I’m personally not surprised, but continued record ridership puts down the “it’s just a fad, when it gets hot no one will ride it” theories advanced by the opposition.
Light rail ridership increased in March, totaling nearly 1 million boardings, the highest monthly total since the system began running, according to Valley Metro.
“We topped our previous two months, in terms of, just, purely the number of riders,” said Metro Public Information Officer Hillary Foose. “We reached about 972,000, which is equivalent, or results, in an average weekday ridership of about 34,000. Saturday ridership of about 28,500.”- KTAR.com
Good for Phoenix, and good for it’s residents who are taking advantage of alternative transit options.
I live in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI with my wife Jen, our daughter Emerson, and sons Carter and Colton.
Still not impressed- pretty pathetic numbers. If it gets to about 15% of the population, then I’ll be impressed.
Your picture clearly shows the hoards of people
The original projections were 26,000 riders a day. The amount of people using the system to get to restaurants, sporting events, festivals near Mill Avenue and to the many arts centers along the line may have been over looked.
The only reason it went up so much was because of the opening day games for the Diamondbacks. So, the numbers are misleading and ridership will go down.
But here’s a newsflash and prediction, this weekend, if the choo choo goes to the Phoenix speedway, ridership will go up. And when the Phoenix Cardinals have their homegames, ridership will go up. Then ridership returns back to the usual pathetic numbers.
The population of Phoenix is 1,552,259.
To have 15% would be 232,838.
From the quote, “Light rail ridership increased in March, totaling nearly 1 million boardings, the highest monthly total since the system began running, according to Valley Metro.”
Your arbitrary metric has failed.
Not following your argument there DanH… If people didn’t have any reason to use it, ridership would go down? Ooook.
That’s like saying, “If people didn’t need to get from Waukesha to Milwaukee for work, no one would use I-94!” or “If the temperature didn’t get below 70 degrees, no one would use their furnaces!”
Which is exactly true, and precisely besides the point.
Instead of trying to explain away the reasons why it ‘isn’t going to work!’, how about just accepting the fact that it is, even if that doesn’t align with your anti-transit point of view?
Although you know my opinion of mass transit, and specifically light rail, I am going to Phoenix in a couple days….it will be interesting to see the ridership “up close and personal.”
First, Dan, I am not mass anti-transit. I took the bus to work today and will take the bus home tonight, so that is a bunch of crap.
Jason, when over 200,000 people ride the train a day, I will be impressed.
But the numbers are decieving. If there are about 34,000 rides a day, that means only about 17,000-20,000 people are actually riding the train, assuming that most are riding round trip. 17,000- 20,000 people out of a population of 1,552,259 is pathetic. this works out to be about 1% of the city’s population. When you include Maricopa County, it is even more pathetic. This also translates to only about 1400 people an hour being transported.
What I am against is spending hundreds of millions of dollars for a very tiny percentage of people. I am for improving bus service, highways, streets and paratransit.
Sorry for the anti-transit label Dan.
What percentage of people in the metro Milwaukee area do you figure make the drive on I-43 from Cedarburg to Milwaukee every day?
It sounds like you’re only against spending hundreds of millions of dollars if it’s going towards anything other than roads, which themselves also cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build and repair. But you’re ok with that because you think the majority of people use them, which is incorrect.
So take a guess at the Cedarburg to Milwaukee numbers if you can.
Dan, I am in favor of improving bus service, which is far more flexible than the train. I am for improved paratransit for the disabled. I do favor improving roads, but not the extent that you think. For instance, I would not be in favor of road construction from Kenosha to Milwaukee. I am in favor of spending money to improve traffic flow in the city by spending money on timing traffic lights.
I am just not in favor of light rail in small to moderate sized cities. I think the commuter rail in the Chicago area is a good idea but not in Milwaukee. Milwaukee just is not that big.
Dan H —> Don’t forget that 2/3 – 3/4th of those LRT riders were already taking transit.