Jarrett Walker, one of the consultants who helped design the new Metro bus network, looks at the most recent stats from Metro and tells us what they mean.
It’s now been about two months since Houston METRO implemented their New Network, developed through a process called the System Reimagining. The first ridership numbers are in, and some could be misread as cause for panic. In fact, they’re exactly what we’d expect. So let’s take a deep breath and have a look:
First, let’s remember what thew New Network did. The changes did three major things, without increasing the operating budget by much:
- They shifted the percentage of the network devoted to ridership goals from 55% to around 75%.
- They vastly expanded the reach of frequent service so that it connected 1 million people with 1 million jobs.
- They expanded weekend service, especially Sunday service, so that the daytime and evening service levels on those days are almost identical to service on weekdays.
We now have the first ridership data, in the form of a report comparing ridership each month to the same month a year before. Since the New Network was implemented in August, the first data showing the impact is the comparison of September 2015 to September 2014. Here it is, from METRO’s monthly report. Note that the “METROBus – Local” is the category of service dramatically changed by the redesign.
Rail is soaring, but look at the buses! Red ink! What’s wrong? Were the consultants fools?
Not at all. This is exactly what we’d expect. In fact, it’s consistent with the New Network having a positive impact on bus ridership. Here’s why.
Click over to see the embedded image from that report and the analysis that follows. The Urban Edge blog looked at the same data and came to basically the same conclusion as well. The bottom line is that this was a really big change, there are multiple moving parts to the ridership numbers, and it’s going to take awhile for us to know the full effect. In the meantime, as noted in Metro’s press release, rail ridership numbers continue to climb. I look forward to seeing what next year’s numbers look like.