Minnesota transit to get $800 million despite low ridership

The coronavirus pandemic has dealt a heavy blow to public transportation. The Metro Transit, for example, recorded a 55 percent ridership decline between 2019 and 2020. According to the Metropolitan Council, compared to 2019, in 2020, ridership fell

as much as 60% on local bus routes, 70% on light rail, and 95% on express bus routes and Northstar commuter rail.

Despite the end of the pandemic, the situation has not improved significantly. According to a June Star Tribune article,

Some 7.6 million people took trains, buses, Metro Mobility, Transit Link and vanpool service between January and March, a 56% decline when compared with 17.3 million passengers in the same period in 2020 — just before the coronavirus firmly took hold.

“The picture has not been good,” said John Harper, Metro Transit Contracted Transit Service manager, at a Metropolitan Council Transportation Committee meeting Monday.

The most popular mode of transit was local bus service and light rail, while Northstar commuter rail and express bus routes suffered the most as thousands of people continued to work from home.

Still, all modes reported ridership declines in the first quarter. Local bus service was down 58%, and light rail 55%.

Among the bus categories, bus rapid transit service — including the popular A and C rapid bus lines — fared the best, down 43% in the quarter.

Considering that most offices are not back to their pre-COVID-19 in-person capacity in the Twin Cities, with some companies postponing their return to the office, it’s unlikely that the transit system rebound completely. Most evidence suggests that mass transit would remain below its pre-COVID ridership levels for numerous reasons. As Cato illustrates,

First, even after getting vaccinated, more people are working at home at least two or three days a week. Second, those who commute to work are finding less congested roads, so driving is more attractive than it once was. Third, people are increasingly moving to areas where transit doesn’t work very well: Redfin data show that home prices in “car‐​dependent” (I prefer “auto liberated”) areas are growing twice as fast and homes are selling in half the time as in transit‐​accessible areas.

Yet despite these signs, the federal government will infuse billions into the system.

The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that was passed contains $39 billion for mass transit. Minnesota is expected to get $820 million from the bill to maintain and potentially expand its public transit system.

Transit is a dead end

While COVID-19 is mainly to blame for recent trends, this issue has. been long underway.

The North Star line lost approximately 95 percent of its ridership during the pandemic, hiking taxpayer costs to $63 in subsidies per passenger. But even before the pandemic, Minnesota taxpayers were paying $20 per passenger to subsidize costs in 2019.

Northstar, even on its best days, was under duress, and now it’s close to bleeding out,” said Anoka County Commissioner Matt Look. He says the average passenger subsidy in August was about $794, but Metro Transit says it was about $445 including help from the federal government.

The decision by the Federal government to prop up transit is wasteful and unnecessary. Worse yet, if some of these funds are used to expand the transit system, Minnesota taxpayers will be on the hook for even higher spending once the federal funds run out.