A look at ridership in August — 21st straight month of growth

We have an update on Metro bus and rail ridership that includes our August 2024 numbers.

We’ve also created some new graphics below that help explain ridership trends.

Highlights from this past August:

•We had just over 27 million boardings on our buses and trains, making August our 21st consecutive month with year-over-year ridership growth.

•Aug. ’24 had 8.2% more boardings than Aug. 2023. This represents 84.7% of boardings we had pre-pandemic in Aug. 2019. For context, transit ridership across the U.S. in the first half of ’24 was about 75.6% of ridership in the same span of 2019.

•Our recovery from the pandemic on weekends continues to be strong. August ’24 had 94.9% of the weekend boardings we had in Aug. 2019.

•We see this as a sign more people are choosing Metro to travel to/from leisure activities. In August, we carried riders to 50+ events including HARD Summer, Nisei Week, the Leimert Park Jazz Festival and games involving the Dodgers, LAFC, Angel City, the Chargers and Rams.

•The new A and E Lines created by the opening of the Regional Connector tunnels in 2023 continue to gain riders. The new A and E make it easier and quicker to travel to and through downtown L.A.

•In August, Metro’s GoPass Program — which provides free fares to students in LA County — had 937,551 boardings, an 18% increase over Aug. 2023. Learn more about GoPass at metro.net/gopass

•Low Income Fare Is Easy (LIFE) Program boardings were up 5% this past August compared to Aug. 2023. Learn about our heavily discounted LIFE fares (including 90 days of free rides when you sign up) and enroll here: https://www.metro.net/riding/fares/life/

Very related to the topic of ridership is public safety. We want to emphasize that our work on public safety is ongoing — we know how crucial that is to those of you who ride or want to ride. Metro’s law enforcement partners have expanded their visible presence on the rail system, and more Transit Security Officers (TSOs) have been added to enforce Metro’s Customer Code of Conduct rules on the bus and rail system.

As part of this effort, Metro Transit Security Bus Safety Teams performed end-of-line operations during late-night “Owl” service on some of our busiest bus lines. Metro Ambassadors are also out in force on Metro’s six rail lines and five of the busiest bus lines, to provide support to customers and keep a watchful eye out for problems.

Last but not least: thank you to everyone for riding! We appreciate your business and we’re working on a number of fronts to make it easier to get from here-to-there on your local transit system.