The invention of light rail in the USA is an interesting and insightful story that reveals a lot about US transit priorities and predilections that will be the topic of another post, but the FTA definition is shared below to clear up any potential confusion about the differences between light and heavy rail.
Light Rail (LR
A transit mode that typically is an electric railway with a light volume traffic capacity compared to heavy rail (HR). It is characterized by:
• Passenger rail cars operating singly (or in short, usually two car, trains) on fixed rails in shared or exclusive right-of-way (ROW);
• Low or high platform loading; and
• Vehicle power drawn from an overhead electric line via a trolley or a pantograph.
This definition provides a solid understanding of the mode, but is confounded by several key variations from these criteria. Some heavy rail systems use over electric line instead of third rail like Boston’s Blue Line and some heavy rail systems operate with few cars like CTA’s Skokie Swift, which formerly used pantographs as well.
The largest variation between systems and perhaps the largest factor determining quality of the system beside adjacent land use is Right-of-Way(ROW) used for the system. Many light rail systems use historic interurban or mainline ROW for more cheaper construction costs which often has the downside of missing activity centers and areas of density.
Freeway alignments are often used which are fast and relatively affordable yet do not allow TOD, decreasing the catchment area of the line and largely relying on park and rides or bus connections for ridership instead of nearby residents in walking distance; this problem afflicts many heavy rail lines as well and typically leads to underperforming lights.
Many modern low-floor light rail lines run surface street medians which allows them to better serve important activity centers, with a trade-off of slower speeds due to lack of grade separation. Street running light rail also typically operate on wide high traffic volume stroads which are hostile towards pedestrians.
The best light rail systems such as Sound Transit Link have extensive grade separation with underground or elevated alignments that blur the boundaries between metro and light rail. A later post will more explicitly delineate the differences between each model using several systems as examples of each, but for now I think it is enlightening to look at international nomenclature, where slower street running light rail are usually called trams and higher capacity light rail are typically categorized as light metro systems.
In essence the category of light rail can be rather broad, but still share essential features, with vehicle type a characteristic shared by all LR systems in the US. Now enough semantics, let us look at the ridership data.
Multiple Systems had YoY declines
Looking at LR ridership provides a stark contrast to the previous look with several severe YoY ridership declines for a manifold of reasons. Service cuts are a factor that I will analyze in a future blog post looking at VRM and VRH. A disclaimer to this chart is Seattle unfortunately has not provided data to the FTA in several months. Seattle’s has been perhaps the greatest success story for light rail, and recently opened several extensions with more on the way. Seattle has the most ambitious transit expansion plan in the US outside of LA, and the failure of Sound Transit to report timely data makes the overall mode look worse with average ridership down 2%.
Top Performers
Only two systems managed double digit YoY growth: San Francisco Muni Metro which is recovering ridership better than BART by actually providing service in the city, and St Louis Metrolink, a good system with ample grade separation confounded by poor land use, declining population, and a hostile state government. Los Angeles continues to have the highest light rail ridership and longest light rail line in the world, the gargantuan A line, formed when the downtown Regional Connector tunnel connected the former Gold, Blue and Expo lines together to create a vast regional light rail system. It is ironic that of all the badly needed through-running projects in the USA, such as in NYC, Chicago, or Boston, the one to move forward was a project connecting slow, low-capacity light rail instead of fast mainline rail. The A Line is so long it requires an operator change at Union Station half way through the route, further adding to the lengthy run time which will only increase when another suburban extension east to Pomona opens soon.
While it was a good project that added three new subway stations in DTLA, although the Little Tokyo station merely replaced the former above ground station, it has not led to immerse gains as of yet and light rail ridership is still below 2019 levels as shown in a chart displaying ridership recovery for US light rail systems which will be examined in a later section of this post.
LA Metro also opened the K Line, an entirely new light that connects with the C Line, but the full line only opened in June and a People Mover connection to LAX is not set to open until early 2026; while current ridership on that line is modest, hopefully providing a a decent rail connection to LAX will increase ridership significantly in coming years. A more productive extension to the north to serve West Hollywood is decades away unfortunately and the subject of intense debate over the alignment.
Systems experiencing YOY loss
Systems leading the way in ridership loss include San Jose’s abysmal VTA, due to a 17 day strike that has since been resolved, but the inherent lack of utility for the system is something no $12B BART extension can fix. VTA has the worst ridership per milefor any USA light rail system after Cleveland’s legacy disasters and Norfolk’s line to nowhere, The Tide, stymied by Virginia Beach cancelling the extension that would have made the route worthwhile by connecting the two biggest cities in the MSA.
Other ridership losses are explained by closures for some stations in Phoenix to connect the new South extension, forming a two line network in Phoenix with Line A and Line B. Valley Metro’s new light rail line opened on June 7th with 5.5 miles of new track and 8 new stations, so we will look out for future months to see if ridership has increased significantly with the new extension. While some of the systems experiencing YoY ridership declines have service decreases as an explanatory factor, several systems had declining service levels and increasing ridership like Saint Louis and Baltimore, while others had increasing service levels and declines in ridership like Denver.
The scatter plot below charting YoY VRM and UPT shows a slight correlation between service levels and ridership gains but overall the trend is very marginal. The differing reasons for ridership losses is likely unique to each locality and requires in-depth analysis and local expertise to truly parse out. Regardless, the overall performance of light rail in the US continues to be mediocre for most cities.
Light Rail Ridership Recovery
This chart shows the percentage of ridership for the current year compared to the first half of 2019. Only San Diego has managed to exceed pre-pandemic ridership due to a very successful 11-mile 9-station extension that opened in 2021 and provided new service to University City, an important hub of economic activity with the busy UC San Diego, numerous offices, and a plethora of retail to see both the college kids and office workers.
The ridership gains from serving this area rich in trip generation briefly made the SD Trolley the highest ridership LRT system in the US, although LA has since eclipsed it again after opening their new extensions, which have ultimately been less successful at attracting new ridership, shown by the fact LA ridership is still below pre-pandemic levels.
Jersey’s pair of relatively short light rail systems serving Essex and Hudson county have also done well at recovering ridership due to the cheat code of being adjacent to the only truly transit dependent city in the country.
Sprawling commuter oriented systems like Pittsburgh and Denver has had the worse recovery due to continued high rates of hybrid and WFH for professional white collar positions, and overall ridership recovery for light rail has been mediocre, further exemplifying the mode as a marginal member of the transportation mix in the USA.
Next we will look at commuter rail ridership for the first half of 2025.