Post-COVID, what cities have more remaining "choice" transit riders?

[llamaorama]

After the 2020 shock and increase in remote work most cities have lower transit ridership, and most of those missing riders seem to be traditional commuters who were also choice riders. Services connecting suburbs to downtowns lost the most riders. For example BART saw a huge decline. By choice riders, I mean people whose socioeconomic status allows them to drive a car, but they still utilize public transit for some trips anyways. The inverse would be someone who doesn't have enough money to drive.

Is there any sources of statistics on this?

Guesses:

I'd expect NYC, Chicago, SF, Boston, etc, to still have some choice riders as people who do commute or who go into the city for errands or leisure would still use transit.

Sunbelt cities and the second-tier midwest probably has very few choice riders, with the exception of some light rail or modern streetcar lines that serve touristy/sport stadium type areas.

Seattle and San Diego are interesting because they have had ridership increases since COVID and those two light rail systems are both heavily used. Both are affluent cities so you would expect more choice riders. On the other hand, because those cities are so expensive it might be that people you'd expect to identify as "middle class" are functionally poor and are not in fact choice riders at all.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Is there any sources of statistics on this?

Some DART yearly data reported by the Dallas Morning News.
2018: 62.5 million riders
2019: 70.5 million riders
2020: 49.8 million riders
2021: 35.3 million riders
2022: 40.8 million riders
2023: 48 million riders
NOTE: This includes all modes of transport, buses, vans, trains, and streetcars.
Stiil has not returned to pre-2020 ridership levels.