Valley Line LRT/ Valley Line West | ?m | ?s | City of Edmonton

Hopefully it is patrons/customers and not visitors/tourists or others.
Truth be told, I took a tour thru the library, so not really a patron, a tourist...
 
Just going back to a discussion about ridership that was had quite a while ago, the daily ridership on route 73 from Feb-April last year is reported to be over 10,000 so is it safe to assume it’s at least 20,000?
 
Seamusmuldrew said:
Just going back to a discussion about ridership that was had quite a while ago, the daily ridership on route 73 from Feb-April last year is reported to be over 10,000 so is it safe to assume it’s at least 20,000?
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Not quite addressing your question, but, I had been wanting to run some numbers in regards to the 73 and the so far reported ridership on the VLSE and I happened to have those 73 ridership figures open.

I recall that Valley Line ridership was reported to be around 138,000 in November and 135,000 in December. That's kind of brutal. Extrapolating the 73's ridership figures for March 2023 (full month, no holidays). Weekday ridership was 244,904. Saturday 13,532, and Sunday 10,068 for a total ridership of 268,504 for a month.

Not a fair comparison due to Christmas for December, but the 73's ridership seems dramatically higher than the VLSE for November. On the one hand people were still getting used to it, on the other hand there was certainly extra ridership from those wanting to try the line.

Very curious what we will see moving into January and now February since the 73 isn't an option for VLSE ridership. Additionally, curious if some ridership might have shifted to the 500x. Personally, I think we will end up seeing VLSE ridership similar to the 73 for the time being. Despite the availability of ample park and ride at Davies, this option isn't being utilized. Park and Ride in general ETS-wide isn't being utilized like it was pre-Covid. Park and Ride users are typically discretionary users. They certainly haven't returned to transit. You'll note the City, when talking about ridership recovery, only ever mentions bus ridership. They're pretty quiet about LRT ridership recovery.
 
Honestly the 138,000 and 130,000 numbers seem extremely low if they’re monthly figures. Judging from the ETS spokesperson on that CBC podcast, they were pretty excited at ridership numbers.

It would make more sense for me if those were weekly numbers rather than monthly ones. Granted, this is based on anecdotes and what I see but they’re heavily used during weekdays and have decent ridership during weekends too. I refuse to believe that the Valley Line essentially has an average daily ridership of 5,000.
 
Kosy123 said:
Honestly the 138,000 and 130,000 numbers seem extremely low if they’re monthly figures.
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I would say these are probably weekly numbers (albeit, the rest of the LRT system usually reports in daily boardings, I doubt it that the VLSE is hitting these numbers daily).

On the other hand, they could be monthly, but under reported because of the whole tap-in/tap-out issue we were discussing earlier in the thread.
 
The VL has been busy, but not packed every time I've used it. Granted I've used it almost exclusively to get to Oilers games so that could be why, however most people were not in Oilers (or other team's) garb, and generally did not look like they'd come straight from the game, and it was later at night (10:00 or 11:00 O'Clock). I'd be surprised if 130 000 was the actual monthly total, I would think higher, based on personal experience.
 
My wife and I rode it Last Sunday about 4pm. there was a moderate group of people on in. Yes there was the odd drug user but they and their demons kept to them selves. and were no bother. Was quite surprised by how fast and easy the ride was from Millwoods to downtown. Plus its very accessible. Other than the extra long walk from the train to the parking area in Millwoods ( no direct line from the train to the parking lot. and no barrier free parking stalls.). If there was one from the Far NW I could see using it.
 
Airboy said:
My wife and I rode it Last Sunday about 4pm. there was a moderate group of people on in. Yes there was the odd drug user but they and their demons kept to them selves. and were no bother. Was quite surprised by how fast and easy the ride was from Millwoods to downtown. Plus its very accessible. Other than the extra long walk from the train to the parking area in Millwoods ( no direct line from the train to the parking lot. and no barrier free parking stalls.). If there was one from the Far NW I could see using it.
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Still not acceptable. One or two drug users is one or two too many. At what point does it become a concern for you? At what point does the drug user start to act out? We just don’t know.
 
ETS has not released any ridership figures lately, and what reporting they have has been inconsistent since the start of the pandemic.

It's one of their weaker points when compared to other peer agencies, for which data can be found quite readily.
 
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