[KevinFromTexas]

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/l...hen-hit/nWFB8/

Posted: 4:33 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013
Weekend MetroRail a now-and-then hit

By Ben Wear
American-Statesman Staff

MetroRail weekend service, touted as potentially wildly popular when city of Austin officials agreed to pay for it a year ago, generally sees fewer riders than regular weekday trains.

The new train runs, officials said last year, held the potential of coming closer to paying for operating costs than MetroRail’s regular weekday service, which makes less than 5 cents in fare revenue for every dollar spent by Capital Metro to run the 32-mile line from Leander to downtown Austin.

But based on the first nine-plus months of service, the 40 added train runs on typical Friday nights and Saturdays are averaging about 50 passengers per run, less than half the train’s seated capacity of 108. And the $150,000 or so the added trains are estimated to generate in the first year is about 8 percent of the $1.85 million the city is paying annually for Capital Metro to run them.

Despite the low return from fares, however, MetroRail’s financial picture has substantially improved thanks to federal largess. A $9 million federal grant that Capital Metro received for the first time last year for MetroRail (and expects to continue to get annually), along with that city money and about $500,000 this year in fare revenue for weekday service, means that the commuter line is much closer to covering its $14.5 million annual operating cost than in its first two years.