Hey, where did all you people go? Come back! (This is a pic from the first, and free, week of operations.) Credit: photo by Lee Nichols

As expected, MetroRail’s ridership numbers dropped off significantly once the first, free week ended. From the overflow, standing-room only crowds (more than 14,000 the first week), daily riders fell to:

• March 29: 917
• March 30: 959
• March 31: 953
• April 1: 987
• April 2: 1,681

Capital Metro estimates the April 2 spike was due to people being off on Good Friday, giving folks another chance to joyride, which was the cause of the first week’s high numbers.

This means MetroRail has some work to do in cultivating ridership – the numbers above are less than half the 2,000 per day the agency has predicted.

Capital Metro says now that the opening hoopla is over, it will no longer be reporting weekly ridership figures and will switch to the monthly reporting that it does for other modes in its transit system.

This article appears in The End of UT Football.

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