Central Business Districts and Transit Ridership: A Reexamination of the Relationship in the United States

Many scholars claim that public transit’s long-term ridership decline can be attributed to the decentralization of U.S. metropolitan areas and the decline of the central business district (CBD) as their primary economic engine. However, recent research has begun to challenge this view and has prompted this reexamination. Using multivariate analysis, we examine the relationship between the strength of the CBD and transit ridership in all U.S. metropolitan areas with more than 500,000 persons in 2000, while controlling for other factors thought to influence bus and rail transit ridership. We find no relationship between the strength of the CBD and transit ridership, which suggests that other factors are much more important contributors to transit ridership. Introduction Most scholars argue that public transit’s long-term ridership decline is associated with the decentralization of U.S. metropolitan areas and the decline of the central business district (CBD) as their primary economic engine. Recent research suggests that this relationship remains strong, although some scholars have begun to challenge this view by noting circumstances where transit agencies are increasing ridership in decentralized urban areas. These recent research developments have prompted us to reexamine the relationship between the strength of the CBD and transit ridership Journal of Public Transportation, Vol. 15, No. 4, 2012 2 (measured as transit journey-to-work mode share by bus and/or rail transit modes), while controlling for other factors thought to influence ridership. The Relationship between Transit Ridership and the CBD Transit ridership is one of the most frequently studied phenomena in transportation, and a large literature has emerged that seeks to explain it. The literature divides explanations for ridership (and ridership change) into two broad categories: external factors and internal factors. External factors include urban structure, population change, regional economic conditions, household auto ownership levels, and urban population density, all factors over which transit managers have no control. Internal factors include fare and service policies over which transit managers exercise some control. Traditional View Our particular interest in this study is the role of urban structure in explaining variation in transit ridership, and there is an extensive literature on this topic. Most of the literature focuses on the relationship between transit ridership and the relative strength of the CBD as a locus of regional economic activity. Scholars writing in this topic area tend to view the CBD and the CBD-bound commuter as the most important market for public transit (Pucher and Renne 2003; Pushkarev and Zupan 1977; Pushkarev and Zupan 1980). Mierzejewski and Ball (1990) found support for this view in their survey of transit users, which found that 82 percent of choice riders worked in the CBD of their metropolitan area. Studies of the post-war decline in U.S. transit use frequently cite the decline of the CBD and the decentralization of population and employment as major causal factors (Ferreri 1992; Jones 1985; Meyer, Kain, and Wohl 1965; Meyer and GómezIbáñez 1981). A number of scholars have used statistical analysis to examine this relationship, when controlling for the influence of other variables. Most of these authors have found strong connections between the strength of the CBD (or its corollary, the degree of decentralization) and transit ridership. Hendrickson’s work (1986) is one example of these studies. He examined the relationship between transit ridership and both the size and strength of the CBD and total population for 25 U.S. metropolitan areas in 1970 and 1980. He found strong, statistically-significant associations between the strength of the CBD and his transit ridership measures. However, his multivariate models failed to control for other important variables, such as fares, service quality, regional economic conditions, and auto ownership, which might also affect transit ridership. He also included