Caltrain Ridership Shows Slight Drop, Remains Steady

REDWOOD CITY, CA — Although Caltrain’s ridership count taken annually showed a decrease of 2.3 percent for weekday ridership overall, the tally shows a public transportation system remaining strong with increases in commuters traveling in peak periods, transit officials announced Friday.

The 10 most popular stations include Redwood City, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Hillsdale, Millbrae, San Mateo, San Francisco's 22nd Street and 4th and King Street San Jose's Diridon transit centers — the latter of which is undergoing a revamping with Google and other city retail outlets to be constructed.

The average mid-weekday ridership equates to 63,597.

The comparison in ridership between a weekday's snapshot in 2018 in contrast to 2019 is slight for the counties as dictated by the study:

• Santa Clara Co. saw a decline from 27,687 to 26,948
• San Mateo Co.'s came in as 19,757 versus 19,491
• San Francisco Co.'s numbers compared 17,651 to 17,159

In the heart of the San Francisco Peninsula into the Silicon Valley, Redwood City saw an uptick of passengers from 4,212 to 4,220, while Palo Alto's witnessed a small decline with 7,384 compared to 2018's 7,764. Ridership levels were a bit all over the map when considering times and places.

Initial findings from the annual onboard ridership count dated July 11 demonstrates substantial growth compared to 2010 when average weekday ridership amounted to 34,120 or in 2004 when the count was at an all-time low of 23,947 and the Baby Bullet service began.

The results of the annual ridership count submitted to the Board of Directors at its monthly meeting Thursday provides a snapshot of Caltrain to be used for planning future service improvements, allocating resources to address capacity issues and validating revenue-based ridership estimates.

Most riders continue to travel during peak commute hours. There was a 0.5 percent increase in traditional peak riders defined as northbound in the morning peak period and southbound in the afternoon peak period from 34,373 riders in 2018 to 34,552 in 2019.

There was a 0.5 percent increase in midday riders and a 7.2 percent decrease in riders who travel in the opposite peak times and directions. This means southbound in the morning peak period and northbound in the afternoon peak period. Additionally, a 16.4 percent decrease was shown among evening riders.

For riders boarding with two wheels, bike ridership decreased by 7 percent this year in the sample period, with 5,506 riders bringing bikes on Caltrain on an average mid-weekday.

For the eighth year, Caltrain counted the number of bike riders that were not able to board the train due to overcrowding. There was a slight decrease in bikes bumped with 1.5 riders bumped per 1,000 bikes boarded versus 1.6 in 2018.

This physical head count of riders is typically conducted in January and February when there are fewer holidays and special events that could skew ridership numbers. Trains were surveyed twice each on two mid-weekdays.

Caltrain will continue to analyze the data in order to maximize the efficiency of the system. Future service planning also requires use of ridership data to develop potential service scenarios to improve capacity pre- and post-electrification.

The goal by 2040 will be a daily ridership of 250,000, an attainable figure with electric trains coming on board in 2022. These trains will be larger and travel more often.

"We are at capacity. The fact is, we have overcrowded trains. But in 2022, the electrification of the system will help us run more often," Caltrain spokesman Dan Lieberman told Patch.