METRORAIL AVERAGE DAILY PASSENGER BOARDINGS

Highlights

Ridership at the Metrorail Station is generally only surpassed by ridership seen at Metrorail stations within downtown DC.

Ridership at Metrorail stations in the 22202 zip codes decreased approximately 18 percent from peak ridership that occurred between 2008 and 2011.

Description

The data below provides the average annual weekday passenger boarding data for Metrorail stations in the 22202 zip code area. The first chart provides the annual average weekday passenger boarding data for the Pentagon City and Crystal City Metrorail Stations, from 1977, when the system opened, to the present. To help provide context, the second table ranks station use based on average weekday passenger boarding counts from highest to lowest. Ridership for the year 2015 is provided for the top 20 stations along with the ranking for all Metrorail stations in Arlington outside of the top 20. The link below leads to a data table with the data for all 91 Metrorail stations from 1977 to 2015 for reference. Annual Average Passenger Boardings Pentagon City and Crystal City Metrorail Stations (1977 – 2015)

22202 Transportation and Planning Data Compilation & Reporting

METRORAIL AVERAGE DAILY PASSENGER BOARDINGS:

Metrorail Average Passenger Boardings by Station, Ranked System Wide

2015 Top 20 Metrorail Stations

Rank 2015 Rank 2015 1 Union Station 31,186 11 Rosslyn 14,815 2 Metro Center 27,058 12 Pentagon City 14,427 3 Gallery Place-Chinatown 25,820 13 Silver Spring 13,008 4 Farragut North 25,294 14 Shady Grove 12,609 5 Farragut West 22,374 15 Columbia Heights 12,415 6 Foggy Bottom-GWU 21,462 16 Crystal City 12,008 7 DuPont Circle 20,415 17 Ballston 11,520 8 L'Enfant Plaza 20,367 18 Vienna 11,458 9 McPherson Square 15,635 19 Bethesda 10,708 10 Pentagon 15,145 20 Smithsonian 10,684

Rankings for Other Arlington County Metrorail Stations

Rank 2015 Rank 2015 35 Court House 7,448 62 East Falls Church 4,399 36 Nat'l Airport (Reagan) 7,284 68 Virginia Square-GMU 3,970 55 Clarendon 4,882 85 Arlington Cemetery 1,918

Context in Planning Spectrum

Where is this data used in the planning spectrum?

Coordinated County Building Level Sector Plans & Site Plans & Regional Comprehensive Transportation Small Area Plans PDSPs Planning Plan Studies

METRORAIL AVERAGE DAILY PASSENGER BOARDINGS:

Findings/Conclusions

 The data shows that boardings in the year 2015 at the Pentagon City Metrorail Station were only surpassed by the activity at stations within the District of Columbia downtown core.  In 2015, the average daily passenger boardings for the Pentagon, Rosslyn and Pentagon City Stations were all within the 14,000 to 15,000 trips per day range. However, the busiest stations in the system had ridership levels that were almost twice as much as the busiest Arlington stations. These ridership levels rank the stations 10, 11 and 12 respectively, system wide, out of 91 total stations in 2015.  The data also shows that five of the top 20 stations for average daily boardings are within Arlington County.  Metrorail ridership in 22202 is down 18% from its peak in 2010 and 2011. System wide ridership is down five percent. For the 22202 zip code area, three factors have contributed to the significant decline in ridership including:

. High office vacancy rates in Crystal City from Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) activates . Changes to Blue Line service (Rush Plus/Silver Line) . An overall decrease in rider satisfaction by Metrorail users

 Changes in Metrorail ridership at the Crystal City Metrorail Station occurring between 2011 and 2014 are primarily related to the job loss and office vacancy rate in the area from BRAC activities. The data indicates that ridership at the Crystal City Metrorail Station has been steady between 2014 and 2015.  The ridership at the Pentagon City Station has increased 1,100 percent since the station opened in 1977, compared to an overall increase of 250 percent for all the stations that same year. With very little development around the Pentagon City Metrorail Station when the Station opened, these increases in ridership are the result of the growth in the transit-oriented development planned and built around the station.

Data Source

This data is from Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). http://www.wmata.com/pdfs/planning/2015_historical_rail_ridership.pdf

METRORAIL AVERAGE DAILY PASSENGER BOARDINGS:

Data Table

Average Passenger Boardings for Pentagon City and Crystal City Metrorail Stations (1977 – 2015)

Pentagon City Crystal City Total Pentagon City Crystal City Total 1977 1,312 3,912 5,224 1997 10,411 11,596 22,007 1978 2,068 5,110 7,178 1998 10,865 11,420 22,285 1979 3,325 7,554 10,879 1999 10,832 11,847 22,679 1980 3,586 8,204 11,790 2000 11,058 12,108 23,166 1981 3,136 7,438 10,574 2001 11,751 12,851 24,602 1982 3,210 7,667 10,877 2002 12,805 12,908 25,713 1983 N/A N/A N/A 2003 13,518 13,560 27,078 1984 2,335 9,779 12,114 2004 15,833 13,722 29,555 1985 2,821 10,602 13,423 2005 15,783 12,809 28,592 1986 2,998 10,939 13,937 2006 16,176 13,324 29,500 1987 3,309 12,253 15,562 2007 16,339 14,158 30,497 1988 2,786 12,965 15,751 2008 16,803 15,028 31,831 1989 3,091 13,633 16,724 2009 16,503 14,748 31,251 1990 6,650 13,349 19,999 2010 17,197 14,952 32,149 1991 7,602 13,335 20,937 2011 17,023 15,187 32,210 1992 7,365 12,630 19,995 2012 16,382 13,592 29,974 1993 8,387 12,601 20,988 2013 15,589 12,594 28,183 1994 8,529 11,704 20,233 2014 15,623 11,959 27,582 1995 9,587 12,067 21,654 2015 14,427 12,008 26,435 1996 9,895 11,670 21,565