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Public Transport 90% Safer

Traveling by public transportation is ten times safer per mile than traveling by auto.
Traveling by public transportation is ten times safer per mile than traveling by auto.

A person is 10 times safer taking public transport for a commute than driving. You are 90% safer if you take public transportation. The finding comes from a new study by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). 

The study, ‘The Hidden Traffic Safety Solution: Public Transportation’ builds on many other such studies.

Communities that use mass transit enjoy less tragedy. They have about 20% the per capita traffic casualty rate (fatalities and injuries) compared to communities primarily using automobiles.0, reports cleantechnica.com.

“It is time we employ public transit as a traffic safety tool because it can dramatically reduce the crash risk for individuals as well as a community,” said APTA Acting CEO and President Richard White. “While no mode of travel is risk free, the safety of public transit is striking when observing the number of fatalities that are a result of auto crashes.”

Crash risk is cut in half with more public transit, with fewer auto miles traveled and safer speeds in such communities, according to the findings.

Todd Litman, director of the Vitoria Transportation Policy Institute and a contributor to the report, notes recent data released by the US Department of Transportation: 35,092 fatalities as a result of auto accidents in 2015, an increase of 7.2% from 2014, which was the largest increase since 1966.

“While APTA officials note that even one death is one too many, the small number of fatalities related to public transit travel pale in comparison to the tens of thousands of lives lost on our roadways every year.”

According to the US Department of Transportation, there were 35,092 fatalities as a result of auto crashes in 2015. That is an increase of 7.2% from 2014, the greatest increase in deaths in 50 years. Public transportation is a safer way to travel than auto for an individual.

A person can reduce his or her chance of being in an accident by more than 90% simply by taking public transit as opposed to commuting by car. Traveling by public transportation is ten times safer per mile than traveling by auto. Transit-oriented communities are safer than automobile-oriented communities.

Transit-oriented communities are five times safer because they have a fifth of the per capita traffic safety casualty rate (fatalities and injuries) as automobile-oriented communities. Public transportation allows more efficient development, reducing the length of car trips and encouraging safer speeds. Cities that average more than 50 annual transit trips per capita have about half the average traffic fatality rates as cities where residents average fewer than 20 annual trips.

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