By the Daily Post staff
Caltrain lost between 2% and 5.2% of weekday riders between late 2017 and late 2018, according to the agency’s own data.
In October, an average of 59,159 riders took Caltrain during the week, down 4.3% from October 2017. That gap widened in November, when 58,523 people used the train on weekdays, down 5.2% from November 2017.
December saw 4.2% fewer weekday riders on average than in December 2017 and, in January, 2% fewer people took the train on weekdays than in January 2018.
Caltrain had been seeing more weekday riders each month up until October, when the numbers started to shrink.
‘Hard to tell’ why it’s falling
A whopping 6% more riders used Caltrain weekdays in December 2017 than in December 2016. And between January 2017 and January 2018, 3.2% more riders used Caltrain.
Caltrain spokesman Dan Lieberman said it was “hard to tell with such limited data” why Caltrain is losing weekday riders.
“The annual ridership report that should be out in the next few months will have more insight,” Lieberman told the Post in an email.
Diverting riders to bus
Since October, Caltrain has been diverting riders to a bus between the Bayshore and San Francisco stations as crews prepare tunnels for electrification of the Caltrain system. But those closures are only on the weekends, so the wouldn’t have an effect on weekday ridership.
