Facing the future of transit ridership: shifting attitudes towards public transit and auto ownership among transit riders during COVID-19
Public transit agencies face a transformed landscape of rider demand and political support as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes. We explore people’s motivations for returning to or avoiding public transit a year into the pandemic. We draw on a March 2021 follow-up survey of over 1,900 people who rode transit regularly prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada, and who took part in a prior survey on the topic in May 2020. We investigate how transit demand changes associated with the pandemic relate to changes in automobile ownership and its desirability. We find that pre-COVID frequent transit users between the ages of 18–29, a part of the so-called “Gen Z,” and recent immigrants are more attracted to driving due to the pandemic, with the latter group more likely to have actually purchased a vehicle. Getting COVID-19 or living with someone who did is also a strong and positive predictor of buying a car and anticipating less transit use after the pandemic. Our results suggest that COVID-19 may have increased the attractiveness of auto ownership among transit riders likely to eventually purchase cars anyway (immigrants, twentysomethings), at least in the North American context. We also conclude that getting COVID-19 or living with someone who did is a positive predictor of having bought a car. Future research should consider how having COVID-19 transformed some travelers’ views, values, and behaviour.
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Availability:
- Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00494488
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Supplemental Notes:
- © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2022. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
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Authors:
- Palm, Matthew
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0000-0002-8800-2777
- Allen, Jeff
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0000-0001-9575-7169
- Zhang, Yixue
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0000-0003-4040-4731
- Tiznado-Aitken, Ignacio
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0000-0002-7385-2357
- Batomen, Brice
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0000-0002-5772-120X
- Farber, Steven
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0000-0002-3870-5984
- Widener, Michael
- Publication Date: 2024-4
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Web
- Features: Appendices; References; Tables;
- Pagination: pp 645-671
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Serial:
- Transportation
- Volume: 51
- Issue Number: 2
- Publisher: Springer
- ISSN: 0049-4488
- EISSN: 1572-9435
- Serial URL: http://link.springer.com/journal/11116
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Attitudes; Automobile ownership; COVID-19; Ridership; Telecommuting; Transit riders
- Geographic Terms: Toronto (Canada); Vancouver (Canada)
- Subject Areas: Passenger Transportation; Public Transportation; Safety and Human Factors; Security and Emergencies;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01913220
- Record Type: Publication
- Files: TRIS
- Created Date: Mar 27 2024 4:52PM