Mass transit ridership is up in a big way nationwide. Middle Tennessee is also part of the trend.
Bus ridership in Nashville was up in 2011, by about 15 percent. But the biggest growth is coming from places like Spring Hill, Murfreesboro, and Joellton. The Regional Transportation Authority runs bus lines and a rail line to suburban counties. Ridership is up about 30 percent in 2011 compared to the year before.
Officials say RTA and Nashville’s MTA will make more gains in 2012. Already, ridership on the regional bus routes is up 77 percent compared to last year. The most popular route runs from Downtown to Murfreesboro, with stops in LaVergne and Smyrna. MTA and RTA are expected to set a record for riders this year. Both systems combined are on track to reach 10 million passenger trips by the end of June.
The RTA’s Patricia Harris-Morehead says growth doesn’t necessarily mean more services are on the way.
“On a daily basis, we get requests from the public asking us to add additional services. It all boils down to the budget. We are putting as many routes out there as we can possibly put.”
A report released today from the American Public Transportation Association shows a Americans took more than 10 billion trips on mass transit in 2011. The association says medium sized cities like Nashville saw the largest upticks, driven by mostly by the rising cost of gas, which has been steadily increasing since 2010.
Note: story revised from previous version to include statistics from 2012.
On Air - 90.3 WPLN-FM