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  #61  
Old Posted Sep 30, 2019, 1:19 AM
ssiguy ssiguy is offline
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In case you hadn't noticed however, Calgary is in Canada and not the US.

Even in socially conservative Calgary, transit is viewed completely differently from even the more liberal US cities. Canadians are far more communal in their lifestyles and consider transit as an essential service just as education or healthcare is as opposed to the US where transit is considered a social service like welfare. In Canada there is no negative stigma to taking transit while there is a huge stigma in the US especially buses. No US city of just 1.3 million will ever, ever come close to Calgary ridership levels.
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  #62  
Old Posted Sep 30, 2019, 11:50 AM
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Canada cannot reasonably be compared to U.S. in terms of transit usage. Too different in terms of culture/economics/infrastructure.

I think the latest numbers are mildly positive. They're really the first quarterly numbers since peak rideshare that show some modest growth.
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  #63  
Old Posted Sep 30, 2019, 12:11 PM
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Oh, and what is going on with the APTA data collection, esp. for Canada?

Toronto "reports" a >100% increase in light rail ridership, an apparent ridership of 0 on commuter rail, huge increases in subway ridership and huge decreases in bus ridership. The latter two are semi-plausible, but something's up with light rail/commuter rail.
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  #64  
Old Posted Oct 1, 2019, 6:36 PM
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I'm not sure about the commuter rail because I can't even find GO Transit listed so i assume they failed to report for some reason, but the light rail and bus figure changes may have been fluctuating lately because of streetcar shortages and delivery. Streetcar ridership dropped for awhile after significant parts of the service was replaced temporarily with buses when not enough streetcars were available although more vehicles have been delivered by Bombardier which i believe has allowed much if not all of the streetcar service to resume. While the buses were filling in during the prior quarter, the bus ridership numbers would have been inflated since these are some of the system's busiest surface routes while the streetcar numbers would have been depressed. When that ended the opposite would occur.

However, the percentage change was much greater for the streetcars since it's a smaller overall portion of the TTC system, but the absolute magnitude of change is similar. The bus ridership drop was 33.6 million for the quarter while the streetcar ridership increase was 43.12 million. It makes sense that the streetcar increase would be a greater magnitude because then new streetcars are higher capacity allowing them to absorb latent demand previously shut out by crowding and the new King St. transit corridor has attracted ridership by reducing delays.

As for the subway, the only explanation I can think of is that the notable ridership growth may be partially related to the new 8.6km extension out to York University and the suburb of Vaughn.
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  #65  
Old Posted Oct 1, 2019, 8:03 PM
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The Dundas streetcar line in Toronto is currently operating with buses because of road construction.

There have been comments within the last year about inconsistent reporting of ridership numbers from Toronto. It relates to whether linked or unlinked trips are being reported.
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  #66  
Old Posted Oct 1, 2019, 8:06 PM
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Do you remember if any of the streetcar network was served by buses in April, May and June?
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  #67  
Old Posted Oct 1, 2019, 8:31 PM
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^ The Dundas Streetcar line has been served by buses for well over a year now.
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  #68  
Old Posted Oct 19, 2019, 2:52 AM
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A Streetsblog article on the (modest) rebound in U.S. transit ridership, basically due to improvements in NYC and DC:

Urban Transit Systems are Adding Riders (Mostly)

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/10/...riders-mostly/
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  #69  
Old Posted Oct 19, 2019, 4:51 PM
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Calgary LRT is busy because employment is heavily focused downtown and downtown parking rates are second behind only NYC on the continent for price. It simply is way cheaper to take the LRT to work for most people.

Other than that single reason, Calgary is as car reliant as they come. Basically no non-commuting trips are made by public transit.
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  #70  
Old Posted Oct 20, 2019, 11:32 PM
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San Francisco's Muni Metro (light rail) should see a slight uptick in ridership now that the Warriors' new arena has opened in the city. All tickets sold for events at the Chase Center include free Muni fare, and the nearby Metro stop was significantly expanded and improved to better handle the crowds.
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  #71  
Old Posted Oct 21, 2019, 12:27 PM
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^ That will even more be helped when the Central Subway is completed and there is a fast connection between BART and the arena.

I'm glad that the T-Third Street is living up to its potential.
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  #72  
Old Posted Oct 21, 2019, 9:40 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
The 2Q numbers from APTA are finally out.

I sense that the rideshare-based decline in the U.S. is bottoming out. A number of transit agencies see increased ridership again. In NYC, basically every agency, for every mode of transit, shows ridership gains. Some, like the LIRR, show extremely robust gains.

At some point, rideshare has to be fully "priced into" the ridership numbers. I think we're approaching that point.
You would hope so! How could transit organizations continue to lose riders when the US population has increased by 20 million since 2010. At some point, we'll add enough transit dependent people by population growth alone.

We've added about 57% of Canada's total population to our population since 2010.
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  #73  
Old Posted Dec 11, 2019, 7:17 PM
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3Q transit numbers are out. NY and DC both showed huge increases in subway ridership, suggesting that we've hit peak rideshare. These systems showed some of the earliest rideshare-based declines, so I'm hopeful they've turned a corner.

Also, it may help that MTA finally has some competent leadership.

MTA subway ridership up 7.6%, and DC Metro ridership up 7.2%.

https://www.apta.com/research-techni...ership-report/
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  #74  
Old Posted Dec 11, 2019, 8:43 PM
mhays mhays is online now
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Some major swings are due to changes counting methods. Denver's for example. Is that possible for NY too?
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  #75  
Old Posted Dec 12, 2019, 5:31 PM
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Originally Posted by mhays View Post
Some major swings are due to changes counting methods. Denver's for example. Is that possible for NY too?
I don't see any reference to changes in counting methods. Where do you get that?

APTA does appear to have some sloppy recordkeeping. Their Canadian numbers show wild quarterly swings, and you occasionally see weird outlier numbers. But the NY and DC numbers match what's reported by the transit agencies.
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  #76  
Old Posted Dec 13, 2019, 5:16 PM
TheTerminalCity TheTerminalCity is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
APTA does appear to have some sloppy recordkeeping. Their Canadian numbers show wild quarterly swings, and you occasionally see weird outlier numbers. But the NY and DC numbers match what's reported by the transit agencies.
By Canadian numbers, you mean Toronto? Everything else seems to make sense in the Canada numbers. The Toronto numbers for GO Train also seem off...the daily average is missing a zero, perhaps. Would be shocked to think only 25000 or so riders per day considering rush hour at Union Station
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  #77  
Old Posted Dec 13, 2019, 5:37 PM
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Originally Posted by TheTerminalCity View Post
By Canadian numbers, you mean Toronto?
Yeah, I've only looked at Toronto. If you look at their past quarterly numbers, there are wild quarterly swings that cannot be explained by naturally occurring events. Like how does the subway double or halve its ridership in a quarter? Short of a zombie invasion that isn't happening.
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  #78  
Old Posted Dec 13, 2019, 6:12 PM
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Originally Posted by mrnyc View Post
i was looking for possible reasons for the dip in city rail ridership. it doesn't appear to be related to gas prices at all, which were a little higher in 2018 than 2017 (although prices dipped at the end of 2018). hmm.

https://ycharts.com/indicators/gas_price

its nice to see that commuter rail ridership increased though.
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
most observers seem to think that uber/lyft are cutting into city transit system numbers nationwide.

and i'm guilty of it myself. if i'm heading out somewhere and the CTA app says the next train or bus is 8 minutes away, i'll uber it up and get a car to pick me up, usually in 3 minutes or less.

and if there's a transfer along the way, that's like an automatic uber. waiting for a train or bus once is one thing, but TWO waits? who can be bothered with that?

sure, it costs a little more, but it beats waiting for the train or bus.
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Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
I think Uber/Lyft is the main culprit, and yeah, I contribute to the problem. It costs basically the same for a family, and it's much quicker, easier, quieter, door-to-door service (great in inclement weather) and more pleasant.
It's definitely Uber/Lyft, which is arguably a net negative for the city, even if it's a positive for the users. But it's also bike-share, especially in warmer months. I've used bikes for trips that I used to make by rail dozens of times every year since Divvy arrived in Chicago. Mostly, I use it to replace taxi/Uber/Lyft rides, but it does also end up replacing some bus and rail trips, especially within a certain 1-3 mile range that seems optimum for cycling. To the extent that reduces car trips, that's a good thing. It's less clearly a good thing if it's replacing transit trips. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a bad thing to substitute bike share trips for transit trips, but it's certainly carrying some qualifications when it replaces transit trips.
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  #79  
Old Posted Dec 13, 2019, 6:22 PM
emathias emathias is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ssiguy View Post
Rideshare is a complete cop-out Does it effect transit ridership? Yes but that is true of every advanced economy in the world yet somehow other countries are still seeing climbing ridership. The most obvious comparison for the US is Canada and yet Canada has seen continually rising ridership as the US steadly declines.
Other countries are more likely to tightly regulate rideshare and many of the old European capitals were already traffic-bound before Uber and Lyft appeared on the scene and so some level of additional regulation and transit that is faster than cars or far cheaper for the distance required is going to remain a clear winner. Central European capitals continue to be very popular and continue to have very efficient transit and very inefficient automobile travel in the central areas. Manhattan is the closest thing we have to a large European capital in the US, so it makes sense that its subways would maintain its appeal. I think it dipped not mainly due to Uber/Lyft but because the subway had fallen into such a horrid state. To the extent that New York gets its system back into shape, ridership will continue to rise as inconveniences like stalled trains and infrequent off-hours service to accommodate track work get addressed and ironed out.
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  #80  
Old Posted Dec 13, 2019, 7:30 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by emathias View Post
I think it dipped not mainly due to Uber/Lyft but because the subway had fallen into such a horrid state. To the extent that New York gets its system back into shape, ridership will continue to rise as inconveniences like stalled trains and infrequent off-hours service to accommodate track work get addressed and ironed out.
I think yes, the improvements in the subway the past two years under Andy Byford have somewhat contributed to increased ridership.

Also two of the busiest lines (L and 7) are now fully automated, allowing for higher frequency service.

But the bus also shows solid gains, and buses never had the same service issues as the subway. I think, to some extent, Uber/Lyft has hit peak market share, at least in NYC.
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