Thursday, April 9, 2009

Why would you want to save a BUS??? When you read this blog for the next few days, you will see the importance buses have played in our energy conservation history in this country.

Oh, I just love to do research on the internet--and in the last few days I have been researching transit ridership! You really find some interesting facts when you dig deep enough. So, over the next few days, I'm going to share some of those with you.

There are more than 6,500 providers of public and community transportation offering Americans the opportunity and the choice to travel by means other than a car. In 2007, Americans took 10.3 billion trips on public transportation -- the highest ridership level in 50 years.

34 million times each weekday, people board public transportation. Since 1995, public transportation ridership is up 32 percent. For every dollar spent, the average household spends 18 cents on transportation, and 94 percent of this goes to buying, maintaining and operating cars.
Americans living in areas served by public transportation save $18 billiong annually in congestion costs. Each year an individual can achieve an average annual savings of over $8,000 by taking public transportation instead of driving and by living with one less car.

Each year, public transportation use in the US saves 1.4 billion gallons of gasoline. This represents almost 4 million gallons of gasoline per day.

Each year, public transportation use saves the equivalent of 34 supertankers of oil, or a supertanker leaving the Middle East every 11 days. It saves the equivalent of 140,769 service station tanker truck trips clogging our streets each year and saves the equivalent of 300,000 fewer automobile fill-ups every day.