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Matt Sepic
St. Paul

Bus ridership drops again as Metro Transit makes more schedule changes

A Metro Transit bus drives along 60th Street in Minneapolis.
On Saturday, riders will see changes to 55 bus routes across the system, including Route 156 in Minneapolis.
Luke Taylor | MPR 2013

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Metro Transit is making adjustments to 55 bus routes across the system this Saturday, restoring service in some places while scaling back elsewhere.

Routes that will see expanded trips include the 3, which connects downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul via Como Park, and the 5 between Brooklyn Center and the Mall of America.

In other places, the agency is paring back service on lightly used routes, and also on lines such as the 16 and 84 that have been largely supplanted by bus rapid transit and light rail, services that operate more regularly and are more popular with riders.

The changes come amid a downward trend for Metro Transit, which saw a 2 percent drop in ridership from July to September compared with the same time in 2017. That's about 1.5 million fewer rides overall. While light rail and bus rapid transit both had more riders on the year, those gains were more than offset by drops in the use of local and express buses.

Jessica Treat with the advocacy group Move Minnesota, formerly Transit for Livable Communities, says many other cities are also experiencing drops in bus ridership. She suspects that ride-share services such as Uber and Lyft may be part of the reason. While the exact cause is uncertain, Treat says it's a new normal for transit agencies.

"I think it's something that Metro Transit and regions everywhere need to think about," Treat said. "How does this new type of mobility complement our transit systems, and what's the role of the fixed-route regular transit?"

Metro Transit general manager Brian Lamb said the key to winning back riders is having regular, reliable service. Speaking at a Metropolitan Council committee meeting Monday, Lamb said the agency didn't do itself any favors last summer when it scaled back service on 40 routes because of a driver shortage.

"Our goal over the course of the next several months is to continue to really hammer in on getting that brand promise back: reliability and improving the safety and reliability of the service."

With bus ridership declining in recent years, Lamb said the agency continues to reallocate its resources.

For a list of routes that will change Saturday, click here.