Going off the rails.

We have commented previously on the ridership figures for Capital Metro’s light rail trains (summary: pathetic). We have not been commenting further on this because we have not seen new ridership figures.

At least, not until today, when the Statesman informs us that Capital Metro is worried because…the trains are packed. Ridership in December went down to an average of 639 boardings a day, but started to trend back up in January. For the first ten days of March, the average stands at 2,041, according to the Statesman. (However, the article also notes that that ten day period includes three “special service” days.)

So how did CapMetro pull off this feat?

  1. Higher gas prices are driving people to rail.
  2. CapMetro cut prices.
  3. “…the agency combined two Northwest metro area express bus routes in a single bus route that, for some commuters, was less convenient and had the effect of driving some bus riders to MetroRail.“

Also worth noting:

Average daily ridership, if you discount those four days of SXSW hysteria, has gone from roughly 43 riders per train run last year to 50.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 21st, 2011 at 10:13 am and is filed under Clippings, Trains. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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