TransLink ridership reaches 88% of normalcy, with overcrowding a concern

TransLink ridership reaches 88% of pre-pandemic levels, with overcrowding now a growing concern

Passengers waiting for a SkyTrain Expo Line train towards downtown Vancouver during peak hours at Commercial-Broadway Station in May 2023. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Metro Vancouver’s public transit ridership volumes are still making incremental climbs towards pre-pandemic 2019 levels, based on the most recent data.

During today’s Mayors’ Council public meeting, TransLink CEO Kevin Quinn shared that ridership for the latter half of May 2023 reached 88% of 2019 levels — up from about 84% for the past few months.

He further added ridership this past weekend reached 99% of pre-pandemic levels.

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Amongst TransLink’s seven service sub-regions, the Southeast sub-region (Surrey, Langley, White Rock) continues to lead the region with overall ridership levels at 115% of pre-pandemic volumes — effectively, a 15% increase in ridership compared to 2019.

This is followed by 106% for the Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows, 89% for Southwest (Richmond, Delta), 84% for the Northeast Sector (Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody), also 84% for the North Shore (West Vancouver, North Vancouver), 78% for Burnaby/New Westminster, and 76% for Vancouver/UBC.

As another indicator, TransLink also saw strong year-over-year bus ridership growth, with each sub-region seeing a 20% growth in ridership between March 2022 and March 2023. The Southeast led with 36%, and it far exceeds periods of high ridership growth in 2019 and earlier. This is followed by 30% for the Southwest, 27% for both the Northeast Sector and the North Shore, 24% for Burnaby/New Westminster, and 20% for both Vancouver/UBC and Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows.

Here is how overall TransLink ridership has fluctuated, based on its reported 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

“While we expect growth rates to settle back down, the current extremely high growth rates demonstrate how rapidly our system is changing and evolving, and we need to be prepared to meet this need,” said Quinn.

With surging ridership, Quinn warns of worsening overcrowding, especially in the fall. He says existing overcrowding levels are beginning to resemble pre-pandemic conditions.

For example, right now in the afternoon peak period, about 33% of bus trips in the Vancouver/UBC sub-region and about 25% of bus trips in the Southeast are overcrowded. Such rates are comparable to the overcrowding both subregions experienced in 2018.

Since Fall 2022, he says, TransLink has been meeting growing demand on select bus routes and mitigating overcrowding by reallocating drivers and vehicles to routes that need improved service levels. But there are now fewer opportunities to reduce bus overcrowding through reallocation in a way that does not negatively impact other passengers.

He adds that TransLink’s next investment plan will look at bus service expansion options, with the aim of this net gain in bus service levels supported by a reliable funding strategy.

Although the gap in overall ridership volumes compared to 2019 is beginning to narrow, TransLink’s fare revenues remain lower than the pre-pandemic period, which prompted the provincial government to recently provide the public transit authority with an additional operating subsidy of $479 million towards covering forecasted revenue shortfalls between later in 2023 and 2025. Without this additional infusion, TransLink was facing major service cuts starting this fall.

TransLink’s number of unique customers recovered to about 400,000 in 2023 — about the same number as in 2019. However, due to the ongoing impacts of semi-remote office work, a larger proportion of these customers are taking fewer trips to get to the office — instead of going to the office five days per week, they are now going two or three days per week. This means fewer unique customers are buying more expensive monthly passes, and they are instead using cheaper single-trip fare products.

There have been ongoing calls by TransLink leadership and the Mayors’ Council for the federal and provincial governments to create a more stable source of funding for public transit, instead of being forced to rely on fluctuating, demand-driven revenue sources such as fares.

Unlike other major Canadian public transit authorities, a very significant portion of TransLink’s revenues is sourced from its portion of the gas taxes paid in Metro Vancouver. Gas tax revenues are expected to drop from the continued expanded use of electric-battery vehicles, compounding new car models with greatly improved fuel economy.

Earlier this month, a delegation of Metro Vancouver mayors travelled to Ottawa to lobby the federal government to expedite its promised new annual permanent transit fund starting in 2024/2025, instead of the original timeline for 2026/2027. This would help prevent delays in rolling out the projects under TransLink’s Transport 2050 10-year priorities starting in 2025.

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