Interborough Express Ridership Projections – Part 1

John Pegram[1]

I have long believed that the MTA has underestimated the likely weekday ridership of the proposed Interborough Express (IBX) line. The latest MTA estimates suggest that only 6.6% of the population in the primary study area would use the IBX.[2] This article discusses three principal reasons tending to support my opinion that more of that population would use that line.  

Background – MTA Estimates of IBX Ridership

The MTA’s IBX reports have focused on ridership for the Light Rail Transit mode that it has currently selected, so those are the estimates I refer to here. I believe that the ridership would be similar for a metro line[3] with Unattended Train Operation (UTO), which I prefer.[4]

The MTA’s IBX feasibility study Interim Report of January 2022 estimated that the IBX line would have 87,800 weekday riders.[5] Although the report did not state when that level of ridership was to occur, I assume they were referring to 2040, because the report predicted annual ridership in that year on an earlier page.[6] The only detailed discussions of IBX ridership estimates that have been released by the MTA are in Appendix 1.5 of that Interim Report. The appendix was dated May 2020.[7] Even that omits many of the assumptions. All of the MTA IBX report material, however, appears to be focused primarily on work-related trips, especially within and between Brooklyn and Queens. See, for example:

Clipping from IBX Interim Report[8]

Work-related travel also appears to be the primary focus in the January 2023 IBX PEL Report. An example of time traveling from home to college “Today” is included, but the following paragraph, “With the IBX,” is about faster travel to work.[9] The PEL Report estimated “Daily Ridership” of 115,000 in 2045.

More recently, the Appendix to the MTA’s 20-Year Needs Assessment, published in October, 2023,[10] estimated IBX daily ridership in 2045 as 118,700.[11] That is 35% more that the 87,800 weekday riders predicted for 2040 in the Interim Report. (I understand that the latest estimate was created by the MTA’s impressive Data & Analytics team. which has published a wealth of operating data.[12] The details of their IBX ridership estimate, however, have not been disclosed.)

Reason 1 – The Possibility of Increased, Work-Related Manhattan Travel

The Transit Costs Project team at NYU’s Marron Institute recently announced that it has expanded its research to include analysis of the Interborough Express corridor from a land-use perspective, including potential effects on ridership. While this is good news, the even better news is that they have committed to sharing, saying, “Our final article will unveil our comprehensive report, complete with links to exclusive datasets, charts, maps, along with the measures, algorithms and code we’ve developed.”[13]

In the introductory post on the Transit Costs Project’s IBX project website,[14] Elif Ensari has posted the following map, indicating—in shades of blue-- the jobs in census blocks having over 3,000 jobs in the 2020 census, and indicating—in shades of red—the projected increases in job accessibility within 45 minutes (generally considered an acceptable travel-to-work time) from locations along the IBX corridor.

This data indicates a potential for more work-related trips than were included in the MTA’s IBX ridership estimates.

Also, in view of the relatively high percentage of rental housing along the IBX corridor, and the likelihood that many private leases are for one or two years, there is a high probability that persons having or desiring work in Manhattan will be attracted by the IBX line to housing in this area, increasing IBX ridership. This would not necessarily be gentrification, but more likely—in my opinion—would be relocation of people already living in Brooklyn and Queens, seeking to shorten their commute or obtain better paying jobs.  Such relocation and a shift to greater use of transit in Brooklyn and Queens might be—in part—a  reaction to congestion pricing for driving into lower Manhattan. No doubt, Elif and her colleagues will be considering this possibility. The MTA and its consultants should also do that.

Reason 2 – Non-Work Travel

Ever since I began studying the IBX proposal, I have wondered why the principal focus appeared to be on work-related travel. My general impression, as a transit rider, is that many people are not traveling to or from work.

Recently, Argonne National Laboratory issued a press release and published a set of slides on a study that they conducted with MIT for the Chicago Transit Authority. The slide set is entitled, “Mobility, Equity, and Economic Impact of Transit in Chicago Region.”[15] Its main point is that, although transit’s share of transportation in the metro Chicago region is small, its impact is great, as shown by consideration of a scenario without any transit.

Two slides discussing the types of travel made a special impression on me, especially this diagram on one of these slides:

This part of the next slide also caught my eye:

Then I found a report of a 2019 study in Los Angeles, entitled  “Understanding How Women Travel,” which included a table,[16] a portion of which is shown below:  

While Chicago and Los Angeles are very different places—in terms of personal transportation—from Brooklyn and Queens, these materials clearly indicate that work is only a small percentage of local personal travel. Therefore, serious attention should be given to potential, non-work-related use of the IBX line in predicting its ridership.

Reason 3 –Transit Usage Elsewhere in New York City

As indicated at the beginning of this article, the MTA’s estimate of IBX ridership, indicating that only 6.6% of the population in the IBX primary study area would use the IBX line, seems much too low.[17] For comparison, I have made a simple study of the use of transit on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, between 60^th  and 110^th Streets. The area averages approximately one half-mile wide, East to West. The Second Avenue subway stations at 72^nd, 86^th and 96^th Streets place are within a half-mile of most of that area.[18] The 2020 census reported 285,000 residents in this area,[19] a bit less than 1/3 of the 900,000 projected by the MTA for the IBX primary study area.

Residents and visitors have many transit options in the Upper East Side. In addition to the Second Avenue subway, transit services include the North-South Lexington Avenue subway line, and local and limited MTA bus routes M1, M2, M3, M4, M15, M15-SBS, M31, M98, M101, M102 and M103 going uptown and downtown, as well as the crosstown M66, M72, M79-SBS, M86-SBS and M96.

The weekday boardings at the 72^nd, 86^th and 96^th Street stations of the Second Avenue line and the five Lexington Avenue line stations in the area in 2018, before COVID-19, are summarized in the table below:

It is likely that the number of one-way trips is twice the number of boardings. Therefore, it appears that the average weekday ridership (in one-way trips) using the three Second Avenue stations was over 150,000 in 2018, in an area having only about 1/3 the projected population of the IBX primary study area. And this ridership is achieved in spite of the availability of other transit alternatives, including the parallel, Lexington Avenue subway, a quarter-mile away.

Of course, there are many differences between the Upper East Side and the IBX primary study area. The Upper East side is more densely populated, more affluent, and has more businesses, hospitals and museums, which attract transit passengers from outside the area. Also, the Second and Lexington Avenue Lines are radial, in the sense that they go directly to major business areas, whereas the IBX line will be orbital. However, there are more transit options on the Upper East Side, as compared with the IBX primary study area.

My bottom line is that the 4:1 difference in the percent of population using the Second Avenue line, as compared with the MTA’s IBX ridership projection, indicates the need for further, deeper study.

This article expresses the personal views of the author and does not express the views of his employer, or any client or organization. The author has degrees in law and physics, and has taken several engineering courses. After five years of work as an engineer, he has practiced law primarily in the field of patents for over 50 years, dealing with a wide variety of technologies. He is a life-long railfan and user of public transportation in the United States, Europe and Japan.

As usual a PDF copy of this article is attached.

Ibx Ridership Part 1 2024 06 18

498KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

---

[1]          © John Pegram, 2024.

[2]          See “Background” in text below. Assuming 2 trips a day for each primary study area resident using the IBX, the MTA’s latest estimate of 118,700 weekday trips indicates that there would be 59,350 IBX weekday users. That is 6.59% of the estimated primary study area population of 900,000.

[3]          See the MTA’s PEL Report where LRT mode ridership was projected to be 115K and Commuter Rail mode ridership was projected to be 120K. MTA, Interborough Express Planning & Environmental Linkages Study (Jan. 2023) (PEL Report) at p. 15, available from the MTA here.  

[4]          See my article, “Unattended Train Operation for the Interborough Express,” available at https://bqrail.substack.com/p/unattended-train-operation-for-the.

[5]          MTA, Interborough Express – Feasibility Study and Alternatives Analysis – Interim
Report (Jan. 2022) (Interim Report) at p. 19. The report without appendices is available from the MTA here.  The most complete version available to the public with appendices, produced to me in response to my Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request, is available for download here. Citations to pages of this version, as indicated by a PDF reader, are in the form [###/1041].

[6]          Id. at p. 12.

[7]          Id, Appendix 1.5 [207/1041].

[8]          Interim Report, p. 22.

[9]          PEL Report, p. 5.

[10]        See “MTA Releases Assessment….,” (Oct. 4, 2023), available at https://new.mta.info/press-release/mta-releases-assessment-outlining-needs-continue-investing-15-trillion-regional.

[11]        MTA, “20-Year Needs Assessment Appendix,” p. 220, available at https://pub-81af28a3136344ffa26f094c671584ac.r2.dev/20-YearNeedsAssessment_FullAppendix.pdf.  

[12]        See https://new.mta.info/article/introducing-mta-data-analytics-blog and https://new.mta.info/open-data.

[13]       

https://ibx.transitcosts.com/

(May 27, 2024). See also Eric Goldwyn & Elif Ensari, “How Would the Interborough Express Serve New York City?” (July 24, 2022), available at https://www.replicahq.com/post/how-would-the-interborough-express-serve-new-york-city.  

[14]        Id.

[15]        https://www.anl.gov/article/argonneled-study-highlights-public-transits-critical-role-across-chicago (June 6, 2024) (press release);  https://www.anl.gov/sites/www/files/2024-06/2024_05_08%20CTA%20Board%20Meeting_ANL-MIT_v24_FINAL.pdf (May 8, 2024) (slides).  

[16]        Los Angeles Metro, “Understanding How Women Travel, p. 56, available at https://libraryarchives.metro.net/DB_Attachments/2019-0294/UnderstandingHowWomenTravel_FullReport_FINAL.pdf.

[17]        Assuming 2 trips a day for each primary study area resident using the IBX, the MTA’s latest estimate of 118,700 weekday trips indicates that there would be 59,350 IBX weekday users. That is 6.59% of the estimated primary study area population of 900,000.

[18]        Stations on 59th, 63rd and 106th Streets were not included. They may also be used by residents of this area, which would increase the percentage of their use of transit.

[19]        Source:

https://www.unitedstateszipcodes.org

.  

[20]        See id.