Canadian Transit Thread II

[Doady]

Originally Posted by cranes

People are talking about a proposed Hamilton LRT line which won't open until 2030..2031..(who actually knows) vs an already built & operating line in Kitchener. They're comparing actual 2023 Kitchener LRT ridership vs expected 2031(?) Hamilton LRT ridership and then concluding the latter's going to be double. Why not compare expected 2031 vs expected 2031 ridership ... that would seem to make a lot more sense. Same thing goes for frequency.

No one said that the Kitchener LRT won't have 50,000 boardings in 2031 to match the Hamilton LRT. They are just comparing the projected ridership of the Hamilton LRT to the current ridership of the Kitchener LRT. They said nothing about the ridership of the Kitchener LRT in 2031.

Originally Posted by cranes

GRT had a transit strike during 2023 as well.

Again, the current system wide ridership of GRT vs. HSR has zero relevance to future ridership of any particular line of either system.

Originally Posted by cranes

I'll repost GRT's monthly #s. Instead of just dismissing my crude FTM estimation, please give me an estimate/methodology of what you think the forward 12 month total looks like.

["The September Multiplier"]
I took the total of Sept 2022 - Aug 2023 = 23.36 million
Divided by Sept 2022 (2.00 million) = 11.68
Multiplied by Sept 2023 (2.89 million) = 33.75 million (Sept 2023 - Aug 2024 crude estimate)

Even in the chart you posted, you can see the GRT year-over-year growth steadily decreasing each month in 2023. The growth in January 2023 compared to January 2022 was 159% as the ridership in January 2022 was only 42% of pre-pandemic levels.

You cannot group September 2022 and August 2023 into the same period because the ridership in September 2022 was 93% of pre-pandemic levels while the ridership in August 2023 was 134% of pre-pandemic levels.

The ridership in September 2023 was 33.8% higher than in September 2019. So the annual ridership is more likely to be around 29.38 million now, not 33.75 million.

According to the news article you posted, GRT are planning an increase of 46,900 hours of service in 2024. A 6% increase in service is not enough to handle 44% more riders.