BeMoCo: Planning for a Better Bethesda and Montgomery County

Photo: Interior of a Purple Line light rail car; www.cafusa.com

The three-person Maryland Board of Public Works met on January 26, 2022, with Maryland Department of Transportation officials in attendance, to approve a modified design-build contract for the Purple Line light rail project which now includes significant additional costs and a further delayed opening. The total costs of constructing and operating the P3 project are slated to increase from $5.6 billion to at least $9.3 billion, and the anticipated completion date will stretch from 2022 to the fall of 2026.

While the cost and timeline for the project have now been adjusted to reflect current realities, the state has not provided any updates to the projected ridership numbers since the Travel Forecasts Results Technical Report was released in 2013. So the question remains: How many people will ride the $9.3B Purple Line?

In 2015, the Washington Post reported on some of the questions surrounding the official 2013 ridership projections:

"Even though Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has committed to build a $2 billion light-rail Purple Line in the Washington suburbs, there remains a looming question: How many people will ride it?
The state's predictions have grown over the years - at one point, the number jumped by 45% - as Maryland transit planners refined regional computer models in the quest for nearly $1 billion in highly competitive federal construction funds.
But how those numbers were calculated, and how realistic they are, remains a mystery to the taxpayers who will pay for the 16-mile line linking Prince George’s and Montgomery counties. The predictions stem from highly technical and complex computer models that few transit experts say they truly understand.
In its most recent forecasts, the MTA predicted that the Purple Line will draw an average of 58,800 trips daily — not including University of Maryland students and special events — in its opening year, now scheduled for 2021. That would be almost 75 percent more daily trips than Metro’s Silver Line extension in Northern Virginia averaged in its first year. It also would make the Purple Line one of the busiest light-rail systems in the country, rivaling established lines in Phoenix, Houston and St. Louis. By 2040, Maryland planners say, the Purple Line’s daily ridership is expected to reach 74,000."

Transit map; www.purplelinemd.com

Of course, the project timeline has repeatedly shifted since the Travel Forecasts Report was released. When finally complete (reportedly in 2026*), the Purple Line will consist of 21 stations across 16.2 miles track in Montgomery and Prince George's Counties. The route will connect (at least in proximity) to four Metro stations - even though the line is not officially part of WMATA.

According to the report, approximately 55%** of combined daily boardings will occur at the four Purple Line stations "connected" to Metro stations -- Bethesda Metro, Silver Spring Metro, College Park Metro-UMD, and New Carrollton Metro.***

(Travel Forecasts Results Report - page 75; *Projected ridership benchmark years have not been updated by MDOT or PLTP; **36,370 / 64,550 in 2030; 40,510 / 74,160 in 2040 with event/student boardings; ***These Purple Line station names have been updated on the MDOT Purple Line website to include "Metro" in their name.)

However, since the Purple Line ridership projections were established nearly a decade ago, a number of events and factors have impacted - and could potentially continue to impact - area transit ridership, especially Metrorail and Metrobus ridership:

While Metro has faced criticism over many aspects of the transit system in recent years, it does have a robust ridership data portal which provides interactive and interesting information starting with data from 2010 (other historical archived ridership data is also available).

Reviewing the portal for the years since 2010, Metrobus ridership hit its system peak for the decade in 2013, but has experienced generally declining ridership since then. The data also indicates that Metrorail hit its highest daily entries as a system that decade in 2011 - and then declined until 2019, at which point the system saw an uptick in boardings - prior to falling off the pandemic ridership cliff in 2020 and 2021.

Average Weekday Metrorail Entries	Bethesda	Silver Spring	College Park -UMD	New Carrollton Metro
Year*
2010	9965	12649	4699	9865
2011	10623	13199	4848	9673
2012	10443	13123	4689	9495
2013	10325	12697	4508	9047
2014	10459	12441	4449	8599
2015	10051	12369	4255	7748
2016	9345	11615	4082	6676
2017	9101	11445	3886	6011
2018	8791	10875	3669	6441
2019	9085	11490	3709	6658
2020	2361	3461	863	2031
2021	1822	2788	552	1506

Projected Daily Purple Line Boardings - 2030	14,780	12,490	5,190	3,910
Projected Daily Purple Line Boardings - 2040
with student / event boardings	14,990	13,320	7,740	4,460

(*peak average daily boardings/year highlighted; PL projected average daily boardings/year have not been adjusted by MDOT or PLTP; assumed first year (2020) daily ridership of 58,200, or 84% of 2040 predicted ridership.)

So how do the the numbers for the projected boardings for the Purple Line compare to the actual boarding numbers for the four "connected" Metro stations? At three of the four Purple Line stations "connected" to Metro stations, the number of daily boardings are projected to be higher than the decade-high number of daily entries for rail service at those adjacent Metro stations, sometimes by a significant amount.

For example, the Bethesda Metro station saw a weekday average of 10,623 rail entries in 2011; 9,085 entries in 2019 (pre-pandemic); and 1,822 entries in 2021. Meanwhile projections indicate the Bethesda Purple Line station is expected to eventually see a daily average of 14,990 boardings. Only the projection for the New Carrollton station indicates Purple Line boardings will be less than the decade-high number of Metro entries there.

The College Park-UMD Metro station saw its highest entires in 2011 with 4,848 entries. The Purple Line projections indicate there will be 7,740 boardings for the future Purple Line station there. Of note, five of the 21 Purple Line stations are on or close to the University of Maryland College Park campus: Adelphi Road - UMD, Campus Drive - UMD, Baltimore Ave - UMD, College Park Metro - UMD, and Riverdale Park North - UMD (some station names were changed from their original designation in the 2013 Travel Forecasts Results Report).

The total boardings at those five UMD affiliated stations are supposed to eventually account for 23-24% of total Purple Line system ridership. Students, faculty, and staff will ride for free between these stations, providing a significant incentive for ridership in that area.

Also of note, the Metro Green Line, which also has 21 stations, reached an average of 147,234 daily boardings in 2019 (prior to the pandemic). The Purple Line is projected to eventually reach almost exactly half that amount with 74,160 daily riders. In 2020 average daily boardings on Metro Green Line dipped to 44,820, and in 2021 they averaged 35,840.

The Federal Transit Administration had previously downplayed the impact of Metro ridership and service on future Purple Line ridership, even though the Travel Forecast report indicated 46 percent of passengers are expected to access the Purple Line from Bus or Metrorail; and 27 percent of Purple Line passengers are expected to transfer directly to or from Metro. "Even if the Purple Line had no Metro riders — removing Metro’s problems completely from the Purple Line ridership analysis — the light-rail line would have about 50,000 weekday riders in 2040, the FTA said," according to a 2016 Washington Post article.

The report also indicated that over 42% of riders were expected to access the Purple Line by walking, however for some time planners have been recommending that more needs to be done to improve pedestrian safety and comfort surrounding some stations.

Travel Forecasts Results Report; Purple Line Passenger Mode of Access - page 59

The Purple Line ridership projections were also based, in part, on the promise that additional growth and development will occur along the route, which would then spur more ridership (which would then spur more development, and so on). That there would be a direct relationship between growth and ridership generally makes a lot of sense.

However, in some areas with significant transit-oriented residential and commercial development since 2010, there has been a pattern whereby nearby Metrorail stations - along with the system as a whole - actually experienced ridership losses between 2011 until 2019, when a slight pre-pandemic rebound started to occur.

For example, during the decade between 2010 and 2020, Downtown Bethesda experienced population growth, Walter Reed expanded and moved employees from DC to Medical Center, and the first phases of Pike and Rose were completed within .5 miles of the White Flint station; yet all those stations saw entries generally decline - a pattern which could be attributed, in part, to Metro's safety and service issues, available transportation alternatives, and the change in work patterns outlined above.

Average Weekday Metrorail Entries	Bethesda	Medical Center	White Flint
Year
2010	9965	5344	4075
2011	10623	6044	4186
2012	10443	5979	3998
2013	10325	5999	3817
2014	10459	5875	3725
2015	10051	5562	3684
2016	9345	5390	3448
2017	9101	5320	3454
2018	8791	5123	3369
2019	9085	5266	3532
2020	2361	1760	1027
2021	1822	1509	763

Also during that decade, the Silver Line's first leg opened (in 2014), adding 5 new stations; the DC Metropolitan area grew by approximately 13%; and pre-pandemic it was reported that 54% of the region's jobs were within a half-mile of a Metro station or Metrobus stop.

In Montgomery County, from 2013 to 2019, Ride-On Bus ridership has also been declining annually. Ridership declined further during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, but at a lesser rate than Metro - and the County has also tried to combat ridership losses and provide pandemic economic relief through free and reduced fare programs.

MCDOT Ridership Dashboard; https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/dot-transit/dashboard/index.html

Accurately predicting the future of a transportation system with so many variables can be very difficult, as past attempts have shown. In 2013 the WMATA Momentum Strategic Plan stated that "static or declining ridership is not likely to be in the regions's future" and predicted relatively steady ridership growth.

Source: WMATA Momentum Strategic Plan, 2013 - page 21

The report anticipated that systemwide daily rail ridership would reach approximately 900,000 in 2019, and 1 million daily passengers by by 2032. In reality, system ridership reached approximately 626,000 in 2019. The report predicted daily bus ridership to be in the high 400,000s in 2019. In reality, it reached approximately 350,000 in 2019, approximately a 22% decrease from the daily ridership average of 450,000 in 2013.

In terms of pandemic recovery, systemwide average weekday Metrobus ridership rebounded somewhat between 2020 to 2021 (91K in 2020; 142K in 2021) but it is still down considerably from 2019 (WMATA is trying to better account for fare evasion, particularly on Metrobus, to provide for even more accurate ridership reporting). Systemwide average weekday Metrorail ridership dropped further between 2020 to 2021 (177K in 2020; 136K in 2021).

Therefore in 2021, according to the portal data - for the first time in ages - systemwide average weekday Metrobus ridership exceeded average weekday Metrorail ridership.

Lastly, it is still not clear whether the Purple Line will appear on the WMATA Metro map, as discussed in this 2015 Greater Greater Washington article (reprinted in 2017), "Will the Purple Line Appear on the Metro Map?" WMATA has announced Metro maps and announcements will be updated for the addition of the Silver Line and the station name change from White Flint to North Bethesda. The signage for those changes will cost approximately $300,000 and will take effect when the next phase of the Silver Line opens (no firm date available but reportedly in 2022). But there has been no recent public decision as to how or when the Metro map (and train/station announcements) will updated to include the Purple Line (or who will pay for the changes).

Future ridership on the Purple Line matters since it will ultimately impact service, fares, faregate contributions, and available funding for other transit projects. Hopefully the projections will be met or exceeded when the line opens. But at this point it appears only time will tell what the future ridership realities actually will be - for both Metro and the Purple Line.