The Utah Transit Authority's TRAX light-rail system carried about 21,000 one-way passengers a day during its first six-day week of operation this month, UTA officials announced Tuesday.
That's 50 percent higher than the agency's original projections that TRAX would carry 14,000 riders a day from Dec. 6-11.But UTA officials say many riders on often-crowded evening trains are drawn downtown by holiday activities and caution average daily ridership is likely to drop in January.
Drew Chamberlain, a persistent critic of UTA and its decision to build the $312 million line from Sandy to Salt Lake City, maintains TRAX is carrying only about 1,000 more passengers per day than UTA buses did in the State Street/I-15 corridor before TRAX service began. Those buses, including express buses, carried about 20,000 passengers a day, Chamberlain said.
Chamberlain concedes new public transit riders, many of them using park-and-ride lots or drop-offs, may account for as many as 6,000 TRAX boardings each day. But he believes about 5,000 former bus riders have stopped using the system since TRAX opened and many routes were changed, reduced or canceled.
"They've lost some bus riders because they have to transfer again (with the addition of TRAX) and it takes longer for them to get downtown," Chamberlain said Wednesday, predicting that TRAX boardings will drop to 18,000 a day by the end of next month.
"They've managed to keep ridership about the same but increased the cost to the taxpayer tenfold."
Chamberlain said he gathered his figures from UTA employees and his own observations.
UTA officials did not return calls early Wednesday for comment.
Cindy Everitt, who lives west of I-215, said her disabled son has continued using public transit but has had myriad problems since his daily journey on a single bus changed to a bus-TRAX transfer.
"The system is not set up for nonverbal people who cannot read," she said. "They are not verbally announcing all (station) stops."
UTA has yet to release a breakdown of TRAX ridership showing how many customers are new to public transit, how many were already bus passengers and how many former bus riders have apparently abandoned public transit.
"We are absolutely thrilled with the incredible numbers of people who are riding TRAX during peak commute hours and throughout the evenings, and with the incredible boost this has helped to give to the downtown merchants and to the shopping malls along the line," UTA General Manager John Inglish said Tuesday.
TRAX trains have been on time more than 90 percent of the time, according to UTA.
Also on Tuesday, the agency announced its holiday operating schedule for TRAX.
Trains will run less frequently on Christmas Eve night, every 30 minutes from 7 p.m. until the last Delta Center station departure at 11:15 p.m. There will be no TRAX or bus service on Christmas or New Year's Day, except for ski buses.
On New Year's Eve, TRAX trains will run every 15 minutes until 11:30 p.m., then every 30 minutes until the last train leaves the Delta Center station at 2 a.m. on Jan. 1.