TransLink’s public transit network in Metro Vancouver continues to outperform expectations in ridership relative to other metropolitan regions.
Data provided to TransLink by the Canadian Urban Transit Association shows Metro Vancouver’s public transit network has the second-highest ridership among Canada’s major urban areas, based on 2023’s statistics on transit journeys per person.
A “transit journey” is defined as a complete trip made on public transit, regardless of the number of transfers between bus routes and/or other modes of transit.
Based on this metric, Metro Vancouver had 77.92 transit journeys per person in 2023 — behind Montreal’s leading ratio of 92.38 and just ahead of the Greater Toronto Area and Durham’s (Metrolinx service area) with 71.73.
This was followed by 53.84 transit journeys per person in the metropolitan region of Calgary, 50.12 in Ottawa-Gatineau, and 35.84 in Edmonton.
“We have the second-highest ridership per capita in Canada, ahead of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area, a huge transformation in how our region moves from years ago across bus, SkyTrain, HandyDART, and SeaBus,” said TransLink CEO Kevin Quinn during last week’s Mayors’ Council’s public meeting.
2023 public transit ridership per capita among Canada’s major metropolitan regions. (TransLink)
Quinn also noted that TransLink is now moving nearly one million people per week, which is equivalent to one-third of Metro Vancouver’s population of nearly three million residents.
TransLink statistics show that Metro Vancouver’s public transit network recorded a total of 233 million journeys in 2023, which is nearing the record pre-pandemic 2019 figure of 270 million. In real ridership numbers, annual boardings reached 390 million in 2023, which is behind the record of 451 million in pre-pandemic 2019.
In real ridership numbers, Metro Vancouver also has the third highest public transit bus ridership among major systems in Canada and the United States, according to the American Public Transportation Association’s data for the second quarter of 2024. With an average weekday bus ridership of 787,000, Metro Vancouver comes behind New York City’s MTA and the Toronto Transit Commission and comes ahead of STM in Montreal, LA Metro, and the Chicago Transit Authority.
Furthermore, TransLink’s SkyTrain network in Metro Vancouver now has one of the highest ridership among subway systems in Canada and the United States, rivalling the Washington DC Metro, Chicago L, and Boston subway.
TransLink has seen some of the strongest post-pandemic ridership recoveries among major systems in Canada and the United States, but its fare revenue remains below pre-pandemic figures due in part to fewer monthly pass purchases, with riders instead buying cheaper single-trip fares for the fewer trips they now take for reasons such as semi-remote office work.