<figure>
</figure>
Transit ridership has still not recovered to pre-pandemic levels in DC and nationally, and many transit providers, including WMATA, currently face fiscal cliffs as federal pandemic aid runs out. However, as Tracy Loh* and I discussed in [a report for the Brookings Institution in August](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/ensuring-the-intertwined-post-pandemic-recoveries-of-downtowns-and-transit-systems/), there is still a bright future for transit, if we plan for it.
Commutes are overrepresented in transit trips in DC and other high-ridership metro areas
While most travel in the US is not to or from work — the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) found that only 23% of trips were commutes — travel to work made up a much larger share of transit trips in high-ridership metro areas. In 2017, only six metro areas (New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle) had 5% or more of all trips made by public transit, and between 49% (in the Seattle area) and 61% (in the DC area) of these transit trips were to or from work.
<figure>
<figcaption><i>According to 2017 National Household Transportation Survey data, the DC metro area had the second-highest share of all trips made by public transit among large metro areas, as well as the largest share of public transit trips made for commutes to or from work. [Image](https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/YCr67/full.png) by Brookings Institution used with permission.</i></figcaption>
</figure>
Because Metro and other transit systems in high-ridership metro areas have historically depended on commuters for the majority of their ridership, they are particularly vulnerable to any decrease in commuting, whether due to an economic downturn or an increase in remote work, such as the one produced by the COVID-19 pandemic.
DC has retained some of the highest remote-work rates in the US
While Americans’ lives have returned to pre-pandemic normal in many ways, the increase in remote work seems to be here to stay: roughly 15% of Americans worked from home most days in 2022, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
among the twenty largest US metro areas**</caption>
<thead>
<tr>
<th scope="col">Rank</th>
<th scope="col">Metro area</th>
<th scope="col">2022
Work-
From-
Home
Share</th>
<th scope="col">2017
Transit
Mode
Share</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td align="right">**1**</td>
<td>**San Francisco, CA**</td>
<td align="right">**27%**</td>
<td align="right">**6.3%**</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">**2**</td>
<td>**Washington, DC**</td>
<td align="right">**25%**</td>
<td align="right">**7.2%**</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">**3**</td>
<td>**Seattle, WA**</td>
<td align="right">**25%**</td>
<td align="right">**5.1%**</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">4</td>
<td>Denver, CO</td>
<td align="right">24%</td>
<td align="right">2.1%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">5</td>
<td>Phoenix, AZ</td>
<td align="right">22%</td>
<td align="right">1.4%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">6</td>
<td>Tampa, FL</td>
<td align="right">21%</td>
<td align="right">0.4%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">7</td>
<td>Atlanta, GA</td>
<td align="right">21%</td>
<td align="right">2.1%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">8</td>
<td>Minneapolis, MM</td>
<td align="right">21%</td>
<td align="right">2.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">**9**</td>
<td>**Boston, MA**</td>
<td align="right">**21%**</td>
<td align="right">**6.4%**</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">10</td>
<td>Philadelphia, PA</td>
<td align="right">19%</td>
<td align="right">3.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">11</td>
<td>San Diego, CA</td>
<td align="right">19%</td>
<td align="right">2.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">12</td>
<td>Dallas, TX</td>
<td align="right">18%</td>
<td align="right">1.2%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">13</td>
<td>Baltimore, MD</td>
<td align="right">18%</td>
<td align="right">3.8%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">**14**</td>
<td>**Chicago, IL**</td>
<td align="right">**17%**</td>
<td align="right">**7.0%**</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">15</td>
<td>Los Angeles-, CA</td>
<td align="right">17%</td>
<td align="right">2.8%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">16</td>
<td>Detroit, MI</td>
<td align="right">16%</td>
<td align="right">1.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">**17**</td>
<td>**New York, NY**</td>
<td align="right">**16%**</td>
<td align="right">**12.3%**</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">18</td>
<td>Miami, FL</td>
<td align="right">15%</td>
<td align="right">2.0%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">19</td>
<td>Houston, TX</td>
<td align="right">13%</td>
<td align="right">1.7%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">20</td>
<td>Riverside, CA</td>
<td align="right">11%</td>
<td align="right">1.1%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right"></td>
<td>**US Total**</td>
<td align="right">**15%**</td>
<td align="right">**2.5%**</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
However, the shift to increased work from home has not been distributed evenly across the country. Of the six metro areas in which the NHTS reported that 5% or more of trips were made by public transit before the pandemic, three — San Francisco, DC, and Seattle — were the top three metros by work-from-home share in 2022. In fact, among metro areas of at least five hundred thousand people, only San Francisco, Austin, and Raleigh, North Carolina, have higher rates of work-from-home than the DC area, where 25% of workers worked from home most days in 2022.
This has partly been a consequence of liberal telework policies for federal employees, though the Biden administration is pushing for more in-office work for federal workers starting this fall. Nevertheless, the increase in work-from-home in the DC area is broader and also involves private-sector workers.
The pandemic has made demand for transit more continuous across the service day and week
The decrease in commuting to downtown jobs has reduced transit ridership nationally and in DC in particular. In spring 2023, 65% of Metrorail trips were to or from work, compared to 80% before the pandemic.
Metrorail ridership is at roughly 53% of 2019 levels, thanks largely to a drop in commute trips. Non-commute ridership has reached over 90% of pre-pandemic levels, while commute ridership is roughly 43% of pre-pandemic levels. This decrease has also substantially changed the time distribution of ridership, as shown in the graph below.
<figure>
<figcaption><i>Compared to pre-pandemic, the largest drops in Metrorail ridership have been to weekday peak trips, resulting in a much flatter distribution of ridership over the course of the average weekday. [Image](https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/6s4CJ/full.png) by Brookings Institution used with permission.</i></figcaption>
</figure>
In 2019, ridership during the morning and afternoon weekday peaks was roughly four times ridership at midday, while in 2022 these peaks were only one to 1.5 times midday ridership. Furthermore, overall weekday ridership was much closer to weekend ridership in 2022 than 2019.
This more even time distribution of when passengers ride Metro actually has potential benefits for the system, because the extra service that transit agencies run to serve peak ridership is extremely inefficient compared to basic all-day service.
Running extra service during peak hours increases capital costs by requiring buses and rail cars that only operate for a few hours a day. For example, 41% of BART rail cars in pre-pandemic San Francisco were only needed for peak service.
Plus, running peak-only service requires bus and train operators to work “split shifts” of morning and evening hours with a large gap in the afternoon, which may require higher pay and make recruiting new operators more difficult. This kind of schedule is also associated with on-the-job sleepiness, worker stress, and fatigue.
Trips to downtown still matter, but the importance of bus trips and trips between walkable residential neighborhoods has increased
Despite the reduction in in-person office work, trips to the District’s downtown core are not dead.
In 2019, 14 stations in downtown DC — every station south of L St NW and west of 2nd St SE except for Union Station and Waterfront — had the majority of their weekday Metrorail boardings during the afternoon peak (see endnote for more detail). During the first five months of 2023 — the most recent data available — 30% of all weekday Metrorail trips still began at these stations.
This should not be surprising given the synergistic relationship between dense downtowns and transit. Downtown DC, like other dense commercial cores, has limited, expensive parking. This discourages driving, whether by workers, shoppers, tourists, or residents of the neighborhood.
Devoting less downtown land to parking — which is only possible when public transit is a viable alternative for getting downtown — means that more of this land can be devoted to uses that contribute to the vibrancy of the core. At the same time, downtowns with less parking correlate with higher transit ridership across whole metro areas, as seen in the graph below.
<figure>
<figcaption><i>The share of metro area trips (not just commuters) made by public transportation drops as the share of downtown devoted to parking increases. [Image](https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/tY6oF/full.png) by Brookings Institution used with permission.</i></figcaption>
</figure>
Ridership changes since the start of the pandemic have also highlighted the importance of bus service. While Metrorail ridership first exceeded 50% of its pre-pandemic value in the first half of 2023, Metrobus ridership had returned to nearly 60% of its pre-pandemic value in the third quarter of 2021, and is now above 85% of pre-pandemic ridership.
This pattern is not unique to the DC area: As shown in the chart below, urban rail ridership dropped lower than bus ridership at the start of the pandemic in the five metro areas with the shares of pre-pandemic trips made by public transit (New York, Chicago, DC, Boston, and San Francisco), and rail ridership recovery has lagged behind bus ridership recovery in all of these metro areas except New York.
<figure>
<figcaption><i>Ridership recovery versus the same quarter in 2019 for the main urban rail and urban bus systems in Washington, DC, New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle. [Image](https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7TyOC/full.png) by Brookings Institution used with permission.</i></figcaption>
</figure>
Likewise, it is not only Metrobus that has shown better ridership recovery rates than Metrorail, as seen in the chart below. Of the DC region’s seven highest-ridership bus networks, all except for the DC Circulator have achieved ridership recovery rates above 60%, and two — Fairfax Connector and Alexandria’s DASH — have higher ridership now than they did in 2019.
<figure>
<figcaption><i>Other than DC Circulator, the major bus systems in the DC area have seen substantially better ridership recovery rates than Metrorail, with Fairfax Connector and DASH buses having higher ridership in the first half of 2023 than in the first half of 2019. Image by the author.</i></figcaption>
</figure>
Bus ridership’s better recovery is a consequence of the types of trips and riders that buses serve. Metrorail is a largely radial system originally designed to bring suburban commuters to downtown jobs, and 48 of the system’s 98 stations feature park-and-ride lots, with a number of outlying stations surrounded by little other than giant parking garages and surface lots.
These outlying stations perform an important role in allowing suburban commuters to get downtown without their cars clogging DC streets, but the areas they serve are built around car trips and are generally hostile to pedestrians. Unsurprisingly, data from WMATA’s Metrorail ridership portal shows that these outlying stations had some of the highest drop-offs in ridership between the first five months of 2019 and the first five months of 2023.
Bus routes, on the other hand, mostly serve circumferential trips between neighborhoods outside of downtown, trips that are less affected by the decrease in commutes to downtown offices.
Furthermore, while bus riders nationally tend to have lower incomes than rail riders, this effect is especially pronounced for Metrobus and Metrorail. According to pre-pandemic data, 52% of Metrobus riders were low-income, 55% were from carefree households, and 81% were people of color, all populations for whom transit ridership has dropped substantially less.
We need to fund Metro, and to think about how to adjust to long-term changes in travel types
Transit does have a future in the DC area, but this future depends on us.
Like many US transit systems, Metro faces a fiscal cliff as lower ridership — especially on Metrorail, which has higher fares but lower operating costs per passenger — has left the system dependent on federal pandemic aid, which will run out at the end of the current fiscal year next June. Inflation has driven Metro’s costs up faster than fares have increased, and state and local subsidies have not kept up either. Even if ridership fully recovers to pre-COVID levels, according to WMATA the system will have a $900 million deficit by 2035.
In the short term, finding the money to close the funding gap and prevent massive service cuts in next July is the most important part of making sure that Metro, and transit in our region generally, has a future.
However, much more work is necessary to return to the number of transit trips per capita in the region fifteen years ago and eventually achieve Metro General Manager Randy Clarke’s stated goal of one million daily Metrorail trips. This requires improving our transit systems and adapting to the “new normal” of travel patterns. We need to increase the reliability and frequency of service, both for Metrorail (where frequency has massively improved over the past six months) and for buses.
Opening more bus lanes and increasing bus signal priority has the potential to improve reliability and, by speeding up service, reduce operating costs as well. Frequent bus service, with headways of less than fifteen and, ideally, less than ten minutes, is particularly beneficial for non-commute trips because it enables “trip-chaining,” in which multiple destinations are combined into one journey.
Likewise, in a world where weekday peaks are a smaller share of overall transit ridership, bus routes should be designed to provide all-day, every-day service, rather than more-expensive-to-operate peak-only service designed for downtown commuters. For those bus routes where high-frequency service is not viable, clockface scheduling, with service every hour, half-hour, or twenty minutes throughout the service day will make them a more reliable and convenient alternative to driving.
Fare reform is necessary as well. While the recent implementation of free transfers between Metrorail and Metrobus is a welcome improvement, transfer between all the region’s bus networks should also be free. This does not mean that transit fares should be eliminated, however: while the elimination of fares on Alexandria’s DASH buses two years ago has likely contributed to the network’s record-breaking ridership, it has also required substantial increases in the subsidies the system requires, increases that could instead be used to improve service.
The task of maintaining and increasing the region’s transit ridership cannot be entirely left to transit agencies: much of the required work involves improvements to other parts of the region’s built environment. More housing needs to be built near transit stations and in mixed-use, walkable areas with higher densities and well-connected street networks that encourage walking and cycling while making transit service more effective and efficient.
This will require upzoning low-density neighborhoods closer to the region’s core, while restricting sprawl on the exurban fringe and retrofitting car-oriented areas such as Tysons and Prince George’s County’s Blue Line corridor to be more walkable and transit-oriented. These land-use changes are not just about public transportation: reducing the need for car travel is essential for the region’s environmental sustainability and building more dense, walkable neighborhoods can help reduce the gentrification pressure on existing walkable neighborhoods in the region’s core.
Endnote
- **the three downtown transfer stations (Metro Center, Gallery Place, and L’Enfant Plaza);**
- **Farragut North and Judiciary Square on the Red Line;**
- **Foggy Bottom, Farragut West, McPherson Square, Federal Triangle, Smithsonian, Federal Center SW, and Capitol South on the Orange, Blue, and Silver Lines;**
- **Archives on the Yellow and Green Lines;**
- **Navy Yard/Ballpark on the Green Line.**
In addition, Medical Center (home to the NIH and Walter Reed) and three stations in Tysons (Tysons, McLean, and Greensboro) also had the majority of weekday boardings during the afternoon peak. This data is from WMATA’s Metrorail ridership portal.
*Editor’s note: Tracy Hadden Loh is Chair of GGWash’s Board of Directors and she represents the District of Columbia on the WMATA Board of Directors.
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