Nine out of the top ten and forty out of the top fifty urban areas saw transit ridership decline in February, 2018 compared with the previous February, according to the latest data posted by the Federal Transit Administration. That’s slightly worse than in January: When compared with 2017, ridership in Buffalo, Denver, and Portland had grown slightly in the first month of 2018 but shrank in the second, which is slightly offset by Providence ridership growing in February after having declined in January.
The other regions seeing ridership grow are Los Angeles, San Francisco-Oakland, Seattle, San Diego, Riverside-San Bernardino, Las Vegas, San Jose, Hartford, and Raleigh. However, all of these regions except Seattle saw ridership decline in 2017, so the growth trend may be short-lived.
The declines are much more spectacular than the growth. While Los Angeles ridership grew by just 0.6 percent, Chicago lost 5.6 percent of its riders. San Francisco-Oakland did better with 6.9 percent growth, but Dallas-Ft. Worth lost 14.3 percent. Ridership in Seattle, which has been the only major urban area with consistent growth, grew by just 1.8 percent, but Portland ridership declined by the same percentage. Houston, which supposedly benefitted from a restructured bus system, saw ridership fall by 5.0 percent. Continue reading
