In many parts of the country, the car is the only source of transportation. Many communities have bus service, which is great for short distances. To move many people around a city and a metropolitan area requires rapid transit.

Rapid transit can be distinguished from public transit or even mass transit. Public transit is any form of transportation other than a personal car. Mass transit is part of public transit, but moves more people by means that include busses.  Rapid transit moves people more quickly, such as a subway or light rail system.

Developing a city without rapid transit relies too heavily on automobiles. The problem with cars is that they use vast amounts of real estate for roads, parking lots, and parking structures. Parking structures are preferable to open lots.  Open lots waste land in a city and break up the fabric of a neighborhood.  Rapid transit lessens the need for parking.  It also decreases the number of cars on city streets, thus alleviating traffic congestion.  Most importantly, it gives people an alternative mode of moving around.

Opponents to rapid transit claim that market forces should control transportation decisions. They complain that public transit would not work without a public subsidy. What they fail to realize is that all transportation is subsidized, and that the automobile is the most subsidized form of transportation. The miles and miles of roads and other infrastructure required for automobiles is dramatically greater than the cost of public transit.

Transit is an economic catalyst. Yes, it creates jobs for the people who build the system and for those who run it, but it does much more.  Where rapid transit is built, the areas around each station become hubs of economic activity.

Long ago, the architect Cass Gilbert said that the “Skyscraper is the machine that makes the land pay.” This is true, and rapid transit is the catalyst that makes the skyscraper and population density possible.