Hit by soaring fuel prices, Americans turn to bus, metro
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The car has long been king in America, but with the price of fuel going through the roof, it is losing ground to public transport.
In cities around the United States, people are leaving the car at home and turning to the metro, commuter train and bus as the price of gasoline climbs steadily upward.
From 3.00 dollars a gallon (3.78 liters) in January, gasoline has risen to around 4.00 dollars a gallon in late May.
In Seattle, Dallas and San Francisco, the use of public transport has seen two-digit percentage increases.
New York's subway system -- which already operates at capacity, carrying five million riders a day -- has seen passenger numbers increase by five percent since January.
Runaway gasoline prices have led residents of Los Angeles to discover that their city actually has a metro system. Its use has increased by 14 percent in three years.
Washington's 32-year-old metro carried nearly 800,000 passengers a day in the past few months, despite hefty fare increases.
And the management of the Washington metro is drawing up an emergency plan to cope with a predicted tidal wave of passengers, if gasoline prices reach five dollars a gallon.
"If gasoline does hit five dollars a gallon or even six dollars, how will that affect our ridership? There is a point at which we may see a massive move of commuters from driving to transit because of the cost," Washington Metro's general manager John Catoe told a meeting of the board of directors last week.
Catoe suggested that area employers "institute some sort of mandatory flex time" to allow workers to spread their commutes out over a longer period of time, to help the transport system to cope.
He also called for bus lanes to be introduced.
Seven out of 10 Americans believe the price of gasoline will climb to more than five dollars between now and September, a poll published in the Washington Times showed.
Official statistics for the month of March showed that, for the first time in 30 years, Americans used their cars less for travel -- 11 billion miles (17.6 billion kilometers), or 4.3 percent less than during the same month a year earlier.
Although the number of Americans who use public transport has grown steadily over the past dozen years, the vast majority -- 76 percent -- still use their car to go to work.
Eleven percent pool the use of their cars, and just five percent take the train or metro, according to data from the Census Bureau.
