LOS ANGELES | Transportation News & Discussion

[sopas ej]

From Intelligent Transport:

LA Metro records significant ridership surge in June 2023

LA Metro’s bus and rail services are now operating at 81% of their pre-pandemic levels in 2019, with weekend ridership even stronger, surpassing 90%.


Credit: LA Metro

27 July 2023

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro) has reported a significant increase in ridership in June 2023, with a 13.3% year-over-year rise, totalling nearly 24 million boardings. This marks the seventh consecutive month of year-over-year growth in ridership. The monthly bus and rail ridership has now reached 81% of its pre-pandemic level in 2019. Weekend ridership is even stronger at 91% of pre-pandemic levels on average, while weekdays are at 76%.

In June, LA Metro had 23,824,620 passenger boardings, averaging 866,670 rides each weekday, 646,743 on Saturdays and 542,727 on Sundays. Weekend ridership continues to outperform weekdays, with Saturdays reaching nearly 89% and Sundays nearly 94% of their June 2019 pre-pandemic levels.

Los Angeles Mayor and Metro Board Chair Karen Bass said: “With the opening of the Regional Connector last month, Metro has made it more accessible and affordable to travel by public transit across the region, and the benefits of this new connectivity are translating into increased ridership. I look forward to seeing ridership continue to grow as we work to expand the system and make it safer and move welcoming for all.”

Bus ridership leads overall, accounting for 78.4% of total ridership in June, with a total of 18,679,084 rides. Bus ridership in June 2023 was almost 84% of its level in June 2019 before the pandemic. LA Metro’s efforts to restore bus ridership includes hiring more than 1,000 bus operators since 2022 and installing more than 30 miles of bus priority lanes in partnership with the City of Los Angeles.

The rail system has seen more than five million trips in June, a 14.2% increase over June 2022. Rail ridership growth was particularly notable on the B Line (Red)/D Line (Purple) subway, with average weekday ridership up 15.5% year-over-year.

LA Metro‘s CEO, Stephanie Wiggins, said: “Our riders can now easily visit downtown restaurants and events, and travel through three beautiful art filled stations which are quickly becoming destinations in themselves.”

To ensure safe and efficient transit service, LA Metro implemented a multi-layered public safety approach, a Drug-Free Metro campaign, engaged over 300 Metro Ambassadors to assist customers, hired over 1,000 new transit operators and fully restored bus services, making many lines faster and more frequent.

Link: https://www.intelligenttransport.com...-in-june-2023/

[sopas ej]

It's very interesting to me that public transit ridership is actually now higher on the weekends than during the work week, percentage-wise, as compared with pre-pandemic ridership. Just my observation but even surface street and freeway traffic seems just as bad if not worse on the weekends too vs. weekdays. I think people have been tired of being cooped up at home since the pandemic, and people who continue to WFH also want to be out and about on the weekends.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

It's very interesting to me that public transit ridership is actually now higher on the weekends than during the work week, percentage-wise, as compared with pre-pandemic ridership.

I think that gets at the commute-oriented nature of weekday transit service. LA's regular weekend riders probably do not have affordable alternatives to riding the bus, and that may be especially true for those who work in industries that don't allow for working from home.

[dktshb]

Glad they're focusing on the drug use crime and walking dead. I hope they keep it up.

[craigs]

From Streetsblog LA:

[craigs]

From LA Reddit: "The first delivery of new Metro cars have made their way to Los Angeles."

[homebucket]

^ Since they’re only going to proceed with 64 cars out of the original total order of 282 cars, do you know if they’ve started taking bids on which train manufacturer will fulfill the remaining 218 cars?

[ocman]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

It's very interesting to me that public transit ridership is actually now higher on the weekends than during the work week, percentage-wise, as compared with pre-pandemic ridership.

What that tells me is that people want to use it for leisure as a way of fully experiencing the city. But service is too spotty to rely on it to get to work in a reasonable manner. Also, most of the cultural institutions have good access to public transit. Offices which are dispersed everywhere are less likely to have close access.

[Busy Bee]

Originally Posted by homebucket

^ Since they’re only going to proceed with 64 cars out of the original total order of 282 cars, do you know if they’ve started taking bids on which train manufacturer will fulfill the remaining 218 cars?

And will they look the same? I find the CRRC cars a bit meh in design, like most NA metro cars it's essentially a flashy bonnet grafted onto a boring 1980's spot welded SS car body. Would be nice to cut their losses in the design department and go with something totally new.

[sopas ej]

Just thought I'd post some pics from Metro Los Angeles' Facebook page...

No, not Swifties, these are people who took the E Line to the Hard Summer music festival in Exposition Park over the weekend. Looks like a good turnout.

[SFBruin]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

It's very interesting to me that public transit ridership is actually now higher on the weekends than during the work week, percentage-wise, as compared with pre-pandemic ridership.

Is it possible that this is because some people are still WFH?

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by SFBruin

Is it possible that this is because some people are still WFH?

Yeah, that was my guess too, and I mentioned it in my post. I figure that a lot of people who are WFH are sick of staying home during the week and therefore want to be out and about on the weekends, so that's probably why you see more people taking transit on the weekends vs. during the work week, and also why it has seemed to me that traffic is just as bad if not worse on the weekends than it is during the work week.

[SFBruin]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

I mentioned it in my post.

Oh, my bad.

[SFBruin]

Makes sense!

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by SFBruin

Oh, my bad.

No worries!

[sopas ej]

Photo from the LA Times; apparently during the TS concert, the K Line's Downtown Inglewood Station had a special sign for fans:

From right, Ana Robinson takes a photo of friends and fellow Swifties Zoe Albano-Oritt, Maddie Herbik and Ekaterina Vladimirova under a special Taylor Swift-themed sign at the K Line station in Inglewood on the way to the first night of her concert series at SoFi Stadium.
(Ryan Fonseca / Los Angeles Times)

[LAsam]

^ I have to say that Metro seems to be doing a very good job with encouraging Swifties to go to the concert via rail. Hopefully this is a bit of a momentum boost that Metro can build off of to continue moving things back in the right direction.

[craigs]

I rode the subway from North Hollywood to downtown and back yesterday. Around noon, we had to wait about 15 to 20 minutes for the B Line train to leave for downtown, The train was fairly full, and everyone behaved.

After spending the day downtown, it was time to head back. Between 6:30 and 7:00-something p.m., we had to wait 40 minutes at Union Station for a B Line train to North Hollywood. It was fairly crowded and again people behaved themselves.

But those waiting times are really frustrating.

[Quixote]

^ Have you submitted a complaint to Customer Relations? I would.

https://www.metro.net/about/contacts/

[jmecklenborg]

Taylor Swift's PR machine is so gigantic that it's doing stuff like sign switching to reach transit nerds who barely know who she is.

When there were physical records and CDs, record companies didn't have to go to such extreme lengths to "build brands" since the music itself made almost all of the money.