Metrorail data show ridership declines, less late-night use

Metro told riders making non-essential trips to stay off the rail system, and stay off they have indeed. Metrorail trips on Wednesday totaled 40,000, down 95 percent from the same day last year. The stark ridership numbers come just three weeks after Metro activated Phase 3 of its Pandemic Flu Plan in response to the COVID-19 outbreak which began a series of service cuts to "help protect employees and customers."

On Friday, April 3rd, Metro announced further cuts to rail service: Metrorail will close at 9pm nightly until further notice. "Metro's ridership drop-off has been particularly acute after 9 p.m.," read the press release provided by the agency.

The total counts of SmarTrip cards tapped when entering the rail system do suggest that the lowest-ridership hours are the ones latest in the evening. The rail system began closing at 11 p.m. daily on March 17th which cut off half an hour at the end of each weekday and reduced service by two hours on Fridays and Saturdays.

(Please be aware of the logarithmic Y axis on the graph)
Metrorail Entries per Half Hour, 7pm To Close

Overall Metrorail ridership has trended down since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, lowering entries across all hours; evenings have not been spared. The 8:00-8:30pm entry half hour for example, which saw over 10,600 entries on March 5th, averaged just over 700 entries from Monday to Thursday this week. The 10:00-10:30pm entry half hour, which saw 5,000 entries on March 5, averaged just over 500 entries this week.

Metro's earlier decision to stop rail service at 11 p.m. does appear to be backed up by the ridership data, but less evidence exists to support a 9 p.m. closure.

The decline in ridership from 11 p.m. to close is distinctly lower than all prior half-hour periods. That same amount of differentiation doesn't appear to exist between, say, the 7-8 p.m. hour, during which rail service is continuing and saw average 890 entries this past week, and the 9-10 p.m. hour which will no longer see trains and still saw average 600 entries last week.

Overall, rail ridership is down across all hours, most particularly the former rush hour periods of 5-9:30 a.m. and 3-7 p.m.

(The following Y axis is not logarithmic like previous)
Metrorail Entries Per Half Hour, 5 a.m. to 1 a.m.

The 5:30-6:00 p.m. half hour, which used to be one of Metrorail's busiest tap-in periods, went from registering nearly 48,000 entries on March 5 to averaging around 1,800 Monday through Thursday this past week.

While ridership declines due to the coronavirus pandemic continue, the Metro Board tentatively passed a budget for the next fiscal year set to begin in July. The budget includes some bus route cuts, scaled back from the initial proposal, and some increased rail service to draw in more riders. The Board says they may revisit the budget again before July to make adjustments as necessary.

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