A 7% increase from 2006. That’s with the tunnel closed most of the time.
5 Replies to “Metro Passes 110mn riders per year”
I road the bus last this year than any previous year. I didn’t drive a single time this year.
I moved here from Minneapolis in June, back when the tunnel was closed, and bus around everywhere — U district, west seattle, downtown, belltown, even tukwila. When the tunnels opened, I nearly shat my pants at how amazingly nice it is. In Minneapolis we had nothing like it — busses stopped at ANY block downtown, making any bus that passed through the city incredibly slow, and they shared the streets with cars (no tunnel or bus-only streets aside from Nicollet.) Even though Minneapolis has a slow (13 stops from the Mall of America to downtown clocking in at 40 minutes each way) LRT line, Seattle beats the shit out of Minneapolis when it comes to transit. With LRT, it will be fantastically convenient.
Good point Chris. We shouldn’t forget what a nice asset the bus tunnel is – grade seperated transit passing right through the downtown core.
I’m curious to see if busses or LRT get in each other’s way once LRT begins.
With all the ridership increase, Metro is probably going to get a swelled ego and think they’re what the people want.
Ignoring the fact that what people want is easy transit that’s not their car. Which is why we really want an RTS. But, that will get muddle in political translations and we’ll be stuck with more buses and more roads. Then in 50 years, our leaders will go “OH. That’s what the people meant when they said Mass Transit. That makes sense.”
“He attributes most of the 7 percent ridership increase last year to Metro’s efforts to provide more productive service during a period of high demand.”
I road the bus last this year than any previous year. I didn’t drive a single time this year.
I moved here from Minneapolis in June, back when the tunnel was closed, and bus around everywhere — U district, west seattle, downtown, belltown, even tukwila. When the tunnels opened, I nearly shat my pants at how amazingly nice it is. In Minneapolis we had nothing like it — busses stopped at ANY block downtown, making any bus that passed through the city incredibly slow, and they shared the streets with cars (no tunnel or bus-only streets aside from Nicollet.) Even though Minneapolis has a slow (13 stops from the Mall of America to downtown clocking in at 40 minutes each way) LRT line, Seattle beats the shit out of Minneapolis when it comes to transit. With LRT, it will be fantastically convenient.
Good point Chris. We shouldn’t forget what a nice asset the bus tunnel is – grade seperated transit passing right through the downtown core.
I’m curious to see if busses or LRT get in each other’s way once LRT begins.
With all the ridership increase, Metro is probably going to get a swelled ego and think they’re what the people want.
Ignoring the fact that what people want is easy transit that’s not their car. Which is why we really want an RTS. But, that will get muddle in political translations and we’ll be stuck with more buses and more roads. Then in 50 years, our leaders will go “OH. That’s what the people meant when they said Mass Transit. That makes sense.”
“He attributes most of the 7 percent ridership increase last year to Metro’s efforts to provide more productive service during a period of high demand.”
So the skyrocketing gas prices and increased traffic has nothing to do with the increase?