It’s that time of the month, Milwaukee: the time when ridership numbers for the city’s forever-controversial streetcar system, The Hop, are released, analyzed, and argued about. And you better buckle up for this one: following a record-breaking July that boasted 103,625 total rides and an average of 3,343 rides per day, August is down to a PALTRY 80,113 total rides and an average of 2,584 rides per day. You heard it here first: TIME TO SCRAP THE WHOLE THING.
What’s that? August was still the third-best month of The Hop’s 10-month existence, and it was practically tied for second-best? The lowest ridership day (August 4) still saw 1,826 people ride The Hop? The biggest ridership day (August 31) saw 4,227 people ride The Hop? And pre-launch, The Hop projected an average daily ridership of 1,850? Oh.
Here’s where we stand so far:
NOVEMBER 2018
Total rides: 80,361
Average daily ridership: (excluding opening weekend): 2,459
DECEMBER 2018
Total rides: 76,131
Average daily ridership: 2,456
JANUARY 2019
Total rides: 48,354
Average daily ridership: 1,560
FEBRUARY 2019 (estimated, due to missing data)
Total rides: 45,000
Average daily ridership: 1,607
MARCH 2019 (estimated, due to missing data)
Total rides: 50,000
Average daily ridership: 1,613
APRIL 2019
Total rides: 55,657
Average daily ridership: 1,855
MAY 2019
Total rides: 62,937
Average daily ridership: 2,030
JUNE 2019
Total rides: 71,367
Average daily ridership: 2,379
JULY 2019
Total rides: 103,625
Average daily ridership: 3,343
AUGUST 2019
Total rides: 80,113
Average daily ridership: 2,584
For everyone asking, here’s how The Hop counts its riders:
The Hop streetcars are equipped with Automatic Passenger Counter (APC) equipment to record actual boarding data. Each door on the vehicle is equipped with three sensors that emit a beam of infrared light. Each time the beam is broken the APC system records it as a passenger. The three sensors are spaced so that the order in which the beams are broken determines if a passenger is boarding or exiting—only the boarding totals are included in the final ridership counts. APC systems are becoming standard equipment in the transit industry.
Oh, and here’s the latest on the whole lakefront line/Couture mess.
UPDATE: Judging from the comments this article is getting, congrats if you actually read past the headline.