APTA ridership report is out for Q1 2025
figures are compared to Q1 2024 which is the first full quarter of valley line service since opening. Shows an overall LRT ridership increase of 25% which should give a decent a decent indication of valley line uptake since the earliest days of service. I do wish that the city broke out transit ridership by bus/lrt and lrt routes for us nerds who like to look at the open data.
EDIT: noted that APTA reports overall light rail ridership as still being below 2019 levels despite the addition of the valley line, which seems questionable since the edmonton open data portal shows overall ets system ridership having more than exceeded pre-pandemic ridership.
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Kosy123 said:
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Overall LRT ridership increasing 26% year on year for March is actually ridiculous lol. 40% rise in Valley Line SE ridership year on year is pretty good too.
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Valley Line trips were noted in the monthly ETS Branch Highlights Report (266,000 rides in March 2025, so about a tenth of the 2,865,000 for the overall LRT network). This works out to slightly less than 10,000 daily rides, so not even approaching the busiest bus routes, and substantially underperforms the original target of 28,000-33,000 daily rides.

Compare this to Waterloo LRT, whose latest monthly figures of 450,000 for Jan 2025 translates to roughly 15,000 daily rides. This is despite running much less intense service (single vehicles every 10 minutes at peak, versus alternating 1/2 train consists every 5 minutes for VLSE).

One reason is that the VLSE alignment is heavily premised on TODs that have not materialised. Only Holyrood has seen any kind of movement -- Mill Woods, Bonnie Doon, Strathearn, and Quarters have all stalled. Especially south of Whitemud, the choice to run along 66 St instead of following the old express bus route means that major destinations and potential redevelopment sites (Lakewood, Millbourne, Tweddle Place/Millgate) are missed.

Another reason is that the bus network redesign does not adequately feed buses to Valley Line. Take the 500X, which provides direct service from the Meadows area to downtown via Bonnie Doon and Connor Road, effectively diverting ridership catchment away from VLSE. It's not a surprise that the route has seen what is probably the fastest growth in the entire network, with improvements every service update and a peak frequency of 5 minutes.

As to why there is a discrepancy in post-2019 trends, the CoE data portal explains it thusly: https://data.edmonton.ca/Transit/Transit-Ridership/wj6v-epas/about_data

Please note: The data and the method used to estimate ridership changed significantly in 2019. Prior to 2019, ridership was estimated based on an analysis of monthly sales of various fare media (for example, monthly passes, ticket books, electronic fare boxes and cash). In 2019, a new ridership methodology was established which uses data from Automated Passenger Counters on transit vehicles to estimate ridership. Therefore, it is important to note that ridership data prior to 2019 may not be comparable to post-2019 ridership data.
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That being said, let's compare the data from the CoE portal and APTA reports:

CoE (Oct-2019): 5,618,600
CoE (Oct-2024): 6,447,200
APTA (Oct-2015): 13,550,200
APTA (Oct-2018): 13,277,300
APTA (Oct-2019): 13,415,800
APTA (Oct-2024): 10,573,400

*Note the APTA figures are for unlinked trips, while the CoE figures are for linked trips.

The shift in methodology is especially awkward because it occurred right before the pandemic, which obviously caused a major dip in ridership. The subsequent recovery period then coincided with the completion of major network expansions and initiatives, such as the Bus network redesign, Terwillegar Superexpress, Stadium rebuild, Arc, VLSE, Metro Blatchford, etc.

For me it is clear that transit uptake is not keeping pace with network and population growth, regardless of which set of figures is used. I think this trend will only worsen due to factors like WFH, security concerns, and growth patterns (sprawl), despite the brave face that the City is putting on.
 
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Foolworm said:
Valley Line trips were noted in the monthly ETS Branch Highlights Report (266,000 rides in March 2025, so about a tenth of the 2,865,000 for the overall LRT network). This works out to slightly less than 10,000 daily rides, so not even approaching the busiest bus routes, and substantially underperforms the original target of 28,000-33,000 daily rides.

Compare this to Waterloo LRT, whose latest monthly figures of 450,000 for Jan 2025 translates to roughly 15,000 daily rides. This is despite running much less intense service (single vehicles every 10 minutes at peak, versus alternating 1/2 train consists every 5 minutes for VLSE).

One reason is that the VLSE alignment is heavily premised on TODs that have not materialised. Only Holyrood has seen any kind of movement -- Mill Woods, Bonnie Doon, Strathearn, and Quarters have all stalled. Especially south of Whitemud, the choice to run along 66 St instead of following the old express bus route means that major destinations and potential redevelopment sites (Lakewood, Millbourne, Tweddle Place/Millgate) are missed.

Another reason is that the bus network redesign does not adequately feed buses to Valley Line. Take the 500X, which provides direct service from the Meadows area to downtown via Bonnie Doon and Connor Road, effectively diverting ridership catchment away from VLSE. It's not a surprise that the route has seen what is probably the fastest growth in the entire network, with improvements every service update and a peak frequency of 5 minutes.

As to why there is a discrepancy in pre- and post-pandemic figures, the CoE data portal explains it thusly: https://data.edmonton.ca/Transit/Transit-Ridership/wj6v-epas/about_data



Regardless, ridership seems to have stagnated since peaking around 2015, despite major network expansions and improvements (Bus network redesign, Terwillegar Superexpress, Stadium rebuild, VLSE, Metro Blatchford...) and major population growth. It is clear that transit uptake is not keeping pace, despite the brave face that the City is putting on.
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Agreed on much of this.

I think a few things will help:

1. The VL connecting to Macewan as the west leg finishes. That’ll add more directness to SE students.

2. Increasing congestion making driving alternatives more attractive.

3. Natural neighborhood lifecycles. If you look at many of the “inside henday” communities, many have shifted in demographics as children age and move out. More empty nesters means less transit use as high schoolers and YAs drive a lot of ridership. In 15-20 years many of these communities will flip back to being younger. Many mature areas as currently in the process.

4. The vast majority of growth and density is in non transit served, car dependent communities. Efforts like substantial completion could help this, as well as infill/TOD in general. It’s been slow, but we’re seeing some movement here.

5. Safety is maybe improving? Perceptions will lag substantially. But this likely amounts for a lot of lost users and has deterred many new ones
 
Kosy123 said:
The positive here is that we're seeing consistent double digit growth on LRT ridership, I'd be worried if we had the same pattern of expansion but stagnating growth for ridership.
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What is concerning though is mode share. Are a higher % of people choosing public transportation? If not, it is kind of stagnating, no?
 
The_Cat said:
i think the Valley Line ridership is much like the Capital Line trend. Ridership exploded when the south leg to Century Park opened, with the additional residential catchment area. I can see the same with about a dozen stops close to residential areas.
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It's hard to tell because any growth has been masked by post-pandemic ridership recovery. Compare against the last released figures for the 73 bus precursor / replacement route, which VLSE are only now approaching:


Weekday: 10,648
Saturday: 3,383
Sunday: 2,517

I guess it's also worth clarifying that when talking about recovery / growth, I am referring to ETS as a whole (so both LRT and bus). I don't see it as a gain if all VLSE does is cannibalise existing passengers from other routes without growing the pie.

Of course, if VLSE ridership continues to increase at double digit percentages for say the next five years straight, then it's a different story. I remain optimistic that security and infill efforts will improve ridership -- I want the line to succeed on its own merits rather than hanging the hat on future expansions.

I think 2025 marks the close of the post-pandemic recovery period, so subsequent ridership increases will reflect actual growth. Ottawa will provide a good point of comparison as their system expansions fall cleanly outside said period.

TAS said:
What is concerning though is mode share. Are a higher % of people choosing public transportation? If not, it is kind of stagnating, no?
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Main mode of commuting for the 10 largest census metropolitan areas, May 2016, May 2022, May 2023 and May 2024

none
www150.statcan.gc.ca www150.statcan.gc.ca

Nationwide, the mode share for public transit has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels and Edmonton isn't an exception in that regard.
 
Valley Line is half way towards Skytrain's original ridership number the first year. And they funnelled ALL Surrey/North Delta/Langley buses to Skytrain, except the Port Mann Bridge bus existed for a few more years until traffic made it too unreliable to run.

The crowds on the peak hour direction trains do make me question the numbers.
 
dkazzed said:
Valley Line is half way towards Skytrain's original ridership number the first year. And they funnelled ALL Surrey/North Delta/Langley buses to Skytrain, except the Port Mann Bridge bus existed for a few more years until traffic made it too unreliable to run.

The crowds on the peak hour direction trains do make me question the numbers.
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I question the numbers also. There are around 300 trips on the line being made every weekday (northbound + southbound trips) and with the ridership numbers we have of ~9-10k/day, that would amount to a a little over 30 boardings per trip or about 2.5 boardings per station. I know its anecdotal but whenever I see a train pass I see more than 30 people on board.
 
dkazzed said:
Valley Line is half way towards Skytrain's original ridership number the first year. And they funnelled ALL Surrey/North Delta/Langley buses to Skytrain, except the Port Mann Bridge bus existed for a few more years until traffic made it too unreliable to run.

The crowds on the peak hour direction trains do make me question the numbers.
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Skytrain is almost 40 years ago and the first introduction of mass rail transit to Vancouver. A closer example would be Calgary WLRT, which built on the existing LRT network and did end up hitting its target of 30k daily ridership.

I think VLSE's reported figures don't jive with my observations using the line either, but the City did the data gathering -- I didn't. It might be very peaky usage where trains are well used during morning/afternoon rush but carry air otherwise.
 
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