Lyons would prefer to see Metro going beyond what was offered in 2019. Her only concern is that the agency says that in September rail service will be 91 percent back to pre-pandemic levels and bus service will be 97 percent back. Lyons and her colleagues are excited to see the changes coming to Metro, and they particularly praise the elimination of transfer fees. This will make it a little easier for them to have an option that isn’t an expensive taxi or rideshare.” ![]() “Recently with the return to restaurants and having people go out again, restaurant workers have had a really difficult time getting home. “Late night transit for workers in the nightlife and restaurant industries have been a big point of concern,” says Jane Lyons, Maryland advocacy manager at the Coalition for Smarter Growth. These kinds of non-office workers have long been poorly served by the Metro rail. As vaccinations spread, and restaurants began to recover, they also saw increased demand at night from food service workers. They saw that low-income riders and those without access to a car continued to use public transit heavily, as did many essential workers in the health-care and government fields. In determining how to make changes, Metro policymakers studied where ridership remained strongest even during the pandemic’s worst. “The message to us from the secretaries of transportation and leaders in the District of Columbia was we want people getting back on transit,” says Smedberg. area, always bad, has grown worse than ever. This year, even as vaccine rates in the region soar, the rail system only saw 167,000 riders and the bus system 198,000 (on an average July day).Īutomobile traffic in the D.C. On the average day in July of 2019, Metro rail saw 649,000 riders and Metro bus saw 364,000. Metro’s leadership hope the changes will boost lagging ridership, attracting users both new and old. ![]() ![]() ![]() and frequencies at night and on weekends will be increased too. Late service will be extended on Fridays and Saturdays until 1 a.m. On the Red Line (the most heavily used in the system) and all multi-line segments of the Metro rail, wait times during the weekday will be a maximum of six minutes.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |