CT transit usage sees uptick, but cars still dominate

The share of Connecticut residents who use public transportation to travel to work increased in 2022, after numbers dropped between 2019 and 2021 — but driving is still the most popular way to get to work in the state.

Transit ridership jumped from 2.5% of residents in 2021 to 3.3% of residents in 2022. But ridership still isn't back up to pre-pandemic levels. More than 4% of Connecticut residents said they used public transportation to travel to work in 2017, 2018 and 2019, according to survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Numbers released by some of Connecticut's most-frequented modes of transit mirror those statewide public transportation trends. Ridership on Metro North's New Haven line increased more than 61% from 2021 to 2022, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

However, other transit modes have seen decreases, like CT Transit's buses, which saw drops in ridership after reinstating bus fares post-pandemic.

Most other states in New England have also seen upticks in public transportation use between 2021 and 2022 — some more than others. Massachusetts, which consistently led the region in transit ridership, saw the most dramatic increase between those two years. New Hampshire is the only state that saw ridership drop between 2021 and 2022, putting it in last place in the region.

Data about year-to-year transit ridership comes from 1-year estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Numbers for 2020 are from an experimental data release by the Census Bureau, due to the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on responses to the survey.

Despite the recent statewide uptick, every town in Connecticut is still overwhelmingly car-reliant.

Driving alone was the top method of transportation to work for residents in all 169 towns between 2018 and 2022. In all but 20 towns, carpooling took the second-place spot.

In 45 towns, some form of transit was most popular behind driving alone and carpooling. Out of all the modes of transit available to those surveyed, subway or rail was popular in the most towns and bus in the second-most towns.

In the other 124 towns, residents who didn't drive were most likely to walk or bike to work, or, in the "other" category, take a motorcycle, taxi, ferry or trolley.

When asking about means of transportation to work, the American Community Survey tells respondents to choose one form of transportation that makes up the longest distance of their commute. Data from the survey does not account for residents who may take more than one type of transportation to work.