While transit ridership is up around the country, the D.C. Metro has experienced the opposite. The agency's planners aren't worried about those numbers, though. They're excited about development that's bringing more residents to transit-served areas.
Factors like telecommuting and ride-sharing services seem to have taken a bite out of transit ridership in the Washington, D.C., region. And managerial troubles at Metro haven't helped. The agency's planners, though, are looking towards a bright long-term future.
They aren't so concerned about today's ridership numbers as they are about the number of people who will live and work within a half-mile of an existing transit stop. That's the commonly accepted radius of a "walk-shed"—the distance that commuters are willing to walk to get to a transit stop. Some estimates show that a full 86 percent of the office space under development in the metro area falls within a walk shed. Meanwhile, 90 percent of office leasing deals that were closed this year were for properties within a walk shed.
Much of this growth will take place in formerly moribund areas on the District's east side, with some stations expected to gain nearly 10,000 daily riders by 2020—for a total of 84,000 added trips per day and $240,000 in added revenue.
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