Americans drove 1.4 billion fewer highway miles in April compared with the same month last year, and 400 million fewer miles than they did in March, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters announced this week. Peters also said that gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles are decreasing in popularity, as sales of midsize sport utility vehicles were down 38% year-over-year in May.
"It's absolutely the sticker shock and awe at the gas prices," said Denise Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for Metrolink, the commuter rail service that links downtown L.A. with outlying suburbs. "This is the time of year that we normally have lower ridership, but it's only going up."
Metrolink tends to serve commuters with especially long drives from places such as San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange County. Joel Zlotnik, a spokesman for the Orange County Transportation Authority, said Metrolink ridership in April hit a record high in the county, when the 1-million mark was broken for the first time -- a 6.4% increase over the same month last year.
The MTA's network of rail lines has also seen significant gains. In May, 7,625,541 passengers boarded Metro's two subway lines and three light-rail lines, compared with 7,192,173 boardings last May.
"It's one of the highest one-month spikes on record," Sotero said.
The Gold Line, for example, saw average weekday boarding rise to 23,141 last month from 19,093 in May 2007.
Antral Thomas, 35, started taking the Gold Line from Pasadena to the Red Line in Koreatown a few weeks ago because of rising gas prices.
Although his commute from his residence to the Koreatown restaurant where he works has increased from 30 minutes by car to an hour and a half by train, the money he's saved has paid off.
"I save a lot. It takes $60 to fill my car, and I use that in a week," he said.
Thomas now buys a weekly Metro pass for $17.
Transportation experts are quick to point out that mass-transit riders like Thomas remain part of a tiny minority who use rail instead of their own cars. And it remains an open question whether that will ever change.
James E. Moore, director of USC's transportation engineering program, compared the current uptick to the aftermath of the Northridge earthquake in 1994, when several major roads were closed.
"There was some speculation that once people got used to it, they'd stick with (public) transit," Moore said. "But people don't fail to use transit out of ignorance, they choose the option that is the cheapest for them."
