DENVER — The Regional Transportation District’s light-rail system has experienced a dramatic drop in ridership during the first five months of 2019, and RTD officials have no immediate explanation.
Ridership was down 13.7% from January through May, compared with the same period a year earlier.
RTD spokeswoman Paulette Tonilas told the Denver Post that the drop is “an anomaly,” and that the agency is “just sort of puzzled by it.” She did suggest several factors. A recent survey showed riders are unhappy about a drop in on-time performance. The RTD also raised fares in January for the first time in three years.
Other RTD systems — bus routes and commuter rail — saw increases, but with the light-rail drop, RTD’s systemwide ridership dropped 1.8% against a year earlier.
That’s what happens when commuter transit over states how much revenue they expect to acquire, public transit isn’t in business to make money, they are a service, when officials talk about a new route and how much they expect thing will cost, without the riders what they want doesn’t mean a hill of beans.
Passengers down means revenue down. Costs stay the same. Larger losses. Taxpayers have to pay even more …
I wonder if the drop off in ridership is off peak. At various parts of USA there have been scattered reports of diversion to UBER/ LFYT when the roadways clear in the evenings. While transit reverts more toward a rush-hour mode when transit headways are shorter and the roads more congested.
Not on time followed by a fare increase…and they are puzzled? The anomaly does exist, unfortunately inside their collective heads.
Mr Achenbach, your not allowed to smoke on the train or bus in Colorado, and nor can not smoke the green in public.
Maybe some customers just got tired of the problems on the airport line and their self-imposed grace periods expired.
A six month anomaly? Really.
Maybe they could eliminate the smell and usage of their legal funny tobacco from their cars.
RTD is caught in a time warp of the 1950’s when revenue loss began to seriously erode passenger rail. There is a need for the fare system to be restructured with automatic payment similar to Lyft and Über whereby passengers may conveniently board without going into their pockets and purses each time. Digital monitors could be developed to receive signals from smartphones of registered riders with the payment plan to allow admissions for boarding.