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Columbus Local News wrote
COTA bus ridership continues upswing
Published: Saturday, March 22, 2008
As gasoline prices are the highest Central Ohio residents have seen in recent memory, and more cyclists hit the road and trails, COTA ridership continues to increase.
In January, ridership was at 1.29 million, an increase of 4.7 percent from January 2007, he said. In February, the transit authority clocked in more than 1.2 million rides, an increase of 190,195 rides overall from February 2007, he said.
COTA customers also took advantage of the transit authority’s Bike n’ Bus program in greater numbers in 2007, with 39,930 bike riders boarding the bus — a 9.52 percent increase over 2006.
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COTA bus ridership continues upswing in 2008
By: Walker
Related Posts:
Good to see good news for COTA. But I can’t understand why some stops are so close to each other. There’s one north of Main and one the next one north is just a block away. They haven’t removed one stop because people can’t walk one more block? And then there’s two southbound at SCG which are also just a block apart. Of course there are a good number more that need to be cut. I may be using them when the weather’s good and I head out too far by bike and get jello legs.
Higher ridership is undoubtedly good news, but I was wondering if the higher gas prices would hurt COTA more than the higher ridership helps them. So I did what any engineer does at lunch, rough calculations.
Higher Fuel Costs
I estimated that COTA uses 5,730 gallons of fuel per day based on stats in the 2006 Comprehensive Financial Report. This number has probably changed slightly since 2006, but it probably would have gone up due to increased service, so I’m being conservative.
The average price of Midwest diesel fuel increased from $2.43 to $3.27 per gallon between January, 2007 and January, 2008. So they are spending roughly $4,813 extra per day if they have to pay retail rates for regular grade gasoline. That is an extra $149,209 for 31 days of January.
Higher Ridership
COTA earns roughly 89.4 cents per ride ($13,420,000/15,010,219 rides) based on the 2006 statistics for ridership and passenger revenue in the same financial report. Seems low, but maybe not considering lower price per ride for monthly passes and all the discounts for seniors, students, children, and the disabled.
So if there were approximately 60,000 extra rides in January, 2008 compared to Jan, 2007, then they would have earned $53,640 more than in January, 2007. COTA may have done better in February, 2008, when they had 190,000 more rides than in 2007, but the extra leap year day will have also contributed to that increase.
Result
For January, that is a net deficit of ($95,750) due to higher fuel prices. Not particularly good news. So go get on the bus more, and pay full fare.
Thank you! I couldn’t agree more. How much fuel could they save by stopping and accelerating less often, not to mention labor due to faster running times? My whole bus plan is based on this philosophy.
I understand your thinking behind fewer stops along the route, but I am one of the people that has recently increased COTAs ridership (I started taking COTA to work every day in December) and I probably wouldn’t ride if there were considerably fewer stops. My bus, the #5, doesn’t actually stop at every stop along the way, but it’s nice to be able to get on/off at so many different points. If that bus only stopped, say, at Kenny Rd and not again until Grandview Ave, you’d lose a lot of riders who want a convenient route to work. It’s no fun walking 10 blocks during the summer while wearing a business suit.
That’s just my 2 cents…
That’s just my 2 cents…
Dude, riding the COTA is NOT living the High Life.
HA riding the COTA is totally living the High Life. You can enjoy as many High Life’s as you want before going anywhere… :D
I’ve seen people ride COTA for one stop on High Street (Rich to Main). I’ve also seen people ride the bus for the length of Goodale Park on Buttles.
I guess I’ve also seen some other things on COTA that make me scratch my head.
At the Statehouse sometimes they bring the drug/bomb german shepherd through the bus. I don’t know if that makes me feel safe or terrified.
One man brings Chinese food leftovers on the bus everyday.
Another guy wears a backpack with his jacket over the backpack.
Another lady sits down, gets out her change, then goes up and pays.
The COTA experience is a giant mystery to me.
That’s just my 2 cents…
You have a good point. If the stops are not consistently utilized by passengers boarding or alighting, then the speed advantage of having fewer stops decreases and the disadvantages are negligible. If I were COTA, I would certainly want to look at ridership at each stop along a route to determine where fewer stops could significantly improve running times and where they would just increase walking distances.
In general, I think people will be willing to walk a little farther to access what would become a faster service. In the example you mentioned, I’d have a stop at 5th & Northwest too.
close stops are there to assist the elderly and disabled. Not everyone riding is healthy teens and hipsters.
You have identified the biggest concern I have about my plan. I also worry that the majority of the population will never ride a bus that can’t even come close to competing with cars in terms of travel time. The bus trips have to get faster.
when i lived on summit & 18th, and also when i lived on hanford, and took the bus downtown, travel time was comparable, or even faster on the bus since I didn’t have to park 2 blocks away and wallk to work, the bus would drop me off right out front of the building.
i just got really tired of the inconsistent bus schedule, so when your job is depending on you getting to work on time it can get frustrating waiting on a bus that never comes, or that you missed cause it was early.
When I used to take the #4 downtown from Wyandotte it took about three times longer than driving (30-35 minutes compared to 10-15). When I was running on High Street, I could keep up with the #2. I was faster on roller blades.
Fewer stops would increase reliability.
The article states that increased rideship is becuase of high gas prices, and that is likely the case… but it did not even go further to see if that is indeed the case… maybe many people just are fed up with cars and all the pollution, mutiltion, death, trashyness, classlessness, unaatractive pieces of shit they are. That is why I quit driving at least four years ago.
Cyclist:
The only way to test that would be to see if people switch back to cars if gas prices go down again. If they do, they obviously aren’t “fed up with cars and all the pollution, mutiltion, death, trashyness, classlessness, unaatractive pieces of shit they are.”
My guess is that they would in fact switch back, but that’s because I assume the conclusion: I really don’t think most people consider cars to be all that. On the other hand, many people do consider them expensive.
The only way to test that would be to see if people switch back to cars if gas prices go down again. If they do, they obviously aren’t “fed up with cars and all the pollution, mutiltion, death, trashyness, classlessness, unaatractive pieces of shit they are.”
My guess is that they would in fact switch back, but that’s because I assume the conclusion: I really don’t think most people consider cars to be all that. On the other hand, many people do consider them expensive.
You are right, and the article is too, but I do wonder what narrow percentage of people make a switch people of reasons beyond cost, for simplicity, environmental, practicallity, disability/age, lifestyle change reasons. Maybe it is just hip or trendy, or maybe younger adults are smartening up to thier mobility choices, but I have heard and known from many people under 30 (and my own social circles) a total disgust and dislike of automobiles and a real desire to disassociate from that lifestyle and mobility choice.
Do you drive to work or work to drive?
Just a thought on a subject that is very concerning to me. And fryers are sweet!
I’m definitely stealing this quote! :lol:
The only way to test that would be to see if people switch back to cars if gas prices go down again. If they do, they obviously aren’t “fed up with cars and all the pollution, mutiltion, death, trashyness, classlessness, unaatractive pieces of shit they are.”
My guess is that they would in fact switch back, but that’s because I assume the conclusion: I really don’t think most people consider cars to be all that. On the other hand, many people do consider them expensive.
You are right, and the article is too, but I do wonder what narrow percentage of people make a switch people of reasons beyond cost, for simplicity, environmental, practicallity, disability/age, lifestyle change reasons. Maybe it is just hip or trendy, or maybe younger adults are smartening up to thier mobility choices, but I have heard and known from many people under 30 (and my own social circles) a total disgust and dislike of automobiles and a real desire to disassociate from that lifestyle and mobility choice.
Right, but your social circle might be a little self-selected.
I’d cheerily drop $100k on a car given the right opportunity (and $100k). And I’d also ride a streetcar or light rail when I didn’t feel like driving that car, and I’d be happy to carpool with others going to the same place I was. Being pro-transit and pro-car aren’t mutually exclusive the vast majority of the time.
Posted by Tim Doulin on April 18, 2008
More people appear to be riding the bus. Central Ohio Transit Authority says ridership is up 6.8 percent so far this year. Over a rolling 12-month period ending the middle of April, ridership is up 3.8 percent.
Higher gas prices and COTA’s bus service expansion is driving the increase, COTA believes. Ohio State University students also are riding the bus more, COTA said.
READ MORE
Uh oh, people are riding the busses. You guys nervous?
Huh? Do we have any anti-bus people on CU that would be nervous about this news?
I think it’s great. I’ve been riding the bus a lot lately (rode it over to your store last time I stopped in) and enjoy it a lot.