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The Utah Transit Authority says even though gas prices aren't fueling the trend anymore, ridership is up across the board.
UTA reports a 2.42 percent increase in ridership from January of 2008, when AAA tracked the national average gas price at $3.007 per gallon, to January 2009, with a national average gas price of $1.965. That figure includes all of UTA's options, from light rail to commuter rail, buses and even van pools.
The ridership increase is even more dramatic on TRAX, UTA's light rail service. Spokeswoman Carrie Bohnsack-Ware says it was a 15 percent increase from last January. "For the entire month, we transported about 994,000 riders. And then January of '09, we transported about 1,152,000 riders." Bohnsack-Ware was pleased with the outcome. "That's a really good number," she said.
Bohnsack-Ware couldn't say that gas prices alone are what drives people to ride TRAX, Frontrunner or the bus. She says there are any number of factors that affect ridership, and gas prices are just one of those factors.
But the fact that ridership is still up, even after gas prices have retreated from their all-time high of last July in Utah, is encouraging. Gas prices topped out in the Salt Lake/Ogden metro area at $4.172 pergallon for regular unleaded on July 18. Today, the local average is $1.677 per gallon for regular unleaded. It's up about 8 cents from a month ago, but still down from the $2.933 average price of one year ago today.
Still, the increase in ridership overall from January to January represents a leveling-off for UTA. In September, overall ridership (including rail, bus and van pools) was up 24 percent from September of a year before. That dropped to a 15 percent overall increase for October 2007 to October 2008, a 2.77 percent increase for November to November, then a 16.20 percent increase for December to December, which may have been affected by holiday shoppers.
For the entire year of 2008, UTA reports a ridership increase of 12.54 percent.
E-mail: bbruce@ksl.com
