This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
Here is a breakdown for 2007 average weekday ridership (click on the picture for a higher quality image). I have an excel file with lots of data in it and I have just started to play around with some of the data. This graph is pretty self explanatory. Per my last post I think that Metro should give the top 10 (or more if there is money) routes BRT treatments for routes along major arterial/corridors (48,7,5,etc) and enhanced service as well as ITS, ATIS, and choke point improvements for neighborhood routes (2,3,4,49,43,etc). Also you will see that RapidRide is taking over a few of the routes that currently have some of the highest ridership (a notable except is the Bellevue/Redmond route).
54 – West Seattle RR
358 – Aurora RR
174 – Pacific Highway South RR (It will start where LINK ends and go south)
15/18 – Ballard RR
230 – Bellevue/Redmond RR
Looking at the ridership numbers makes it obvious Metro didn’t just take its highest ridership routes when it decided to implement RR. In addition to politics I think a major objective of Metro was to serve corridors that will not see HCT for a while and try to create a “backbone” that covers as much area as possible and makes sense economically.
You can also see that LINK serves many of the same corridors that the highest ridership routes do. It will be interesting to see how LINK effects ridership on those routes.
One last point. The highest ridership route for the Eastside is the 550 at 19th place. The highest none UW/CBD to Eastside route is the 230 at 29th place. Pretty pitiful. This just goes to show how much wealth and sprawl kill transit.
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