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Post by metrocenter on Dec 9, 2009 9:49:28 GMT -8
Weather is definitely a factor. My transit trip involves some walking, then standing outside on a platform, then more walking. I am far more likely to do this if it is a dry, warm 60 degree morning. If it's 45 degrees and raining, I'm more likely to stay in my warm car.
The effect of weather on my transit-riding behavior is immediate and visceral. If I have a choice, and it is very cold or wet, I am taking the car, gas prices be damned.
Conclusion: my personal rate of transit use is much higher during good weather, and lower during bad weather. I can't help but think this is the same for ridership in general.
Gas prices have less of an effect, unless they become very high (say $3.50/gallon). The same can be said for traffic: it has less effect, unless something dramatic happens (holiday empty streets, or pre-holiday gridlock).
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Post by tonyw79sfv on Dec 9, 2009 21:47:26 GMT -8
Weather is definitely a factor. My transit trip involves some walking, then standing outside on a platform, then more walking. I am far more likely to do this if it is a dry, warm 60 degree morning. If it's 45 degrees and raining, I'm more likely to stay in my warm car. The effect of weather on my transit-riding behavior is immediate and visceral. If I have a choice, and it is very cold or wet, I am taking the car, gas prices be damned. Conclusion: my personal rate of transit use is much higher during good weather, and lower during bad weather. I can't help but think this is the same for ridership in general. Gas prices have less of an effect, unless they become very high (say $3.50/gallon). The same can be said for traffic: it has less effect, unless something dramatic happens (holiday empty streets, or pre-holiday gridlock). Automobile traffic was unexpectedly light this past Monday when it rained but was back to normal on Tuesday when it was clear (albiet cold). It's almost like as if discretionary drivers, those who have no business being on the road or have no work or school to attend to, stayed at home; but then they came out of the woodwork when the clouds cleared. For me, although I ride the Red Line to work, I still have the Orange Line and Metro Rapid to contend with; and even with the rain and cold, I still make my 1/3 mile run to the Rapid stop, rain or shine; and I can tell you, I get more shelter from a Metro at-grade light rail station than for the 761.
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Post by metrocenter on Dec 10, 2009 10:32:53 GMT -8
Don't get me wrong, I definitely try to take transit to work whenever possible (even though my transit commute involves two trains and a bus). I'm definitely not advocating driving to work when there is a good transit route available.
All I'm saying is, the weather really does affect my commuting behavior -- and I'm a transit advocate. So I've got to imagine it affects other people as well, especially people who can reasonably choose between transit and car.
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Post by spokker on Dec 10, 2009 19:26:14 GMT -8
I'm actually more likely to take transit when it rains because I simply love the rain.
But I do agree with you, weather makes a huge difference, especially if your route involves a lot of walking. I also think that in a storm, people might be more inclined to take transit if the freeways are expected to be mucked up.
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Post by rubbertoe on Dec 29, 2009 12:44:22 GMT -8
Looks like November ridership now includes the EE. The raw number of 28,478 is 7,156 better than October's 21,322. They don't break out the EE numbers separately though. That might make it difficult going forward to see if the EE meets it's ridership estimate after two years. Wasn't that something like 13,000? I kicked the high end of the scale up to 35,000 from 30,000 so the previous months columns look a bit smaller compared to the previous graphs.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Dec 29, 2009 15:31:01 GMT -8
It'll be hard for us to track Eastside ridership since they don't have it broken out, but Metro should be able to track it fairly easily.
One thing that I'd like to see is a map of ridership by station. Too bad that Metro doesn't publish that annually like NYCT does.
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Post by crzwdjk on Dec 30, 2009 9:28:11 GMT -8
For NYCT it's trivial to report the ridership by station, they just send the token booth clerk to read the numbers off the counters on the turnstiles. Not something you can do quite as easily in LA.
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Post by rubbertoe on Dec 30, 2009 9:59:05 GMT -8
For NYCT it's trivial to report the ridership by station, they just send the token booth clerk to read the numbers off the counters on the turnstiles. Not something you can do quite as easily in LA. In LA all that you would have to do is count the # of TAP passes hit at each station then add the # of tickets sold via all the machines at the station. There is your entry ridership per station. If both of those eventually come back to a central database, then it a couple keystrokes at a computer screen
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Post by bluelineshawn on Dec 30, 2009 14:03:28 GMT -8
For NYCT it's trivial to report the ridership by station, they just send the token booth clerk to read the numbers off the counters on the turnstiles. Not something you can do quite as easily in LA. In LA all that you would have to do is count the # of TAP passes hit at each station then add the # of tickets sold via all the machines at the station. There is your entry ridership per station. If both of those eventually come back to a central database, then it a couple keystrokes at a computer screen That would be pretty close, but it wouldn't include people transferring on paper paper passes, which is still a significant number. And I agree with crzwdjk, but I have seen some station ridership numbers on the metro website, so I know that they track it. It's just not as easy to do as NYCT.
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Post by rubbertoe on Dec 30, 2009 14:57:40 GMT -8
This is projected from current numbers into the 2030 time frame for the EE phase 2 analysis. Not quite as good as the actual raw numbers, but it does give you an idea of where people are getting on. Union Station at the top obviously, and then the end stations due to riders getting on there to ride to anywhere else along the line. Del Mar station and Memorial Park have good numbers I would assume due to good connections and the Pasadena population. Highland Park is interesting, and the 5 furthest EE stations are all doing well. The passengers/mile from the EE stations are 2,500 (14,505 / 5.8) and the Pasadena side passengers/mile are 1,672 (22,918 / 13.7). Demonstrating that the EE stations do offer higher ridership per mile of track versus the rest of the line. This might be reading too much into the numbers, but if you assume that everyone who gets on at Union Station (16,500) is going home after work, and then double that for those commuting to US, you get 33,000 total. With 53,901 total trips that means that about 39% of the total boardings do not originate or end at US. That seems surprising.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Dec 30, 2009 15:43:21 GMT -8
This might be reading too much into the numbers, but if you assume that everyone who gets on at Union Station (16,500) is going home after work, and then double that for those commuting to US, you get 33,000 total. With 53,901 total trips that means that about 39% of the total boardings do not originate or end at US. That seems surprising. IINM the total number of boardings at LAUS is the 16k number. That already includes riders leaving and then returning except they call it East and West. The percentage that do not board or originate at LAUS is (53k-16k)/53k. One thing that I can't figure out in these numbers and the Expo Phase 2 estimates are why the show both East/West boardings for the terminal stations. Expo doesn't head east from 7th/metro and the gold line doesn't continue east from Atlantic. What am I missing?
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Post by rubbertoe on Dec 30, 2009 16:52:43 GMT -8
Yes, the Eastbound from Atlantic and the Westbound from Sierra Madre are indeed mysteries. It's even funnier because they call going from Sierra Madre to Atlantic Eastbound, when geographically Atlantic is West of Sierra Madre Must be because the recently completed extension is called the Eastside Extension, so any trains going there are by default traveling Eastbound. I was trying to figure out the number of riders not using US. I realize that the non-US *boarders* are indeed the (53k-16k)/53k = ~70% you showed. I then also subtracted another ~16k for riders boarding at other stations, assuming they were going to US as a final destination. That was assuming that everyone who boarded at US was going home from an incoming commute. Thats where I came up with the (53k-16k-16k)/53k = 39% not entering/exiting at US, which I interpreted to be 39% of the riders were not using (entering or exiting) US. One thing that is for sure is that the total boardings obviously has to equal the number of un-boardings. I would think that for any given station, you would have a roughly equal number of each, representing commuters going to/from the same two stations both before and after work. I wouldn't imagine the number of one way trips would be very high, unless someone is say going from Pasadena to US to then take the flyaway to LAX to head out of town. RT
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Post by rubbertoe on Dec 30, 2009 17:03:35 GMT -8
And then you have this: la.curbed.com/archives/2009/12/so_how_is_that_gold_line_extension_doing.php"Metro is averaging about 10,000 average weekday boardings on the Eastside extension but we’ve also seen a 5-10 percent increase in ridership on the original Gold Line segment between downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena" According to Metro's own data, which I graph, November boardings are only up about ~7k from the previous month. I'm hoping that the guy being quoted just knows more than we do, and that maybe those November ridership numbers they report on their site are averaged over the whole month and not really reflecting the current weekday ridership. If thats the case, we could be over 30k for December... Previous was ~21k, if that goes up 10% then call it ~23k, add in another 10k like he says then you are at 33k. RT
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Post by bluelineshawn on Dec 30, 2009 18:21:50 GMT -8
Yes, the Eastbound from Atlantic and the Westbound from Sierra Madre are indeed mysteries. It's even funnier because they call going from Sierra Madre to Atlantic Eastbound, when geographically Atlantic is West of Sierra Madre Must be because the recently completed extension is called the Eastside Extension, so any trains going there are by default traveling Eastbound. I was trying to figure out the number of riders not using US. I realize that the non-US *boarders* are indeed the (53k-16k)/53k = ~70% you showed. I then also subtracted another ~16k for riders boarding at other stations, assuming they were going to US as a final destination. That was assuming that everyone who boarded at US was going home from an incoming commute. Thats where I came up with the (53k-16k-16k)/53k = 39% not entering/exiting at US, which I interpreted to be 39% of the riders were not using (entering or exiting) US. One thing that is for sure is that the total boardings obviously has to equal the number of un-boardings. I would think that for any given station, you would have a roughly equal number of each, representing commuters going to/from the same two stations both before and after work. I wouldn't imagine the number of one way trips would be very high, unless someone is say going from Pasadena to US to then take the flyaway to LAX to head out of town. RT Ok, I get it now.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Dec 30, 2009 18:25:36 GMT -8
And then you have this: la.curbed.com/archives/2009/12/so_how_is_that_gold_line_extension_doing.php"Metro is averaging about 10,000 average weekday boardings on the Eastside extension but we’ve also seen a 5-10 percent increase in ridership on the original Gold Line segment between downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena" According to Metro's own data, which I graph, November boardings are only up about ~7k from the previous month. I'm hoping that the guy being quoted just knows more than we do, and that maybe those November ridership numbers they report on their site are averaged over the whole month and not really reflecting the current weekday ridership. If thats the case, we could be over 30k for December... Previous was ~21k, if that goes up 10% then call it ~23k, add in another 10k like he says then you are at 33k. RT Keep in mind that the extension was only open the last two weeks of November. At first I doubted his numbers but he could be right. It'll be interesting to see.
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Post by James Fujita on Dec 31, 2009 20:27:01 GMT -8
It's probably way too early to be expecting much from the Gold Line Eastside Extension just quite yet. Give it a few months.
I'm curious to see if people headed south from Pasadena use the Little Tokyo station as an alternative to transferring to the Red Line at Union Station.
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Post by jeisenbe on Dec 31, 2009 22:58:21 GMT -8
James, I imagine there should be a small but significant number of new riders going from the "old" Gold Line to Little Tokyo who would not have ridden before. The Civic Center station is the only Red Line station that is particularly close to the Little Tokyo station on the Gold Line. Walking all the way from LAUS or transferring to a bus would have be the only way to get to the eastern half of Little Tokyo or the Arts district, before, if coming from Pasadena by transit.
I wish we had detailed station numbers. But station ridership for Los Angeles Metro is something of an art. I believe most people riding the subway or light rail actually have monthly metro passes; perhaps 30% use TAP or buy a paper ticket, based on my experience (Fare evaders are only about 5% of the total, according to Metro). To calculate ridership, Metro has employees ride the trains and count the number of boardings and alightments (sp?) at each station. (These folks are on light duty due to a medical problem or work injury. They do not wear uniforms, to avoid spooking the fare evaders, but carry an electronic device to record the numbers surreptitiously)
On the other hand, in fare-gate based systems it can be difficult to tell how many people transfer between trains at each station, since this does not involve leaving the fare gates. We don't have that problem... no free transfers!
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Post by bluelineshawn on Jan 15, 2010 17:45:03 GMT -8
The ridership on the new segment seems to be doing better. There might be ups and downs to come, but I'm pleasantly surprised at the number of riders that I saw the last two times that I rode. Especially between LAUS and Soto. Of the new stations I'd say that Mariachi, Little Tokyo, and Atlantic are noticeably busier than the rest.
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Post by masonite on Jan 17, 2010 16:01:40 GMT -8
The ridership on the new segment seems to be doing better. There might be ups and downs to come, but I'm pleasantly surprised at the number of riders that I saw the last two times that I rode. Especially between LAUS and Soto. Of the new stations I'd say that Mariachi, Little Tokyo, and Atlantic are noticeably busier than the rest. Interesting info. Some day I hope to get out there to ride this extension. Is there any sign yet of the new fencing along the street running portion? Hopefully, they can speed up the line some once this happens. I know they the ramp over the freeway goes slightly faster now and hopefully they can speed up the tunnel portion as well, which looked slow out of last subway station on Darrell's video during pre-revenue service.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Jan 17, 2010 17:18:57 GMT -8
I rode again yesterday and no new fencing yet. And speaking of the ramp over the freeway, it's weird how even though it takes two minutes to travel from Union Station to Little Tokyo, the signal at Temple just before the station isn't synchronized. I think that I almost always have to stop at that signal for anywhere from a few seconds to nearly a minute.
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Post by Justin Walker on Jan 17, 2010 20:21:50 GMT -8
Is there any sign yet of the new fencing along the street running portion? No fences yet, but certainly progress. According to this month's CCMO Report, fence post holes have been drilled and the fence sections have been fabricated. The fences will be fully installed by June.
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Post by Gokhan on Jan 18, 2010 23:54:19 GMT -8
I think all major light-rail lines should be fully fenced. It makes them much safer, and it increases the LRT speed limit to 45 MPH between the crossings. Although, usually, Metro still operates LRT at 35 MPH because the speed limit at the crossings is 35 MPH, and they may be trying to avoid accelerating and decelerating between the crossings. But the legal, CPUC-imposed speed limit is 45 MPH. In any case, when the fences are installed, we should see at least 35 MPH, instead of the current 25 MPH or so.
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Post by James Fujita on Jan 19, 2010 16:12:13 GMT -8
On the other hand, in fare-gate based systems it can be difficult to tell how many people transfer between trains at each station, since this does not involve leaving the fare gates. We don't have that problem... no free transfers! it depends on the type of fare gate. San Francisco has a really nice fare gate system with a robust smart card and ALL paper tickets have magnetic stripes on them. so, for that matter, does Tokyo. in both of those systems, every time sometime enters or exits the system, it is recorded - both the time and the location. if somebody gets on the subway in one part of town, changes trains, and arrives a half-hour later at his destination, the central computer can determine what trains he would have had to have taken to get from point A to point B, and from there figure out the obvious transfer points. Los Angeles' system isn't perfect because there aren't enough fare gates and there are too many non-magnetic paper tickets, but theoretically, TAP card-enabled fare gates should make counting ridership and even counting specific station entrances, transfers and so forth, easier. you would have laser-guided ridership figures.
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Post by erict on Jan 19, 2010 16:37:48 GMT -8
Singapore has a great system of fare gates and a tap like card- but every station also has an several attendants.
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Post by James Fujita on Jan 19, 2010 20:02:34 GMT -8
Singapore has a great system of fare gates and a tap like card- but every station also has an several attendants. Attendants who, presumably, are useful for more than just counting up passengers, but also answering stupid questions, pointing out which track leads where, answering stupid questions, solving problems or calling somebody who can solve mechanical or technical problems, answering more stupid questions and watching out for potential criminals, which, since this is Singapore we're talking about, might include very well gum chewers. Station attendants are not a side effect of smart cards but should be examples of user-friendly transit systems.
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Post by erict on Jan 20, 2010 7:25:35 GMT -8
I was one of those people asking stupid questions because it was a little confusing at first on the machine which ticket to buy
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Post by rubbertoe on Feb 1, 2010 12:29:20 GMT -8
December numbers are out. It is questionable whether the 10,000 extra riders on the EE mentioned by the Metro spokesman previously are real. The 28,621 are up 150 per day over the November numbers. Each of the other lines is down around 2,000 riders per month, so I guess if you subtract 2,000 from the pre-EE opening of 21,322 in October the resulting 19,322 is 9,299 less than the current 28,621. So maybe there are 10,000 EE riders now... All in all the December numbers are the highest ever for any month of Gold Line operation. If the past years trends hold true, we should start seeing gas prices head up for the summer too.
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Post by spokker on Feb 14, 2010 14:31:36 GMT -8
In my experience Gold Line trains come into Union Station from East LA nearly empty, and continue to Pasadena nearly full.
At least this was my experience on Saturday.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Feb 14, 2010 14:59:09 GMT -8
Sometimes. At other times there are more people on the train when it arrives at Union Station. I've seen trains as much as 50% full and seen them with as few as 3 or 4 people on it along with everything in between.
So far I've been most impressed with the number of riders using the Little Tokyo station. I think that Little Tokyo and Mariachi are in the top 50% for ridership out of all gold line stations, but the rest of them, except maybe Atlantic are all near the bottom. Pico Aliso may be the least used station in the entire system.
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Post by masonite on Feb 14, 2010 15:43:14 GMT -8
The January figures will be the first real month we can measure Gold Line ridership. Unfortunately, I think it is going to be disappointing. It may be a quite a struggle to get the overall Gold Line to 35k riders.
I think the station placement for the Gold Line (both sections) should be scrutinized for what not to do with our future lines. On Pico/Aliso, it is easy to see why there is little ridership. The neighborhood isn't all that dense and it is hemmed in by the LA River on one side and the freeway on the other. Even with that, it is hard to argue in this case that there shouldn't be a station there given that this neighborhood has been totally cut off.
The question is whether these stations will be more utilized once a connector is built. Unfortunately, it may be a decade before we know, and we'll be subsidizing those empty trains for quite a while barring any improvement. I think people fail to realize how expensive it is to run empty trains. With a $250M deficit, the Gold Line is the prime candidate to see service cuts as much as I would hate to see that.
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