Is There Room On The Bus?

The Alternative Analysis Draft Report published in April 2008, addressed "future traffic conditions" in 2030 if we adopted the No-Build Alternative. The AADP states on page 37, "Generally, the overall traffic conditions in the study area indicate acceptable levels of service (LOS A through D), except for the CBD (Central Business District) of Salt Lake City."

I made a statement and put forth a question on November 12, 2009. I said, "Our buses are currently under utilized, do we need a rail system?" I wanted to provide you data that is obtained from page 1-10 of the ESR and Kerry Doane of the UTA. I noticed that the ridership contained in the ESR was from 2008. I have the ridership numbers for 2009 and "available daily seats." With that information, we can calculate the "available seats used" for each route. When considering "percentages" it is important to understand that routes have different characteristics; peak only versus all-day, express versus local, three county versus two-county. Some service has passengers getting on and off throughout the route which is difficult to quantify a percent full. Other routes are typified by passengers getting on early in the route and staying in their seats for nearly the whole trip. Look at the numbers and you decide if there's room on the bus.

Average Daily Ridership on South Davis County Bus Routes
	Daily	Daily	Seats	Percentage
	Ridership	Ridership	Available	Seats Used
Route	2008	2009	2009	2009
455	1326	1458	2070	70.4%
460	111	43	360	11.9%
461	102	117	315	37.1%
462	106	102	270	37.8%
463	117	72	225	32.0%
470	3913	3721	3825	97.3%
471	366	156	270	57.8%