MARTA Ridership Up 14% vs. Last Year
Decatur Metro | June 16, 2008 | 4:27 pmO.K. So the bump wasn’t as big as first reported.
According to MARTA CEO Dr. Beverly Scott, in an WABE interview (below), MARTA ridership is up 14% last month vs. year-ago. That’s a bit more believable (based on first hand experience) than the 60% I first found amongst the detritus of the internet. [h/t: PecanneLog]
Guess that leaves some room on the trains when gas goes up another couple bucks. At least these prices have Sonny finally acknowledging the existence of rail transportation.
That’s strange — her communications department last week told me it’s up 7 percent. When you take into account how many riders MARTA handles every day, that’s a sizable amount.
Maybe they gave you an all of 2008 number, as opposed to “last month”, which is what Dr. Scott cites in the interview…
I clarified the period used in the post above.
Do you have an actual number of riders figure?
You bet I do! Or at least for April of this year compared to April of last year. They’re finishing/just finished the fiscal year, so the overall numbers should be out soon.
Here’s what MARTA PR sent me:
April 2007 Unlinked Trips = 11,999,867
April 2008 Unlinked Trips = 12,800,276
Increase = 6.67%
Thanks man!
Wow…a million more riders a month than last year…and gas was still only $3.50 in April.
Wouldn’t “last month” be May? These numbers are April.
Yeah, this has gotten pretty confusing…
Wheatley’s numbers are April, but when Scott mentions the 14% in the interview above she says “last month”, which would be May.
So I guess we can say it was up 7% in April and 14% in May…
Ack. Yes, you’re right. Those were the most recent numbers the PR department had available. Delivered to my inbox on 6/9.
So, how many PEOPLE is that? If you figure the average new commuter is taking 2 trips per day, 20 days per month, that’s 20,000 people… and if most people dont take as many trips, it’s even more.. .and over twice that in May? That’s pretty amazing.