Bus Ridership Figures Not What They Appear

Susan De Vos
March 17, 2008

Metro insists on spreading questionable results and undermining its credibility. Since it is often increasingly necessary to transfer to make a trip, what used to be counted as one trip all of a sudden becomes two, not because you are travelling more but because people are playing with numbers. Metro tabulates each transferred ride as a separate trip. Even a current newspaper article confirms this trend which has been going on for years. The article reports for example, that the #6 will no longer service MATC on the weekends. Instead, one will need to transfer to the #20. Thus what used to be counted as one trip becomes two. There are numerous other examples of the same tendency. So is ridership at its highest in 25 years? Maybe not. Is there an intention to spread misinformation? Maybe. Can you believe what Metro says? No.