October 1, 1999 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Mass transit and public transportation expenditures

The average household spent $393 on public transportation in 1997 and about 22 percent went to intracity travel. Of that, the bulk consisted of expenditures on mass transit.

[Chart data—TXT]

About 65 percent of intracity public transportation expenditures were allocated to mass transit in 1997. After mass transit, the next biggest category of expenditure for intracity travel was local transportation on trips, at approximately 15 percent.

Eleven percent of intracity public transportation expenditures arose from taxi and limousine travel in a consumer’s home area while about 9 percent arose from taxi and limousine travel on trips.

These data are a product of the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey program. Additional information is available from "Issues in Labor Statistics: Expenditures on Public Transportation" (PDF 16K).