As we know, COVID-19 has hammered the nation’s CBDs.
With so many of us now working from home and avoiding crowded spaces, our CBDs are resembling ghost towns of a bygone era.
Our public transport networks, which are designed around transporting masses of people in and out of the CBD are also laying idle as people: 1) avoid the CBD altogether, or 2) commute into the CBD in the safety of their cars.
Even in New Zealand, which has eliminated community transmission of COVID-19, public transport is suffering. The latest AT Metro patronage data reveals that public transport usage has failed to rebound:
Public transport is in deep trouble, not showing the bounceback or recovery that the rest of the economy is exhibiting. Auckland Transport’s daily reports show it with an average weekly patronage drop of -40%. Private cars are displacing shared ridership post-lockdown. This is on top of the pre-lockdown situation that showed a small decline anyway. Massive investment in public systems are now chasing riders who no longer need to get to the CBD in the numbers they used to. Bus, train and ferry ridership in Auckland were all slipping before lockdown and have come back with massive losses of patronage after lockdown.
Surely these trends will continue as working from home becomes the new normal post-COVID and few people need to travel in and out of the CBD?
On the plus side, governments will no longer need to waste huge sums of money expanding transport infrastructure.
Economic activity will also become decentralised, dispersed into the suburbs and regional areas.
Those that have endured years of pain commuting on sardine-packed trains should breathe a big sigh of relief.
