Re-choosing public transportation as a policy to promote the public's safety and health

Transportation - both public and private - is the lifeblood of city and suburban life. A century ago, American cities were covered with networks of tram tracks, bus, and jitney cab services. Since then, Americans have shifted their preferences from public to private transportation. Today, for every $1.00 of federal and State money committed to public transportation, $4.00 are provided to highways and streets. For the public's safety and health, it is time to shift policy back toward public transportation. Ample and comprehensive public transportation can prevent injury and disease and promote the public's health, using the following methods: Reducing the number of private drivers and vehicles, reducing the amount of air contamination from automobiles, increased walking and less sedentary life styles, reducing traffic delays, saving energy and other costs, slowing climate change, using land in more productive ways, spurring economic development, increasing access to employment, reducing isolation of the elderly, and improving the quality of urban and suburban living. The American public is coming to appreciate once again the advantages of public transportation, woven into an integrated system which ties together many different transportation modes - fixed rail (both heavy and light), rapid and regular buses, vans, jitneys, bicycling, walking, and continued but more measured use of the automobile. A policy to re-choose public transportation should begin with a change in Congress of funding priorities for the US Department of Transportation, and the development of a new "National Agenda for Public Transportation."