How smart can public transportation be? Imagine Virginia without it.
If everyone in northern Virginia who normally rides Metrorail had to drive a car to work instead, the resulting traffic jam would stretch from
Washington, D.C. to North Carolina. If everyone who carpools in Virginia drove alone, the added vehicles would create two lanes of parked
traffic from Richmond to Orlando.
Make no mistake about it- public transportation in Virginia is important. Three of the 75 largest transit agencies in the country operate here.
Metrorail is the nation’s second most heavily-used rail transit system, with 143,500 daily riders in northern Virginia alone. The Virginia Railway
Express (VRE) commuter rail system is one of the fastest-growing commuter rail services in America.
More than 40 public transit agencies, 50 human service providers and 15 commuter assistance agencies carry nearly
700,000 Virginians to work every day in something other than their own cars. Carpools, vanpools, public transit, passenger ferry, commuter rail, walking, biking
and teleworking are all smart ways that Virginians can get to work.
Public transportation offers two main benefits- time and money. People who commute daily with public transportation save over $5,000 a year in fuel,
car maintenance and parking fees- roughly a semester of tuition at a Virginia public university. And instead of sitting in traffic for up to 34 hours a year, they
spend that time doing things like gardening, relaxing and playing with their children. It’s like having an extra week of vacation.
For thousands of people, public transportation is their only choice. Just ask the riders of the Hampton Roads Transit (HRT) system. Nearly half of them
couldn’t get to work, to school, to the doctor or to market without an HRT bus. And for the disabled and the elderly, public transportation is a lifeline.
Public transportation riders aren’t the only beneficiaries. Every commuter railcar takes up to 200 vehicles off the road. Every bus takes up to 60 vehicles off the
road and every van takes up to 14. And when cars stay off the road, their pollutants stay out of the air. In Virginia, our lungs are spared from 2.5 million pounds of
hydrocarbons and 3.1 million pounds of nitrogen oxides thanks to public transportation.
If everyone in northern Virginia who normally rides Metrorail had to drive a car to work instead, the resulting traffic jam would stretch from
Washington, D.C. to North Carolina. If everyone who carpools in Virginia drove alone, the added vehicles would create two lanes of parked
traffic from Richmond to Orlando. 