11.3 Million Mark Sets 37-Year Ridership Record for CATA

[RustTown]

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

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

[RustTown]

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

- 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.

[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/Portals/0/docs/07-CATA...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.