Early Assessment of RapidRide G and Restructure

It has been several months since the RapidRide G Line opened. Along with the new bus line - arguably the region's first BRT line - there was a restructure in the area. To get an idea of how effective the new bus line and restructure was, I decided to look into the ridership data.

Route Data

Unlike Michael Smith's outstanding series of posts, this essay does not contain stop data. It is too early for that. Instead I've looked at the monthly data that Metro provides on their dashboard. The change occurred in the middle of September, so I've looked at the last three months of the year. Rather than compare it to earlier in the year I've compared it to the same months a year earlier. This avoids some of the seasonal changes in ridership (due to things like school) that typically happen. Ridership year-over-year across Metro also went up but in this particular area it went up about twice as much.

NOTE: The original version of this post stated that Metro ridership went down system wide. This was incorrect. The error was caused by Metro not including Link data the last few months and the author not realizing that.

	October	November	December	-
Route	2023 Ridership	2024 Ridership	Increase	2023 Ridership	2024 Ridership	Increase	2023 Ridership	2024 Ridership	Increase	Average Increase
2	3984	4075	91	3830	3470	-360	3709	3703	-6	-92
3	4293	1443	-2850	4222	1340	-2882	3906	1298	-2608	-2780
4	2536	6095	3559	2397	5560	3163	2213	5668	3455	3392
10	1777	1231	-546	1743	1058	-685	1667	1166	-501	-577
11	2070	1901	-169	2032	1831	-201	1921	1723	-198	-189
12	1582	1164	-418	1634	1125	-509	1321	1233	-88	-338
43	378	382	4	373	382	9	372	340	-32	-6
49	2733	2486	-247	2620	2455	-165	2354	2086	-268	-227
60	5215	5674	459	4965	6076	1111	4462	5044	582	717
GLine	0	4181	4181	0	4299	4299	0	4434	4434	4305
Total:	24568	28632	4064	23816	27596	3780	21925	26695	4770	4205

Ridership overall increased by almost the exact amount of RapidRide G ridership. It is highly likely that the G stole" ridership from other routes but those routes managed to get ridership back from other places (or other routes increased ridership enough to make up for their loss). While the G has started slowly (quite likely due to the well publicized problems) it has increased ridership every month (which is not typical this time of year). Here is a look at the various other routes, grouped appropriately:

2

The 2 was down on average but there is no clear trend. Overall it doesn't appear to have lost much ridership to the G.

3/4

The 3 and 4 have been intertwined for as long as I can remember (and I'm old). They continue to overlap between downtown and the Central Area (Pike Street to 21st Ave). The 3 Queen Anne branch was renumbered to 4. The 3 Downtown Only" runs that didn't go to Queen Anne (half-hourly daytime) were extended to the Summit neighborhood, replacing suspended route 47. Overall the 3/4 saw a significant increase in ridership, suggesting this small increase in service was worth it. In my opinion it should run more often as part of a larger restructure.

43 and 49

The infrequent 43 didn't change and the ridership remains about the same. The 49 saw a decrease in frequency and with it a loss of ridership.

10, 11, 12

The Metro 10, 11 and 12 routes all run downtown via Pike/Pine. All of the buses turn around as they reach downtown with the westernmost stops close to Fourth Avenue (unlike the G Line which has stops on Third and First). The 49 also runs on Pike/Pine and makes the same loop. The 3 runs on Pike/Pine as well but as mentioned earlier it heads south on Third and eventually up First and Cherry Hill to the Central Area.

The 10, 11 and 12 are all infrequent - running every 20 minutes midday weekday. The 10 and 12 combine for ten minutes service west of 15th. The 49 joins them at Broadway while the 3 and 11 join them at Bellevue forming a spine for at least part of Pike/Pine. The 10, 11 and 12 were all altered with the RapidRide G and they all lost ridership.

60

The route of the 60 did not change but service was improved as buses ran more often during the weekend and later at night. Ridership increased significantly with the change.

Conclusion

If there is one big takeaway it is that frequency is very important. This is well known to anyone who studies transit issues or has read a few blog pages from experts. But some of the changes here are fairly minor but still resulted in significant ridership changes. The 60 went from about 80 trips a day to 95. The 49 did the reverse. While the RapidRide G has not come anywhere near the future ridership expectations of the route, it still managed to get about as many riders as the 10, 11 and 12 combined (even though it covers a smaller area). The frequent part of Pike/Pine appears to be too short to compete with other routes (and Link).