Hillsborough County bus ridership continues to remain strong, with February 2013 numbers totaling 1,199,670. The most notable increase continues to be daily ridership, which exceeded 51,000 per weekday trips, representing an increase of 4.0 percent, compared to the same period last year.
This type of increase is not only happening in Hillsborough County -- the demand for public transportation is on the rise nationally.
According to a report released March 11, by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), 10.5 billion trips were taken on U.S. public transportation in 2012, the second highest annual ridership since 1957 and 154 million more trips than 2011. This was the seventh year in a row that more than 10 billion trips were taken on public transportation systems nationwide.
"Two big reasons for the increased national transit ridership are high, volatile gas prices and in certain localities, a recovering economy with more people returning to work," said APTA President and CEO Michael Melaniphy. "Public transportation saves people money, and people save even more so when gas prices spike."
HART ridership in 2012 increased 3.4 percent over 2011 and the highest in HART history. This represents double the national average of 1.5 percent.
For more information about HART, visit
www.goHART.org.
