Tom Bazan sent out an email blast this weekend with METRO’s latest ridership figures, and he noted that December’s bus ridership declined a whopping 32 percent from the previous December. Add to that the previous three months’-worth of declining bus ridership numbers (a 21 percent decrease for the quarter) and you might think METRO has a trend.
Nope. You’d be wrong, as the Chron’s Rosanna Ruiz found out when she decided to write a story on it and called Raequel Roberts for METRO’s reaction.
Metro has reported an across-the-board drop in total ridership for a fourth consecutive month, blaming cheaper gas prices and continued blow-back from last year’s fare increases. Officials had predicted that ridership would go down, but not by this much.
In the last three months of 2008, system-wide ridership fell by 12 percent, compared to the same period the year before, to 21 million from 24 million. Metro officials are confident riders will be back after a short cooling-off period.
Although the numbers show a consistent, downward trajectory over four months, Metro spokeswoman Raequel Roberts was reluctant to call it an outright trend.
Which raises the question: At what point does it become a trend? Six months? A year? And what, if anything, should be done about it?
Nothing will happen because it’s METRO we are dealing with. Couple lower gas prices with the frustration and inconvenience of having to deal with METRO’s scheduling and it’s not too hard to figure out why bus ridership has declined. Just read the comments to the Chron’s story.
