The beleaguered transit industry got a tiny bit of good news with the Federal Transit Administration’s release last Friday of July, 2018 ridership data: nationwide ridership was 0.2 percent greater than in July 2017. Ridership grew in 18 of the nation’s 50 largest urban areas, up from just 6 in June.
July 2018 had one more work day than July 2017, which helps explain the improvement in some of those urban areas. This was the first year-over-year improvement since October, 2017, which also had one more work day than October 2016.
However, the biggest reason for the nationwide increase was the 8.0 percent growth in New York City subway ridership and 6.6 percent growth in New York City bus ridership. July 2017 was the beginning of New York’s “summer of hell” as deteriorating conditions forced the partial closure of Penn Station, the city’s main transit hub, from July 10 to September 1. Many commuters who found alternate sources of transportation during that shutdown apparently returned to transit when the station fully re-opened.
New York transit carried 5.4 million more riders in July 2018 than July 2017, which more than offset the 3.8-million decline in ridership in the rest of the country. Thanks to New York’s recovery, nationwide heavy-rail ridership grew by 1.6 percent and commuter-rail ridership grew by 2.6 percent, but bus ridership fell by 1.0 percent and light-rail ridership fell by 0.9 percent.
As usual, the Antiplanner has posted an enhanced spreadsheet that sums data by calendar year, transit agency, and urban area for both ridership and vehicle-revenue miles. The vehicle-revenue mile numbers for July 2018 should be used with caution as the data for many agencies appear incomplete.
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Of the nation’s 49 largest urban areas outside of New York, ridership grew in Philadelphia, Houston, Washington, Detroit, San Francisco-Oakland, Seattle, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Las Vegas, Portland, San Antonio, Indianapolis, Austin, Charlotte, Memphis, Nashville, Richmond, and Raleigh. In most cases, ridership grew by 2 to 3 percent, suggesting the growth was largely a result of July 2018 having 5 percent more work days than July 2017. One major exception was Washington, which saw 6.6 percent growth. Like New York, this was due to recovery from significant delays in July 2017 due to DC Metro’s SafeTrack program.
The growth in those urban areas was more than offset by declines in the other 32 major urban areas, some of which were quite large. Ridership fell by 15 percent in Milwaukee, 14 percent in Louisville, 11 percent in Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, 10 percent in St. Louis and Cleveland, and 7 percent in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Sacramento. Numerically, the biggest decline was in Los Angeles, which lost 1.9 million riders, followed by 1.1 million in Miami-Ft. Lauderdale. Boston, Baltimore, and Milwaukee each lost between 400,000 and 500,000 riders.
New York transit officials may breathe a sigh of relief that many of their customers returned after 2017’s summer of hell. However, July 2018 ridership in the New York urban area was still 8.5 percent less than it was in July 2015. In addition, ridership for the first seven months of 2018 was down 1.7 percent from the same months in 2017. Similarly, Washington’s July 2018 ridership may have improved from 2017, but was still 15 percent below July 2015. In these and other urban areas, declines since 2015 are mainly due to the bites taken out of transit by ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft.
Given that New York’s summer of hell and Washington’s SafeTrack program extended through August, 2017, it is likely that those regions’ transit systems will see similar growth in August 2018 transit numbers. However, August 2018 didn’t have any more work days than August 2017, so other urban areas are less likely to see a boost. Watch this space in early October for the release of August numbers.
