Light Rail service is expected to carry 3,000-5,000 passengers per hour. Eventually, light rail will have the capacity to transport the same number of people as a six-lane freeway, and up to 15,000 people per hour. Can your commuters use the Light Rail to get to work?
According to the American Public Transit Association (APTA), public transportation use is up 32% percent since 1995, a figure that is more than double the growth rate of the population (15 percent) and up substantially over the growth rate for the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) on our nation’s highways (24%) for that same period.
A regular rush-hour driver wastes an average of 99 gallons of gasoline a year due to traffic. The average cost of the time lost in rush hour traffic is $1,160 per person.
If one in five Americans used public transportation daily, carbon monoxide pollution would decrease by more than all the emissions from the entire chemical manufacturing industry and all metal processing plants in the U.S.
The U.S. has over 8.2 million lane miles of roads. Only 4.3% of those roads are served by transit. Additionally, transit buses or parallel passenger rail lines run on only 168,603 miles.
In 2007, approximately three out five residents (61%) mentioned an air quality/transportation-related issue as being one of the most important issues facing the Valley. The proportion of Valley residents who mention air quality/transportation issues was up slightly, but not significantly, from 58% in 2006.
In a 2007 survey conducted for Valley Metro, employed residents and students reported the longest average distance for their commute in more than seven years (14.4 miles) as well as the longest average time for that commute (27.8 minutes).
Approximately 8.6 million vehicle miles (approximately 18% of the total possible vehicle miles) were avoided in the Valley during 2007 because employees used an alternate mode of transportation, worked at home, or had a compressed work schedule.