A quickie... according to the Portland Tribune, Tri-Met is reporting increased ridership in February 2010 compared to the same month the previous year--the first year-over-year increase in over a year. Could be a statistical blip, could be the start of a trend, we'll have to wait until April (when March numbers come out) to know more. According to the Trib, MAX was the big gainer, with the Green Line drawing 19k trips daily on weekdays (and more on weekends), and many Fareless trips that were done on busses moving to MAX.
Al doesn't much like these figures, apparently... OTOH, I'm more concerned about total ridership, and am less interested in the bus-vs-rail split. (I'm certain that Al's thesis is correct--were MAX to be scrapped, quite a few who now ride it would return to the bus; quite a few others would hop in their cars. On the other hand, how important is this)?
Anways, here's hoping that this is a sign that the economy is turning around.. and that rather than having more service cuts, TriMet can return to frequent service that is really, you know, frequent.
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Hopefully ridership is flattening out.
ReplyDeleteI have personal knowledge of numerous people who were 'forced' to move from the 67 line over to apartments on the max line.
I'm sure this scenario is being played out all over the service area.
The cuts have created a sort of "social engineering", transit dependent people have been forced to move to into areas that have 7 day service.
Green line derives almost all its riders directly from the bus lines, I'm sure there are some "new" riders but my bet is that it's less than 25% of the total ridership.
Nice to see you doing your own stuff now!