Why American Transit Is Designed to Fail
Key Takeaways
- Transit is valued by 84% of Americans, but only 4% use it.
- There are many good reasons why America should look to grow transit’s share of trips.
- However, transit is seen as a form of welfare by many Americans.
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The welfare mindset creates limiting decisions that actively prevent ridership growth:
- Bus network planning prioritises coverage over growing ridership.
- “Inclusion” is prioritised over good service.
- Fares are set too low to invest in good services.
- Government agencies continue to pursue policies that prioritise the motor vehicle, despite the many negative consequences this creates.
- To change this mindset will require bold political leadership from Mayors and Governors, focusing on growing transit (and other non-motor vehicle modes) in cities.
What Next?
Are you limiting your thinking on how to expand transit use?
Introduction
Two statistics tell the story of American transit's greatest puzzle:
84% of Americans say they value transit.
Only 4% actually use it.
This isn't just a transport problem; it's a mindset problem. And that mindset is quietly sabotaging efforts to build better transit in America.
I stumbled across these numbers while listening to a transit podcast, and they stopped me cold. How do you reconcile near-universal support with near-universal avoidance? The answer, I realised, lies in a single word that shapes every transit decision in America: welfare.
Americans don't see transit as transport; they see it as charity. It's something we provide for "other people," those who can't afford cars or can't drive. This welfare mindset sounds compassionate, but it's actually toxic to building the kind of transit system that could serve everyone well.
When you design transit as welfare, you get welfare-quality service. You prioritise coverage over speed, inclusion over safety, and low fares over good service. You create a system that reinforces car dependency for the 96% while trapping the 4% in substandard mobility.
But what if we flipped the script? What if American cities started treating transit not as a social service, but as essential infrastructure for economic competitiveness? What if we designed it to compete with cars instead of simply serving those who have no other choice?
Bus Network Planning: The Coverage Trap
Nothing reveals the welfare mindset more clearly than how American cities plan their bus networks. Walk into any transit planning meeting, and you'll hear the same refrain: "We need to serve everyone." It sounds noble. It's actually self-defeating.
The coverage-first approach creates what transit planners call the "coverage trap." Spread your limited budget across maximum geography, and you get routes that are slow, infrequent, and circuitous. Buses lumber through neighbourhoods every 30-60 minutes, making multiple turns to serve every corner. The result? A system that technically reaches everyone but serves no one well.
For anyone with a choice, the car wins every time. Yet this is precisely what coverage-first planning produces: transport welfare that reinforces car dependency.
Compare this to a ridership-focused approach. Instead of spreading service thin, you concentrate resources on corridors where people want to travel. You run buses every 10-15 minutes on straight, fast routes between major destinations. You create Bus Rapid Transit with dedicated lanes and signal priority. The service becomes genuinely competitive with driving.
The irony is that ridership-focused planning ultimately serves equity better than coverage-focused planning. When you create fast, frequent service that attracts choice riders, you generate the political support and fare revenue needed to expand the system. More people benefit from excellent service on fewer routes than from terrible service on many routes.
Cities that have made this shift see immediate ridership gains. They discovered something the welfare mindset obscures: when you design transit to compete rather than accommodate, people choose to use it. The 96% aren't avoiding transit because they hate it; they're avoiding it because it doesn't work for them.
The Inclusion Paradox: How "Welcoming Everyone" Drives Everyone Away
The welfare mindset creates a peculiar logic: since transit is meant for society's most vulnerable, any attempt to maintain order or standards becomes an attack on those who "need" the system most. The result is a misguided inclusivity that makes transit less inclusive for everyone.
Fare evasion is tolerated because enforcement might criminalise poverty. Antisocial behaviour goes unchecked because intervention might seem discriminatory. Drug use and mental health crises play out on platforms and vehicles because transit has become a de facto social services office.
The cruel irony is that this permissive approach hurts the very people it claims to protect. Low-income transit users, who have no choice but to rely on the system, bear the brunt of disorder and dysfunction. They endure longer commutes, unpredictable service, and uncomfortable conditions while wealthier potential riders simply drive.
Contrast this with transit systems that maintain high standards while serving diverse populations. Many cities prove that strict enforcement and excellent service can coexist with social equity. They achieve this by separating transit operations from social services.
The most inclusive transit system is one that serves everyone well, not one that serves no one well in the name of serving everyone equally. When transit becomes a genuine choice for the middle class, it generates the ridership, revenue, and political support needed to expand service to underserved communities.
American transit agencies face a choice: be inclusively dysfunctional or functionally inclusive. Cities that choose the latter find that high standards don't exclude people; they create systems worth including everyone in.
The Low-Fare Fallacy: How Cheap Transit Keeps People in Cars
If transit is welfare, the logic goes, it should be as cheap as possible. This reasoning has led American cities down a destructive path: artificially suppressing fares to keep transit "affordable" while starving the system of resources needed to make it attractive.
The numbers tell the story. American transit fares often cover just a small proportion of their operating costs. This isn't compassion, it's self-sabotage. When fares are set below the cost of providing decent service, agencies cannot invest in the frequency, reliability, and comfort that would attract new riders.
The result is a poverty trap disguised as affordability. Low-income households, unable to access quality transit, are forced into car ownership that they can barely afford. The average American household spends over $10,000 annually on transport, mostly car payments, insurance, gas, and parking. A family using transit would save thousands while gaining mobility, but only if the transit works.
Meanwhile, middle and upper-income Americans look at slow, unreliable, underfunded transit and conclude it's not worth using at any price. They drive instead, leaving transit systems with no political power to demand improvements.
The solution isn't to make everyone pay high fares, it's to decouple transit pricing from social policy. Set fares at levels that fund excellent service, then provide targeted assistance to those who need it. Mobility vouchers, sliding-scale passes, or means-tested discounts can ensure access without undermining the entire system's financial foundation.
The most affordable transit system is one that works well enough to eliminate the need for car ownership. American cities face a choice: artificially cheap transit that traps people in car dependency, or appropriately priced transit that offers genuine mobility alternatives. The welfare mindset chooses the former; a transport mindset chooses the latter.
The Institutional Schizophrenia: When Government Works Against Itself
The welfare mindset doesn't just shape transit policy; it creates a fundamental contradiction in how American governments approach transport. Agencies simultaneously invest millions in transit while spending billions to make driving easier, faster, and cheaper. The result is institutional schizophrenia that guarantees transit's failure.
When transit is seen as welfare for the 4%, every other transport decision caters to the 96% who drive. Highway expansion gets justified as economic development. Free parking becomes a revitalisation strategy. Traffic flow takes priority over pedestrian safety. Each decision might be rational in isolation, but collectively devastating to transit's prospects.
The welfare mindset also shapes how agencies measure success. DOTs celebrate reduced travel times for cars while ignoring that transit users face longer commutes due to traffic prioritisation.
International cities that succeed at transit take the opposite approach. They explicitly prioritise non-car modes in their planning decisions. These cities understand that mobility is a zero-sum game in dense urban areas. Every lane given to cars is a lane denied to buses. Every dollar subsidising parking is a dollar not improving transit. Every development designed for drivers is a development that generates car trips.
American cities need what transport planners call "mode hierarchy", an explicit ranking of transport priorities that guides every decision. Cities serious about transit put walking, cycling, and transit at the top, with driving last. This doesn't mean banning cars; it means stopping the automatic assumption that car convenience trumps all other considerations.
The institutional change required is profound. It means transportation departments that measure success by how few people need to drive. It means planning departments that default to transit-supportive development patterns. It means mayors who understand that you cannot build your way out of congestion with more lanes, only with better alternatives to driving.
Breaking the Cycle: A Roadmap for Mindset Change
Changing America's transit mindset won't happen through incremental reforms or better marketing campaigns. It requires bold political leadership willing to make hard choices and a strategic approach that builds momentum over time.
Start Where Success Is Possible
The transformation must begin in cities where transit can compete with driving; dense urban cores with significant congestion and parking constraints. Success stories create political capital for broader change.
Start by concentrating resources on high-frequency corridors, implementing bus rapid transit and dedicated lanes. The results will increase ridership growth, deliver increased political support, and momentum for additional investments.
Align Government Actions
Mayors and governors must synchronise their transport investments. This means implementing "mode hierarchy" policies that explicitly prioritise transit, walking, and cycling over driving in funding decisions in cities.
Most importantly, it means ending the institutional schizophrenia where cities build transit lines while simultaneously expanding highways and subsidising parking. Every transport dollar should advance the same strategic vision.
Conclusion
The paradox is stark: 84% of Americans value transit, yet only 4% use it. This isn't a failure of engineering or funding; it's a failure of imagination. As long as we treat transit as welfare for the 4% rather than a viable choice for the 96%, we will continue to trap millions of Americans in car dependency and hollow out our cities with parking lots.
The welfare mindset creates a vicious cycle. Poor service drives away potential riders, reinforcing the perception that transit is only for those with no other choice. This justifies continued poor service, and the cycle repeats. Meanwhile, the true costs of car dependency, financial, environmental, and social, are hidden in subsidised parking, sprawling infrastructure, and household budgets stretched thin by mandatory car ownership.
Breaking this cycle requires courage. It means prioritising frequency over coverage. It means charging fares that fund good service, while providing targeted assistance to those who need it.
Places that make this mental shift, from welfare provider to transport enabler, will reap enormous benefits. They'll see increased ridership, reduced congestion, stronger local economies, and more equitable mobility outcomes. They'll also discover that when transit becomes a genuine choice, public support for investment grows.
I believe Americans can turn the corner and build world-class transit systems, but they need to stop designing it for other people first.