Ridership

The news at SEPTA will be brighter than a freshly minted token today when SEPTA General Manager Jack Leary presents some figures at the Center City headquarters. Ridership is up by 1,000 trips a day this year over last, GM Leary is expected to report on a ridership performance review. It is the first such boost since 1988. And SEPTA ended its fiscal year with a $119,000 bank account surplus. A surplus of any kind is something SEPTA has not experienced since the late '70s, reports SEPTA Treasurer Faye Moore.

Most SEPTA riders have returned since the end of the six-day strike - but not all. Ridership on city buses, subways, and trolleys remains about 4 percent below pre-strike levels, according to a SEPTA analysis. As train commuters discovered, ridership on Regional Rail jumped during the strike. Average weekday rail ridership increased by 42,000 - about 36 percent - during that time. Riders on the City Transit Division are gradually returning, SEPTA officials said, adding that they expect ridership to be back to pre-strike levels by the end of the month.

The BurLink Shuttle between Pemberton Township and Mount Holly increased its ridership to an average of 28 per day from 18 in just its second week of operation, Burlington County officials said yesterday. Officials from the county's office of transportation said 88 riders used the shuttle, which runs through seven towns, in the opening week of June 26. That number jumped to 110 the second week, when riders had only four days of service because of the July Fourth holiday. "I'm thrilled that the numbers are exceeding the numbers we expected," said Freeholder Theresa D. Brown, who has been the leading supporter of the project to help low-income people find easier access to jobs and shopping facilities.

The Sign War is over. Members of the Burlington County Bridge Commission, parent agency of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge, said yesterday that they would not shell out the $500 to $18,000 it would take to answer the fire of the Delaware River Port Authority. The first salvo came in the spring when the port authority, the Betsy Ross Bridge's parent agency, bought the advertising rights for the Conrail bridge over Route 73 for $600 a month and paid $1,500 to have a sign painted about a quarter mile from the Tacony-Palmyra: "Next time use: the Betsy Ross Bridge.

It's no secret that riders are unhappy with recent cutbacks on SEPTA buses, subways and rail lines. Now it appears they are talking with their feet. Ridership on city bus and subway lines was down 4 percent in October from a year ago, twice the drop expected by SEPTA. On the regional rail lines, trying to recover from a partial shutdown last summer, traffic in October was down 18 percent, also nearly double what SEPTA had predicted. SEPTA officials say it's too early to draw firm conclusions from the numbers, but there's reason to worry: Ridership losses led to a $1 million deficit for October, and there's $2.3 million in red ink for the first four months of its budget year, SEPTA's chief financial official, Feather O. Houstoun, said yesterday.

Relatively few people took the advice to Try Transit Thursday, with ridership up slightly as buses, trolleys and trains reduced or eliminated fares to win new customers. SEPTA estimated that it carried 10,000 new riders, mostly on the buses and trolleys operated inside Philadelphia. SEPTA's ordinary weekday ridership is about 500,000 people, making 1.1 million trips each day. PATCO's High Speed Line to Lindenwold, which was free of charge all day, found that its increase in ridership came around midday, after the commuter tide had crested.

The parking lot at PATCO's Westmont station, where Sam Spanier used to find a spot with no problem, was again full yesterday. The same situation faced Tara Smith, who commutes to Center City from Delaware on SEPTA's R2 line. For many regular rail commuters, the first sign that their ranks are growing thanks to $4-a-gallon gas is that the walk from their cars to the station also has increased. Spurred largely by soaring fuel prices, ridership on commuter rail lines is up here and around the country.

Train running late and you need a use a cell phone? Sure thing. A little chilly and need a blanket? Done. Something to drink? Of course. Sound a little cozier than your last train ride? Well, Amtrak is changing the way you think about riding a train with a nationwide program announced today aimed at making your ride - and your life - a little easier. "Satisfaction Guaranteed" will do just about whatever it takes to make the rider more comfortable, said Karen Dunn, Amtrak spokeswoman for the Northeast Corridor.

More frequent buses. Late-night trains. Better weekend service. That's what SEPTA promises in the next few weeks and months as it launches what it calls its most ambitious service expansion ever. After decades of cuts, SEPTA will announce today a $10 million project aimed at easing overcrowding and improving daily service. The first of the 65 upgrades will begin Aug. 25, and all of the changes are to be made by Nov. 3. The changes will include bigger buses on busy Route 14 along Roosevelt Boulevard between Northeast Philadelphia and Bucks County, more frequent service on Route 23 between Chestnut Hill and South Philadelphia, and after-midnight trains on the R5 Paoli/Thorndale, R6 Norristown, and R7 Trenton Regional Rail lines.

To cope with increasing ridership, the PATCO commuter rail line will add trains during rush hours, beginning Saturday, officials said yesterday. PATCO will add one six-car train to its current 13-train fleet between 7 and 9 a.m. and one during the 5-to-6 p.m. commute, general manager Robert Box said. Each train can seat 500 passengers, and each will make two trips, Box said. Annual ridership on the 14-mile PATCO commuter rail line, which operates between Center City and Lindenwold, is on pace to be the highest since 2000, at about 36,000 passengers a day, compared with 32,000 a day last year.

Amtrak's long-distance routes, lightly traveled and expensive to run, are the biggest drag on Amtrak's finances, and the states on those routes should be required to help pay for them, a new analysis says. The 26 routes of less than 400 miles brought in $47 million more than they cost to operate in 2011, while the 15 routes of more than 750 miles lost $598 million, according to an analysis issued Friday by the Brookings Institution. State support was crucial to the success of the shorter routes, as the states provided $185 million, or 31 percent, of those routes' revenue in 2011.

Amtrak set another ridership record for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, carrying 31.2 million passengers. Ridership was up 3.5 percent from the previous year, while ticket revenue grew by 6.8 percent to a record $2.02 billion. The ridership record was the ninth in the last 10 years. The national railroad, created in 1971 after private railroads went bankrupt, required a federal subsidy of $1.42 billion for operating costs, capital expenses and debt-service. That was down from $1.48 billion in 2011 and $1.57 billion in 2010.

High gas prices and the changing habits of young people are driving a shift toward mass transit that could influence budget battles in Washington and state capitals. Nationwide last year, buses, subways, and trains had their second-highest ridership since 1957 - behind only 2008, when the price of gas topped $4 a gallon. Locally, SEPTA, NJ Transit, and PATCO all report increased ridership. Amtrak, which last week said it carried 3.7 percent more passengers in the six months that ended in March than in the same period a year earlier, appears headed for its ninth national ridership record in 10 years.

To cross the Delaware River, fewer commuters are driving and more are taking the train. PATCO rail ridership reached an 11-year high last year, while vehicle traffic fell to an 11-year low on the four toll bridges operated by the Delaware River Port Authority. Higher bridge tolls, rising gasoline prices, and a depressed economy all helped account for the shift, transportation experts said. The increase in mass transit use also has been felt by SEPTA, where ridership is at its highest since 1989.

Despite the region's sluggish economy, SEPTA carried more riders in the last 12 months than it had in any of the 22 previous years. For the fiscal year that ended June 30, SEPTA's buses, subways, trolleys, and trains had about 334 million passengers, up 4 percent from the previous year and the most since 345 million in fiscal 1989. SEPTA officials credited service improvements, higher gasoline prices, Center City population growth, and a growing use of transit by young adults.

Despite the region's sluggish economy, SEPTA carried more riders in the past 12 months than it has in any of the last 22 years. For the fiscal year that ended June 30, SEPTA's buses, subways, trolleys and trains had about 334 million passengers, up 4 percent from the previous year and the most since SEPTA carried 345 million riders in fiscal 1989. SEPTA officials credited service improvements, higher gasoline prices, Center City population growth, and a growing use of transit by young adults for the rise in ridership.

With gas prices rising and unemployment slowly declining, more Philadelphia-area commuters are riding mass transit. For the seven months ending in January, SEPTA buses, subways, trolleys, and trains carried 182.5 million riders, compared with 175.4 million during the same period a year earlier. Travel on Regional Rail trains showed a slight decline as the battered commuter rail fleet was hampered by weather-related delays and a shortage of operable railcars. The 4 percent increase in SEPTA ridership was led by an increase of nearly seven million riders on the buses, subways, and trolleys of the City Division.

Bus service from South Jersey to Philadelphia is being cut - again. NJ Transit bus routes that operate from Cherry Hill and Moorestown Malls into Center City will end their trips in downtown Camden beginning Saturday. The switch to Jersey-only runs for Routes 405 (Cherry Hill Mall) and 407 (Moorestown Mall) means five routes in two years have been taken out of Philadelphia service. That has reduced the number of morning peak-hour buses into the city from 61 to 38, a 38 percent cut. NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel said the routes cut short over the last two years "generally carried a low volume of passengers to and from Philadelphia, even during rush-hour periods.

With bus, subway, and train ridership starting to recover from the economic slump, SEPTA moved Thursday to reduce slightly some of the fare hikes it wanted to impose July 1. Most of the reductions would be for rail commuters, who were hit hardest by the initial fare-hike proposals. The changes would mean an average fare increase for rail riders of about 8 percent, down from the original proposal of more than 9 percent. The proposed fare hike for bus and subway riders would remain about 6 percent.