Vancouver's SkyTrain is now the 4th busiest subway system in North America

Metro Vancouver's SkyTrain is now the 4th busiest subway system in Canada and USA

YVR Airport Station on SkyTrain Canada Line, July 2023. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Metro Vancouver’s SkyTrain network is punching well above its weight in terms of passenger ridership.

In fact, when it comes to average weekday ridership, TransLink’s SkyTrain is now the fourth busiest metro/subway system in Canada and the United States — behind the New York City Subway, Montreal Metro, and Toronto Subway, but just ahead of the Washington Metro, Chicago L, and Boston subway.

This is based on the compilation of 2023 first quarter ridership statistics from the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) by Yonah Freemark, who is a researcher with the Washington, DC-based Urban Institute.

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Montreal saw an average weekday ridership of just over 900,000, while Toronto saw over 850,000. Vancouver averaged at 400,000, Washington, DC saw over 350,000, Chicago hovered at over 300,000, and Boston was below 300,000. San Francisco’s BART was just under 200,000, only.

These are impressive figures for the fully-automated SkyTrain system (Expo, Millennium, and Canada lines combined) given that Metro Vancouver’s regional population and employment base is a small fraction of any of these aforementioned significantly larger metropolitan regions.

north america public transit ridership recovery 2023 q1

Yonah Freemark/Urban Institute

As well, SkyTrain’s 80-km-long network is far smaller in size than most of these cities — with the exception for the 77-km-long Toronto Subway and the 69-km-long Montreal Metro.

SkyTrain ridership will grow significantly over the coming years with the opening of the six-km-long Millennium Line Broadway Extension in 2026, and the 16-km-long Expo Line Surrey-Langley Extension in 2028, with the Broadway Extension’s ridership expected to be particularly significant at well over 100,000 passengers daily — more than twice the projections of the Surrey-Langley Extension.

Future APTA ridership data for Montreal will account for not only the Montreal Metro, but also the brand new SkyTrain-like REM network. The first 16.6 km of the fully-automated REM train system opened in late July 2023, and the remaining segments of the 67-km-long system will progressively open through 2027. REM’s ridership forecast is an average of 190,000 passengers per day.

Prior to the pandemic, SkyTrain had the sixth highest average weekday ridership amongst Canadian and American systems, approximately 496,000 — coming well behind the Washington Metro and Chicago L, but just ahead of the Boston subway and San Francisco BART. This is based on APTA’s statistics for the fourth quarter of 2019.

TransLink’s 2023 monthly ridership levels for all main services between January and June. (TransLink)

TransLink’s statistics show the integrated SkyTrain Expo and Millennium lines saw monthly ridership totals of 7.82 million in January 2023, 7.12 million in February 2023, and 8.47 million in March 2023 — a combined total of 23.4 million for this year’s first quarter. Ridership reached over 25 million in the second quarter, with 7.66 million in April 2023, 8.72 million in May 2023, and 8.63 million in June 2023.

SkyTrain Canada Line saw 3.04 million in January 2023, 2.78 million in February 2023, and 3.29 million in March 2023 for a combined total of 9.1 million in the first quarter, and 3.07 million in April 2023, 3.54 million in May 2023, and 3.53 million in June 2023 for a combined total of 10.14 million in the second quarter.

Combined SkyTrain ridership for all three lines reached 32.5 million in the first quarter and 35.2 million in the second quarter.

When it comes to ridership recovery, SkyTrain leads the entire pack amongst all metro/subway systems in Canada and the United States.

In the first quarter of 2023, SkyTrain had a ridership recovery of over 80% of pre-pandemic 2019 ridership, followed by the systems of New York City (~76%), Montreal (~71%), Miami (70%), Los Angeles (~69%), Toronto (~56%), Jersey City’s PATH (~54%), Boston (~52%), and San Juan’s Tren Urbano (also ~52%).

This list does not include less heavy-duty systems that use light rail transit (LRT), which typically run on street level for at least a portion of the LRT network.

Yonah Freemark/Urban Institute

Metro Vancouver’s strong ridership recovery can be attributed to its relatively strong post-pandemic economic comeback, strong rebound in tourism, soaring gas prices, and strong regional fundamentals that support high ridership, including population growth, international students, and transit-oriented density. In the years leading up to the pandemic, TransLink had some of North America’s strongest public transit ridership growth, with ridership increasing by about 25% between 2015 and 2019.

As well, the fully-automated system of SkyTrain, in particular, enables high frequencies and capacities to be maintained at a relatively low operating cost and with greater flexibility than a system with manned drivers.

But compared to the double-digit regrowth in ridership between mid-2020 and 2022, the further recovery in ridership has slowed considerably in pace this year to date. The main hurdles largely centre on the lasting changes in transportation behaviour as a result of the pandemic, particularly semi-remote office work and increased vehicle usage.

It also remains to be seen how the introduction of the major ridehailing services of Uber and Lyft, which launched in late-January 2020, may have impacted public transit ridership. The Government of British Columbia is performing a major review of ridehailing and taxi services starting in Fall 2023.

Here is how overall TransLink ridership across all services (SkyTrain, buses, SeaBus ferries, West Coast Express commuter rail, and HandyDART) has fluctuated since the pandemic, based on its ridership change updates:

April 2020: 17% of pre-pandemic
September 2020: 41% of pre-pandemic
November 2020: 44% of pre-pandemic
September 2021: 55% of pre-pandemic
January 2022: 60% of pre-pandemic
February 2022: 64.5% of pre-pandemic
May 2022: 70% of pre-pandemic
June 2022: 72% of pre-pandemic
September 2022: 77% of pre-pandemic
November 2022: “80%+” of pre-pandemic
December 2022: 82% of pre-pandemic
March 2023: 84% of pre-pandemic
Late May 2023: 88% of pre-pandemic

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