2 replies to this topic

[Lmichigan]

Ridership at CATA just keeps on keepin' on.  This millage coming up really needs to be passed.

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11.3 Million Mark Sets 37-Year Ridership Record for CATA

The Capital Area Transportation Authority (CATA) set a new ridership record with 11.3 million rides between October 1, 2007 and September 30, 2008.

The 11.3 million riders represent a 5.8 percent increase from last year’s numbers, and mark a 37-year high for CATA.

...

The most significant growth this past year occurred in urban routes throughout the region. September 2008 ridership of 1,250,878 broke all of CATA’s monthly ridership records.

In that month alone, customers took 156,783 more rides compared to the same month in 2007.

Edited by Lmichigan, 22 October 2008 - 07:38 PM.

[Lmichigan]

I went to look at the actual CATA press release and some notables things found include:

Quote

- Route 1 Downtown Lansing - Meridian Mall
1.75 million rides in FY08- nearly 150,000 more rides than ’07
- Route 5 South Cedar - Edgewood
Over 570,000 rides- nearly 75,000 more than FY07
- Route 8 S. Pennsylvania - Holt
Nearly 435,000 rides- an increase of over 60,000 rides
- Route 12 West Michigan - Waverly
Increased nearly 19%; providing over 123,000 rides
- Route 14 North Grand River - Airport
Grew over 25%, providing over 211,000 rides
- Route 20 South Harrison - Jolly - Dunckel
Gave over 41,000 more rides in FY08- over 226,000 total for FY08
- Route 24 East Lansing - East Lake Lansing Road
Over 127,000 rides in FY08
- Route 26 Abbot - Chandler
Passengers took over 620,000 rides in 2008- over 100,000 more rides than 2007

# The two limited stop commuter services - the Mason Limited and Williamston/Webberville Limited - showed 38.8% and 30.4% increases respectively.  
# CATA Spec-Tran provided 348,301 rides in FY08- a 3.2% increase.  
# Passengers took over 98,000 rides in rural areas - on CATA Rural Service, Mason and Williamston Redi-Rides and Connectors.  That is an annual increase of 14.7% in rural services.

Edited by Lmichigan, 22 October 2008 - 10:03 PM.

[manzell3]

CATA's seen a nonstop expansion of ridership since about 1995.  We've set new records i think every year since 1998!   (Check the community report: http://www.cata.org/...rtFINAL_LR.pdf)

Want to know something funny and a bit off-topic?  The state funding for public transit has been stagnant for transit since 1998.  While CATA's ridership grew by about 250% in that period, the funding grew by about 55% ($6.6mil to $10.2 mil).  The state funded us at 50% local match in 1998, now we're lucky if we get 28% of our local match.  Go figure - as soon as they start needing transit, they stop funding it!

If we can get more TOD in the urban areas, i think we can see twice that ridership.

Edited by manzell3, 17 November 2008 - 09:50 AM.