A southbound light rail train bound for Littleton boards passengers at the I-25/Broadway Station in Denver.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

RTD had a 5.2-percent drop-off in ridership in 2009, with 98.7 million total boardings, compared with 2008 – a reflection of the recession, high unemployment, falling gas prices and a general decrease in overall travel.

“Ridership is affected by many factors, two of the greatest being employment and gasoline prices,” said RTD spokesman Scott Reed. “Both of these factors were down last year, and impacted our overall passenger trips.”

Paid ridership fell by 5.6 percent; total ridership includes free boardings on the downtown 16th Street Mall shuttle, which fell off 3.2 percent.

You can read the ridership totals on page 25 of this report from RTD staff to the board’s financial administration committee, which will be formally considered at a meeting this evening.

Total boardings on the RTD system fell under 100 million, the threshold RTD first surpassed in 2008 when ridership was 104.2 million. Reaching it again proved impossible – the 2008 increase was 8 percent, with a surge in light rail ridership of 10.6 percent and 8.8 percent in bus ridership. The 2008 spike was fueled by the quick rise in gasoline prices to the $4 a gallon level. Gasoline has fallen off sharply since then, and the rise in unemployment means fewer work commuters.

The 2008 year-end ridership report was listed on page 75 of this document presented a year ago to the RTD board.

RTD bus outside Denver Union Station.

Even so, 2009 total ridership remained above 2007’s level of 96.4 million total boardings. And fare collections rose 7.8 percent in 2009 despite the ridership drop, due to a 14 percent pare increase at the beginning of the year. RTD collected just over $95 million at fare boxes last year.

The recession, high gas process and rising unemployment since 2008 have combined to produce a historic moment in American mobility history. For the first time since statistics have been kept, Americans started to reduce their driving and travel.

Figures from the Federal Highway Administration show that for the 12 months ending in November, the most recent month reported, Americans drove 2.9 trillion miles. That is back to 2003 levels. Only the 12 months through November 2008 was lower than 2009, by a fraction. The statistic is called Vehicle Miles Traveled.

In Colorado, the 12-month average VMT through October, the most recent month for state-by-state breakdowns, shows 2009 was just under a half-percent lower than 2008. Vehicular travel in Colorado in the 12 months ending October 2009 was 47.6 billion miles, compared with 47.8 billion for the 12-month period ending October 2008.