The folks over enviro research group Sightline pointed out an interesting mystery: Why the hell is streetcar ridership rising?!
TriMet ridership has been up and down since 2008 (with bus ridership down nine percent), but for some reason the streetcar stats are up by 11 percent. As Clark Williams-Derry over at Sightline says:
I truly have no idea what’s fueled the streetcar’s gravity-defying ridership stats. Neither, apparently, do the folks at the Portland Streetcar. In their view, nothing significant has changed in or near the streetcar route that would explain the increase. The areas serviced by the streetcar were fully developed by 2008; there haven’t been major new employers on the route; the streetcar hasn’t increased its service; and nearby transit has basically remained the same. You can’t attribute the gains to effective marketing, since the streetcar doesn’t even have a marketing budget.
Personally, I find this mystifying. Who rides the streetcar? It comes every 20 minutes, if you’re lucky, making it effective transportation only for tourists and people who actually plan their day around the streetcar schedule. Ideas, anyone?
But whatever the reason, the increased ridership will certainly reinforce Mayor Adams’ justification for asking the federal government for $168 million for a streetcar expansion—a whopping 71 percent of the money the city is asking the feds for in its top priority list.
- Workers unveil the new American-made streetcar in July 09.
My wife takes the Max downtown and then catches the streetcar to PSU every day. I simply think more people are becoming aware of it. And yeah, the tourists.
I wonder how they count ridership. No one pays for it, so I hope they aren’t using ticket sales. I like to outwalk the streetcar, to prove how superior I am.
In their view, nothing significant has changed in or near the streetcar route that would explain the increase. The areas serviced by the streetcar were fully developed by 2008;
just because the areas were ‘fully developed’ doesn’t meant that people were living in the condos, etc. speculators probably weren’t riding it.
Where is it rising?
What time frame?
What parts of town?
Been on it once. Probably will ride it about every five years.
Get off your ass fatass america! The entire route is about a 30 minute walk!
@Blabby – Same here. That thing is SLOW. Used to live on 23rd and go to PSU, and it was always quicker to walk.
The streetcar is useful for getting to OHSU. That’s about it.
Um, because they stopped Fareless Square and changed it to the Free Rail Zone?
free rail zone + shitty economy = more riders. eezy.
The author asks: “Who rides the streetcar? It comes every 20 minutes, if you’re lucky, making it effective transportation only for tourists and people who actually plan their day around the streetcar schedule.”
For what it’s worth, here’s what the schedule page on the Portland Streetcar web site says:
“The streetcar runs approximately every 13 minutes on weekdays between 9:30am and 5pm. After 5pm & before 9:30am the trains run every 14-20 minutes.”
Additionally, if you won’t want to “plan your day” around the streetcar, you can simply check in on the next arrival using NextBus, via the Streetcar web site or the NextBus.com web site, or the fantastic (and free) iPhone app PDXBus, which also integrates with nearly all TriMet routes.
Thirteen minute headways, incidentally, are better than what TriMet describes for its “frequent service” bus lines.
At some point a few years from now, after the eastside loop is fully completed (this assumes that TriMet’s Milwaukie light rail bridge goes forward), the two routes will overlap downtown, potentially bringing 6 or 7 minute headways in the central city.
Blabby asks: “I wonder how they count ridership.”
They have people who do physical counts on a statistically significant number of streetcars at various times of day and across multiple days. “Ons” and “Offs” are counted at each stop along the way. These physical counts are then adjusted/weighted (using statistically valid methods) to arrive at an average daily boarding figure.
Thanks for asking!
Disclosure: I am a member of the Streetcar Citizens Advisory Committee, which is a volunteer organization which advises the city and the streetcar board. I have also done work on the streetcar web site, primarily on a volunteer basis, but occasionally for pay when the number of hours for a given project exceeds an agreed monthly cap.
I invite anyone to attend the CAC meetings, they are open to the public. Meeting information can be found here:
http://www.portlandstreetcar.org/node/21
I agree that some of the increase in ridership may be coming from folks who used to be Fareless Square bus riders and have now shifted to MAX or the Streetcar.
But I also think a lot more locals are discovering it and using it for day-to-day tasks. I see folks with grocery carts, students, etc.
Quite a few tourists, too, but tourists and out-of-town shoppers alone don’t explain it as weekday ridership is higher than weekend ridership, and the streetcar gets very crowded at weekday peak hour, just like any transit line.
@ Bob, if I show up to a meeting, can I suggest a change to “Streetcar Citizens Advisory Team?” (I’m a trustee of the Better Acronym Recommendation Foundation)
Well, you can suggest anything you like, of course. (ahem)
Cirque du Soliel.
Maybe it is growth in the popularity of frotteurism.
You cannot take the bus for free downtown anymore.
Why would anyone take the Trolley since you can always walk to where you are going faster. Oh yeah frottage with those cute Cosplayers.
I ride it…AND I pay when my trip takes me out of zone 1 (NW something and something). So suck it you haters.
What this city needs is another form of public transportation serving primarily PSU / OHSU. I’m thinking hovercrafts. Or maybe monster trucks. What’s Grave Digger up to these days? I bet it wouldn’t be tough to install a back seat. Then TriMet could announce that “Grave Digger ridership is up! We don’t know why, apart from ‘cuz it’s awesome.”
Wasn’t the Line 15 Bus detouring around that area for a few months? I can see people who lived in the area (I used to) opting for a streetcar ride to get downtown for their job/transfer instead of walking a few extra blocks for the detoured 15. I used to wait at 23rd and Marshall and would take whichever one showed up first.
The fare less riders should be EXCLUDED form all Trimet statistics, period.
They effectively have two classes of riders in this city.
The privileged that pay nothing, they poor schmucks that consistently see their fares going up!
There is no transit equity in this city.
And when you travel to the west side, you pay the most and get the shittiest equipment.
These statistics mean nothing as far as I am concerned.
Al –
You (and anyone else) should really come to the CAC meetings. Once of the ideas which is being tossed around is to decouple the streetcar from TriMet fare policy. In the past, I’ve been a strong supporter of maintaining consistent fares so that the streetcar is easy to understand and use, but there is a problem for when the eastside loop opens… eastside residents and businesses are paying in, just like those on the west side, but they’ll have to pay a fare because the eastside loop lies mostly outside of the “Free Rail Zone”. This creates an equity issue. One way to solve this (barring changes in TriMet policy — remember, the Streetcar is not a TriMet service) is for the Portland Streetcar to charge a flat fare, like $1, anywhere on the alignment, and not participate in the “Free Rail Zone” at all.
Hasn’t the population of the South Waterfront, which is served almost exclusively by streetcar, increased greatly since 2008?
If you’re going a long distance on the streetcar (like from one end of downtown to the other) it is not faster to walk. Ideas on why it has picked up ridership – free transportation in a bad economy, people moving into all the new condos in the Pearl, people working and I guess a few people living in South Waterfront, growth in student body at PNCA.