Ridership and cost on the Long Beach-Los Angeles Blue Line train

The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 places a new policy emphasis on rail transit. Los Angeles county is in the process of building a 300-mile, $78.2 billion rail transit system. The first component of the system, the Long Beach-Los Angeles Blue Line light rail train, has been in operation since July 15, 1990. Official ridership forecasts for the Blue Line are 35000 boardings per weekday in 1991, and 54700 boardings per weekday in the year 2000. Ridership counts by researchers at the University of Southern California provide estimates of 24100 boardings on June 3, 1991, and an average of 26557 daily boardings during Fall 1991. These figures imply that the total cost per Blue Line boarding is substantially higher than the average for light and heavy rail systems recently examined by the U.S. Department of Transportation Urban Mass Transit Administration. It is unlikely that Blue Line ridership will increase, because the most reliable predictors of rail transit ridership are not under policy control. If bus boarding are accounted for, the net result of the Los Angeles rail initiative has been a reduction in transit ridership.