Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Ridership numbers

From Oregonlive.com, "TriMet bus ridership plummets in December under force of recession"

The dismal economy continued to eat away at TriMet ridership in December, despite a boost in MAX commuting from the three-month-old Green Line.

TriMet recorded 7.6 million trips on buses, MAX and WES during December, a 6.5 percent decline from December 2008. Bus ridership saw the most dramatic drops, with rush-hour trips plummeting more than 20 percent and total weekday trips down nearly 12 percent.

Any worries that riders wouldn't use the Green Line continues to be erased. Weekday trips averaged 15,900 and weekend trips averaged 19,900 on the new line, TriMet says. But those numbers were among only a few bright spots in the ridership report.

"The ongoing recession and double digit unemployment is still impacting" bus and WES commuter rail trips, said TriMet spokeswoman Mary Fetsch. "Consider 55,000 jobs lost in the region and then look at the rush hour numbers."

Fetsch said it's still unclear how the current drop in ridership compares to past recessions, such the ones in 1982 and 1992. "The general rule is we always mirror the economy and then lag six months," she said.

MAX ridership, meanwhile, was up slightly with the expansion of the PSU-to-Clackamas Town Center Green Line, which opened in September, Fetsch said. Light rail ridership saw an average of 107,800 weekday trips and 32,600 rush hour trips, increases of 1.3 percent and 1 percent, respectively.

"If we didn't have the Green Line, everything would be down," Fetsch said, adding that many Green Line riders are likely choosing MAX over buses in high transit areas near 82nd Avenue.

Meanwhile, the $161.2 million Beaverton-to-Wilsonville Westside Express Service wrapped up its first year of commuter rail services with more bad news.

During its first week of operation in February 2009, ridership totaled about 1,700 trips. It has dropped steadily since. TriMet said last summer that it likely wouldn't meet its goal of 2,400 weekly trips by year's end. In December, the number had dipped to 1,075.

Go to the Hard Drive commuting blog to get a detailed breakdown of December TriMet ridership numbers and comparisons with other transit systems in other U.S. cities.