EdwardEdm
Active Member
Many, many, many years ago when the LRT only went to University and we would be compared to larger systems, what stood out to me was that no one looked at ridership per kilometer.
I'd look at other LRT systems and see them operating 1 and 2 cars trains, while Edmonton was running 3 and 4 car trains. The U2 fleet was more or less maxed out and I remember seeing only 1 or 2 spare cars in DLM, plus whatever were in for maintenance. Yet, this fleet in the 1980's was supposed to be enough to get to Mill Woods. That alone told me ridership was strong.
LA Metro operates160 km of track and San Diego MTS 105 km. You don't even need to do the math to see that with 38.5km of track, including the unopened part of the Blatchford extension, Edmonton has a far higher ridership per kilometer than LA or San Diego. When I did this calculation back in 2003 or so Calgary was the only city to beat Edmonton, and I suspect they still do. Ottawa might have higher per kilometer ridership than Edmonton as well. The APTA report showed 8.088 million trips in the quarter which is higher than Edmonton, but the overall ridership number in the APTA report seem inflated. I guess that might be why Ottawa wasn't given a place on the list.