Vancouver vs. San Francisco: A Tale of Two Transit Recoveries

We’ve all kind of blocked it out of our minds but the COVID pandemic was absolutely devastating for transit ridership and even now, four years since 2020, we haven’t fully recovered. But some cities and systems actually fared much worse, while others have rebounded almost to their pre-pandemic numbers. In this video we’re going to take a look at the fall and recovery of rapid transit systems in the US and Canada to see who made it through the best and the worst.
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References:
Ridership data from APTA: www.apta.com/wp-content/uploa...
BC had laxer COVID rules than the rest of Canada in the summer of 2020: www.bankofcanada.ca/2021/02/s...
Vancouver cut transit service less than most of North America: findingspress.org/article/133...
California stricter COVID measures: exploratory.io/viz/kanaugust/...
LA transit commuters tend to be lower income: www.governing.com/archive/gov...
Vancouver's strong downtown recovery: downtownrecovery.com/charts/r...
Population growth contributing to Vancouver's transit recovery: www.translink.ca/news/2024/ap...
Boston slow zones: www.wgbh.org/news/local/2023-...
Boston maintenance problems: www.wgbh.org/news/local/2023-...
Creative commons images of transit vehicles in different cities:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBTA_su...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_L...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_(r...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARTA_r...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_S...

[@pranavkumar1818]

I live in Metro Vancouver area and the transit is so damn well managed. It's not the fastest (metro Vancouver has more than 15 municipalities/cities), but you know exactly how much time you are gonna need to go somewhere. The communication about disruptions are very well communicated. The fare system and tech is extremely well crafted (based on zones and time, tap with credit cards, interac cards, compass cards etc). I am grateful for it everyday.

[@jonathanwong5947]

Agreed! I use it to commute to work (trades, either joining crews or picking up a vehicle for supervisor shifts) and sometimes use it to go mountain biking or hiking (seabus, transit straight to the trailheads). I've even used it to get to Vancouver Island with a bike and bypass the vehicle reservations and big line ups. It works really well.

[@dminnovatores]

I guess you're talking about the SkyTrain because other than that, if you depend on buses, it's not like that at all

[@pranavkumar1818]

@@dminnovatores My experience has been different in the area I live in. I find the buses to be more reliable than the skytrain (just cuz sections of it are shut few times for maintenance). Google Maps does a good job of indicating when the next bus arrives and all bus stops are within a 10-15min walking range. The community buses which criss crosses the interiors are a blessing too !

[@jaquigreenlees]

Fare zones: Lets shaft the riders with higher costs to use our automated transit systems when it is BEST SUITED to reduce traffic congestion. It wouldn't take much higher transit costs to make it more cost effective to drive into downtown Vancouver instead of using transit during "peak hours". The fare system needs to be re-evaluated to make it so there is greater inducement to use transit.

[@420greatestqueen]

@@dminnovatoresAgreed. Translink is bad at communicating disruptions and delays for busses

[@chromebomb]

Couple notes as a Californian who lived in LA thru the Pandemic and who now lives in SF: LA: You are spot on about rider income, vast majority of people on the LA Metro do not have any other option to get to work and most of those people were essential workers during the pandemic(including myself). I just looked at my phone and saw a photo I took April 6 2020 of a crowded westbound Expo line train. Unfortunately this is a reason why LA's transit system is stuck in perpetual purgatory as the cultural & economic divide of people who use the system is even wider than pre pandemic. Which makes "recovery" so much more difficult. SF: The Bay Area is a complicated place, BART is basically a commuter system for suburban commuters to get to Downtown SF. SF invented the tech for WFH, housing prices were wildly inflated so people left or they don't come in anymore. I now work in downtown SF and rush hour ridership on BART into & our of downtown is coming back(only on a T,W,T scheudle, Mondays & Fridays are dead). Muni on the other hand(which is light rail and buses and only operates in SF) is has had a much stronger recovery and some bus routes that go outside downtown have higher ridership than pre pandemic. So its not all bad news but BART needs more money to survive. Not to mention BART had the highest farebox recovery rate of any Metro & loosing all that ridership is not good.

[@Nouvellecosse]

Yeah I think that's probably the main explanation for why systems with already low ridership relative to the size of their home metro areas didn't see as big of a drop. The lower average rider income means both that they're mainly captive riders while there were fewer choice riders to lose while low income people are less likely to be able to work from home. Among lower income people there's a higher proportion working at places like in-person retail, other customer service jobs, or custodial work. For a huge megacity/region like LA's to have lower rapid transit ridership than a smallish city like Vancouver means most in LA who have a choice weren't riding to begin with. Similar for Atlanta and Miami which are metro areas the size of Boston or Toronto.

[@onetwothreeabc]

@@Nouvellecosse People that can afford a car prefer not to share air with people that can't. I don't know how this can be fixed.

[@pwp8737]

@@onetwothreeabc stop subsidizing car ridership. The cost of pollution and building and maintaining highways is largely funded by general taxation, if car riders had to bear the full cost of their habits, most would switch to public transit.

[@mrxman581]

That is changing noticeably on LA Metro since the Regional Connector opened in June of 2023. You see many more families and other young adults that are taking the LA Metro because it's becoming more convenient. For example, I've seen a lot more people who are noticeably better dressed coming abd going through the A and E lines due to the Regional Connector and the three new stations. More people seem to be simply going to Santa Monica for the beach. Once the Transit Center Station opens on the K line, and then the subsequent LAX People Mover, you'll have a growing and greater variety of passengers.

[@mrxman581]

​@@NouvellecosseAgain, the two subway lines in LA that are referenced in this video are on 17 miles total. The majority of the LA Metro rail transit in LA is on light rail of about 95 miles of track. It's relatively meaningless to gauge any kind of citywide public transit patterns from 17 miles of subway.

[@adnanilyas6368]

I know the video focused on proper metro systems, but I wanted to highlight one major successful “recovery” for a far more modest American transit system. The Cincinnati streetcar is extremely limited, with just one short looping line downtown. After fierce political opposition, the city’s only rail mass transit system opened in 2016, with really weak attendance. By 2019, it did about half a million total riders in a year. Numbers cratered with the pandemic with the line mostly closed for 6 months in 2020. However, since then, it has massively improved. The city eliminated fares in November 2021 on the rationale that the cost to enforce the fares was higher than the revenue and, since then, it has repeatedly broken attendance records. By the end of 2021, annual attendance had reached 104% the attendance of 2019. Numbers continued to rise and annual attendance surpassed over 1 million riders, more than double 2019.

[@clomino3]

Super interesting, thanks for sharing this!

[@qjtvaddict]

Streetcars may as well be free

[@abchaplin]

I hope you do a similar examination of light rail post-pandemic. I would like to hear your interpretation of how OC Transpo has been consistently "leaning into the punches" coming out of current events crossed with their management decisions.

[@jaylewis5035]

Pittsburgh Light Rail has been devastated to the point where one of the three lines is already planned for abandonment with the other two sure to follow.

[@SkylordAh]

@@jaylewis5035pittsburgh T is literally doing a $150 million capital project rn

[@BK_718]

@@jaylewis5035no way 😮 so they’re gonna let the infrastructure just let it sit abandoned instead of just closing it and just keeping it in decent shape until the city decides to open it up again ?

[@mrxman581]

Indeed, LA Metro's rail network consists of around 20% subway and 80% light rail track. LA's light rail has recovered very well especially the A and E lines. In fact, the A line recently surpassed the subway B line as the most used.

[@Dexter037S4]

The LRT is guaranteed to be scrapped with more than likely Solaris Tri-Articulated BRT ETBs coming in to replace it, although that's the smart decision, so it'll just be diesel buses instead.

[@ficus3929]

Rider income is definitely a big part of the story in LA. The LA metro is the cheapest I’ve seen in North America with a $1.75 fare good for 2 hours. Although the LA metro network has wide coverage the overall trip times are generally very poor to the point that driving in traffic is always faster unless your origin and destination are literally right next to the red or purple lines. For that reason nearly anyone who can afford to drive does.

[@chromebomb]

LA gets most of their funding from sales tax too, their farebox recovery is so low that they should just make it free.

[@kevinconrad6156]

like 35 cents for a Senior Citizen (starts at 62 as well) off peak, real bargain.

[@thomasgrabkowski8283]

As for cities like LA, San Francisco and Chicago, lower income people are also leaving those cities in large numbers. Since, it’s primarily those people that use transit system, it’s massively affecting ridership as the people who use it aren’t living in the city anymore

[@mrxman581]

Much less the case now with projects like the Regional Connector that opened in June 2023. I've taken the E line from Santa Monica to East LA and it was about 20 minutes faster than driving on a weekday during rush hour. Whether an LA Metro rail line will be faster than driving, it depends on the time of the day and the day of the week.

[@vitasoy1437]

@@mrxman581 Some points are pretty convenient with the light rail, but depends on the starting point and destination. Unfortunately, I do not live near within walkable distance to a metro station, so I'd either have to drive to a park and ride, which somewhat defeats the purpose, or take bus to connect to the train in dtla, which I have done so 2x for fun. It's relatively convenient if you are going to dtla, but the system is bad if you are travelling from suburb to suburb, which is almost impossible/ridiculous sadly. I have also "experimented" taking public transit from dtla to lax area, which was not bad at all.

[@dianethulin1700]

BART also suffered from dangerous situations on the trains as well as antiquated cars. They have now retired all of the original fleet, addressed crime and shortened the cars to eight. Ridership is coming back and I’m on cars that are frequently packed

[@noremfor]

It's gonna be a long road to recovery for the Bay Area, but we are certainly making progress now

[@CnekYT]

Calgary also had a similar issue where following the lockdowns, our system suffered from a massive spike in social disorder and crime. Things have mostly gone back to normal now but the system struggles with it's reputation. What I find interesting though is that our ridership currently is higher than pre-pandemic levels and I'm not really sure the reasons for that

[@steveurbach3093]

The Homeless and the closure of major businesses in downtown areas from the concerns (This includes other bay ares downtown served) has severely reduced the workforce needed in those places. Disconnected transit (that that requires transfers between modes): Why spend almost 2 hours to get someplace that a 45Min car trip (Leaving out the insane parking cost)? Or Transit that only runs for Transit (Try to work IN Morgan Hill. Nope! The train only goes North in the Early AM and only South in the PM. No Mid day ). Want to be in SF by 0600 from the south. There is a Redeye, 2 hour route.

[@atm1947]

@@CnekYTit’s because Calgary has had a dramatic increase in population in the last couple years. It’s not really affordable by AB standards, but it’s absolutely cheaper than west coast cities. Coming from someone who’s from the Bay Area, Calgary is easily half as cheap to rent in compared to where I’m from. If I was able to orient my life purely around affordability and transit access, Calgary is close to my number one spot. I think that’s the case for many people, but even beyond desiring transit access it is a markedly affordable place to live in urban North American standards.

[@ajs11201]

BART has been a hot mess for years. It's not unique to the Bay Area, but fare evaders are prevalent there. Some stations are particularly bad, like MacArthur, for example, where at times it seems that only about half of the passengers actually pay a fare. While I am sympathetic to high costs for low-income riders, it also seems that some of the fare-evaders are bringing other problems with them such as vandalism, theft, and personal crimes, leaving the well-heeled in search of other transportation options.

[@BrennanZeigler]

Chicago’s problem too is that it is now regarded as the worst run transit agency in America. It wasn’t always like this but their current leadership is making it virtually impossible to recover to pre-pandemic ridership. Keep in mind, CTA president Dorval Carter has never taken transit, instead preferring to be chauffeured to his job. He refuses to interact with riders, he lies about hiring new staff, he refuses to attend city council meetings aimed at improving transit, you name it. Instead of trying to boost ridership, he’s choosing to keep these policies in place, claiming they’re just “cost cutting measures”. In fact CTA leadership has gotten so bad, that Illinois politicians are now planning on merging CTA, Metra, and Pace into one state owned agency, which has been met with mixed reception. Most people in the city support the merger, but most people in the suburbs do not

[@beback_]

I never understood what the real implications of the merger would be, other than just rebranding.

[@mikekeenan8450]

Lemme guess, the people in the suburbs are worried that it might get too convenient for people from the city to show up in their neighbourhoods. Apparently some years ago residents of one rich neighbourhood in Waterloo, Ontario tried to take the regional government to court to stop a bus route from being put close to them. The same bunch also tried to get the city to remove the signs showing where the parks were. Or so I heard from someone who lived there; I don't have a news article to point to.

[@JesusChrist-qs8sx]

@@beback_ Less operational duplication (the CTA and Metra in many cases have similar, if not identical, departments that can easily be merged and trimmed a fair bit), easier service coordination, shared expertise (a rapid transit system vs a commuter system) and ideally an organization with the vision to bring rapid transit to the whole city, not just the parts of Chicago that are part of the municipality called "Chicago".

[@BrennanZeigler]

@@mikekeenan8450 Pretty much. Because of this, I don’t think they will successfully merge the three systems. Suburbanites always win unfortunately, because more people live in all suburbs combined than the entire city of Chicago

[@qjtvaddict]

@@BrennanZeiglerso how come there are no suburban metro L lines?

[@ronnyrueda5926]

Some additional context for LAs Heavy Rail numbers. The dip from Q1 2023 to Q1 2024 has to do with downtown riders shifting from the Heavy Rail stations on the B/D lines the new Light Rail subway stations on the A/E lines.

[@stickynorth]

Regional Connector has entered the chat!

[@mrxman581]

Very true. It's made many rides faster because less transfers are involved. Just one example, if you wanted to go from East LA to Santa Monica it required 2 transfers. Since the Regional Connector, there are no transfer and the total ride takes about 25 minutes less now. Much more convenient now to go to the beach on the LA Metro instead of driving. No searching or paying for parking either.

[@JamesTaylor-zs2gq]

Notably, Vancouver has a single direction (AM inbound, PM outbound) commuter train service that has fared much worse than the rest of the system in terms of recovery. This supports the argument that serving a broader range of trips than just 9-5 commutes is one of the most important factors.

[@stickynorth]

West Coast Express really needs an overhaul including using Battery Electric Multiple Units over an extended regional network!

[@brianlau7827]

I took the SkyTrain from Commercial-Broadway Station today in Vancouver because there was a special event happening close by. The station was so busy but the crowd control was so well managed because of how frequent the trains were coming. I didn't have to worry about not being able to get on a crowded train, so I decided to just wait another minute for the next train to come. So grateful for the transit service in Vancouver.

[@AlCatSplat]

Italian day 🇮🇹?

[@alexhaowenwong6122]

San Diego LRT recovered so spectacularly that it was #1 in 2023 US LRT ridership despite being #5 in 2019. And 2024 ridership is set to break all time record highs.

[@DaDrummer98]

The Blue Line extension played a huge role. Trolleys are packed from UCSD to Downtown during rush hour, we need higher frequency on that segment, and on the overall system too.

[@alexhaowenwong6122]

@@DaDrummer98 MTS also doubled off-peak weekday frequency from 15 min to 7.5 min between America Plaza and San Ysidro in 2020. The Trolley also has a similar polycentric layout to Vancouver's Skytrain (and is building some Skytrain-sized TODs)

[@mrxman581]

The LA light rail system surpassed San Diego last month. It will only continue to grow and permanently regain the top position it had before the pandemic. A couple of light rail projects will be operational this year and next plus the opening of the LAX People Mover that will connect to 2 of our light rail lines, the K and C lines.

[@alexhaowenwong6122]

@@mrxman581 LA LRT ridership surpassed SD LRT in absolute numbers but as a percentge of 2019 ridership, SD LRT is still higher.

[@CNHFTC2010]

SoCal here; your analysis of LA’s Metro is pretty spot on. The subway system runs mostly through very dense, low-income immigrant neighborhoods where much of the population are “essential workers.” That helped keep ridership as high as it was during the pandemic. However, that drop from 2023 to 2024 can partly be attributed to perceptions of the system being unsafe which is keeping riders away.

[@crowmob-yo6ry]

Since 2023, the real problem is sensationalist news media and its fear-mongering.

[@Egg-mr7np]

Unsafe because of Covid or crime?

[@CNHFTC2010]

@@Egg-mr7np crime, and it has been well publicized. Stabbings, shootings, robbery, bodies found of homeless addicts, the list goes on…

[@onetwothreeabc]

@@Egg-mr7np Crime I guess.

[@mrxman581]

Your description of the neighborhoods the subway goes through is incorrect. It's very mixed both in ethnicity and income. DTLA alone is a good example. Hollywood is another, and so is North Hollywood. BTW, ridership has gone up every month for the last 16 months on LA Metro. And to the individuals who made this video, passengers of the LA Metro system don't distinguish between heavy rail subway or the light rail lines. They are seen and treated as one system. So this kind of passenger analysis is much less accurate to measure any kind of pattern. In LA's case, it's better to evaluate the entire LA Metro network as one entity, like with NYC. The lines compliment and interconnect each other.

[@luckytran]

Thanks for covering this! COVID and public health concerns are frequently left out of conversations about public transport accessibility. Many disabled and higher risk people, as well as people generally concerned about protecting their health haven’t been able to access public transport for years due to the lack of masks and clean air (great point about Vancouver being an open-air system). This is a huge equity issue because cars are expensive, and people don't own them in cities like NYC. As someone who works in public health, I'd love to see more public health and pandemic resilience being built into and added to public transit. Open air systems aren't a fit for all cities, but things every city can do is to provide air quality monitoring, install clean air infrastructure, provide free high quality masks to riders, increase bike lane infrastructure etc.

[@skurinski]

just stay inside then. They are free to wear masks if they want

[@hostilepancakes]

Look, I want to accommodate more folks who don’t want to drive too, but there’s a hierarchy of needs with public transit. “Clean air” devices and infrastructure that aren’t a simple fix like stronger filters on the A/C and heating systems of trains and buses, are a lot lower down the list right now. Financial crises at dozens of transit agencies across the country need to be addressed ASAP, and the need for restoring pre-pandemic service frequency and then improving upon it is much more important right now. Transit in the US specifically is in a really bad place right now, and some things are going to need to be sidelined if some cities are to even have a transit system at all 5 years from now.

[@Euniceiscool]

Vancouver's Skytrain network needed to be expanded like a decade ago.

[@stickynorth]

The Hastings/North Shore line not being done by now is a travesty! I personally think it should loop the Inlet via Stanley Park and Park Royal too!

[@Lumpology]

North shore has a major NIMBY problem. The north shore rapid bus was original supposed to be much longer. Lucky at the very least north van is getting a BRT line. That will create a good corridor for skytrain to be added to in future.

[@AmurTiger]

Pretty sure they were expanding it about a decade ago. Evergreen Line may not be the most popular extension but it's a necessary component to balancing out the needs of the various Translink municipalities. Figuring out how best to tackle the North Shore will be a long struggle, not just because of working out the specifics of the skytrain alignment and amassing the considerable funds needed to put in such a long line. The North Shore - Metrotown extension if done in one go will be the longest single addition to the skytrain network ever, even after the also long Langley extension that's being worked on. Obviously Vancouver's got a ton of work to do and we'd certainly like for there to be a larger Skytrain network but we shouldn't imagine that just because extension 'X' hasn't been completed yet it's because Translink has been sitting on it's hands, one of the more important virtues of Translink is that they've been pretty consistently adding to the system for over two decades.

[@AlCatSplat]

​@@AmurTigerThey added one line and one extension in the past two decades.

[@AR-gj1qt]

It has been expanded continuously for decades canada line evergreen extension etc it just should've done more but it's still good

[@critiqueofthegothgf]

la retaining the most ridership was crazy surprising but the reasoning makes sense, especially when you put it into the context of its initial ridership numbers

[@WilliamPitcher]

As of August 31, 2023, Mississauga, Ontario's transit system (MiWay) was at 109% of pre-pandemic ridership and it has only increased since then.

[@CyberGrape]

Winnipeg Transit had also recovered to over 90% by September 2023 and I wouldn't be surprised if it already had surpassed pre-pandemic levels this year. And pretty sure that the actual service frequency is still lagging behind because of shortage of drivers, so this is quite impressive.

[@Arkiasis]

Canadian transit seems to have recovered much more than Americans ones.

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

Brampton Ontario's transit system (Brampton Transit) was at 140% of pre-pandemic ridership as of April 2024

[@mikekeenan8450]

@@OntarioTrafficMan I'm guessing that in the cases of Mississauga and Brampton, the systems are brand new or at least heavily upgraded? Cases like that may make people more likely to give them another chance.

[@artemoleinikov4817]

@@mikekeenan8450 The recovery is through the roof in Mississauga/Brampton because of the type of people who use it. Lower income temporary foreign workers and international students are the main users of these transit systems, people which Canada has imported millions of in the last 4 years. Brampton has either retained or improved frequency through COVID and Mississauga reallocated a lot of their buses from commuter routes to create more of a frequent grid network which was helpful for ridership recovery too.

[@matthewconstantine5015]

DC also had a major service issue in the middle of their recovery when they had to pull all the 7000 series trains out & cut already spotty service back substantially. I know it forced my wife to take Uber/Lyft a lot more than she normally would. And don't even get me started on the buses. 3 years after a major schedule revamp that was supposed to increase frequency & reliability, and my local Metro bus still just shows up whenever it feels like it. Late? Early? Not at all? It's all the same for Metro Bus.

[@j41500]

The bus system definitely needs a major upgrade. I hope that the fixes they say they are going to implement happen and happen soon. But after the 7000 series debacle, the rail system is doing pretty well. WMATA has done a great job of running trains frequently and increasing the frequency at off peak hours. I just hope that they are able to get the funding they need to maintain the rail performance and upgrade the bus system.

[@adanactnomew7085]

I think the reason the Skytrain is doing so well is there is a lot of TOD, as well as the city not being an easy city to drive in in areas that the Skytrain serves. If people go downtown they will opt for the train over driving.

[@AlCatSplat]

Vancouver is an easy city to drive in.

[@TomPVideo]

I would say Vancouver is both an easy city to drive in, but driving is not necessarily the most convenient way to travel around the city. Vancouver lacks an urban freeway so nearly every journey along a Skytrain route will be faster on transit than driving. This encourages people to take transit to begin with, even if the roads are only OK busy. But by that same pressure, if the roads get even slightly backed up regularly, routes with a SkyTrain option will have a pressure relief. Alternatively, routes without a train continue to back up like the bridges to the North Shore. Our downtown has also recovered quite well because places like Yaletown and the West End are home to a very large number of people.

[@dminnovatores]

Unfortunately driving IS a lot more convenient. The SkyTrain covers very little of the city

[@timtwoface]

I live in Vancouver and just visited San Francisco...both cities have great transit systems and I think Vancouver is among the best for a city its size. San Francisco's BART, Muni, and other combined systems are excellent for a city its size (approx 2-3 times the size of Vancouver if you take the entire Bay Area into account). BART does feel dated and it's a lot more expensive...and behind schedule...but once you're onboard it's a pretty convenient system.

[@Rahshu]

We don't have a car due to low income, so we still had to use transit to do anything. Ordering stuff was too costly, and we've never used rideshares. The accusation that transit is welfare for the poor is not entirely unfounded, I'm afraid. I just wish they didn't begrudge and belittle you for it.

[@AlCatSplat]

It's only welfare due to poor urban planning.

[@moofey]

Vancouver definitely powered through the height of the pandemic but it was almost much worse. TransLink was on the verge of making drastic cuts to service early on until the government chipped in. Even now, they're still threatening drastic cuts if they can't get government funding soon.

[@trainluvr]

Great channel and video. This summer I will take my first rides on the Calgary, Ottawa and REM systems!

[@MasterChaoko]

Another key factor in Miami/Atlanta's smaller ridership drop is inequality. Both cities top national Gini coefficient rankings; the middle-income cohort, the one most likely to to flee transit during COVID, was relatively smaller compared to other cities.

[@drdewott9154]

In Denmark we also have some pretty interesting phenomena as a result of covid. Here not only transit ridership but also Cycling plumitted! The most cited reason for cycling plumitting was the risk of being infected while cycling, like being coughed at from another cyclists or from a pedestrian as you're cycling past at speed, or at an intersection. As a result, combined with working from home resulting in much higher disposable income and nowhere else to spend it, private car ownership went extremely high as everyone primarily wanted to stay in private automobiles to be away from the risk of infections! Still all in all, transit systems in Denmarks ridership never really went below 60% of pre-covid levels. The Copenhagen metro had a retained ridership amidst the pandemic of about 65% as of August 2020, though its also worth noting that the city had opened its third metro line just a few months before the pandemic and its 4th line only around 2 weeks after lockdown began. The other subway system in Denmark, the Copenhagen S-train for 2020 as a whole had a ridership retention of 68% and as of now has recovered to 94% of pre pandemic ridership. Finding data for specific months at this moment in time for me has seemed to be a very hard task that I can't do right now so this is the best I can provide. Denmark had very strict covid restrictions but that also meant the individual whole lockdowns generally were shorter, and that many people generally felt a bit safer than in other countries, believing the virus was under more control and people would be more responsible with consistent covid testing being provided free of charge to citizens. But Copenhagen is also a very decentralised city, which has already worked against the mostly radial S-train system which shares many similarities with the likes of BART, but since trips on it were already relatively low in that sense and as of total modal share, it also wasnt as highly affected by work from home. Even still in general transit ridership in Denmark broadly hasn't fully recovered, staying at roughly 86% of pre-covid levels, with transit ridership also already being in decline for over a decade pre-covid. Though in the case of Light rail, there has actually been a significant increase in passenger numbers compared to pre-covid, though this is more so because of service and infrastructure improvements, and the fact our nations first LRT system opened in phases in just 2017-2019. And our second system opened in 2022.

[@Immortalcheese]

I stopped taking the TTC during the pandemic and only really resumed in late 2022. It was very odd to not be on transit for over 2 years and opting to drive everywhere instead. Now I am back to daily ridership and it feels so much better than having to drive everywhere

[@GoodStoryTeller]

Tech industry. The tech industry realizes that almost none of their employees needs to be in a an office. Bart had a really successful partnership selling group passes for all the employees of a company to a company with headquarters in downtown. The company then provided that pass to the employees as a perk of the job. It meant a ton of ridership because that employee could get unlimited rides on weekdays or weekends to shows and museums on top of the daily commute rides. But no office means no commuter pass means the employees are paying for the pass themselves and that means no weekend or weekday rides to events. The theaters and symphony and opera and broadway are basically begging people to go to shows right now because no one has the commuter passes. And companies were paying really high prices for the commuter passes which individual employees are not willing to pay for one off trips. Plus stupid policies requiring bart to get a lot of funding from ridership and not taxes means it was overly depending on the commuters for sustainability. Basically, tax the companies to fund bart the way vancouver and DC do instead of doing the weird company commuter pass thing.

[@user-ov4mk9ox8y]

Actually, an idea overall that would fail the tax test and universality of use. Student fares? Yes. In fact, transit employees (including bus) get ridership in Vancouver and I don't agree with that: include all, or no one. It's not the companies product to give away, nor is it the Unions to negotiate for free: it's public transit.

[@slam5]

I'm so glad that Vancouver's transit system had recovered to pre-pandemic level. Livability of a city increase when you have a prosperous transit system.

[@andreaallais4942]

Nice video, thanks!

[@thesilverblack708]

Not sure if you guys have heard. But the city of Montreal announced a pretty big urbanization plan from now until 2050. Which includes a lot more social housing, more green spaces, more public transit routes across the city as well as a big plan: A brand new tramline network. Not to be confused with the REM. I'd like to hear your thoughts on it.

[@jordanhamann9123]

I've heard that some Amtrak routes have actually EXCEEDED their pre-pandemic ridership levels. That could be an interesting video

[@kailahmann1823]

For comparison I have Hamburger Hochbahn: A drop _by_ about 30% in 2020 and 2021. Numbers in 2023 are probably to be a new all-time high, exceeding the previous record set in 2019. Bike traffic in the city skyrocketed and continues to grow since (also due to massive investments of almost 100 million € annually), car traffic was also down by around 30% with very little rebound since.

[@theaveragejoe5781]

Very interesting. Energy price spike and that Germans are poorer after the pandemic might also have contributed

[@lzh4950]

Meanwhile for my country (Singapore) public transport/transit daily ridership initially dropped 80% in mid-2020, by year-end, the figures stabilized to a smaller 50% drop (compared to the previous year). The gov't originally reduced peak-hour service to off-peak frequency but that led to complaints of overcrowding in some areas. While quite a lot of employers rolled out work-from-home others may be more resistent/conservative, with security concerns (some employees work with desktops instead of laptops & thus can't bring work home, maybe worried that they could leak out company secrets that way). The country also has a sizable manufacturing economy (20% of GDP) that's using bigger & more specialized equipment that will no longer be accessible to employees if they work from home. Some companies may instead divide employees into different groups that aren't supposed to interact with each other, with different groups being designating separate toilets, dining areas & times in the factory canteen, different times to enter & exit the workplace etc. Now public transport ridership has recovered to 86% to pre-pandemic levels (maybe helped by higher car taxes now too), but experts/our gov't are/is still worried, because meanwhile expressway/highway traffic has already recovered to 100% of pre-pandemic levels!

[@theaveragejoe5781]

@@lzh4950 Very interesting. Why do you think transit ridership is not back to full yet? Work-from-home?

[@bahnspotterEU]

@@theaveragejoe5781 You're forgetting the one positive factor pulling people into transit: The 49 Euro ticket. It is vastly cheaper than previous monthly tickets even for single cities were. It is a game changer and very attractive for frequent commuters.

[@thomasgrabkowski8283]

@@theaveragejoe5781Also the fact that gas has become very expensive in Germany whilst they’ve reduced public transit fares I’ve heard

[@Coltoid]

You never seem to run out of great video ideas

[@Arkiasis]

An interesting thing is that for Toronto, weekend ridership of the subway and Go Trains are now above pre-pandemic numbers. Most offices have moved to a hybrid system moving forward so that'll change things a bit. But transit demand is there for people on the weekends for events and going into the city.

[@thomasgrabkowski8283]

Another reason for large ridership drop in some cities such as San Francisco, LA, Chicago and Boston, there has been a large exodus of low income residents, the group that traditionally depends on the transit system away from the city since pandemic

[@BALJIT147]

There are a lot of factors that people don't want to talk about when it comes to transit. Transit needs to be affordable, safe, clean and frequent. When I was in South America the train was all of those things. When I was in the US, the buses were filthy, infrequent and filled with screaming, violent drug addicts.

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

The social issues such as homelessness and drug addiction have also gotten a lot more severe in many cities, and based on their impacts on transit people feel a lot less comfortable riding transit than they would have prior to the pandemic. I was recently in Edmonton and was absolutely shocked by the level of drug use on the trains. I love transit, but I think if I lived in Edmonton nowadays I would avoid the LRT as much as possible, simply because it does not feel like a civilized place anymore. Which is a shame, because my experience was that the service itself was fast and reliable.

[@theaveragejoe5781]

Important video. Unfortunately the optics are not good for us transit fans. My feeling is it is work from home that makes the difference. How do monday and friday conpare to middle of week? An international comparison, outside NA, would be super interesting as well.

[@stickynorth]

Vancouver's Skytrain says it all. And why Automated mass transit needs to be a thing everywhere ASAP... No labor costs means you can run service patterns that are much more tailored to demand without hurting anyone's bottom line... And they are strike proof. When Translink goes on strike, the Skytrain still runs normally because they have redundant backup staff to always take over if need be which rarely if ever happens... Except on older trains that are about to be retired I am told...

[@alexhaowenwong6122]

San Diego's proposing an elevated automated light metro connecting airport to Downtown, with up to 2 min frequencies. But the NIMBYs are pushing for an LRT spur with 15 min frequencies instead.

[@etmooreca9612]

I’d be excited for follow up light rail video. I know Ion ridership in Waterloo has rebounded to pre-Covid levels and is experiencing record highs (granted the system was launched in mid-2019 so it’s not like there’s a lot of pre-covid history but still) I’d be excited to see how we stack up against big cities in the rest of the continent

[@mikekeenan8450]

More good news, and I noted in another comment someone said the same about Mississauga and Brampton. What all these cities have in common is relatively newly built rapid transit (LRT in Waterloo, BRT in the other two). I'm wondering if the relative novelty of those systems is what makes people more likely to give them another chance. Winnipeg was also mentioned in another comment as having a pretty good recovery; for us it's probably a mixture of that (for the Southwest Transitway) and having a lot of people with no other way to get around than the bus (and possibly nowhere better to be) for the rest of the system.

[@fallenshallrise]

I live in Vancouver and visited SF last year. The difference between the 2 systems is pretty clear. I appreciated the BART but it's slow, infrequent and sits at the station for minutes at a time probably because it's human driven. Also the stations themselves have about half as many lights in them as they should so they feel dark and foreboding. If you didn't ride SkyTrain for a couple of years and then you try it out again and the stations are bright and the train you need shows up in under 3 minutes and is fast then of course you will be reminded of how good the service is and will use it for more trips VS going down to a dark underground platform and waiting 20 minutes for a train to arrive.

[@jameslongstaff2762]

You guys make good videos

[@beticocr1234]

In Costa Rica we have a suburban or light train. I don't know about ridership numbers, but before the pandemic it passed every 30 minutes in both directions for most of the day and we haven't recovered that frequency and now it only goes from the suburbs to the city center in the morning and the other way in the afternoon.

[@littlekirby6]

The Boston metro is so dreadful. I had moved out in 2019, and I heard the service was bad in 2022, but I figured things would have gotten better by now. I visited for the first time a few weeks ago, and good lord, the Red Line is a mess

[@jonathanstensberg]

Not mentioned: the perception of unsafety on US metro systems has also skyrocketed since 2020. This is also a consequence of staffing shortages among transit police, but also the deliberate policy decisions made in these cities related to crime. These things are steeped in politics, but it has a real effect on a lot of people’s transportation decisions.

[@crowmob-yo6ry]

The real problem is sensationalist news media and its fear-mongering.

[@KarolaTea]

What I'd be interested in is whether all those "missing" rides have turned into drives instead. If more people work from home then there's less demand for transport of any kind. No need to "recover" from that part. If my city felt safer to walk/cycle I'd absolutely take public transport less. Imo that'd be a good thing, since walking/cycling use less energy and public funding, and those spots on the buses would be free for people who really need it.

[@peterryrfeldt8568]

fantastic video as always, though I would appreciate if you had pointed out the time axis is not linear in the graph at 5:40, and doesn't compare the same quarter between years, it's probably minor but travel can be affected by the season, so it would probably be best to include all quarters and/or index them to the corresponding quarter in 2019, in case recovery is different between quarters (say tourists returned but commuters didn't), or to show whole-year ridership

[@TheNewGreenIsBlue]

As mentioned, frequencies and automation are what really helped Vancouver's SkyTrain. That being said, although technically BC had less strict law/rules... the higher-percentage Asian population meant that most people and businesses followed guidelines more readily so fewer actual rules were needed. Also impressive given the narrow width of SkyTrain cars on the Expo/Millennium lines. Also, Vancouver's downtown has a lower office-concentration than places like Toronto. As a LOT of jobs switched to WFH for offices, Vancouver was less affected... as offices are spread throughout the metro. As such, it's not just commuting to the office that SkyTrain is used for, but for travel in general.

[@vaska00762]

Would it be possible to compare these numbers to European systems? It would be interesting to see if the more overall car oriented North American systems, which feature vast park and rides have just haemorrhaged riders to those who can just drive the whole way, vs European systems where riders are far more likely to do their whole journey by public transport rather than drive to a suburban station. Another point is whether or not the pandemic, and indeed lower ridership, has caused the cancellation of projects to build or expand transport systems. Many politicians (like in New York) have concluded that there's no point to building more/better public transport when everyone's just going to work remotely instead. It's a very out of touch sentiment when employers are increasingly forcing return to office.

[@theaveragejoe5781]

+1 this. I think work from home is also quite prevalent in the Us

[@OhTheUrbanity]

These numbers were all compiled by APTA (American Public Transportation Association). I'd love to compare to European systems but I don't know of a similarly convenient source. If you have one, let me know!

[@pcongre]

@@OhTheUrbanity unsure on whether this could be considered a 'convenient source', but just in case -> note: check out the links under figures/tables! they often have updated data -> publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC133322/JRC133322_01.pdf

[@vaska00762]

@@OhTheUrbanity I've written out this reply like 3 times. Are URLs just not allowed in these comments? Anyway... One place I'm aware of is from the European Union agency, Eurostat, which compiles statistical data from the EU27, as well as Norway, Iceland, Lichtenstein and Switzerland to allow for "apples to apples" comparisons, using standardised methodologies and statistical models. The UK used to follow these until Brexit, so only pre 2020 stats are available. This is done so that no country can fudge their stats to look better than another country through creative mathematics. There are statistics available also for cities and metropolitan areas also, but the most I've found is modal share percentages, which might be suitable. I haven't done a deep dive into the full amounts of data available, but I think it's an interesting source.

[@OhTheUrbanity]

@@pcongre I'll take a look, thanks!

[@user-ov4mk9ox8y]

When I moved to Vancouver , BC and it's lower mainland the first thing I noticed were the two rivers to cross, bridges everywhere, and a tunnel. I can't imagine living without Skytrain and how did we EVER do it??! Finally expanding out into the Langley area, and it's all good. I commuted from a rancho in the USA and in fifty minutes I was in Burnaby to work, at 9 a.m. Now? it would be 2,5 hours. take the transit.

[@jordanw8382]

For one, Vancouver pre-Skytrain was low density with half the population as today. Driving was easy and fast. Traffic jams were almost non-existent minus a couple spots like the George Massey Tunnel in rush hours.

[@Kagehime-4]

today I wanted to go to a fleamarket in a city i don't usually frequent, I never made it. Long story short the train driver was sick so I returned home

[@Kisai_Yuki]

Vancouver is "high frequency, high speed (but shorter trains)" which allows it to operate with no drivers and no station staff. If they need to scale back service, they can literately go from 75s headways to 7 minutes and most people won't complain about it as long as the trains aren't hitting crush load. Most of these other systems use far longer trains, and aren't automated, thus there is a long chain of staff that is required for the train to operate safely. Like when the busses go on strike, you can still use the skyrtrain as long as the bus drivers aren't out protesting in front of it. Basically "crossing the picket line" is paying for the skytrain ticket in that situation. That said, the elevated nature of the train works mostly in it's favor during the pandemic simply because leaving two windows open was enough to ventilate the car and normalize the temperature, so the risk was heavily downplayed. Overall everyone was focused on social distancing, and it didn't get dialed up until the vaccine shots became available. Once people got the vaccines, everyone pretty much went back to business-as-usual, though a lot of the plexiglass shields in stores, restaurants, and such didn't come down until last summer (2023.)

[@longiusaescius2537]

Leafbros...

[@gabrielgarcia7554]

As an Angeleno who rides public transit I agree with your assent. Ultimately these were riders who are not choice riders, generally this population performs manual labor to some extent and earns money through cash. Generally the majority of these people from my experiences are Hispanic/Latino and generally women (maybe like a little more than half?) between ages of 40-70. It is really sad because after Covid the quality of the metro system (particularly the Red (B) and Purple (D) Lines) have become generally unsafe, unsanitary, and higher chance of being a victim of some crime. These people have less opportunities and during this pandemic they really had to work and could not afford not taking the train. Many Angelenos (transplants or not) are unfortunately very status conscious and don’t want to ride the trains given the perception that only the very desperate use it. Or if they give it a shot they may not really do it ever again due to the unsanitary conditions, chances of being accosted, and antisocial behavior they may witness. Majority of these problems are due to the city and surrounding area’s ongoing homelessness crisis which is another topic. Ultimately the red and purple lines have become the only public space that these people can exist in without being harassed by the police. Our local government has done a lot to try and make these stations cleaner and safer however there is still more work to be done. Housing the homeless and other efforts to increase lighting and have metro “ambassadors” have taken effect, I have do not have any data to suggest how effective these efforts have been but I suspect it at least has improved the perception due to the increased transit ridership rates we are experiencing now and a more diverse group of people taking transit including choice riders.

[@Nozizaki]

While Miami had laxer measures during the pandemic, I think something much more perverse is at play there. The ridership was retained because many riders are low income workers who don't have a choice on commute mode and couldn't work remotely

[@dynasty0019]

An underrated thing about Miami is that they maintained their safety and cleanliness post-pandemic. Many systems like MTA, LACMTA, BART, CTA, and MAX really struggled with crime and transients and in most cases still are. In short, many parts of the country let crime ran free while Miami did not, so Miami retained its ridership while other cities scared away their's away.

[@moraimon]

I am simply surprised to know Chicago’s relatively lower public transit usage even before the pandemic. It was lower than Toronto’s and Montréal’s even though Chicago metro is bigger than Toronto and Montréal metros.

[@stickynorth]

Shockingly low... No wonder ghost trains are a thing there...

[@JustinJamesJeep]

I've never been so early 😱

[@bubba6989]

LA Metro was free during a good portion of covid, plus riding the LA metro definitely is class based

[@SkepticalChris]

I live in Vancouver, and during Covid, the mandatory rules were quite strict in the province of BC, but the reason why ridership was high was the presence of a large immigrant population, particularly East Asians from Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam and Hong Kong, that made up a large number of transit users, who had little problem with mask mandates or social distancing. So the cultural views towards Covid weren't a problem in Vancouver.

[@AntiBunnyStudio]

Here's why I think Covid might just have a long term benefit for transit. Yes it did cause a short term loss of ridership from current users, but in the United States there's no shortage of people who have never even considered transit. It may be so far off their radar, that they're not even aware their city has a transit system. Covid however was, as you said, great for bikes. More people started biking, especially with mostly empty streets. That holds true here in the US as well. I myself had only started biking shortly before, so this was a big benefit for me. I'm hardly alone in that regard. With the worst of the pandemic largely behind us, where do all these new bike riders go? Yes, some put their bikes away, but many are still riding. Some are still sticking to the trails as sport cyclists, but plenty are like me, looking to bring cycling into their everyday life, and have become bike commuters. But how does this benefit transit? It's a roundabout way of doing it, but you can only bike commute for so long before you get orange pilled. You want to ride your bike every day. You start to question why you even have a car. What if you need to go across town? What if you're tired? What if the weather is bad? Wouldn't it be nice if someone else could drive for a change? Suddenly you're looking at the local bus system as a real option. You're looking at intercity rail as a way to replace road trips. You're seeing a world of options that you didn't even know were on the table back when you were stuck with a car. So in the long term, I think transit will recover better than ever, because a revolution in biking is changing ways of thinking. Former drivers become cyclists. Cyclists become urbanists. Urbanists get curious about transit. This cyclist here took a vacation by Amtrack earlier this year instead of driving, and loved it by the way. Now I'm advocating for expanding and improving my city's bus service. It worked on me, and I see it working on others. It will take time, but progress is being made. It's not just about recovering, it's about regrowth.

[@mrxman581]

Very interesting that you mention cyclists. I started riding the LA Metro again in June 2023 after not using it for 3 years due to Covid. I noticed more cyclists than before Covid. More young people with bikes, skateboards, and even electric scooters. You might be on to something.

[@sammymarrco2]

I think this is a bit far fetched, just not enough numbers but I hope I'm wrong!

[@mevans4953]

I’m surprised people still cover San Fran in anything but a negative light. Vast majority of people treat it as a warning of what not to do.

[@THE_BATLORD]

LA metro dropped fares for all of its busses for 22 months once covid hit. They also discounted fairs on the metro itself. In january of 2022 a day pass on the LA metro was $3.50. That would pretty reasonably explain its rapid rebound.

[@YahWay.]

I think a valuable piece of information would be the number of vehicles that are engaged in commuting pre and post covid. A lot more people are working from home, this had a big effect on commutes for vehicles. It was just more convenient to drive than take transit but that's changing.

[@jeanbolduc5818]

Vancouver Skytrain is also financed by a tax on gas . Not the case for other cities with lack of revenues from users .

[@mrxman581]

LA Metro is also partially subsidized by a sales tax to expand the rail transit infrastructure.

[@definitelynotacrab7651]

It will be tough to get back to 100% as many transit riders belonged to disadvantaged individuals who suffered higher rates of Covid fatalities. That and some of those transit trips became bike trips instead, which isnt necesarilly a bad thing. Heres hoping those numbers continue to climb though.

[@thomasgrabkowski8283]

Also, it happens that in the US, the cities that have subway systems also tend to be the cities where local income people, that traditionally depend on transit have left in large numbers since covid

[@mrxman581]

Another more important reason that it will take longer to regain pre Covid ridership is that many employees are still working from home, or are partially working from hone. Still, that means they're not going into the office 5 days a week. Maybe 2-3 days. It won't be until 2025 when the vast majority of employers will require full-time on-site work. At my old employer in LA, employees still only come into the office 2 days a week.

[@hxp417]

Situation is far better in Vancouver Canada than San Francisco in terms of “the sad and maddening trio” - crime, homelessness and sanitation, drug and mental illness. Although still in the same tragic cohort of the west coast six cities, Vancouver and San Diego are in the best shape among the 6, Seattle in the middle; LA, Portland and SF have a long way to go (SF is at the dark bottom, its home value has come down 25% from the peak).

[@iamzuckerburger]

I lived in LA during that time and one factor could be that certain if not all modes of transit became fare-free. Remember kids, it's not public transit if it's not fare-free :) ------ also your voice is so interesting/ cool/ therapeutic/ suspenseful and unique you must do voice acting! Please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@fatviscount6562]

LA Metro’s numbers are even worse than you mentioned. They operate more track mileage now than pre-Covid, so that riders per mile of track is lower than raw rider numbers.

[@stevekluth9060]

Hogwash. LA Metro only opened the K Line and the Regional Connector during Covid which have added less than 8 miles total to the current 109 miles. The Regional Connector has had a much larger impact than its 2 miles of track as it allows users like me a ride to downtown on the A Line without changing at Union Station or walking from Little Tokyo. OTOH, the K Line has actually reduced ridership per mile as it carries a small fraction of riders per mile compared to the other lines (though this will change with its extension to LAX - hopefully by 2025).

[@ronnyrueda5926]

This video is mainly covering heavy rail and that track mileage has not changed since 2020

[@stevekluth9060]

@@ronnyrueda5926 I know. However, the video does mention the light rail system at 4:30 and that is the only part of the system which added track which is why I responded as I did. The B and D Lines which constitute the subway did not add any track, so by that standard the person to whom I replied is completely wrong. I was trying to give the commenter the benefit of the doubt.

[@MarioFanGamer659]

@@stevekluth9060 Pretty sure Ronny was replying to OP, not to you.

[@mrxman581]

​@@stevekluth9060Very true, but the reconfigured A and E lines probably cannibalized some ridership from the subway lines because of the Regional Connector.

[@Fognrailz]

Good video, but I would respectfully suggest that you would use the “Bay Area” instead of San Francisco…. I was initially under the impression to see a video between TransLink and SF Muni. The Bay Area tends to hold onto its cultural/political fragmentation a little bit more than say LA as we would call the vast area that it is known by. I hope to see a revisit to SF proper in the future! :)

[@OhTheUrbanity]

I recognize that this might not be obvious if you live there, but I don't think the term "Bay Area" is that well-known outside of the US. Ask a random Canadian and I don't think they could tell you where it is. Whenever we use the term in videos we try to say "San Francisco Bay Area" to make it clear, but that doesn't fit into a title.

[@theexcaliburone5933]

As an Angelina that’s absolutely correct, people who take the Metro generally have little choice

[@Kas-tle]

As someone who rides transit in LA it's definitely because people have no other choice. To not have a car here, you have to be either insane or have absolutely no way to afford it as equivalent transit trips generally take a minimum of 3 times longer, and that's if you are lucky. This is largely because most of Metro's rail is surface level light rail that has to deal with stop and go traffic and go at residential speeds over long distances which most would just take the freeway. It's such a pathetic system for a region with this much population, but the investment required to do it correctly is just far far more than the primarily driving public is willing to spend. The Sepulveda corridor is probably the next victim of this stupidity with them leaning towards the monorail option for cost and due to the millionaires in Bel Air wanting to prevent tunneling under their houses that will definitionally not affect them... but the allure is very strong for metro due to the cost despite such a system starting from day 1 with insufficient capacity and inferior travel times to subway. Basically, even when LA does do transit, they always do it in such a way that it is so far inferior to driving that the lost time is huge. Contrast this to many cities on the East Coast where transit commute times are at least equivalent to or can, in the right circumstances, beat car travel. So you only take it if you have no choice or irrationally love transit.

[@gumerzambrano]

As a local Angeleno I COMPLETELY agree with you. Our public transit us a joke for our population. Why they decided to host the Olympics is beyond my comprehension. Only the most in need use it

[@CNHFTC2010]

Your erasure of people who are unable to drive due to disability, whether physical or mental, is stark.

[@Kas-tle]

@@CNHFTC2010not sure why you're taking such an accusatory tone? The question in the video was why did ridership in LA stay so high as a proportion of previous ridership. I don't think the population of people unable to drive in LA due to disability is proportionally higher than the other cities mentioned. However, the portion of income spent on housing and transit is... but yes, obviously I believe that's another great reason to improve public transit infrastructure. There are many reasons.

[@Kas-tle]

@@CNHFTC2010also I should add that if you cannot drive due to a disability in LA county you're much better off taking Access than trying to use our terrible bus/rail system (for the same fare).

[@crowmob-yo6ry]

I blame the evil NIMBY John Phillips of 790 KABC.

[@Progamerr_06]

Please make the second part including calgary and Seattle

[@rodcappon6249]

To increase transit ridership all the cities have to do is what Calgary did to become one of the highest transit user city in the world. They just need to control the majority of the parking in the downtown core and become one of the most expensive cities in the world for parking.

[@SirKenchalot]

Very interesting. I expect Boston's subway would be struggling now anyway were it not for the pandemic due to the sheer number of maintenance issues faced there and if anything the pandemic may have given more opportunities to fix some of it.

[@barryrobbins7694]

3:04 Probably? That’s Canadian for definitely.😀

[@jacksonp2397]

Sad you didn't include Cleveland, it was hurt probably one of the worst and has barely recovered

[@OhTheUrbanity]

The Cleveland heavy rail numbers (which I guess are for the Red Line?) went from 15,900 before COVID (Q4 2019) to 10,500 (Q1 2024). That's not actually an awful recovery but the overall numbers are too low to really focus on in a video like this. I might not have included Miami if not for the fact that we visited earlier this year and had a little footage.

[@massvt3821]

You have to include the Green Lines in Boston--those lines are extremely popular..

[@OhTheUrbanity]

They're not considered heavy rail. Lots of other cities have light rail lines too that we didn't include.

[@cooltwittertag]

but its not a metro

[@jonathanstreeter2205]

BART now uses shorter trains and has longer headways so the system is just as crowded as ever in 2024 with 1/3 of the ridership of 2019. Also, BART is important, but there are ferries, SF Muni, Sam Trans, AC Transit and many, many other transit companies in the Bay Area.

[@OhTheUrbanity]

All of the cities we included have other transit modes and companies.

[@LouisChang-le7xo]

@@OhTheUrbanity in short, BART is just a crappy parking displacement system that the government of SF built 50yrs ago

[@meteorical8036]

@@OhTheUrbanitySure but representing San Francisco as BART instead of MUNI is not how people in SF think of things. BART = Bay Area and MUNI = San Francisco

[@OhTheUrbanity]

@@meteorical8036 This is a video about heavy rail, so it's going to include BART and not Muni, just like we left out the Toronto streetcars for example. And we're going to prefer to describe it as "San Francisco" because people outside the US don't generally know the term "Bay Area". It's a more local term like referring to the "tri-state area" or something.

[@jfmezei]

Transit at the height of COVID would depend on how many were "essential" workers and if the subway served areas deemed "essential". New York for instance did shut parts of subway at night (allowing for maintenance) and provided replacement buses for essential workers at hospitals. Another variable is whether the subway serves universities or large high schools vs light rail/buses. When those education places went to home-studying, some cities would experience far higher drop in metro usage than cities whose educational instiututions not served by metro. b In Montréal for instance, all universities (except the George Williams campus of Concordia and McDonald College for McGill) are served by the metro so would have see huge drop of people at those stations. I do not know if supported by numbers, but my gut experience is that peak hours are not as bad and there is more even distribvutionof passengers during the day. There are also days of week with greater numbers for those who work at homd only a few days a week and gosub office 2 or 3 times a week. San Francisco's downtown is very tech heavy so would have see greater "work from home" trend than some downtown that has offices and shops, hospitals that require human presence. Note on Vancouver: driverless may means you have no staff on board, but they will have more staff in stations, and the more a train is used, the sooner it needs to go into maintenance shop for regular checks/maintenance and that requires workers. So it isn't a magical "doesn't cost to run trains". But it does allow degraded service (nobody in stations) with automated trains.

[@thomasmcroy1756]

Only fell to 25% ridership, best of the lot! :*(

[@Jacksonart55]

LAs transit population consists of many people who never stopped working during the pandemic, in addition to people who also cant afford to take anything else but transit. The large population of essential workers who use systems like LA Metro and MARTA as oppose to white-collar workers riding the T or BART explains a lot of the COVID numbers.

[@chrisboyle1421]

No PATCO or Baltimore Metro Subway?

[@AlexSuperTramp-]

Curious to see how these correlate to RTO data. Vancouver at 85%~ with dramatic population growth is quite damning. I can only assume its related to people no longer commuting (vs. switching modes of transport or moving)

[@rabbieP]

It's not true that the REM is less influenced by funding shortages since the transit systems have to pay the CDPQ per passenger kilometer traveled. The profit of the Caisse is guaranteed.

[@OhTheUrbanity]

What do you mean? I'm referring to the fact that the trains are automated and do not require operators, so running more trains does not cost more money (at least not to the extent as other systems that do require operators).

[@louiszhang3050]

Pretty on point (at least on SF and DC, which I've experienced). Also important to note DC struggled a lot with frequencies after our new 7000 Series trains were taken out of service, but the agency full sent to try to fix it as soon as possible and the agency as a whole is ambitious about its future, aiming for more than a million riders a day and making service plans that reflect that. DC is also building a more resilient system with a suburb-to-suburb light rail ring connection and BRT to connect radial lines. There is still a long way to go for most transit agencies so it'll be interesting to see how things change from now on.

[@AnneHuizinga-ho2yc]

I had heard that the City of Edmonton has more than hit its full recovery

[@ChibiSteak]

8:26 fin.

[@clearlynotwoke4929]

Crime has hurt the 3 bottom cities metros.

[@pontoboi8881]

I really don't know why but until you said the accounts name in this video I always thought it was "ON the urbanity"

[@hansolkim3988]

Vancouver retained a substantial amount of passengers during the pandemic in combination because 1) they didn't cut services, 2) younger demographics, including new immigrants and students that are less likely to own a car, 3) higher immigration numbers in Vancouver (and in Canada overall), and 4) higher percentage of workers in the service industry, which is an industry which workers rely on public transportation more, and 5) transit was exceptionally frequent and reliable, which made it more compelling to not buy a vehicle even before the "unfortunate times". Vancouver recovered quickly because of items 2), 3), 4), and 5). Cities with service-heavy industries tended to recover more quickly in principle (such as Miami, Vancouver, Montreal), but is not the sole reason. I'm sure the record amount of immigration, density, strong post "unfortunate time" transit service, and economic/income stagnation also played a part of why Vancouver recovered quicker. Canada's urban cities have a higher percentage of residents using alternative methods of transportation (ie, biking, public transit) well before the "unfortunate times". That's why Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal recovered so quickly- their existing system before the pandemic was used by so many, that recovery was not by if, but when.

[@eriklf48]

5:07 Is that a european plate car in Calgary??

[@OhTheUrbanity]

Many provinces of Canada don't require front license plates, and it's not uncommon to use that opportunity to put decorative plates on the front

[@jamiemasters7401]

Wait, we’re only supposed to be “recovered?” Almost TO pre pandemic levels?? Not setting new ALL TIME monthly ridership levels every few months? Meanwhile Calgary Transit still won’t bring back four car trains. That apology in the beginning doesn’t cover ignoring a ridership that’s spiking higher than in a CENTURY.

[@jpl9148]

You are missing the Metro in Mexico city and the Tren ligero in Guadalajara

[@colinneagle4495]

As a resident of Northern California who grew up in San Francisco, I wanted to elaborate on some of BART's structural problems. Too much time, money, and resources went in recent decades to expand BART in ways that didn't benefit urban citizens where the majority of the rider base is, instead deciding to build an expansion line to San Francisco's airport, or keeping long ago promises the system made to connect to far flung, low density suburban areas with little ridership potential for the price. Because of this, transit development that would have greatly benefited urban riders, like a second Transbay tube, or expansion line to San Jose, have been put on ice, ensuring that this much needed service is decades away from becoming reality. Add in the federal government’s slow pace in allocating funds, combined with California's rigorous environmental protections and citizen input processes, and any big project is slowed to a glacial rate, making future expansions a far off dream.

[@Alejandro-vn2si]

While I somwhat agree with you, I think that the biggest issue with BART is that the Bay Area never wanted to subsidize BART. That is why pre pandemic their fares covered a large portion of its operating expenses. Personally, I want to see more expansion within the urban and subirban areas. Yes, we need better coverage for SF, Oakland, and SJ, but also there is a need to expand to other parts of the bay and make sure BART new ststions are developed into TOD. However, BART'S biggest issue is not ridership but funding, and we need to make sure funding comes so thst BART can survive this harsh time while in the medium to long term we start changing the areas surrondibg BART ststions in the subirbs into more transit generators.

[@colinneagle4495]

@@Alejandro-vn2si I was under the impression that BART was subsidized from the beginning with a tax of some sort, like a sales tax, and that's why suburban stations were prioritized in order to connect to areas that had been contributing sales tax income to the system. Maybe I'm mistaken about the point your are making, but isn’t using income from sources outside of fares a subsidy? Like, I know that when the Presidio was made a National Park it was done on the condition that it would be financially self-sufficient (unlike every other park in the system) and thus had to include money making ventures like the rent paying restaurants and Letterman Digital Arts Center to cover expenses. If your point is that BART tickets are expensive enough to discourage ridership I certainly agree that the ticket prices need to come down, and that the utility of the system to the region makes it deserving of income from other sources, then I agree with that as well. I just don't know if saying BART was never subsidized is accurate.

[@Alejandro-vn2si]

@colinneagle4495 ok, BART subsidies are complicated and and were put forward as a result of need instead of taxpayers waiting to subsidize. There is a book made by the first BART spokeperson that goes more into detail. But, in the 60s voters only in three bay area counties (San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa) pass a bond measure tied to property tax valued at around 792 million dollars (1962 value) to build the system without the transbay tube and cars. The expectation was that BART was going to be profitable and have no need for a subsidy from the beginning. The transbay tube was paid by tollpayers of the bay bridge, and if I am not mistaken, the little federadal dollars went to the train cars. That was the first form of subsidy. However, quickly things went south and a few years after the system it open it did not generated enough revenue to pay operations so the state legislature under by then governor ronald regan pass a sales tax to those counties thst form the district, to pay for operations and make sure that BART continue working. This tax was extended, and there were subsequent taxes or toll fees that have supported BART capital expensing partially. However, BART has always been dependent on fare revenue for most of operational expenses and partial capital expensing. In the south, LA Metro, from the beginning, received funding for both capital and operational expenses. That was not the case with BART, and the Bay Area preferred to pay higher fare prices instead of having subsidies to pay operations. The only issue is that capital expenses have been different until a few years ago, and voters passed such bonds just because of necessity and not because they thought BART needed to subsidize passenger fare. My point is that fares need to come down but without decreasing the quality of service. BART current condition, although improving would have never happened if finding was available to fix and improve the system. BART definitely needs more funding to improve transit experience and infrastructure. It is true that not transit agency makes a profit, but there are ways we can improve BART finances without having to raise sales, income, or property taxes. Fees on parking land and spcaces, TOD that is economically income generating, and more tolls or congestion pricing strategies can improve BART and other system finances. If BART was truly subsidized with enough funds, we would see the system be of better quality and not have financial issues as it currently has. Keep in mind that BART in total recived about 25% of subsidies while other transit agencies such as LA Metro recieved 90% subsidies. So, there is a big gap when it comes to su subsidies.

[@colinneagle4495]

@@Alejandro-vn2si Oh wow! Thank you for taking the time to explain BART's financial situation with such detail and context. I appreciate whenever people on the internet actually engage in substantive conversation so you are much appreciated!

[@Alejandro-vn2si]

@colinneagle4495 oh, no problem. I think I did not explained well and autocorrect also did boy help. For me, as long as BART is able to have enough funding to operate and maintain this rapid transit system in great condition (along with making sure passenger experience is good) as well as being affordable for everyone. I think should be something that the Bay Area should work towards with all public transportation systems including BART.

[@elliotsilverstone8808]

It’s my fault that Toronto ridership isn’t back to pre-pandemic levels. I used to take the TTC every day but now I Uber to work twice a week. Sorry!!

[@davidwelty9763]

In LA transit has suffered mostly because it’s not safe, there are vagrants, junkies and Mentally Ill on all the trains and many of the busses.

[@mrxman581]

The situation has improved noticeably over the last year.

[@Cyrus992]

Politics truly matters. Miami was governed far differently than San Francisco

[@crowmob-yo6ry]

Adolf Newsom is evil

[@Sc00terNut-zq3gs]

Vancouver has higher ridership than pre-pandemic levels but service was not increased. This is why I no longer take transit.

[@-i1007]

traffic got worse post covid

[@NozomuYume]

California systems are suffering heavily from crime/homeless ridership chasing away other ridership. Riding on BART and the LA Metro can be a particularly miserable experience thanks to the urine-soaked sometimes-violent people you have to share your space with. At best it's unpleasant and at worst you become a victim. This is particularly a problem for women -- at certain times of day it's pretty much a guarantee you will be followed or harassed and intimidated.

[@modalmixture]

Yes. I tried to return to my LA Metro commute for a few months after Covid, but I gave up - it is on a bad trajectory. The open drug use, unstable people, and general filth makes for an incredibly unpleasant experience, and the more it drives normal people away, the worse it gets.

[@Kas-tle]

Metro sort of oscillates between being safe and not safe... right now they are sort of in a push where they have a lot of police and transit ambassadors riding, and just having someone who works for the agency visible in stations and on trains, even if it's not the police, helps quite a bit. The issue is it never lasts. They only keep it up for a few months when it gets super bad, and then they let it slowly deteriorate again.

[@FPOAK]

🥱

[@creaturexxii]

Huh, because in Vancouver Canada our metro system, the SkyTrain, is fully automatic meaning there's rarely any staff or police, and heck I have yet to have anyone check for fares. And to my knowledge, (though Canadians are good as sweeping those things under the rug) I have yet to hear about any violent offence that occurred on the SkyTrain. The worse offence happened at a mall in which I believe someone got stab, but that offence had little if any connection to the SkyTrain, and the only reason Translink closed down that section of track was because people would get curious and flock over and overwhelm the scene. Of course, my mom went on a rant claiming "transit brings crime," and NIMBYs peddled that sentiment with the Evergreen extension. Yet to my knowledge, there hasn't been any increase in crime. In fact, when I did walk through a sketchier part of Vancouver where I felt uncomfortable, the movement I made it to a SkyTrain station, I felt safer. Strange, I know. Very rarely do violent offences take place directly on transit vehicles with the biggest concern actually getting to the metro station in the first place hence why Universities have a safe walk program where a security guard can escort you to the transit station.

[@Kas-tle]

@@creaturexxii can't speak to the other cities but I find LA Metro to be most scary in the middle of the day when ridership is lower. Definitely see a lot of open drinking and drug use... I don't believe that transit brings crime, just that LA has created a system used almost exclusively by those with no other choice. In most cases you will probably fine, but it definitely feels a bit like a horror movie and I can understand why people would choose not to ride. When that's the reality of your system, doesn't need to be law enforcement per se, but there definitely needs to be some visible presence from the transit agency during such times to make people feel safe.

[@RiverOfWetness468]

What's with the lack of Jasmine in the last few videos?

[@Patrickair4444]

Wait, Vancouver is in North America

[@shsd4130]

Taking the LA Metro in 2019 vs 2021 was night and day. All the "choice" riders left. Those that remained are all on psychotropics.

[@crowmob-yo6ry]

The real problem is sensationalist news media and its fear-mongering.

[@mrxman581]

It's gotten much better over the last year. And, more recently, they've increased armed security officers.