Denser Cities Won’t Rely On Transit

By John Hood

RALEIGH — Policymakers can’t make any significant headway on housing affordability unless they make it easier for companies to add more inventory more quickly, including the construction of more homes per acre of land. This isn’t some abstract theory or ideological claim. It is a relationship confirmed by copious empirical research. Basic laws of supply and demand drive the housing market as they do all others.

North Carolina has already take some sizable strides in the direction of housing abundance, by loosening constraints on construction and speeding up the permitting process. That’s one reason our growth engine continues to hum while other sputter. If we keep going, one effect will be steady increases in population density within our fastest-growing cities, suburbs, and exurbs.

Does that also mean a significant increase in transit usage? Longtime proponents for public transportation often make this prediction, and I question neither their good intentions nor the superficial plausibility of the claim. But it just doesn’t comport with practical experience.

Take Charlotte, for example. It added more residents last year than any other big city in the country. Mecklenburg is North Carolina’s densest county, with an average of 2,289 people per square mile vs. 1,484 in Wake, 1,280 in New Hanover, 1,202 in Durham, 977 in Forsyth, 868 in Guilford, and 226 for the state as a whole. And, yes, the Queen City has by far North Carolina’s most-elaborate transit system, including buses, a rail line, and a streetcar line.

Despite all that, transit plays a minuscule — and declining — role in Charlotte’s commuting patterns. Ridership was trending downward before the COVID pandemic, then plummeted (as did transit ridership pretty much everywhere). It has yet to recover. Bus ridership in 2024 was 16% lower than in 2019. Rail ridership was an astounding 31% lower.

Elsewhere in North Carolina, transit systems exhibit a range of patterns. Some show modest increases in ridership over the past couple of years. Some show declines. Outside of college towns, however, none carries more than a tiny fraction of daily commuters. In most cases, that percentage is lower than it was a decade ago.

This isn’t just a local story. Nationwide, transit ridership generally wiggled within a narrow range of about 750 million to 950 million “unlinked trips” (not unique passengers) a month from the turn of the century until early 2020. After the COVID tumble, it rebounded somewhat but remains significantly below pre-pandemic levels — which were themselves unimpressive, staying relatively flat even as America’s population surged.

All other things being equal, greater housing density within North Carolina’s urban cores may increase transit usage a little. But North Carolinians will continue to drive, carpool, telecommute, and even walk to work more often than they take a bus or train. Indeed, transportation analyst Wendell Cox recently observed that when it comes to accessing as many potential jobs as possible within a half-hour window, bicycling has proved to be superior to transit in most communities across the United States, including those in North Carolina. For non-work trips, as well, few will voluntarily choose transit for errands, shopping, recreation, or entertainment.

That doesn’t mean our cities will or should halt transit service. It can be a vital lifeline for those who can’t afford to own a car or are unable to operate one. Being practical about transit should be liberating, not limiting. It should allow policymakers to embrace new technologies such as autonomous vehicles, big data, and artificial intelligence to deliver the type and scale of public assistance that satisfy the demands of transit-dependent residents rather than those of transit fantasists.

No, buses and trains will never carry a sizable share of North Carolina travelers. We simply place too high value on automobility for that. And to the extent our cities evolve into denser, mixed-use places, the likely result will somewhat-shorter commutes by car or foot, punctuated by periods of remote work, rather than a return to the mass transit world of the early- to mid-20th century.

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy with American history (FolkloreCycle.com).