Bridget Reed Morawski
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON — (WMAL) Say what you want about the DC Streetcar, but people are riding it.
At least, more residents are riding it than were anticipated. The District Department of Transportation initially projected daily ridership numbers between 1,500 and 2,000 trips per week along the H Street Corridor.
However, the number is hovering closer to approximately 2,400 rides during the work week.
The average number of riders for Saturday streetcar trips was just under 2,600.
The averages for Saturday travel in May were much lower than those averages for March and April. March and April numbers firmly remained above 3,000 riders per Saturday, while May averaged around 2,500. DDDOT theorizes that this is due in part to the unusually high amount of rain that the District experienced in the month of May, not due to a lack of interest from residents.
Terry Owens, a spokesman with DDOT, doesn’t want to say what these numbers mean for the future of the new transit line.
“We’re very early into the life of the system, so it’s hard to draw a lot from them,” said Owens.
The spokesman says that DDOT has not conducted a quantitative statistical analysis of who is riding the streetcar and why, but there are certain conclusions he has drawn about their rider’s demographics.
“The majority of people who are using the service appear to be people who live in that corrido, or people who are coming down for leisure activity on the weekends,” said Owens, noting that everyone from students, business people, and parents with strollers have been seen riding the streetcar.
Owens says that these higher-than-projected ridership numbers indicate an interest in an enlarged system, which they intend to expand to Georgetown and the Benning Road Metro Station.
The full ridership reports can be viewed here.
The DC Streetcar is still free of charge, and runs along H Street and Benning Road NE everyday except for Sunday.
Copyright 2016 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (Photo: DC Streetcar)
