New Jersey residents increasingly rely on transit to get to work, school, visit friends and run errands. The share of total state passenger miles traveled by transit has grown 14.5 percent from 1997 to 2004, while driving's overall share of miles declined by 0.6 percent.
That said, driving continues to dominate travel in the state. More than 95 percent of all passenger miles traveled were made in private cars in 2004. Just under 5 percent of all miles traveled were by mass transit.
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Source: FTA. National Transit Database, Transit Operating Statistics: Service Supplied and Service Consumed: Details by Transit Agency DOT and PT Service, 1997-2004. |
A higher share of work trips are taken on public transit in New Jersey compared to most of the United States. According to 2004 Census data, 10.7 percent of commute trips were by mass transit. With the exception of New York State, the share of public transit work trips is higher in New Jersey than in any other state. Within the mid-Atlantic region and excepting New York and Washington, D.C., only Pennsylvania, with 5 percent of commute trips by transit, gets even half of New Jersey's mass transit commuting rate.
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Source: FHWA. Highway Statistics Series, Table PS-1, 1997-2004 and FTA. National Transit Database, Transit Operating Statistics: Service Supplied and Service Consumed: Details by Transit Agency DOT and PT Service, 1997-2004. Note: Vehicle Passenger Miles is estimated by multiplying VMT by an average vehicle occupancy rate of 1.25 persons per vehicle |