Commuter).

At U.S. borders, congestion for private passenger vehicles was largely on the rise from 2004 to 2008, but decreased cross-border traffic brought down wait times in 2009.¹⁴ At the northern border, the average wait time for private passenger vehicles at the gateways studied in 2009 was 3.3 minutes, up from 2.9 minutes in 2004 but down from the peak of 5.8 minutes in 2007. Seventy-five percent of northern border gateways showed a pattern of declining wait times for private passenger vehicles from 2007 to 2009 (Table 4-22: Average Daytime Wait Times for Private Vehicles at Selected U.S. Surface Border Gateways). For commercial vehicles, the average wait time at the northern border decreased consistently from 5.3 minutes in 2004 to 2.3 minutes in 2009. This was largely due to the 2002 implementation of the FAST (Free and Secure Trade) program by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection agency and increased enrollment in the program in subsequent years (Table 4-23: Average Daytime Wait Times for Commercial Vehicles at Selected U.S. Surface Border Gateways).¹⁵

National Aviation System orders to delay for various reasons, 37 percent;
aircrafts unavailable at the time needed, 33 percent; and
the airlines themselves, due to mechanical problems or other factors, 27 percent (Table 4-30: Airline Delays by Cause and Table 4-31: Airline Delays by Length of Delay by year).

Freight Transportation

Freight rail delays, measured quarterly in average hours of terminal dwell time, peaked in the first quarter of 2005 but have since steadily declined to 22 hours in the fourth quarter of 2009, up just slightly from a low of 21 hours in the first quarter of 2009. In addition, the average line-haul speed (which excludes stopping times) dipped in 2005 and 2006 but recovered in more recent years. In the first 3 quarters of 2009, the average line-haul speed was over 25 mph, indicating increased efficiency in light of the economic downturn (Table 4-33, Figure 4-33A and Figure 4-33B: Rail Freight Average Speeds, Revenue Ton-Miles, and Terminal Dwell Times).

Delays on the U.S. portion of the St. Lawrence Seaway were down significantly in 2009 due to good weather and fewer vessel-related delays. The St. Lawrence Seaway comprises 15 U.S. and Canadian locks, including the U.S. Eisenhower and Snell Locks, which permit vessel to travel from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to Lake Superior. The percentage of total delays attributed to weather dropped from 66 percent to 40 percent from 2008 to 2009. Total downtime in 2009 was 16.9 hours, down from 60.0 hours in 2008 and a peak of 73.7 hours in 2007 (Table 4-34: St. Lawrence Seaway (U.S. Portion) Downtime by Cause).

Passenger Expenditures

This section presents information on consumer spending on motor vehicles, public transportation, and passenger fares for air travel.

Expenditures on Motor Vehicle Related Transportation

From 2004 to 2009, the average annual household cost of motor vehicle purchases, gasoline, public transportation, and other motor vehicle-related expenses was $8,300 (Table 4-35: Average Household Transportation Expenditures). In 2004, motor vehicle purchases were the largest spending items, about 44 percent of the total, decreasing to 35 percent in 2009. Gasoline, 26 percent; public transportation, 6 percent; and other motor vehicle-related expenses, 33 percent, comprised the remainder in 2009.

In recent years, gasoline-related spending has changed drastically due to fluctuating prices. Between 2004 and 2005, the average household spent 26 percent more on gasoline than they did the prior year. Between 2006 and 2008, spending increased 7 to 14 percent each year. Although overall gasoline prices remained at relatively high levels in 2009, the average household spending on gasoline decreased more than 27 percent between 2008 and 2009, which may indicate that the economic downturn, which began in December 2007, resulted in driving cutbacks.¹⁷

Prices Paid to Motor Vehicle Related Transportation

Except for 2007, from 2004 to 2008, growth was on average higher in the consumer price indices for private and public transportation than growth in the consumer price index (CPI) for expenditures on all items.¹⁸ For example, the CPI for private and public transportation increased by 7 and 4 percent, respectively, from 2004 to 2005. However, the CPI for all items only increased by 3 percent. In 2009, the CPI for private and public transportation decreased by 8 and 6 percent due to the economic downturn (Table 4-36: Prices Paid by U.S. Households for Transportation Services).

Costs of Owning and Operating Motor Vehicles

Although the overall average cost per mile of owning and operating an automobile did not change much from 2004 to 2009, variable costs such as fuel, maintenance, and tires increased by 4 cents per mile, or 31 percent. Fixed costs, including insurance, license, and registration, declined by 4 cents per mile or 9 percent. In 2009, variable costs made up 30 percent of the cost of automobile ownership, compared to 23 percent in 2004 (Table 4-37: Average Cost per Mile of Owning and Operating an Automobile).

Average Airfare

The average airfare paid by consumers reached a peak and was about $346 per itinerary in 2008, a 13 percent increase from fares paid in 2004. The increase in average airfare was 1 percentage point less than the increase in the CPI between 2004 and 2008. Average airfare increases of 1 percent in 2009 and 10 percent in the first 6 months of 2010 were 12 percentage points and 6 percentage points, respectively, lower than the increase in the CPI when compared with the average airfare in 2004 (Table 4-39: Average Itinerary Fares and Consumer Price Index Changes, and Table 4-40: U.S. Domestic Airline Industry Historical Average Itinerary Fares).

Highest and Lowest Average Domestic Airfare by Origin Airport

Table 4-41: Select Highest and Lowest Average Domestic Fares by Origin Airport presents the top 10 airports with the highest and lowest average domestic airfare for 2000 and the second quarter of 2010. Huntsville, AL, and Cincinnati, OH, were the two airports that appeared on the list for highest airfare for both years. The average airfares for travelers from Huntsville and Cincinnati were $485 and $426, respectively, in the second quarter of 2010. That was a 5-percent increase for Huntsville and a 7-percent decrease for Cincinnati over 2000 levels. Airfares increased at four of the five airports on the list for the lowest airfare in both 2000 and the second quarter of 2010. For example, the average airfare for trips from Dallas Love Field Airport, TX, increased 40 percent, from $183 in 2000 to $256 in 2010.

¹ U.S. Department of Transportation, Draft U.S. DOT Strategic Plan FY2010-FY2015: Transportation for a New Generation (April 15, 2010), available at http://www.dot.gov/stratplan/dot_strategic_plan_10-15.pdf as of January 2011.

² For additional information on Livable Communities, please visit the U.S. DOT Livability website, available at http://www.dot.gov/livability/ as of November 2010.

³ See analysis of usage indicators, vehicle-miles and passenger-miles, below. Transit usage actually increased from 2008 to 2009.

⁴ For additional information on Intermodal Passenger Connectivity Database, please see http://www.transtats.bts.gov/DatabaseInfo.asp?DB_ID=640&Link=0 as of January 2011.

⁵ Revenue passengers are counted as the number of one-way trips by persons holding tickets.

⁶ For historical data, please see U.S. Department of Transportation, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, National Transportation Statistics, table 1-38, available at http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/ as of November 2010.

⁷ Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

⁸ U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration, National Transit Database, table 21, available at http://www.ntdprogram.gov/ntdprogram/data.htm as of November 2010.

⁹ "Economic Recovery Bringing Renewed Congestion Growth," Texas Transportation Institute, Texas A&M University, Press Release, Jan. 20, 2011, available at http://mobility.tamu.edu/ums/media_information/press_release.stm, as of Jan. 20, 2011.

¹⁰ See Table 3-16: Incoming Truck and Train Crossings to the United States From Canada and Mexico and Table 3-19: Passenger Crossings Into the U.S. by Personal Vehicles, Bus, Train, and Foot From Canada and Mexico and International Freight and Passenger Movement analysis.

¹¹ For information about FAST, please visit http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/trade/cargo_security/ctpat/fast/.

¹² U.S. Department of Transportation, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, National Transportation Statistics, table 1-67, available at http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/ as of January 2011.

¹³ "Economic Recovery Bringing Renewed Congestion Growth," Texas Transportation Institute, Texas A&M University, Press Release, Jan. 20, 2011, available at http://mobility.tamu.edu/ums/media_information/press_release.stm, as of Jan. 20, 2011.

¹⁴ See Table 3-16: Incoming Truck and Train Crossings to the United States From Canada and Mexico and Table 3-19: Passenger Crossings Into the U.S. by Personal Vehicles, Bus, Train, and Foot From Canada and Mexico and International Freight and Passenger Movement analysis.

¹⁵ For information about FAST, please visit http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/trade/cargo_security/ctpat/fast/.

¹⁶ U.S. Department of Transportation, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, National Transportation Statistics, table 1-67, available at http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/ as of January 2011.

¹⁷ Longthorne, A.; R. Subramanian; and C.-L. Chen, An Analysis of the Significant Decline in Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities in 2008 (Washington, DC: June 2010), U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, available at http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811346.pdf as of November 2010.

¹⁸ CPI for private transportation covers prices for new and used motor vehicles, fuel, insurance, maintenance, etc. CPI for public transportation covers prices for airfare, other intra- and intercity public transportation services. For additional information on the CPI's coverage, please visit the Bureau of Labor Statistic's CPI page available at http://www.bls.gov/cpi/ as of November 2010.

USA Banner

Chapter 2: U.S. Transportation System