The city of San Luis Obispo’s SLO Transit bus service hits a record high with 1,142,748 passengers traveling during the city’s Fiscal Year 2013/14 (July 1 to June 30th).
The record reflects support of and demand for fixed-route transit services in the city of San Luis Obispo. The ridership also and reflects a positive trend for reducing traffic congestion and limiting the pollution and congestion impacts of single occupancy vehicles.
The city of San Luis Obispo tracks its ridership via its electronic fareboxes. With each swipe of a bus pass or paid fare, the fareboxes record a ride. This information is tracked daily for monitoring trends and demand levels. The final tally showed that demand for bus service for Fiscal Year 13/14 reached a record high. While SLO Transit continues outreach to senior, disabled and transit dependent populations; ridership among students at the collegiate level and K-12 grades has continued to increase. Higher student ridership is confirmed by the number of Cal Poly Cards and student passes utilized through the year. This increase is part of a national trend of more youths using public transit. SLO Transit is encouraging this trend with City’s recent addition of Free Wi-Fi on some of its vehicles. The city also provides a free Bus Tracker app for smart phones. It should be noted the Bus Tracker app was created by a Cal Poly student – demonstrating the partnership between the city and the university.
“Both the City Council and the community have made their intentions clear of a desire for alternatives to personal vehicles; with bicycles and public transit as being a big part of that. We are pleased to see this level of support come in the form of action from the public and hope to see this trend to continue to grow” Daryl Grigsby, Director of Public Works for the city of SLO.
