Last month, we guessed that METRO’s ridership numbers would be greater than February but didn’t know it would be 133,455 more than the previous month. Weekends were a huge hit in March as many people enjoyed our awesome weather and took advantage of many of the cool events that took place along the line. While gas prices continue to squeeze into people’s comfort zone, it appears METRO will continue to see strong numbers for quite some time.
March ridership numbers look like this:
Total Boardings for March: 1,214,276 vs 1,080,821 in February:
Avg. Weekday Boardings: 42,234 vs 45,074 in February:
Avg Saturday Boardings: 35,692 vs 29,006 in February:
Avg Sunday / Holiday Boardings: 25,029 vs 21,680 in February:
Without a doubt, recreational riders continue to ride the METRO. March of 2010 also saw a lot of boardings at 1,161,733 which is 4.5% less than March 2011. With the high number of March boardings, it is interesting to see that weekday ridership was down from February while weekends were quite a bit higher. As the Diamondback’s begin their season, it will be interesting to see how the trends hold up.
*source of numbers: METRO light rail*
I’d guess the dip in weekday ridership is attributable to spring breaks at colleges and high schools along the line. In addition, with K-12 schools on spring break, many parents might have taken a break from their normal commutes. As you note, however, event-driven ridership on weekends more than made up for the modest decrease during the week.
David, that’s a great point about spring break. As we have seen time and again, students ride in BIG numbers.
Thanks for stopping by.