I knew that DC Metro ridership was down during the pandemic, and hadn’t really recovered. But I was still shocked when I parked in the nearly-empty lot at the Vienna Metro, on a weekday morning last week.
Ridership is down how much?
I went back there this morning (Thursday 11/2/2023) to take the pictures above. All told, about two-thirds of the parking spaces in the Vienna Metro north surface lot were empty, as was about three-quarters of the north parking garage. (That, by actual-but-rough count of cars and spaces.)
This, at a Metro station which I recall as being fully-parked most work days, in the distant and receding past. This, in a station where I’d bet that the vast majority of ridership arrives by car. Based on this, I’d have to guess ridership at Vienna Metro is now is maybe a third of what it was at some point prior to the pandemic?
And, sure enough, that’s about what Metro’s own data show. Below, I’ve summarized the daily data that Metro provides, tossing out a few episodes where (e.g.) the station was closed for repairs. This is what I think the decade-long decline in ridership looks like:
Source: Analysis of daily entry and exit data from WMATA, via their ridership data portal.
Daily Metro ridership at the Vienna Metro station is now about 30% of what it once was, back around 2012/2013. Pretty much in keeping with the volume of cars parked in the lot and garage, above.
I don’t know why the Vienna Metro (and the Metro in general) has so lost its groove. In part, commuting to an office five days a week is rumored to be a thing of the past. At last for some, perhaps for many, and for good. In part, maybe some people are still squeamish about public transit from a public health perspective. In part, the opening of the Silver Line to Tysons has funneled off some potential riders.
If I combine Vienna and the new Tysons station, then for that geographically-close pair of stations combined, ridership is down just 50% from where it was in 2019, pre-pandemic.
Just 50%.
No matter how you cut it, that’s a heck of a loss of ridership.
