Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Ridership Up in Select Cities

UTA: Redesign reaches out to poor, minorities

According to UTA figures ridership is up in select areas after the redesign. Now that is good news, of course what really counts is what revenue is doing and totally new riders not moved riders. The other thing that is not explained is which routes are being covered. There seems to be some pretty blanket statements being made.

Lets look at the biggest increase and that is South South Lake. OK, what routes are we talking about here? There seems to be little specifics. How many are actually new riders or riders shifted from other areas do to cuts such as the service along 700 East? What constitutes service through South South Lake? Is the increase attributable to riders having to transfer were they had a one seat ride before?

There seems to be a serious lake of data to back up what the UTA is saying here. This is one problem with transit systems in general is that they love to brandish ridership numbers but they don't tell the story of what is really happening to the bus service.

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