Falling Transit Ridership? Just Report It Less Often!

"Repeatedly and publicly hammered over falling ridership numbers in 2006, the Las Vegas Monorail apparently has decided that less news will be good news in 2007.

Monorail officials on Thursday, March 1, said that from now on they will release ridership reports once every three months, not monthly as the system has done since opening to the public in 2004.

An explanation for the change by Las Vegas Monorail Co. was vague. "We're a private company," spokeswoman Angela Torres said. "Current management doesn't feel it's necessary to release the numbers monthly."

The monorail's severe ridership plunge last year coincided with a late December 2005 one-way fare increase to $5 per adult, up from $3. That year daily ridership was 28,122. A year later, ridership had plummeted to 15,430 daily riders.

"When the monorail first opened to the public, officials predicted as many as 50,000 daily riders, a target no longer seen as realistic for the four-mile line" that has planned an extension to the McCarran International Airport

Thanks to Lowell E Grattan via Sierra Club's Loma Prieta Transportation Forum