Metro steamrolled through yet another ridership record, carrying 7 million more passengers over the past year than during any other time in the rail system’s 32-year history, transit agency officials said Tuesday.
More than 215 million riders hopped on Metro over the past 12 months ending June 30, a 3.6 percent jump over the year before, which also was a record year, according to the agency’s statistics.
The record comes as surging fuel prices push commuters from cars to mass transit and as Metro struggles to maintain infrastructure that is reaching the end of its life cycle.
It also comes six months after the agency instituted its largest fare increase ever, which officials were worried would deter riders from using the rail line.
“We don’t have any research linking ridership to gas prices, but we’d be foolish to think that that was not at least a factor,” Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said.
Commuter lines Virginia Railway Express and MARC have reported increases in ridership over the last several months, as have local bus agencies, while gas prices continue to climb to new records.
In the late 1990s, when Metro opened four new stations along the Red, Blue and Green lines, the transit agency saw annual ridership spikes of more than 5 percent, Farbstein said.
Ridership growth slowed to between 1 and 2 percent after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when tighter airline security and the attacks’ aftermath quelled travel appetites and kept tourists from the area.
Metro surpassed the 200 million ridership mark for the first time during the period from mid-2005 to mid-2006, the year after opening the last three of the agency’s 86 stations.
Ridership grew 5.3 percent that year and 1.1 percent between mid-2006 and mid-2007.
Over the past year, the pace of growth has picked up again.
Metro has broken several records over the past three months, achieving eight of the agency’s top 10 ridership days and seeing its highest number of Fourth of July riders.
June posted the highest monthly ridership in history, with 19.73 million riders, or 798,456 riders per weekday. The former monthly record was June 2007, with 19.09 million riders, or an average of 772,826 riders per weekday.
“On our top ridership lists, you always see dates in May and June,” Farbstein said. “You get the return of the tourists and you get the last-minute field trips.”
The warmer weather also brings out what Metro officials call “discretionary riders,” or non-commuters who take the train to go out to lunch, to sports events or out for the evening.
Those trips occur during midday hours or during nights and weekends, pumping up ridership during nonpeak periods.
The number of riders traditionally drops in July and August, when Washingtonians flee the muggy weather or take summer trips.
“Now what you’ll see is regular commuters going on vacation for the next few months,” Farbstein said. “At this point, I’d be very surprised if we saw more days with more than 800,000 riders.”
