Metro's April ridership numbers are now available

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Here are the latest ridership numbers for the Metro bus and rail system. Nothing jumps out at me as big news — it looks like most numbers in recent months are holding steady. In terms of overall ridership, Metro had nearly 40.5 million boardings in April 2013 compared to 37.9 million in April 2012.

On the rail side, there were about one million more boardings in April 2013 over April 2012. The bus side was up more than 1.5 million boardings over April 2012. April was also the first month that the Expo Line didn’t have more riders than the previous month, although that was bound to happen at some point.

Here are some nice graphs showing ridership on each line. The April ridership numbers are below and continue after the jump.

Bus Ridership Estimates

Bus – Directly Operated

April 2013 April 2012 April 2011
Average Weekday Boardings 1,121,390 1,081,484 1,112,424
Average Saturday Boardings 745,684 737,868 754,637
Average Sunday and Holiday Boardings 546,304 539,510 539,704
Total Calendar Month Boardings 29,838,532 28,360,186 29,292,905

Directly operated bus ridership includes Orange and Silver Line ridership.

Bus – Contract

April 2013 April 2012 April 2011
Average Weekday Boardings 46,832 44,356 45,419
Average Saturday Boardings 27,529 26,751 25,867
Average Sunday and Holiday Boardings 20,059 18,505 18,170
Total Calendar Month Boardings 1,220,649 1,130,997 1,155,820

Bus – Systemwide

April 2013 April 2012 April 2011
Average Weekday Boardings 1,168,222 1,125,840 1,158,904
Average Saturday Boardings 773,213 764,619 780,504
Average Sunday and Holiday Boardings 566,363 558,015 557,874
Total Calendar Month Boardings 31,059,181 29,491,183 30,471,007

Directly operated bus ridership includes Orange and Silver Line ridership.

Orange Line

April 2013 April 2012 April 2011
Average Weekday Boardings 30,231 25,055 24,074
Average Saturday Boardings 18,266 15,355 14,727
Average Sunday and Holiday Boardings 13,844 11,713 10,868
Total Calendar Month Boardings 793,522 646,140 622,661

Silver Line

April 2013 April 2012 April 2011
Average Weekday Boardings 12,873 11,241 9,086
Average Saturday Boardings 5,367 4,099 2,900
Average Sunday and Holiday Boardings 3,484 2,642 2,041
Total Calendar Month Boardings 318,610 265,667 213,470 

RAIL NUMBERS AND SYSTEMWIDE STATS ARE AFTER THE JUMP!

Rail Ridership Estimates

Red/Purple Line

April 2013 April 2012 April 2011
Average Weekday Boardings 157,429 149,917 148,057
Average Saturday Boardings 97,782 95,348 97,013
Average Sunday and Holiday Boardings 73,156 83,697 79,110
Total Calendar Month Boardings 4,147,192 3,948,136 3,910,711

Blue Line

April 2013 April 2012 April 2011
Average Weekday Boardings 87,392 84,459 82,086
Average Saturday Boardings 59,762 67,856 57,946
Average Sunday and Holiday Boardings 49,063 54,822 49,657
Total Calendar Month Boardings 2,357,924 2,319,177 2,212,162

Blue Line estimates do not include Expo boardings.

Expo Line

April 2013
Average Weekday Boardings 25,731
Average Saturday Boardings 19,154
Average Sunday and Holiday Boardings 14,631
Total Calendar Month Boardings 701,215

Green Line

April 2013 April 2012 April 2011
Average Weekday Boardings 42,416 43,337 40,586
Average Saturday Boardings 24,905 24,711 22,862
Average Sunday and Holiday Boardings 19,051 17,989 19,361
Total Calendar Month Boardings 1,108,978 1,098,869 1,044,058

Gold Line

April 2013 April 2012 April 2011
Average Weekday Boardings 42,416 43,337 40,586
Average Saturday Boardings 24,905 24,711 22,862
Average Sunday and Holiday Boardings 19,051 17,989 19,361
Total Calendar Month Boardings 1,108,978 1,098,869 1,044,058

Rail Systemwide Ridership Estimates

April 2013 April 2012 April 2011
Average Weekday Boardings 356,407 319,883 309,214
Average Saturday Boardings 223,570 210,145 202,296
Average Sunday and Holiday Boardings 173,169 175,926 167,790
Total Calendar Month Boardings 9,427,915 8,437,752 8,176,142

Includes Expo Line ridership.

Systemwide Ridership Estimates

Apr. 2013 Apr. 2012 Apr. 2011
Average Weekday Boardings 1,524,629 1,445,723 1,468,119
Average Saturday Boardings 996,783 974,764 982,800
Average Sunday and Holiday Boardings 739,533 733,941 725,664
Total Calendar Month Boardings 40,487,096 37,928,935 38,647,149

Bus – Systemwide

Apr. 2013 Apr. 2012 Apr. 2011
Average Weekday Boardings 1,168,222 1,125,840 1,158,904
Average Saturday Boardings 773,213 764,619 780,504
Average Sunday and Holiday Boardings 566,363 558,015 557,874
Total Calendar Month Boardings 31,059,181 29,491,183 30,471,007

Directly operated bus ridership includes Orange and Silver Line ridership.

Rail Systemwide Ridership Estimates

Apr. 2013 Apr. 2012 Apr. 2011
Average Weekday Boardings 356,407 319,883 309,214
Average Saturday Boardings 223,570 210,145 202,296
Average Sunday and Holiday Boardings 173,169 175,926 167,790
Total Calendar Month Boardings 9,427,915 8,437,752 8,176,142

Includes Expo Line ridership.

 

Categories: Inside Metro, Policy & Funding

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16 replies ›

  1. Ridership maybe up, but how many are actually PAYING?

    That’s the biggest thing here. Not ridership numbers but revenue.

  2. Some of the added service on rail lines is clearly questionable. For example, the added 6 minute service on the Gold Line on weekends has not moved ridership, certainly not enough to justify the added cost. Meanwhile weekend Silver Line ridership has responded well to the added service and needs to be increased even further to every 15 minutes, so it can be operate at a similar frequency to rail.

  3. Bus ridership is CLEARLY UP, and beats light-rail ridership, by HOW MANY MILLIONS? And yet how many plans are there to EXPAND BUS LINES? Exactly-ZERO!

    • Bus ridership is up, but not as dramatically as rail ridership. Also, there are plenty of plans to expand and improve bus lines. And, if you looked at passenger-miles and not just ridership, rail would look a lot more productive.

  4. If you go to METRO’s website (metro.net) and look under News and Media Now for Ridership Stats, you can find all the information you need and the correct ridership numbers. I often look there to see individual bus line stats as well as a link to the graph.

  5. Erik,

    I don’t see that as a bad thing. The Red and Purple Lines are crowded. If ridership numbers drops, that means less crowding and only honest people should be riding the trains. It’s a simple concept: if you want to ride, you have to pay.

    If ridership number drops, that just means that many people weren’t being honest. It’s time to shut these people out of the system.

    But if ridership number holds steady or increases, that means this whole locked gates is the end of the world thing that the public transit conservatives use as a scare tactic is overblown and people don’t mind them and we should go ahead and install them throughout the system.

  6. Way to go Metro, give us bogus numbers without even fact checking and continue to steal more of our tax dollars.

    What do the people who collect these data do? Just copy-and-paste and ka-ching, set for another month of being paid with taxpayer money?

    As Robert said, doesn’t inspire confidence in the public view of Metro employees actually doing their job.

  7. I expect to see a major drop when the turnstiles are latched, if all the fare-dodging that Zev Yaroslavsky alleges is happening is indeed true.

  8. The fact that the Orange and Silver lines are lumped into the “bus” category strikes me as an inelegant representation of the data. Don’t get me wrong–tt would be just as bad to put them in the “rail” category. Wouldn’t it be more insightful to have a third category for “dedicated guideway bus?” Is there some sort of regulation that mandates how the data is reduced?

  9. Before these numbers came out, they had the Green Line numbers the same as the March numbers. I sent them an e-mail and they changed it to what you see now, where the Green Line is a duplicate of the Gold Line. The Green Line numbers are the ones that are incorrect. Doesn’t inspire confidence.

    Robert

  10. All the numbers are EXACTLY the same between the Gold and Green Lines, down to the single digit.

    You have to wonder if Metro even bothers to fact check their own data.

  11. Gold and Green lines numbers are identical. One must be wrong.

  12. Anyone else think it’s a little strange that the Green and the Gold line have the exact same ridership? I think one of them has got to be a mistake.

  13. It appears the Green and Gold numbers are duplicates of each other

    • Hi Jason and Wilton;

      I’ll let staff know about the ridership numbers. I’m not sure — I do know that they’ve long had similar numbers.

      Steve Hymon
      Editor, The Source

  14. The tables for the Green and Gold Lines have identical numbers! Please check data again.