Source

midflinx

u/midflinx

r/transit•

BART's 46% weekend ridership surge with some context

Discussion

Using BART's data, comparing Saturday and Sunday the 18th and 19th to the 11th and 12th (when it rained) as BART says ridership increased 46%.

Comparing the 18th and 19th instead to the 4th and 5th, ridership increased 17% and 12%. Up, but not 46% up.

Including March Saturdays to the comparison, which included a No Kings rally day, and probably some other events on at least one other day:

4-18: 139,965

4-11: 94,539

4-4: 119,199

3-28: 150,682

3-21: 122,950

3-14: 134,810

3-7: 139,004

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r/transit•

New York Times' article about free bus' ridership increase in Iowa City has a number that doesn't match NTD data

Questions

This article is getting shared on some subreddits:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/climate/iowa-city-free-buses.html

It includes this line:

Ridership eventually grew to 118 percent of prepandemic levels, compared to the average nationally transit ridership-recovery levels of 85 percent.

However when comparing the National Transit Database pages for the agency in 2019 and 2024 (the most recent available and links for those are below), they only show Annual Unlinked Trips increased 1.27%. Annual Passenger Miles increased 9.1%.

The following numbers are for the buses and not demand response because in 2024 there were no demand response miles and hours provided. Including 2019 dem

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