What is Commuter Rail
Commuter Rail (CR)
An electric or diesel propelled railway for urban passenger train service consisting of local travel which operates between a central city and outlying areas. Service must be operated on a regular basis by or under contract with a transit operator for the purpose of transporting passengers within urbanized areas (UZAs), or between urbanized areas and outlying areas. Commuter rail is generally characterized by multi-trip tickets, specific station-to-station fares, railroad employment practices, relatively long distance between stops, and only 1-2 stations in the central business district. (FTA Glossary)
The US model of commuter rail operations is extremely inefficient and outdated, largely existing to shuttle downtown office workers from tony suburbs to employment rich CBDs. While this model excelled at its raison d’etre in large, dense cities with limited parking and ample congestion in the core like Chicago and NYC, the persistently high rates of hybrid and WFH employment has further exposed the fundamental flaws of this inefficient model as an effective means of transit. While other countries have managed to evolve their mainline suburban rail services into modern systems that provide frequent and fast regional transportation like the RER in Paris or Germany’s S-Bahns, the US is largely stuck in the past.
This report will not delve into the many operating flaws of US Commuter Rail or potential fixes for its underlying operational issues, but I highly recommend reading Transit Planner’s Sandy Johnston’s Masters Thesis, “ Must Only The Rich Have Their Trains’, as an insightful examination of the US’s failure to properly utilize it’s expansive mainline rail infrastructure in cities for those who want to learn more.
Commuter Rail Large Agencies:YoY change
First let’s look at ridership changes for large agencies, which consists of the three large legacy agencies serving NYC and the legacy systems in Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia.
None of the large systems have had especially large ridership gains. It is unclear why Metro-North had YoY ridership losses with the launch of congestion pricing and no notable service issues; although it should be noted that ridership data provided by MTA to the public shows ridership gains for their commuter rail divisions, likely using a different methodology for calculating ridership.
LIRR had a modest increase and Chicago’s commuter rail had the best percentage gain, although it is facing the same fiscal headways as Philly, potentially leading to severe service cuts in 2026 if the state government does not provide additional funding to close the operating budget deficit.
MBTA has had many rail closures due to deferred maintenance on several of its rapid transit lines with riders potentially switching to commuter rail during these closures last year which could explain the YoY loss. While large agencies had mediocre gains or losses due to the fundamental flaws of the operating paradigm, several smaller systems had extremely robust ridership gains as we shall see in the next section.
Commuter Rail Small and Medium Agencies: YoY change
Leading the way for YoY ridership growth is the Bay Area’s CalTrain, which serves the extremely wealthy suburbs in Silicon Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula. The system’s electrification and massive increase in service is bearing dividends, although the tech industry’s continued WFH prevalence means it is still far below pre-pandemic levels despite the massive increase in service levels.
Other notable gainers include DC’s local commuter rail systems, Virginia Railway Express(VRE) and Maryland Area Rail Commuter(MARC), which are benefiting from federal RTO mandates that have also led to rapidly rising ridership for the DC Metro. Several other smaller systems have had massive YoY growth, but from low bases that are still often far below previous levels as we shall see shortly.
The worst performing commuter rail line, Minneapolis’s Northstar, has been officially cancelled and will end service in January to be replaced with bus service. The infrequent line only ran 4 trips daily and was never especially useful, in part because a planned extension to the moderately sized suburb St. Cloud was never built. While advocates often argue rail is more permanent than bus routes, this has not proven to be the case and low performing rail lines across the country are in danger of being shut down with state and federal leaders hostile to transit nationwide. While Pennsyvanlia has Republican control of the State House to blame, Democratic leaders in California, Illinois, and Oregon are all failing to adequately fund transit.
Nashville’s infrequent commuter rail line will become the least ridden once Northstar shuts down; here’s hoping local leaders are able to improve its ridership and keep the train on tracks.
Commuter Rail Ridership Recovery
Looking at overall ridership recovery, Marin county’s conventional commuter rail train and Forth Worth’s DMU hybrid commuter rail have both exceeded 2019 ridership; although ridership is still very low so overall not a particularly impressive feature. SMART’s ridership growth is perhaps related to new bike trails that have opened to connect residents with the train stations; bikes are truly the best micro-mobility option.
TriRail in South Florida has matched 2019 levels, benefiting from a new direct connection to downtown Miami using Brightline’s tracks that has been long in the making. Hopefully in the future they will be able to utilize Brightline’s superior ROW, the Florida East Coast Railway(FEC), to operate more affordable passenger rail than Brightline’s current luxury option. Their current alignment misses many of the downtown’s of South Florida suburbs unlike the FEC, and the Coastal Link has been long planned. Although a complicated fight has arisen between Brightline and the owner of their ROW, which Brightlined divested from several years ago, over trackage rights. The outcome of this legal battle will have severe implications for Florida rail for decades to come.
Florida’s other commuter rail in Orlando is doing decently recovering ridership, aided by a single new station in Deland which has not generated much new ridership ultimately due to the rural location several miles from the center of the small college town. SunRail has a decent alignment and could be the backbone of a regional transit system, especially if the planned Sunshine Corridor project with Brightline to service the theme parks is ever built.
However, it is currently stymied by no weekend and night service and inadequate bus connections. The sprawling suburban metropolis of Orlando actually has decent areas of employment density due to the theme parks who’s low income workers would flock to transit if it existed. However lack of funding and myopic short sighted thinking by both local and state leaders means transit will likely never be a viable option for the region no matter how much expensive infrequent commuter rail is built. Frequent suburban rail such as the typology of sprawling Australian cities could potentially work and compete with private automobiles for mode share in Orlando, but US leaders most likely lack the ambition and financial means to ever implement such a system in the States.
MBTA and LIRR are doing the best at ridership recovery, with LIRR benefiting from the long awaited East Side Access that allowed them to serve Grand Central in a new cavernous station deemed Grand Central Madison at the small cost of $11B. While certainly not worth the massive capital costs, the new station does offer a new option for Nassau and Suffolk commuters and ridden has seemingly picked up recently.
Seeing Denver’s modern commuter rail lines do well makes the relative failure of their light rail lines even more disappointing. Northstar only having 16% of their 2019 ridership is the only data point needed to explain while the service is being cancelled. Infrequent peak hour rail cannot survive in today’s hybrid economy and every commuter rail system must truly evolve to stay relevant in cities that lack a strong consecrated CBD like LA.
For the final article in this series, we will look at bus ridership for the highest ridership systems in the US.