Many New Yorkers Use Transit, But Few Commute, Study Shows

New York, NY —

A new report shows New York and San Francisco are the only two metropolitan areas in the country where more than a quarter of the population usess transit. WNYC's Andrea Bernstein has more.

REPORTER: The report by the Brookings institution shows that nationally, more than three quarters of Americans commute to work, alone, driving a car. By contrast, some fifty percent of people living in our area, including the further suburbs, take transit. Just seven percent percent of the people in the New York region carpool. That's one of the lowest rates in the country. New York, like many metropolitan areas, saw a steady increase in transit use in the last decade, though in 2009, the number of people riding subways and buses dropped because fewer people were going to work. The report identifies rising transit use across the nation, but so few areas have extensive transit networks that transit remains a tiny part of the nation's transportation network.

For WNYC, I'm Andrea Bernstein.