What is the busiest individual bus line in your city?

[Cirrus]

Hi. I'd like to build a list of the most heavily-ridden individual bus lines in each US urbanized area. Throw in Canada too. If you know this information for any city, please provide it here (round to the nearest thousand)! If possible please provide a reference, but I'll take it on hearsay if that's all you've got.

I'm compiling the data using this google spreadsheet, and am also getting some responses via twitter, so you will see numbers on the spreadsheet that don't come from this thread.

Thank you!

[Cirrus]

A few I know off the top of my head:

• DC's busiest line is generally the Georgia Avenue line, which carries about 20,000 riders per day. Sometimes it jockeys with the 16th Street line and the Pennsylvania-Wisconsin Avenues line, which also carry about that many. But the key piece of info is that buses here are topping out at about 20k/day.
• Denver's 16th Street Mall shuttle carries about 45k/day.
• Vancouver's Broadway buses carry about 56k/day
• Cleveland's HealthLine BRT at 14,000/day

I imagine a lot of cities have buses in the 20k/day range, but more than that is probably pretty rare. I know about Denver & Vancouver because they're exceptions.

[muertecaza]

Phoenix's busiest line is Route 29, which runs pretty much the length of Thomas Rd., a major E-W arterial. The ridership is only about 10,000/weekday.

https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/...us-routes.html

http://www.valleymetro.org/images/up...hip_Report.pdf

[electricron]

Dallas’ Dart bus route with the largest ridership is the Parkland Shuttle, Route 703 with 4,885 riders per weekday which circulates within the Medical District.. The largest fixed bus route ridership is Jefferson-Bexar, Route 11 with 4,300 riders per weekday which connects Oak Cliff with South Dallas via Downtown Dallas.
https://www.dart.org/schedules/bussc...?quicksched=11

Fort Worth’s FWTA bus route with the largest ridership is the Spur, Route 89 with 4,325 riders per weekday which connects East Lancaster Avenue with Downtown Fort Worth.
http://www.the-t.com/wp-content/uplo...g-Services.pdf

[UrbanNebraska]

Omaha's busiest line is Route 2 which runs West/East on Dodge Street from Downtown to Westroads Mall. Anyone familiar with Omaha will know that Dodge Street is the defining thoroughfare in the city.

The city received a TIGER Grant to implement BRT on this route due to the high usage. Peak times will go from 15 mins between buses to 10 mins along with the other amenities usually associated with BRT. The branding is ORBT("Orbit").

[JManc]

In Houston, Westheimer #82 is the busiest bus line but can't find any numbers and Metro totally revamped the entire bus route system last year so probably why nothing out there yet.

[White Pine]

IIRC Vancouver has the busiest bus line in North America. I hope someone who lives there can talk about it lol. I do know that they are trying to bring rail transit to that corridor.

EDIT: Wikipedia says it's the biggest ridership in Canada/USA at 55,000, and now I see it's been mentioned.

[jd3189]

Palm Tran Route #1 is probably the busiest one in Palm Beach County. I can't find stats on the website but I know it's always crowded and has an express line in addition.

[volguus zildrohar]

Route 23 in Philadelphia had been the busiest bus route in the city for years but that changed after the route was cut in two for time saving purposes. Route 18 now takes the mantle running through the NW part of the city.

[KVNBKLYN]

In New York, the Bx12 (local and SBS) carried 48,124 per day in 2016.

From the MTA's website

[Austin55]

I posted this on Twitter but here are all of Fort Worths routes from 2015.

https://twitter.com/UrbanFortWorth/s...84827528728576

[Citylover94]

The two busiest lines in Boston are the 66 (14,676 riders) and the 39 (14,405 riders) source. Overall Boston just isn't a city that buses work very well in because of the road network lacking large arterial streets in most of the city because of that the buses are mostly used to feed the subway system. One clear example of this is that combining all the buses that serve Somerville in the area where the Green Line Extension (GLX) will take over providing service they only carry 16,900 riders while the GLX is expected to carry 52,000 riders per day in the same service area.

[Sun Belt]

San Francisco - 38 - Geary St. claims to have 55,270 average daily boardings.

[Busy Bee]

According to the 2016 ridership report, the Cta #79 79th St Bus has the highest weekday ridership in the system at 26,830 daily boardings.

[Doady]

In Mississauga, the 19 Hurontario had 20,554 boardings per weekday in 2012. The 103 Hurontario Express had 7,248 per weekday.

Toronto's busiest routes in 2012:

32 Eglinton West 48,684
35 Jane 45,699
36 Finch West 43,952
39 Finch East 41,434
29 Dufferin 39,721
25 Don Mills 39,066
54 Lawrence East 36,277
60 Steeles West 29,819
34 Eglinton East 29,501
53 Steeles East 28,050

http://dmg.utoronto.ca/pdf/tts/2011/validation2011.pdf

[LA21st]

I think LA"s Wilshire Rapid bus is 40,000-50,000 daily riders.

[NSMP]

Originally Posted by LA21st

I think LA"s Wilshire Rapid bus is 40,000-50,000 daily riders.

62,000 between the 18/20/720 after the recent 20% decline

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by NSMP

62,000 between the 18/20/720 after the recent 20% decline

I looked these up and they're a little problematic. I'm definitely willing to combine the 20 and 720 (46,000 collectively), and I'd be willing to combine the Whittier segment of the 18 as well. But the 6th Street segment of the 18 is a separate branch and really can't count as part of the same line (I'd have to start including a lot of other lines in other cities to be fair).

***If*** we included them all together, it might well be the busiest bus line in the US+Canada (Vancouver's Broadway).

[NSMP]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

I looked these up and they're a little problematic. I'm definitely willing to combine the 20 and 720 (46,000 collectively), and I'd be willing to combine the Whittier segment of the 18 as well. But the 6th Street segment of the 18 is a separate branch and really can't count as part of the same line (I'd have to start including a lot of other lines in other cities to be fair).

***If*** we included them all together, it might well be the busiest bus line in the US+Canada (Vancouver's Broadway).

Your project, your call. The 720 is the Wilshire Bl/Whittier Bl rapid and the 20/18 are the respective locals. The extremely high bus frequency between Wilshire/Western and DTLA is probably why supplemental 18 service there is provided on 6th and not Wilshire.

[Minato Ku]

The busiest bus lines in Paris

-TVM (Trans Val de Marne) : Saint-Maur - Créteil RER ↔ La Croix de Berny RER
32 stops 19.7 km
22.9 million (77,000 per weekday)
-183 : Porte de Choisy ↔ Aéroport d'Orly - Terminal Sud.
35 stops 16.5 km
16.9 million (54,000 per weekday)
-62 : Porte de Saint-Cloud ↔ Porte de France
43 stops 11 km
15.6 million (54,000 per weekday)