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Blizzard said:
San Diego's network is about 3x larger than ours. The better metric to use for comparison is boardings per mile of track.

The LRT has been averaging 3,900 avg. daily boardings/mile (APTA Ridership Reports 2023-2024). So that means we have stronger avg. daily boardings/mile performance than most North American systems of similar standards, including Ottawa (~3,000), Seattle (~2,000), Minneapolis (~2,000), Houston (~1,900), San Diego (~1,800), Los Angeles (~1,500; light rail only), Portland (~1,300), Salt Lake City (~1,000), and Dallas (~700).
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Do you know if/when ETS will publish ridership per LRT line in open data? At the service plan event they alluded to something like that being in the works, but I wonder if that changed.
 
BrettB said:
Statistics Canada published June transit figures across the country. Edmonton saw 5,539,000 riders in June, about 15% more than in June 2024. Leduc also saw a massive increase year over year. For comparison, Calgary's transit system saw about seven per cent more riders.
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A bit late of an addition to this post, Spruce Grove has done well. In 2024 the commuter ridership reached 2019 levels and was up 21% over 2023, and Q2 2025 it was up 16% over 2024 numbers.
Spruce Grove On Demand was up 29% in 2024 over 2023, and is up 15% in 2025 over 2024.
 
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ETSAB August 2025 Meeting

In July 2025, total ridership was 4.65 million, a 2 per cent increase from 4.58 million in 2024. Although bus ridership slightly decreased by 4 per cent from the previous year (which may be attributed to the pleasant weather this year and summer travel patterns), LRT ridership continues to grow. Specifically, the Valley Line Southeast LRT saw a 9 per cent increase in ridership from the previous year, with approximately 258,850 rides in July.
 
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21% year on year increase and 17% quarterly increase with consistent average weekday ridership of 100,000+ for the LRT.
 
I think it will be interesting to see if there’s any announcement on the Bus Rapid Transit routes.
 
thommyjo said:
Once our current LRT extensions finish, where do we estimate we get to for ridership? And how different will that vs Calgary per km? 150k? 160k?
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I was thinking about this the other day while on the LRT incidentally, but I'd wager we're going to be past 150k on APTA ridership metrics maybe?

In my non professional and non planner view (so please take this with a grain of salt everyone lol), we've got a ton of room to grow consistently based on a few things:
  • Valley Line West unlocks WEM which is a massive trip generator, and probably isn't just a line effect on ridership but also a full network effect. Train is shinier than a bus and that's going to attract ridership from all over the city. You're an out of town tourist? Stay in a hotel downtown and just take the Valley Line to visit, etc. Misercordia is also a pretty good trip generator too. Unsure if it's going to be the same level as the U of A hospital but it's going to bump up numbers.
  • Traffic issues west of Lewis Farms and the Ellerslie area getting into downtown and the core might force car users to switch to the LRT for commuting purposes. The Capital Line extension is going to be used a ton for this I think, for both office workers and students. Heritage Valley is going to be busy once it opens.
  • Post-secondary student growth ensures there's a captive base of students that are transit users, and with MacEwan and Norquest's expansion, that's thousands more by 2030.
  • TOD and densification: I mean we are seeing it happen a bit with both infill and larger projects popping up by the Valley Line and some of the Capital Line's stations.
  • Population growth: Pretty self-explanatory.
  • Downtown: The beauty of our mono centric LRT network is that everything goes through downtown. The more people, services and jobs pop up downtown, the stronger base LRT ridership is. We're kinda starting to see it at this point (personal anecdote is that the LRT is much busier than what it was last year in downtown stations), but I'd argue by 2030, it's much stronger.
Not sure if I missed anything important but unless something crazy happens, I think we're going to keep getting consistent growth for LRT ridership. Personally, I still think the C-Train has "inflated" ridership stats because of their free-fare downtown zone.

I'm hoping by 2030, the reputation of transit is also much better safety and perception wise. It's why I love that ETS Route 4 fan account on instagram, we as a city really need to be proud of our LRT system. If I was crazy enough, I'd try and convince people to make it into a tourist attraction by itself somehow like Stockholm and Moscow did.
 
The_Cat said:
One thing for bragging rights, Downtown and Wihkwentowin/Oliver could pitch that most businesses are within two blocks of an LRT stop.
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One thing I’m also surprised about in Vancouver is how 70% of their core basically isn’t served by rail. Ours, outside of the 112-124st south of 102ave area (west jasper ave) will have very good train service. And dedicated bus lanes on west jasper is a future option if needed too.
 
  • Valley Line West unlocks WEM which is a massive trip generator, and probably isn't just a line effect on ridership but also a full network effect. Train is shinier than a bus and that's going to attract ridership from all over the city. You're an out of town tourist? Stay in a hotel downtown and just take the Valley Line to visit, etc. Misercordia is also a pretty good trip generator too. Unsure if it's going to be the same level as the U of A hospital but it's going to bump up numbers.

  • You do realize the line goes both ways right? Stay at WEM and take a trip downtown.
 
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