Ridership for the Valley's new light-rail system appears to be stabilizing at a level well above expectations, Metro's chief executive officer said Wednesday. Although passenger counts for March were incomplete, Rick Simonetta cautioned, data collected through three and a half weeks show the average number of boardings during weekdays was more than 34,300.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Ridership Ahead in Phoenix
It's really not known when the initial novelty of the line wears off but I would say around 6 months you really know what you're gonna get. With that said, Phoenix is showing signs of promise at sticking to over 35% of projections.
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4 comments:
Golly. Who'd have thunk it? Another intracity rail line exceeds ridership expectations? It's amazing this is still news.
It's high time we revise FTA metrics to reflect the fact that the current metrics lowball rail every time.
It will be interesting to see if ridership stays high in the summer in Phoenix, when people might feel the desire to stay in their air conditioned cars instead of walking to the train.
Ridership will definitely go down here (Phoenix) in the summer. High school and college students will be out, also the "snowbirds" are gone then (large numbers of senior citizens are making trips on the line during the day). I have ridden express buses here for years, and yes some people switch back to there cars during the summer (bus A/C sucks whens its 105 outside). I dont think METRO ridership will fall below 26,000 however, thus at the end of the first year, the overall weekday average will be well above that. Things of interest: unlike Charlotte, our park-and-rides did not fill up - a couple are only 10-25% full. Apparently there is more walk-in traffic than anticipated, and possibly bus transfers as well. Also ridership to and from Sky Harbor Airport (via connecting shuttle) is higher than even I anticipated. Last word was 1000 trips per day on the shuttle in Feb, climbing from 800 per day in January.
It's hot enough in Phoenix that people will densify just so they don't have to walk everywhere.
Win-win.
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