The number of folks riding buses, subways, and trains in the U.S. last year rose to the highest level since 1959, while the number of miles driven on roads remained constant between 1999 and 2000. The American Public Transportation Association said yesterday that riders across the country took 9.4 billion rides on mass transit in 2000, a 3.5 percent jump from the previous year. Highway use, meanwhile, increased only 0.047 percent to 2.7 trillion miles (holy cow), according to the Federal Highway Administration. Roy Kienitz, executive director of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, said, "These figures show that a decades-old trend of declining transit and increased driving has been reversed."
