Last 5 months of bus ridership for 2008-2009 from Metro:

October   -7.57%        7,532,200

November -24.27% 5,674,900

December -32.37% 5,417,900

January  -24.14% 5,576,900

February -21.98% 5,461,200

(%'s are drops from year prior)

Mary, where did you get the figure of 400,000 commuters riding Metro each day?

Taking that sampling (most recent) and dividing the sum total by 131 days comes to an average of 226,436 "paid trips".

Eliminating all weekend "paid trips", and with using only week days, the average daily number, again of "PAID trips" or trips recorded, is 282,505 per day.

The actual number of individuals, aka commuters, would be closer to less than half that number.

I lost track of the calculation used to determine individuals.  A guy who works for me pays for and takes four separate bus trips per day.  He is not 4 commuters, he is one.

Am I missing something in the calculating or is the 400,000 an error?

Ready to respond?

I'm glad you are ready for emergencies and terrorism. Are you ready for holidays? I don't think so. The July 4th Holiday "Sunday" schedule on Friday was a disaster.

I wish you would respond to your customers -- most of whom needed rides to/from work last Friday. Declaring what was a work day for the majority of non park and ride customers a "Sunday" was in my estimation a very big mistake. Not only do some buses not even run on Sunday, the schedules are so different and bus timing widely spaced it caused me to be an hour and 15 minutes late to work. The ride home was worse. I ride the 81/82 inside the loop to downtown. A normal 20 minute trip took more than 40 minutes. Not only did we stop at almost every stop, we picked up 2-4 passengers at most stops. When I got on (after waiting for a bus for over 45 minutes) there were over 30 people standing and my standing space was pressed up against the fare box. Most people who got on after me did not pay because they could not even get on the front of the bus. Absolutely ridiculous.

The people who make these "holiday" decisions do not live in the real world. Thankfully, July 4th will only fall on Saturday every 6-7 years. But I hope next time you think it through a little better.

METRO counts each "paid" trip as a number. So the employee may use 4 buses in a day (that's if all goes well and one doesn't break down). But going to work he transfers so that 2nd trip is not counted.

So that one person is counted 2 times per day instead of 4 considering all of his transfers happen within the 2 hour transfer period.

But I find it hard to believe that the METROLift and METRORail would have the same 40k/day figure.

MetroRail carries 40,000 a day, but only about 27,982 actually pay to use the system. Those numbers are based off my two years of riding the rail I might be off by a thousand. How strange would it be to show up to a baseball game knowing 30% of the people didn't pay? Positive reinforcement is beautiful. Anyways at Metro police will be there next time there is a crisis. I feel so safe....

C,

I think we may be victims of METREAUX doublespeak.  The boardings are a headcount for buses, and an ESTIMATE of "churned" forced boardings on the Lee. P. Brown legacy boondoggle tram.

The Q-Card has allowed METREAUX to assign the revenue across both modes (bus and tram).

METREAUX INSISTS ON COUNTING "UNLINKED" TRIPS ONLY!

TranStar is also the HQ for the Harris County Office of Emergency Management!

My wife and I and 2 year old grand daughter were  on the trolley a few nights ago when a black couple got into a screaming match with an old white woman. The blacks used every curse word imaginable and threatened the old lady. I'm used to this kind of behavior on Metro, but it scared my wife and grand daughter. I don't know if the operator knew what was going on or not. (he was probably too busy blowing his whistles) Of course Metro Police were nowhere to be found. The point is that instead of trying to be super cops or James Bond just ride the trolleys and buses in uniform and inforce some of the rules that are posted. Or better yet just disband the Metro Police and hire some security guards.

And the fact that the couple was black and the "old woman" was white is relevant why?  

Oh yeah, your a racists!

I did not take don's comments as racist.

I am inclined to think that those who immediately play the race card are likely racists, and there is no place for making such allegations against any one who is merely describing the scene.

I find that interactions between the races are becoming uglier insofar as Anglos are the ones now being bullied and verbally intimidated.

They don't push back, where I would, not wanting to anyone to usurp my American liberty.

Er, did anybody in the railcar actually:

1.  Call 911 or MPD

2.  Use the emergency call box on the railcar?

Also, if things went down as discribed, then you might have two very serious crimes:

1.  Elder abuse.

2.  Hate crime.  This one goes both ways.

I find it EXTREMELY hard to believe that METROLIFT has the capacity to carry 40,000 people a day.Perhaps they are using the Qcard data to determine that. BUSES are carrying the bulk of that.

People are constantly getting on and complaining that METROLIFT takes too long and is a hassle (being operated by the contractors).

wi11ie said:  

"I find it EXTREMELY hard to believe that METROLIFT has the capacity to carry 40,000 people a day.Perhaps they are using the Qcard data to determine that. BUSES are carrying the bulk of that."

I 100% agree with that statement Willie!  I saw it as soon as I read Mary's reply and that number blew me away as far too high.

I have several friends who work at AMC30 Dunvale who are handicapped and rely of MetroLift and they will sit for L O N G periods of time waiting.  The two times I saw them get in, they were the only passenger.

Mary also made another typo in her reply and said the total number was 40,000 *should have been 400,000) "people we carry every day".

Again, a false statement. or at the least deceptive.  Of that 400,000, there are ONLY less than 180,000 total unique people.  

That number now may be even lower since I have found that my worker friend takes four unique separate pay bus rides each day.

So he would be known as 4 people rather than one person taking 2 necessary buses each way to get to his destination.

This holds true for the rail line as well and the number would be much lower than 1/2 the total number of individual rides signaled by their door counters.

A side note:  One wonders if the calculations or door counter numbers removes the number of times employees enter and leave the trams?

I recently noticed several employees entering and leaving trams while the trams sat at the Fannin stop.  They may have been maintenance people cleaning but theyw ould have added 8-10 more trips to each tram.

I see those METRO lift buses running around with empty loads all day. One driver told me he picked up one lady and just waited for her to finish at her appointment for 4 hours.

No way Lift carries 40 thousand people per day.

Concerning my post about a problem on the trolley: From my experience there seems to be a more problems with people threatening others and being generally disruptive on the trolley than the bus. I would guess that is because there is no one of authority on board, whereas on the bus the driver is in charge. I have never seen any real problems on the bus. Metro Police needs to have more prescence on the trolley especially at night or hire security guards.

Um, 40,000 patrons riding on METRO Lift!  Yeah, maybe when the 2,000,000 people population in Houston becomes 50% handicapped, then a number of those proportions would be a little bit more realistic, therefore, believeable.  As for now, however, that it rediculously humorous.  As a matter of a fact, I went into a Wal*Mart store the other day at about noon to make some groceries with my family and there was a METRO Lift bus outside the front entrance of WAL*Mart sitting as empty as the 10 Willowbend!!!  About three maybe four hours later, that same exact METRO Lift vehicle was still parked in front of Wal*Mart with its doors open and those little amber "school bus" lights flashing in the back.  When do we start treating our society's handicapped citizens like they are elementary school students.  Next, those METRO Lift paratransit buses will be painted yellow with METRO I.S.D. painted on the sides of them.  

If we are always seeing all of these METRO Lift bus empty and just riding around wasting taxpayer gas, that personally, I could be using in my vehicle, why in the world is METRO trying to buy an additional 118 METRO Lift paratransit vehicles?  Don't Northwest's BOF commuter fleet needs to begin its replacement process?  The 4400s over there and at Hiram Clarke, needs urgent replacement and/or early retirement of those 4400s!  By the way, the freakin METRO Lift buses are already brand new, only about 2 years old, if I am not mistaking.  What is going on inside the brains of the people running METRO Lift, and ultimately METRO itself?  

Those METROlift buses aren't designed for the abuse they go through.

Engines aren't designed for running (idling) for 16 to 20 hours per day. Suspension is a standard suspension so it gives out and start squeezing after a year of Houston roads. The body of the bus leaks and doors get stuck a year or 2 after its in service.

Its cheaper to buy a new one every 2 years rather then keep trying to fix them.

METRO would be better off purchasing short-wheel base New Flyers. It's not necessary to always drive in someone drive way. And the cost to operate would be around the same.

The opther thing which is hard on some of the METROLift buses:  The Passengers!

Once i was at the stip mall across from Willowbrook Mall.  A ML bus was loading a passenger.  The passenger and the motorized chair combimed was so heavy that I actually saw the bus lean to the side, and the lift straining to get the combo up.

All of that is not good for the passenger (health), chair and bus.

Mary, for MetroLift to carry 40,000 people per day, every single MetroLift van in the 118 van fleet needs to carry 339 passengers per day.  That's the best case scenario with every single van running at peak efficiency which we know does not happpen.  

FY08: 1,418,647 / 365 = 3,887

I don't know, those numbers still seem a bit high. But METRO should just reimburse Yellow Cab and have them pickup the handicap. It would be cheaper in the long run.

METROlift is a waste of funds. Drop First Transit

Mary, 40,000 * 365 = 14,000,000.

I think you meant to type 4,000 people per day.