Energy

Will Most Cities See Driverless Cars Replace Light Rail? This Expert Thinks So

REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Michael Bastasch DCNF Managing Editor
Font Size:

Light rail and streetcars that are common sites in cities today may disappear from most U.S. urban areas within the next 12 years, according to one policy expert.

Cato Institute senior fellow Randal O’Toole predicts that outside of New York City and a few other urban centers, mass transit could disappear by 2030 as more people use services like Uber and Lyft to get around.

O’Toole’s talk at the Cato Institute’s Washington, D.C., headquarters Tuesday focused on his October 2017 policy analysis on the “coming transit apocalypse” because of declining ridership in the face of cheap, accessible alternatives.

O’Toole argued “transit agencies should begin to prepare for an orderly phase-out of publicly funded transit services as affordable, shared driverless cars become available in the next decade.”

“This means the industry should stop building new rail lines; replace most existing rail lines with buses as they wear out; pay down debts and unfunded obligations; and target any further subsidies to low-income people rather than continue a futile crusade to attract higher-income people out of their cars,” O’Toole wrote in his paper.

Mass transit use is already in decline nationwide despite taxpayers shelling out $51 billion a year in transit subsidies. Driverless cars will only add to mass transit woes, O’Toole said. (RELATED: Denmark Wants To Ban Gas-Powered Cars, Even Hybrids)

According to O’Toole, transit doesn’t deliver to most urban areas the benefits promised by its promoters. It’s expensive, doesn’t save energy and does little to ease congestion, O’toole said.

“So, it costs about four times as much to move someone by transit as it does by car,” O’Toole said in his Cato Institute talk.

Indeed, U.S. taxpayers shoveled $1.3 trillion towards transit subsidies since 1970. Meanwhile urban areas from Wichita to Memphis to Sacramento have seen ridership decline.

“Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Washington have all suffered double-digit declines since 2009,” O’Tool wrote in his paper. “Moreover, data for the first seven months of 2017 suggest that declines are accelerating.”

So is transit doomed to disappear? Portland transit consultant Jarrett Walker disagreed and challenged O’Toole’s reliance on national statistics to explain what he saw as a local political issue.

“All transit policy is local,” Walker said at the Cato conference. “Rural and urban people have always had different perspectives.”

“I don’t think we’re looking at a death spiral,” Walker said, though he added “death spirals” for city transit can occur. However, Walker said the crises are usually addressed by local leaders, referencing Washington, D.C.’s recent troubles with its metro rail system.

Walker also questioned O’Toole’s optimism about Uber, Lyft and driverless cars. He said studies show ridesharing services don’t really reduce traffic, but instead reduce demand for parking.

A study published in July by New York City’s former deputy transportation commissioner found that Uber and Lyft actually increased congestion in the Big Apple. Their reasoning was because most people those services would have otherwise used public transit, bicycles or walked.

Walker said that faced with decisions like these, local officials will likely push for more transit funding. He also noted that rising prices in urban centers, especially places like San Francisco, showed that people wanted to live there and use transit.

“That is the market telling us to build more dense cities, and the market is telling us to build more mass transit,” Walker said.

Follow Michael on Facebook and Twitter

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.