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Nationwide across the US, transit ridership is only at about 70% of where it was in 2019 before the pandemic. But this is not the case in all cities around the world. According to this recent Bloomberg article, Madrid, Hong Kong, and Paris are all above their 2019 ridership levels. Seoul and Shanghai are also close at just over 90%, and London is at 85%.
So this problem of fewer people riding transit seems to be a North and South American phenomenon. Rio de Janeiro is at 73%, Mexico City is at 70%, and San Francisco is somewhere near or at the bottom at 44%. The obvious explanations for this are that Europe and Asia are generally denser and less car-oriented, their return-to-office patterns have been much stronger (less WFH), and their governments probably care more about transit (and spend more money on it).
Broadly speaking, I think this is all true, but I'd love to know more precisely what's driving these differences. Because it's not exactly obvious. Consider, for example, Paris and London. Paris is at 103% of its 2019 levels, whereas London is only at 85%. Why is that? Both cities share a lot of similarities. They have a river that weaves through the middle, they're dense, they have lots of trains, and both are alpha global cities.
So why the delta? What exactly is Paris doing that is encouraging more transit usage?
Charts via Bloomberg
Here's an interesting figure from the Missing Middle Initiative showing the change in population of 0-4 year olds in Southern Ontario between 2016 and 2021:
What this shows is that the population of young children declined in the Greater Toronto Area and in Ottawa, but increased dramatically in areas further out, such as in Lanark County (outside of Ottawa) and Oxford County (between London and Hamilton). If you know what home prices are like in Southern Ontario, then this probably makes intuitive sense to you. Families are, as the old saying goes, "driving until they qualify."
But let's look at the data more closely. What the Missing Middle uncovered was that the metric most highly correlated with the population growth of children under the age of 5 was the increase in the supply of housing with three or more bedrooms. More specifically, though, it was highly correlated with an increase in the number of larger owner-occupied homes. Rental housing did not have the same correlation.
They go on to remind us that correlation is not causation, which is true. But regardless, there's a clear recipe here: If cities want to become more family-friendly, house more young children, and not lose them to exurban areas, then they need to figure out a way to unlock more 3-bedroom homes at price points that more families can afford.
Note: As is typical on this blog, I am using the term home to include all housing types, not just single-family housing. A home is not a housing type. It is simply a place where people, families, and households live permanently. Associating the term home with only single-family housing creates a cultural bias that I believe is suboptimal for cities.
Create Streets recently published this review of the proposed Shoreditch Works development project in Hackney, London. And one of the interesting things they did as part of it was something they call a visual preference survey. What this means is that they showed a statistically representative sampling of over two thousand British people some before and after images so they could choose which they prefer.
Here's how they responded:
As you can see, from a visual perspective, there was/is strong support for the proposed development. At least according to these three views. This is despite the fact that the proposal is, of course, taller than what's there today. What I think this starts to show is that good design matters. People respond positively to beauty. And, that it's important to show what will happen at street level above all. This is how we all experience cities.
Visual preference surveys aren't all that common. I'm not sure I've seen one conducted for a new development. But it's a great idea and I plan to borrow it from Create Streets.
Cover photo from Shoreditch Works
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