ABQ RIDE Achieves its Greatest Ever Ridership for a Calendar Year

More people took ABQ RIDE during calendar year 2011 than in any other year in Albuquerque’s public transportation history.  And for the first time ever, ridership from January through December, 2011 on ABQ RIDE topped the 12-million passenger mark.

Latest figures show 12,373,445 passengers hopped on ABQ RIDE during 2011.  That tops 2010’s previous record for ridership in a calendar year (11,527,241) by over 845-thousand passengers.  It also represents a 7.3% improvement in ridership from 2010.

“More and more, ABQ RIDE is convincing Albuquerque’s citizens that it is a viable, economical and even fun alternative to get where you want to go around town,” said Mayor Richard J. Berry.  “The numbers speak volumes about the value of the service being provided; ridership is increasing even when gas prices have been decreasing.”

Twice during the 2011 calendar year, ABQ RIDE also achieved something it had never before done in its long history, four straight months of boarding 1 million-plus customers; from March to June and then again from August through November.  The new record might have been five straight months of 1 million-plus customers, had not the deep freeze of early February, 2011 limited ridership for several days.  2011 also saw ABQ RIDE reach its highest-ever monthly ridership total:  1,173,139 passengers during the month of September.

ABQ RIDE even showed improvement during the traditionally-slow month of December.   Last month, a total of 878,003 passengers boarded ABQ RIDE buses, despite the Christmas holidays and schools being out for most of the month. That beat December, 2010’s total ridership by about 6500 passengers.  It also showed constant, steady growth during a month which only five years before was logging about 225-thousand fewer passengers.

And when it comes to overall growth, ABQ RIDE has performed phenomenally since 2007.  The 12-million plus passengers that boarded ABQ RIDE buses in 2011 represents a 16% increase from 2009’s total ridership and a whopping 26% increase from 2007’s total ridership.

“I believe much of the credit should go to our employees, who’ve managed to meet Albuquerque’s big transportation growth with just a few more routes, buses and drivers than they had to work with in 2007,” said Bruce Rizzieri, Director of ABQ RIDE.  “We hope to expand our resources in the near future to continue to better serve Albuquerque’s growing transportation needs.”