News

Lansing, MI. For the first time ever, the Capital Area Transportation Authority (CATA) gave over half a million rides in July. The new July monthly record is 522,753 rides. This marked the 9th time in 10 months that CATA broke monthly ridership records.

CATA passengers took 20.4% more rides in July compared to July '07. It was the largest increase in overall system ridership (all CATA services) since December 2004. Urban fixed-route ridership increased 20.8% when compared with July '07. This is the largest increase for urban routes in this decade. Since August of 2007, urban route ridership showed double-digit annual increases for 7 of the 12 months.

Year-to-date CATA ridership for FY08 is 9,315,199 rides. This represents a 4.5% increase over last year at this time. On an average weekday in July 2008, CATA provided about 20,975 rides - - an increase of nearly 3,000 rides per weekday.
In FY05, CATA broke the 9-million ride mark. In FY06, passengers took a record 10 million rides and that number rose to 10.7 million in FY07. CATA is well on its way to breaking the 11 million ride mark this year (fiscal year ends Sept. 30, 2008).

'Buses on some routes are filled to capacity during popular commuting times and we are seeing more and more work commuters on board. We try to have extra buses ready to go at peak times to be sure we aren't leaving anyone behind at the bus stop,' said CATA CEO/Executive Director Sandy Draggoo. 'This continued growth in local ridership demonstrates how important public transportation is to our community - - especially when people are looking for ways to save money.'

CATA Route	Rides Taken in July 2008	Ride increase compared to July '07
Route 1 East Lansing-Meridian Mall	109,743	+11,760 (12.0%)
Route 5 South Cedar-Edgewood	49,980	+8,370 (20.1%)
Route 7 Aurelius	5,674	+1,641 (40.7%)
Route 8 Pennsylvania-Holt	36,364	+6,927 (23.5%)
Route 9 S. Martin Luther King-Miller	40,985	+9,149 (28.7%)
Route 11 Waverly-Colonial Village	6,279	+1,157 (22.6%)
Route 12 West Michigan-Waverly	11,032	+3,630 (49.0%)
Route 14 North Grand River-Airport	19,498	+5,294 (37.3%)
Route 20 South Harrison	14,854	+3,751 (33.8%)
Route 26 Abbot-Chandler	10,043	+2,938 (41.4%)

In addition to increases in passengers on urban routes, significant growth occurred on the two CATA commuter routes. The Mason and Williamston/Webberville Limiteds bring passengers downtown Lansing. They run one trip each weekday morning and one during the afternoon rush hour; making limited stops along the route. The Mason Limited gave 979 rides in July '08 - a 94.6% increase or 476 more rides than the previous July. The Williamston/Webberville Limited provided 1,346 rides in July '08. That was a 66.2% increase (536 more rides) compared to July '07.

Spec-Tran- CATA's service for persons with disabilities- increased 2.5% from July '07-July '08. Passengers took 22,777 rides in July '08 - - 676 more rides than provided in July '07. CATA Rural Service went up 9.7% during that timeframe.