Calgary Transit: Ridership growth

[Wigs]

So recently I was checking out the APTA's (American Public Transportation Association) ridership numbers to see if 1Q2013 data was released (not yet).
Then I noticed they have a link to their archives for each quarter dating back to 1996.

So here's what I've found (I thought 5 year increments was good enough):



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Note:

The data items are reported as the number of unlinked passenger trips. Unlinked passenger trips are defined as the number of passengers who board public transportation vehicles. Passengers are counted each time they board vehicles no matter how many vehicles they use to travel from their origin to their destination.

I can't wait to see the increase from West LRT once 1Q2013 numbers get released

[DizzyEdge]

So basically the additional capacity of 4 cars trains will be eaten up in about 5 years

[Wigs]

coinciding with increase from 1996-2001:

on October 9, 2001 two new stations — Canyon Meadows Station (north of Canyon Meadows Drive and west of Macleod Trail) and Fish Creek-Lacombe Station (south of Bannister Road and west of Macleod Trail) were added to the south line;

coinciding with increase from 2001-2006

on December 15, 2003, Dalhousie Station (south of 53rd Street in the median of Crowchild Trail) was added to the northwestern line.
On June 28, 2004, two new stations for the south line opened: Shawnessy Station (south of a brand new interchange at Macleod Trail and Shawnessy Boulevard) and Somerset-Bridlewood Station (south of 162nd Avenue and just north of Shawville Gate).

coinciding with increase from 2006-2011

On December 17, 2007, an extension was made to the Route 202 northeast line (first extension ever on the history of the line) from Whitehorn to the new McKnight-Westwinds Station.;
On June 15, 2009, Crowfoot Station was added on the northwest line located directly west of Crowfoot Town Centre in the median of Crowchild Trail.

increase from 4Q2011 to 4Q2012

On August 27, 2012, Martindale and Saddletowne Stations was added to the northeast line, making the total of stations on this line to 10.

I wonder what the impact of West LRT will be.
Any guesses as to the increase LRT ridership?

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

So basically the additional capacity of 4 cars trains will be eaten up in about 5 years

pretty much, eh

It still boggles my mind that Edmonton is already running 5 car trains (extreme excess capacity) and yet we haven't even finished lengthening platforms for 4 car trains (we're filling up to the brim at rush hour times!).

[Bassic Lab]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

So basically the additional capacity of 4 cars trains will be eaten up in about 5 years

If that. Ridership has essentially been flat for the last four years. This past year has been the first to show any kind of significant movement. There is a decent possibility that latent, unmet, demand has already used up most of what four cars will give us.

[Deepstar]

Those are very good numbers considering that new new lines have been added in that 16 years, only extensions. The system has more than doubled its ridership.

Can't wait to see WLRT numbers added.

Originally Posted by WIGS

So recently I was checking out the APTA's (American Public Transportation Association) ridership numbers to see if 1Q2013 data was released (not yet).
Then I noticed they have a link to their archives for each quarter dating back to 1996.

So here's what I've found (I thought 5 year increments was good enough):



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Note:

I can't wait to see the increase from West LRT once 1Q2013 numbers get released

[Deepstar]

Yes and no. Right off the top of my head I know at least three people who don't take the LRT because the cars are too full in the morning. If I know three people then I wonder how many others are out there?

My sister started a new job downtown and took the train all of one week before giving up in frustration. I believe full cars may be part of the reason for a slowdown in the last four years.

Originally Posted by Bassic Lab

If that. Ridership has essentially been flat for the last four years. This past year has been the first to show any kind of significant movement. There is a decent possibility that latent, unmet, demand has already used up most of what four cars will give us.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Deepstar

My sister started a new job downtown and took the train all of one week before giving up in frustration.

I wish I had an extra $600/month every time I dealt with a little "frustration".

Amazing growth in any event. I can't believe numbers like that don't include the WLRT.

[bigcanuck]

Can someone compare the growth in transit ridership to the growth in population?

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by bigcanuck

Can someone compare the growth in transit ridership to the growth in population?

I show 768,000 in 1996. 768,000/334,200 = 2.3.

With those numbers, if we were at 1.26 million at the end of 2012, it would match up pretty well.

Sorry, that's the best I can do

[Rusty van Reddick]

Originally Posted by bigcanuck

Can someone compare the growth in transit ridership to the growth in population?

1996 pop 767,059
2012 pop 1,120,225

68% population increase

[Wigs]

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[kora]

Originally Posted by Deepstar

Right off the top of my head I know at least three people who don't take the LRT because the cars are too full in the morning

Count me as one. I would expand that to buses because they're too full. I like using Transit but only off-peak.

There are positive unintended consequences to rejection of Transit during rush hours such as more people choosing to live downtown who then walk to work. So congestion is helping intensify our city, especially the Beltline. Or if they can't move downtown, they are more likely to bicycle.

[freeweed]

3 different people came up with 3 slightly different figures for the 1996 population. Although WIGS's number is the same as mine, I was just rounding. He must use the same source. All were close enough to be considered accurate.

I just found it funny that 3 of us were ready within a matter of minutes to provide population figures from nearly 20 years ago. Do you think we care about this stuff or something?

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by freeweed

3 different people came up with 3 slightly different figures for the 1996 population. Although WIGS's number is the same as mine, I was just rounding. He must use the same source. All were close enough to be considered accurate.

I just found it funny that 3 of us were ready within a matter of minutes to provide population figures from nearly 20 years ago. Do you think we care about this stuff or something?

mine were original (not adjusted) Stat Can figures for each year except 2012 which was taken from Civic Census
bunch of nerds

[Bassic Lab]

Originally Posted by freeweed

I wish I had an extra $600/month every time I dealt with a little "frustration".

Amazing growth in any event. I can't believe numbers like that don't include the WLRT.

To be fair, overcrowding causes different levels of frustration and, location wise, you'd be lower on the scale than many. There is a difference between the affects of overcrowding on riders near the end of the lines and those in the inner suburbs and inner city. There is a difference between taking the train at Crowfoot and taking it at Brentwood. The SLRT also sees worse crowding than the NWLRT. These issues even affected reliability for people, waiting for multiple trains to pass until one had room to board was becoming a far too common occurrence during the ridership peak in 08.

It's been a very long time since I experienced a peak direction C-Train commute but my most recent transit commute had similar issues. It involved the #3 to downtown with a transfer to the NWLRT. Days where I managed to board the first bus to arrive were, despite the sometimes extreme overcrowding, significantly less frustrating than the days when the first bus passed without allowing additional riders on.

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by Bassic Lab

To be fair, overcrowding causes different levels of frustration and, location wise, you'd be lower on the scale than many. There is a difference between the affects of overcrowding on riders near the end of the lines and those in the inner suburbs and inner city. There is a difference between taking the train at Crowfoot and taking it at Brentwood. The SLRT also sees worse crowding than the NWLRT. These issues even affected reliability for people, waiting for multiple trains to pass until one had room to board was becoming a far too common occurrence during the ridership peak in 08.

It's been a very long time since I experienced a peak direction C-Train commute but my most recent transit commute had similar issues. It involved the #3 to downtown with a transfer to the NWLRT. Days where I managed to board the first bus to arrive were, despite the sometimes extreme overcrowding, significantly less frustrating than the days when the first bus passed without allowing additional riders on.

The #3 downtown route is high-frequency but could use a BRT without a doubt. I did a little experiment: I started counting back in May the number of times in a two week during the morning rush hour where I could actually get on. I live in Mission and just going downtown to the LRT so I start walking when the bus is full as I am only going 10 min walk. Here is what I found

2/10 i got on the first bus, both as the very last crush load to board.
4/10 i got on the 2nd bus to come, after walking a few stops
2/10 i got on the third bus to come (includes 1 time I took the 17 as the third bus
2/10 i made it the whole way to the LRT with greater than 3 buses and no stopping

The issue is not frequency (like most of CT routes), its capacity and reliability. in the same 10 min stretch for 2 weeks in the morning, I always had at least 1 bus go by or stop, sometimes as many as 4. But it seems to be an obvious problem to fix, it is not like CT is struggling with justifying low ridership on this route, it must be aware of the volumes and should act accordingly.

That is why I am excited there is talk of a BRT route down Elbow in the past, hopefully it happens.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Bassic Lab

To be fair, overcrowding causes different levels of frustration and, location wise, you'd be lower on the scale than many. There is a difference between the affects of overcrowding on riders near the end of the lines and those in the inner suburbs and inner city. There is a difference between taking the train at Crowfoot and taking it at Brentwood. The SLRT also sees worse crowding than the NWLRT. These issues even affected reliability for people, waiting for multiple trains to pass until one had room to board was becoming a far too common occurrence during the ridership peak in 08.

There's no question that I have it easier than many. I'm at a terminal station (and always will be, at least for the next several decades).

But even I used to get caught in the mad crush to get home (I'm not at an early station heading out of downtown). I had 2 options: adjust my work schedule to not leave at precisely 5pm when everyone else does, or pay $600/month in parking. I'm just floored at how many people seem willing to choose the latter, especially in a city where flexible hours are the norm.

Obviously not everyone can be as adjustable as most of us, and there are always exceptions... I just find that some people seem ready and willing to fork out shittons of cash just to avoid a little hassle. I'd prefer to get to work half an hour earlier each day if it saved me $600. It's not like the trains are jam-packed for 2 hours straight twice a day, at least not that I've ever seen.

[Bassic Lab]

Originally Posted by MasterG

The #3 downtown route is high-frequency but could use a BRT without a doubt. I did a little experiment: I started counting back in May the number of times in a two week during the morning rush hour where I could actually get on. I live in Mission and just going downtown to the LRT so I start walking when the bus is full as I am only going 10 min walk. Here is what I found

2/10 i got on the first bus, both as the very last crush load to board.
4/10 i got on the 2nd bus to come, after walking a few stops
2/10 i got on the third bus to come (includes 1 time I took the 17 as the third bus
2/10 i made it the whole way to the LRT with greater than 3 buses and no stopping

The issue is not frequency (like most of CT routes), its capacity and reliability. in the same 10 min stretch for 2 weeks in the morning, I always had at least 1 bus go by or stop, sometimes as many as 4. But it seems to be an obvious problem to fix, it is not like CT is struggling with justifying low ridership on this route, it must be aware of the volumes and should act accordingly.

That is why I am excited there is talk of a BRT route down Elbow in the past, hopefully it happens.

I can't see Calgary Transit being able to justify a BRT on Elbow, that is actually useful, any time in the near future. At present the Elbow portion of the #3 sees fewer buses than the Centre Street portion. Not by massive margin but something, if I recall correctly, on the order of a dozen buses a day or about 10% of the total. If CT doesn't feel that it is necessary to increase the number of #3 buses on Elbow to match Centre than I can't see them implementing a BRT with usable frequency, something at least close to #3 levels.

Personally I don't think a BRT on Elbow would be that beneficial anyway. The trip on the #3 from north of Heritage is generally quick enough that it doesn't need a more rapid option and many riders from further south should be transferring to the LRT (but don't because of over crowding on the SLRT, 4 car trains ought to help here too). What is needed is, as you said, capacity. The #3 needs to have articulated buses. That alone would vastly improve service. A bus with a crush load suffers much like a freeway in congestion with cascading failures. In the case of a bus everything slows down at crush load since multiple passengers have to get off an on to allow riders to debark. This puts that bus behind schedule and leads to more people waiting at the stops to get on. A slight boost in capacity is all that is needed to fix that. I've actually seen articulated buses on the #3, at 10:00 AM but never during rush hour, so it is possible.

[Wigs]

So since the 1Q2013 numbers are out, I decided to re-do comparison using all 1Q numbers