[Wm Perkins Bull]

What could have been a great year for ridership growth, for Brampton Transit, was utterly destroyed by the pandemic. This is from a staff report from Wednesday last week.

To me, a nearly 20% growth after they added ~6% hours indicated BT still has tremendous ridership potential, constrained only by service hours.

 

[innsertnamehere]

50% is far less than what agencies like the TTC are reporting.

This year is going to screw over ridership tracking, but hopefully things return more or less to normal next year and we see significant gains over 2019 then.

Remember as well that Brampton is growing extremely rapidly. The city has averaged a 4.2% annual growth rate over the last 4 years, adding over 100,000 people in that time. The city added 31,000 people in 2019 alone.

 

[WislaHD]

This year is going to screw over ridership tracking, but hopefully things return more or less to normal next year and we see significant gains over 2019 then.

That is so long as we don't see significant behaviour changes and/or prolonged affects of a recession on ridership patterns.

 

[Wm Perkins Bull]

50% is far less than what agencies like the TTC are reporting.

This year is going to screw over ridership tracking, but hopefully things return more or less to normal next year and we see significant gains over 2019 then.

Remember as well that Brampton is growing extremely rapidly. The city has averaged a 4.2% annual growth rate over the last 4 years, adding over 100,000 people in that time. The city added 31,000 people in 2019 alone.

That is so long as we don't see significant behaviour changes and/or prolonged affects of a recession on ridership patterns.

The reason for Brampton not experiencing such a sharp decline in ridership is because Brampton Transit users are disproportionately in essential services, especially food manufacturing and logistics. For example, Maple Lodge Farms has a major plant at the edge of Brampton, and they specifically cited transit access as a reason to stay. Brampton also has two Amazon warehouses, which also depend on Brampton transit ridership. These tend to be jobs that pay too little for people who live in Brampton to afford cars, due to insurance rates. Overall, due to this, plus the specific causes of population growth in Brampton (such as high levels of international students), if there is a bailout of transit agencies, Brampton Transit is well placed to rapidly recover, especially if they increase levels of service. On the other hand, I anticipate that riders who can choose other methods, will not tolerate such high levels of overcrowding as Brampton Transit had been experiencing.

tl;dr Brampton will continue to have lots of new riders, but an increased rate of rider attrition is likely once Brampton experiences levels of crowding, which are less than previously experienced.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Auto insurance rates are something that I had never thought of contributing to Brampton's transit ridership. Even with good transit service, it always struck me as a bit odd how high the ridership was because the city is just so totally auto oriented. I can definitely see auto insurance rates effecting that,. For low end auto owners (people driving 15 year old Civics, etc.), auto insurance is usually the greatest cost.. if it's double the normal cost in the rest of the province, I can see why a lot of people switch to transit.

 

[Wm Perkins Bull]

Auto insurance rates are something that I had never thought of contributing to Brampton's transit ridership. Even with good transit service, it always struck me as a bit odd how high the ridership was because the city is just so totally auto oriented. I can definitely see auto insurance rates effecting that,. For low end auto owners (people driving 15 year old Civics, etc.), auto insurance is usually the greatest cost.. if it's double the normal cost in the rest of the province, I can see why a lot of people switch to transit.

Here is an article on what system changes Brampton Transit did. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/11/28/a-suburban-model-for-incremental-transit

What that author omitted is that Brampton has the most expensive car insurance for a "standardized driver", but the reality is even worse, because the typical Brampton driver is younger, and has less experience than even the younger age would suggest. It is entirely normal in Brampton for a driver under 25 to be forced to pay $500 a month for the car insurance for a $2000 car. So right there, Brampton Transit has a significant cost advantage. Brampton however has other significant factors for example population density. While one might think that the suburban hellscape of Brampton, composed mostly of detached single family homes, would have a low density, due to demographic factors the detached single family homes actually have a density that one would expect in townhouses. Brampton has a lower individual income compared to the rest of the GTA, this is counterbalanced by many houses having more than two wage earners in the household, but this causes issues for car transportation, as they can't afford 3 cars, and even if they did, they only have space for two cars. Basement apartments are pervasive in Brampton, but given the number of international students has been completely exhausted, in the past couple years Brampton has started having lodging houses appear, in both larger numbers, and more people. The most recent publicly stated record by the City of Brampton is 27 people in one house, and at this point a dozen people living in a lodging house is now considered "normal" by by-law enforcement. This leads to ridership growth in rather random locations, for example the 4 Chinguacousy had a.m. peak ridership grow by 68% from 2016 through 2018, now it has ridership around 13k a day, which made it go from planned between 2031 to 2041 for a Zum route, to 2022, displacing the planned Bramalea Zum.

tl;dr Brampton Transit did good work to get good ridership growth, and it has been massively boosted by outside forces such as population density and car insurance that is too damn high.

 

[Wm Perkins Bull]

Transit App is providing some interesting data showing a broad cross section of transit agencies and the effects of COVID on ridership. You can filter it to the Toronto area or to Canada if you wish. It appears for Canada, Brampton has basically the lowest ridership drop, likely due to how many riders are essential employees (food manufacturing and logistics are major employers in Brampton).

APTA - Ridership Trends

APTA and the Transit app have partnered to build a new resource for the entire industry, tracking demand for public transit and publishing estimates of ridership change in real time.

transitapp.com

 

[drum118]

Transit App is providing some interesting data showing a broad cross section of transit agencies and the effects of COVID on ridership. You can filter it to the Toronto area or to Canada if you wish. It appears for Canada, Brampton has basically the lowest ridership drop, likely due to how many riders are essential employees (food manufacturing and logistics are major employers in Brampton).

APTA - Ridership Trends

APTA and the Transit app have partnered to build a new resource for the entire industry, tracking demand for public transit and publishing estimates of ridership change in real time.

transitapp.com

Some places have taken a real hit while other haven't

Muni is almost non existing
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/muni-to-stop-running-nearly-every-route-in-sf-more-than-70-lines/

 

[Hopkins123]

A TTC Supervisor told me yesterday that ridership is down 80%

That means only 250,000 riders daily are using buses, streetcars and subways combined. They are dark, grim times.

 

[drum118]

A TTC Supervisor told me yesterday that ridership is down 80%

That means only 250,000 riders daily are using buses, streetcars and subways combined. They are dark, grim times.

A lot of them are keeping the city running and others who have no option to shop or get to work not related to the city. Even with that low number, there are bus routes seeing close to normal ridership that more buses must be added to maintain the 6' spacing.

There was only one person on my bus from Sq One that is close except for Walmart that was very empty along with Shoppers Drug. Takes me 25 minutes to Walk to Walmart compare to 10 by bus and an hour to 2 grocery stores that are across from each other that is a 20 minute bus ride. I am In good health. How long would it be for people who aren't in good health, have issues walking, or need to take kids with them to do those walking trips?

 

[Tunafish13]

I was reading that across Canada, the top 10 transit systems have a ridership decrease of 83% on average, and specialized transit operators (like WheelTrans) have a 91% decrease on average

 

[Allandale25]

A sudden drop in transit usage across the Toronto Region

Last week, I wrote about how several TTC routes were facing overcrowding, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, and a severe drop in system-wide ridership since early March. I shared this analysis on Spac…

seanmarshall.ca

 

[Wm Perkins Bull]

Brampton Transit now is designing the 2021 budget with the expectation that ridership will hit 60% of 2019 by the start of 2021, and increase by 5% each quarter thereafter. Source is the Committee of Council Agenda this Wednesday.

 

[mjl08]

Looking at Sean Marshall's map, I'm surprised GO Transit's ridership decline isn't the steepest across the region by a sizeable margin.

GO Transit's key demo seems like professionals and student commuters who are equipped to work at home, while employees who can't work at home, such as the service industry noted by others, mostly utilize local transit e.g. Brampton Transit or TTC.

 

[Streety McCarface]

http://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Commission_reports_and_information/Commission_meetings/2020/September_24/Reports/8_Subway_Capacity_Enhancement_Program_Consulting_Services.pdf

Page 4: "Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Line 2 Bloor-Danforth, from Kipling Station to Kennedy Station, served more than 550,000 customers per weekday. Morning rush hour ridership on Line 2 reached over 23,000 passengers per hour, both eastbound from Spadina Station and westbound from Sherbourne Station.
The most recent demand forecasts for Line 2 indicate that morning rush hour demand will exceed 31,000 passengers per hour by 2041, both eastbound from Spadina Station and westbound from Donlands Station. These figures include the expected ridership impacts of the Ontario Line and the Line 2 East Extension."

This is interesting given that the highest ridership year for Line 2 is 535K PPD in 2014.

What's also interesting is that ridership levels are only 23K PPHPD during the peak hours on Line 2...Given how insanely difficult it can be getting on a train during rush hours on Line 2, perhaps it's time we rethink what ridership level is deemed appropriate for a subway line in this city.