Metro’s Service Councils in September will be discussing a significant issue for the agency and, really, for everyone: how to increase ridership on Metro. The agency is encouraging the public to attend the Service Council meetings and/or to visit this web page. You can also email your ideas to Metro. See below for info on dates, times and locations for Service Council meetings.
Some background: Between 2010 and 2014, Metro’s overall ridership increased three percent — spurred in particular by an uptick in rail ridership. In 2014, Metro had an estimated 1,495,184 boardings on weekdays. Through the first half of 2015, that has declined to 1,423,458 average weekday boardings. At the national level, transit ridership fell .66 percent in the first quarter of 2015, according to the American Public Transportation Assn.
The Metro Board of Directors in March approved a motion asking Metro staff to develop a plan to increase ridership. Staff provided an initial response in June with efforts ongoing to refine a long, long list of ideas while also seeking input and ideas from the public. The public can also provide ideas and comments online.
This staff report and Source post from earlier this year also provides some helpful context when it comes to ridership and the amount of service the Metro and other transit agencies in L.A. County provide.
Additional agenda items for each Service Council meetings include:
San Fernando Valley (6:30 p.m., Wednesday, 9/2) – Presentation on Annual Customer Survey and Fall Survey Preview; Update on NoHo Joint Development Project and Community Outreach; and Report on San Fernando Valley Service Performance.
San Gabriel Valley (5 p.m., Monday, 9/14) – Presentation on El Monte Station Bike Hub Opening and Report on San Gabriel Valley Service Performance.
Westside/Central (5 p.m., Wednesday, 9/9) – Report on Route Modification Recommendations to Line 110 and Report on Westside/Central Service Performance.
Gateway Cities (6 p.m., Thursday, 9/10) – Swearing in of new Gateway Cities Service Councilmember Isaac Galvan, Compton City Councilmember; Presentation on Transit Court and Citation Collection; and Report on Gateway Cities Service Performance. Gateway Cities Service Council is again meeting at 6 p.m. instead of 2 p.m. to encourage greater attendance and participation.
South Bay (9:30 a.m., Friday, 9/11) – Report on South Bay Performance. Also, the South Bay Service Council is holding a public hearing on Sept. 16 about a potential bus service change. See the bottom of this post for the hearing notice.
For more information about each Service Council, click on the name of the Council below to view their web page. For a detailed listing of all Council meeting dates, times and locations, click here. As always, the public is encouraged to attend and share their comments with the Service Councils on improving bus service throughout LA County. If you would like to provide input to a Council but cannot attend a meeting, you can submit your comments in writing through the Service Council web page or send them to service councils@metro.net. If your comments are for a specific Council, please make sure to indicate which one you are addressing in your e-mail.
Categories: Policy & Funding
Stop wasting taxpayer money into art projects that very few people really care about and make train stations better with more amenities like coffee stands, ATM machines, gift shops, convenience stores, etc. which is what the vast majority of people want.
Train stations should be centers of commercial and retail activity, not an art museum.
Find some place, OTHER THAN THE BUS or TRAIN, to advertise routes, and look into some kind of South Bay to SFV service that doesn’t require a transfer in DTLA!
If you want to improve ridership, reduce the number of sleepers, homeless and unchallenged freeload/riders that make it unpleasant and somewhat demoralizing for those of us who are paying to ride. While I’ve caught a break because I forgot my wallet or some buses refused to acknowledge my pass, I have a problem seeing the same people fare evade/avoid daily.
You can’t simply say “how to increase ridership” without giving additional criteria or guidelines.
If all things being equal, you’d gain more ridership by making public transit free for all. If people didn’t have to pay for transit, ridership numbers will increase.
Then again, just because you gain ridership by making transit free doesn’t mean you’re making money either, right? Ferrari can sell their cars for the price of a Toyota, Ferrari will be making record sales figures, but it will be deep in the red.
So the proper balance is “how to gain ridership” all the while achieving a good farebox recovery ratio, correct?
So you have two extremities:
1. Make transit free for all, increase ridership, you get zero revenue
2. Make transit very expensive that it only benefits long distance riders, you decrease ridership from short distance riders, but you gain revenue
So the answer lines in between those two extremities. Make transit fares cheaper for short trips, make transit fares more expensive for longer trips. That’s pretty much the only logical answer to this question, if the question is “how to increase ridership WHILE MAINTAINING A GOOD FAREBOX RECOVERY RATIO.”
Is this a contest?