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While public-transit fans hailed yesterday's numbers, other analysts, including Alan E. Pisarski, a nationally known expert on commuting patterns, said declarations of a transit renaissance may be premature.

A "big chunk" of the new growth figures, he said, can be traced to the New York City subway system, where ridership rose 7.6 percent. Because that system accounts for about 65 percent of all U.S. subway travel, even a small percentage increase there translates into millions of trips.

Another significant factor, Pisarski said, is the immigrant wave washing over the country, which could account for ridership spikes in the West and Southwest. "There's a much greater tendency for the immigrant population to use transit," he said.

At the same time, last year's minimal rise in car travel could be linked to the softening economy and higher fuel costs, Pisarski said.

More telling of long-term trends, Pisarski said, will be the 2000 Census figures, because they more closely track mass-transit use. Those figures will be released by the  government later this year.

Transit ridership in this country has vacillated over the years, peaking in 1946, when Americans took 23.4 billion trips on trains, buses and trolleys, according to the public transportation group. By 1960, however, the number had dropped to 9.3 billion, and it continued downward as the car culture gripped the nation. In 1972, ridership hit bottom, with 6.5 billion trips. It wasn't until 1995 that it began steadily climbing again.

Transit operators and analysts say ridership increases are driven by several factors, including more public spending on transit, a strong economy, stable fares, innovation among transit systems and growing congestion on the highway.

The federal government began investing heavily in mass transit about 10 years ago, sending billions of dollars to communities to launch ferry boats, lay down track, and buy trains and trolleys, including special vehicles that accommodate the disabled. Many states also increased transit funding.

Some of those investments are now paying dividends. Los Angeles had the fastest-growing subway system in the country in 2000, thanks to a 61 percent ridership increase that followed the opening of a 6.3-mile extension of its Red Line in June.

"Driving isn't shrinking, but it's not growing, either," Kienitz said. "Before we can say Americans have made a wholesale change in the way they travel, the trend has to hold over 10 years. Still, this is change both on paper, in statistics, and in people's minds.
And it's a reason to pay attention."

                                 © 2001 The Washington Post Company

Coming to a Curve
Region's Subway System Begins to Show Its Age, Limits

By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 25, 2001

As Washington's Metro trains first hummed to life 25 years ago, many people didn't know what to expect. It was, after all, among the first U.S. subway systems built from scratch, rather than cobbled together from several existing railroads, as in New York and Boston.

But from its opening on March 27, 1976, Metro was a new American monument. Embraced by locals and tourists, it became a $9.4 billion model for moving people swiftly between suburbs and the city. Riders have lately flocked to Metro faster than it can buy rail cars to carry them, a fortune never anticipated by its designers.

The Metro would prove to be far more than a people mover. It shaped the region in dramatic ways, turning the village of Bethesda into a small city, reviving sagging Clarendon, pumping new life into downtown by creating mass transit access that eventually lured the MCI Center and its professional sports teams to Gallery Place.

The Metro system has become - among many other things - a gathering place, a unifier, a matchmaker, a land developer, an economic power and a community planner.

But while Metro fulfilled some dreams, it left others unrealized. Ideas that made sense when the subway was built turned out to be mistakes. Escalators open to the sky are falling apart after decades of soaking in rain and snow. The two-track design of the railroad is too simple for increasing demands for service.

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