Metro Touts Full Year of Transit Ridership Growth

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Southern California transit ridership had a pretty good year. Metro ridership, recently increasing, continued its upward trends. This week, Metro released November ridership figures showing an 11.3 percent increase in total system ridership compared to November 2022.

Many Streetsblog readers know how things got here… but in brief:

Metro improving transit frequency and reliability is paying off. November saw more than 24 million boardings. It was the twelfth consecutive month of year-over-year ridership growth.

In calendar year 2022, Metro saw 255.3 million boardings. Through November, 2023 already saw 261.5 million. The agency expects the 2023 total to be about 285 million.

In November and December, Metro typically sees a small dip in ridership. This year, November weekday ridership was 907,343, slightly down from October’s 956,754, the highest ridership month of the pandemic era. Metro notes that November is the third consecutive month when weekday ridership exceeded 900,000 boardings.

As recently as last March, Southern California’s paper of record was reporting that commuters had “abandoned large swaths of the Metro train system.” The Times noted that Metro pre-pandemic rail ridership was lower than other big cities, and reported that as of January 2023, Gold Line and Red Line ridership was at 30 and 56 percent of pre-pandemic levels, respectively. The picture was never quite as bleak as the Times portrayed it; this is reflected even in more recent Times coverage.

But let’s take a look at Red (now B/D) Line subway ridership. Metro’s only fully-underground heavy rail, the B/D Line saw increased frequency (basically restoring pre-pandemic service levels) starting in early September.

Most recent ridership data for the Metro B/D Line – via Metro ridership statistics portal. From February through June 2023 weekday ridership was in the 80-thousands for five consecutive months. Metro restored service in September, but weekday ridership since then is 62-71 thousand. Compare to ~140,000 daily weekday riders pre-pandemic.

During the pandemic, bus ridership declined less than rail. Bus ridership is also bouncing back more quickly than rail (at least partially attributable to bus service having been fully restored sooner than rail). As of October, overall Metro weekday ridership was at 80 percent of pre-COVID. Bus ridership was at 87 percent, with rail at 61 percent.

The data is a little noisy, but it also appears that Metro B/D heavy rail ridership recovery is lagging behind light rail, which lags behind bus.

B/D daily ridership plunged from ~140,000 in 2019 to around ~55,000 in 2020. For the past couple months, the B/D Line saw about 70,000 daily riders, just over half of its pre-pandemic ridership. The heavy rail line is by no means abandoned; it currently carries lots of riders – more people than any local municipal bus operator (Long Beach Transit has about 57,000 weekday riders) and more than any Metro light rail line (the newly expanded A Line now carries about 60,000 weekday riders).

Overall, it feels like the workhorse B/D heavy rail spine ridership may be sputtering. While bus and light rail have seen steady month-to-month increases (especially after service restoration), heavy rail ridership has bounced around somewhat – some months in the 80,000s, some in the 60,000s.

Metro just restored service (in September), so it’s too early to conclusively declare a trend, but while the overall Metro ridership figures are very good, it’s not clear if this is true for heavy rail.

Why the apparent lag? The B/D Line is perhaps the most suburb-to-downtown Metro line, so it could be most impacted by more folks working remotely. It’s also Metro’s the most underground line, perhaps making it bear a bigger share of unhoused Angelenos seeking shelter. Since May, some former B/D Line rides likely shifted to Regional Connector rides.

Metro ridership graph via this week’s press release. Year to year overall ridership is growing, led by gains in bus ridership. Weekend ridership has seen significant gains.

Overall, Metro’s 2023 ridership recovery is impressive. Every day, nearly a million Angelenos count on Metro to provide frequent reliable transit. Those ridership numbers grew steadily throughout 2023, and will likely return to more than a million weekday daily riders by early 2024.

Joe Linton
Joe Lintonhttp://la.streetsblog.org
Joe Linton is editor of Los Angeles Streetsblog. He is also a longtime urban environmental activist. His main areas of interest have been restoring the Los Angeles River and fostering bicycling for everyday transportation. He’s worked for many Los Angeles livability non-profits, including Friends of the L.A. River, Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, C.I.C.L.E., Livable Places, and CicLAvia. He also served as deputy to Los Angeles City Councilmember Ed Reyes.

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