> the system’s per capita boardings were down 4 percent, while vehicle miles traveled went up a whopping 12 percent.

One way to solve this problem is to add significant tolls along major congested routes that drivers of vehicles have to pay. Naturally this would incentivize people to take the public transit to avoid the added toll tax, and cause traffic to decrease.

EDIT: I see people are downvoting my suggestion. As usual everyone is for more taxes until it affects them personally of course.