No surprise: Detroit's QLine light rail ridership falls short of projections

QLine

Oh, I warned them. I predicted that ridership of Detroit's light rail commuter service, the QLine, would fall short of forecasts.

Just as that Disney-esqu Motor City flop, its monorail, was a flop.

From Crain's Detroit News:

Detroit's QLine collected just $417,050 in fares from passengers after the Kresge Foundation-funded free rides ended last Labor Day as ridership in the first year of the Woodward Avenue streetcar was 500,000 under initial projections.

From mid-May 2017 through the end of April, the QLine averaged about 3,700 daily riders, with ridership plunging to an average of 2,700 during a prolonged stretch of cold weather between November and March.

Free rides last summer on the new 3.3-mile long streetcar line boosted the total ridership in QLine's first year to 1.35 million, nearly 500,000 fewer riders than its operator had set as a goal to achieve a minimum daily ridership average of 5,000 passengers.

Detroit's People Mover

The privately-operate QLine projects to net $1.2 million in total revenue by its May 12 first-year anniversary, one-fifth of the actual $5.8 million operating cost that's being subsidized by private interests. The QLine, which cost $144 million to build, charges passengers $1.50 to ride for unlimited rides within three hours and $3 for a 24-hour pass.

Like the monorail, known as the People Mover, the QLine looks impressive--it gives the feel that Detroit is modernizing. But liberals, who have run Detroit into the ground, are obsessed with symbols, but not so good with effective results.

As I've noted many times before, leftist love trains because unlike automobiles, they only go where there are tracks.