Metro is seeing a dramatic increase in evening weekend passengers, with an average of 7.8 percent more people crowding the system on Sundays in the year that ended in June. Evening ridership spiked 6.6 percent over the past fiscal year. “There seems to be a change in people’s behavior,” Metro budget director Rick Harcum said. The good news is we can handle that — we have the capacity during those hours.” Metro has blasted through ridership records this year, with gasoline prices driving more commuters to public transit, but the agency Thursday released a detailed look at passenger numbers that show the most drastic growth occurred during off-peak hours. Morning and evening rush-hour ridership grew about 3.5 percent over the year, statistics show. “The increases in off-peak ridership can be traced to a variety of factors, including the off-peak travel incentive included in the January 2008 fare increase, the increase in downtown activities and continued growth in baseball-related trips,” the report said. The off-peak rides could also be contributing to another Metro trend — a faster growth in short-distance trips than in the long commuter trips that traditionally have formed the transit agency’s core ridership, officials said. Metro stations that are in areas of burgeoning development have seen drastic weekday ridership growth over the past year, including a 112 percent increase at the Navy Yard Green Line station, which serves the new Washington Nationals stadium and several new office developments. The New York Avenue Red Line station saw a 35 percent increase, and the Columbia Heights Green/Yellow Line station, which now serves the new DC USA shopping center, saw a 23 percent jump. Stations that posted the highest ridership losses include Farragut West, L’Enfant Plaza, Dupont Circle and Farragut North, all with dips of between 1 and 6 percent. While ridership has grown at almost all of Metro’s end-of-the-line stations, parking use has dropped slightly as more riders rely on bicycles and commuter buses to reach the stations, officials said. “Racks are seeing quite a bit of use at a number of stations: Vienna, West Falls Church, East Falls Church, Silver Spring, West Hyattsville, Braddock Road, King Street and Cleveland Park, to name a few,” Metro planning chief Nat Bottigheimer said. “In some cases, racks are well over capacity and cyclists are locking bikes to any stationary object.” Officials are developing plans to install more bike racks outside stations and are considering adding some to secure areas in parking garages.
