A possible light rail line on Route 1 would be comparable to Detroit's current DDOT proposal from a line from downtown to 8 Mile, not the People Mover. The PM is a silly thing all its own that even Detroiters don't talk about as legitimate mass transit. lol
EDIT: Not sure if I posted this when I got it, but I found my email from the CATA Service Manager concerning my inquiry about Route 1 ridership. This is from my email correspondance back in April:
Also, in the email they said that they are seeking funding to start a study on Route 1. Maybe, I'll email back asking how far this has come. With them raising the fares and all since then I'm sure they must have some extra money. lol
BTW, I found that Detroit's Woodward bus line had a daily ridership of 13,000 (2006). If someone could find how many days CATA runs out of the year, you could calculate a daily ridership number for Route 1.
For anyone that is curious, here is a youtube video showing what a light rail in Detroit on Woodward would look like. It was put together as a part of the Detroit Transit Options for Growth Study by DDOT and URS.
If someone could find how many days CATA runs out of the year, you could calculate a daily ridership number for Route 1.
"CATA services do not operate on the following holidays: New Year’s Day, Easter Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day."-http://cata.org/faq.html
Since Route #1 operates 7 days a week, in a regular year that means it would run 358 days a year. Based then on the 2007 number in your post, LMich, ridership over the course of a year for #1 averages to almost 4,486 daily but really that number would vary a lot. Obviously there are likely many more riders during the spring and fall due to students. Same with the day of the week as weekends have different schedules, and then there is Spartan Service as well, which only operates during the spring and fall semesters. Those would make my number quite skewed but it still gives you a general idea.
Now, try and calculate it taking out the number of weekends to get the weekday ridership number, if you could. This is the number most often used for 'daily' ridership.
BTW, I'm only comparing it to Detroit's Woodward bus route because it's the only one I have any information for. If someone could find a better comparison (a more similar-sized city with light rail) that would be great.
Well that would've been very hard, LMich, given all that would need to be taken into account, so you almost had me beat until I found this gem:
Average weekday rides for April 2008 on Route #1: 6,500
So that's what it was for at least April of this year. I'd also note that that's 25,000+ for April ’08 vs. April ‘07 rides.
source -Cata.org
St. Louis has a population of 353,000 and has a light rail system (metrolink). Metrolink's daily ridership is 67,684 for FY2007. It was built in 93, so not terribly long ago, and the initial phase cost $465 million. Of that amount, $348 million was supplied by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA).[1]
GR's proposed downtown electric streetcar system is estimated to cost $79 million, or $24.8 million a mile, for the first 1.6 mile segment, according to the GR Press. Officials there say they don't yet know how they'd pay for it. Their market study is here.
The study says the average weekday ridership would be 2,900 if opened in 2009 and 3,300 by 2021.
CATA just needs to drop their name in the hat for light rail/trolley/BRT system because it can take so long to get funding. They really should have been looking into this 5 or 10 years ago, but at least it sounds like they're getting the ball rolling on this.
Saw this in the NY Times today, and thought it was interesting and on point. The article says 40 cities are working on it, and I definitely think that we should be one, or start seriously looking into light rail.
Comments
EDIT: Not sure if I posted this when I got it, but I found my email from the CATA Service Manager concerning my inquiry about Route 1 ridership. This is from my email correspondance back in April:
FY 2005 - 1,464,622
FY 2006 - 1,515,299
FY 2007 - 1,605,976
Also, in the email they said that they are seeking funding to start a study on Route 1. Maybe, I'll email back asking how far this has come. With them raising the fares and all since then I'm sure they must have some extra money. lol
BTW, I found that Detroit's Woodward bus line had a daily ridership of 13,000 (2006). If someone could find how many days CATA runs out of the year, you could calculate a daily ridership number for Route 1.
"CATA services do not operate on the following holidays: New Year’s Day, Easter Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day."-http://cata.org/faq.html
Since Route #1 operates 7 days a week, in a regular year that means it would run 358 days a year. Based then on the 2007 number in your post, LMich, ridership over the course of a year for #1 averages to almost 4,486 daily but really that number would vary a lot. Obviously there are likely many more riders during the spring and fall due to students. Same with the day of the week as weekends have different schedules, and then there is Spartan Service as well, which only operates during the spring and fall semesters. Those would make my number quite skewed but it still gives you a general idea.
BTW, I'm only comparing it to Detroit's Woodward bus route because it's the only one I have any information for. If someone could find a better comparison (a more similar-sized city with light rail) that would be great.
Average weekday rides for April 2008 on Route #1: 6,500
So that's what it was for at least April of this year. I'd also note that that's 25,000+ for April ’08 vs. April ‘07 rides.
source -Cata.org
Well, now that we've found that number, perhaps, I'll see if I can find other similar routes and lines across the country to compare it to.
Source for all this information was wikipedia.
The study says the average weekday ridership would be 2,900 if opened in 2009 and 3,300 by 2021.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/us/14streetcar.html