Metro attributes the growth to new destinations, added security, and a streamlined train system.
According to an article by Steve Scauzillo in the Los Angeles Daily News, “Ridership on LA Metro trains and buses reached 285 million boardings in 2023, almost a 12% increase from the year before, the transit agency reported on Monday, Feb. 12.”
Bus ridership reached 80 percent of pre-pandemic ridership. “Train ridership grew from about 48 million in 2021 to almost 62 million in 2023 — an increase of 14 million riders and coming in at 67% of pre-pandemic levels. Train riders have been slow to come back, in part because many workers who once rode the trains to work are often working from home, at least part of the work week, according to studies.”
The agency says the jump in ridership can be attributed to more leisure riders and an increase in personnel at stations and on vehicles. Metro also opened the Regional Connector in June, which made cross-town travel worlds more convenient than before, reconfiguring the A, E, and L lines. “Those seven months of operations of the A, E and L lines produced a combined 33.4% ridership increase in December 2023 over December 2022 on those three lines, the agency reported.”
FULL STORY: LA Metro’s ridership in 2023 rises by almost 12 percent from the previous year
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