Why does Cap Metrorail have so few riders? (bus, move)

[Need4Camaro]

Asside from it currently only being one line, even that line was initially estimated to incur aproximately 6500 riders but instead only about 1/4th of their predictions came to past.

Is it limited reachability? It does connect to Downtown and Domain area. I personally would prefer it to sitting on MoPAC during commuting hours.

[Trainwreck20]

From what I have heard, it is packed during rush-hour. It looks like the ridership varies between 60k and 100k per month, almost all of which is during the work week. So that comes out to, say 66k over 22 workdays, or 3,000 people per workday?

[AlterEgo42]

It’s the last mile issue. Scooters/bike share, etc try to solve that and are met with hate.

[austinnerd]

First and foremost, ridership projections are almost universally bubkis, not designed to reflect reality, but to get folks to vote "Yes".

Secondly, while it does go to the area _near_ the Domain, not having a station actually in the Domain is problematic and usage at Kramer station is very low. Once the Broadmoor project gets going and they move the station, things should improve (though they will likely still not really tap into the Domain crowd without a shuttle of some sort).

The proliferation of scooters will make the downtown part of the equation workable.

[Westerner92]

1) It only runs every 30-60 minutes. It's a single track in most places, which means CapMetro can't make that headway any smaller because they have to coordinate the northbound/southbound passing in the few places there is a double track. Once the downtown station is upgraded, that headway can at least get down to 10-15 minutes like a real transit system.

2) It's only good for getting into and out of downtown. The only people who would get any use out of such sparsely scheduled trips into downtown are commuters avoiding the weekday rush hour who happen to work within a few blocks of the convention center.

3) The park-and-rides are tiny, yet most of the stations are far enough out of the way that they require driving, which is exactly what the vast majority of riders have to do.

4) The platforms are only large enough for two-car trains. One of the main benefits of rail over BRT is that it can have 4+ cars on them and accelerate and decelerate with ease because that's how electric engines work, but the Red Line has diesel double cars AKA a bus on rails. The relative inefficiency of diesel engines precludes the trains from ever being able to operate with stops closer together than one every mile or two.

5) From my understanding, MLK is the only station that has bus lines coordinated with the rail times. The Kramer station should have a nice bus station waiting to whisk people off into the Domain and Arboretum.

The Red Line is a total debacle, yet it's still packed during rush hour because there is that much demand to get out of freeway traffic.