Metro ridership numbers for March
The Chronicle passes on some Metro ridership numbers today:
MetroRail carried more than 1 million people in March, the first time the monthly passenger total passed that milestone.
Trains recorded 1,063,446 boardings last month, 25 percent above the prior monthly record of 853,524 in October. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo generated an estimated 225,000 boardings, helping the Metropolitan Transit Authority surpass the million mark.
Estimated?! Let's hit the archives:
Metro's light rail is also helping get people to and from the show. Last year, 100,000 rode the rails in, and that's not just a number. It's very official business.
"I'm a Metro traffic checker," said Mary Young as she clicked her counter. When asked how many people had just gotten off the last train, "We are told that we can't give out that information," she said.
Unlike regular MetroRail service, it sounds like Metro specifically had people counting Rodeo riders. Why can't we get more than an "estimated" number? And we can see a significant increase in Rodeo rail ridership this year over last year, which means Metro's effort to funnel riders to the train paid off.
The "staff report" story also includes March's regular light rail and bus ridership numbers:
In another category, there were 32,803 weekday boardings on average in March, up less than 1 percent from February's count. The March average came close to the Main Street light rail line's record of 32,941 average daily boardings in October.
[snip]
Bus ridership was 271,564 average weekday boardings in March, down 2 percent from February's total.
Bus ridership is down again. I can't wait for a highly paid Metro official to give an interview to the Chronicle where he acts surprised that cutting or redesigning (Metro calls that "improving") bus routes leads to a decline in ridership.
RELATED: Monthly METRORail Boardings Exceed 1 Million In March (METRO press release)
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 04/11/05 11:00 AM | Print |
Previous Entry | Home | Next Entry
ADVERTISING
DISCLAIMER
All content © 2004-09, blogHOUSTON and the respective authors.
blogHOUSTON.net is powered by Nucleus.
Site design and Nucleus customization are by Kevin Whited.