Steady Climb in Riders Shows Metro is on Right Track

Metro's chosen path to increase ridership by delivering improved routes, with improved connections, is producing solid, steady and most impressively significant, numbers - across the board. Ridership on all fixed routes grew to nearly 7 million in November. That is an 11 percent jump from November 2014. 

Local bus ridership numbers for November are up more than 4 percent from a year ago. MetroRail's Red Line ridership is up nearly 26 percent and Park & Ride boardings have increased nearly 6 and a half percent.

"We are in the first year of a five year plan to improve mobility options for the Houston region," said Metro Board Chairman Gilbert Garcia.  "The upswing in ridership on the New Bus Network  launched on Aug. 16, is immensely gratifying. The countless hours of researching routes, community meetings and input, planning changes, and redirecting and training our staff is paying off and we're confident that trend will continue to grow."  

“This is a good start and we expect our new transfer policy will increase ridership even more,” said Metro CEO Tom Lambert. “ The ability to transfer in any direction will not only make our network easier to use, it will give our riders more freedom and can save them a significant amount of money.”

Metro will unveil its new two-way transfer policy on Jan. 24.  The new Board policy changes a one way fare into a three hour ticket, allowing fare cardholders free transfers in any direction on local bus or light rail within that three hour window. Currently, transfers are free in one direction.

Total boardings for local Metro buses on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, combined, was about 30,000 - an 18 percent hike from 2014.