The 'Swiftie' transit boom

All the doomsday talk about a public transit death spiral? Shake it off. Because fans going to Taylor Swift's concerts are fueling a city-by-city transit boom that points the way to reviving slumping ridership by improving service for leisure travelers and non-9-to-5 commuters.

Cities across the country have seen ridership surge from "Swifties" choosing to take transit to the star's sold-out Eras Tour. In Atlanta, nearly 140,000 people took transit to see Swift perform over three nights — that's triple the normal weekend ridership. In Chicago, the concerts generated 43,000 bus and train trips, and the system had the highest weekly ridership in three years.

And when Swift comes to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood for six shows starting Aug. 3, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority will add service and extend hours to accommodate some of the estimated 60,000 fans expected per performance.

The goal is to meet the tremendous demand concert-goers have demonstrated in other cities and woo more Angelenos and visitors to public transit for their social and leisure travel.

Big-city transit agencies have traditionally designed service for 9-to-5 work commuters. Travelers outside those peak times, including people working night or weekend shifts, picking up kids from school, going to a midday doctor's appointment, or visiting friends on a Saturday or Sunday, had longer — sometimes much longer — wait times than rush-hour riders.

That model disadvantages non-9-to-5 workers and people who rely on transit as their only mode of transportation, and it was already being reconsidered before the COVID-19 pandemic. Metro, for example, planned a major overhaul of the bus system to provide more frequent, reliable service throughout the day and on evenings and weekends.

The pandemic completely upended the business model of most public transit agencies. The rise of remote work, decline in ridership, increase in public safety concerns and falling revenue has hastened fears of the collapse of public transit, when major systems end up cutting service, shedding more riders and losing public confidence.

Metro recognizes there is a big market for off-peak and weekend travels, said Conan Cheung, chief operations officer. As the agency restores service cut during the pandemic, it's reducing the traditional wait-time disparities during peak and non-peak travel, reducing frequency in peak travel time and increasing frequency for evening and weekend riders.

Metrolink, the six-county Southern California commuter rail network, is still well below its pre-pandemic weekday ridership, but its weekend service has bounced back. The agency is working with tourism agencies to promote Metrolink as an option for weekend outing and attracting leisure riders with special service, including running trains to last weekend's X Games at the Ventura County Fairgrounds.

Of course, a few concerts and special events alone won't save public transit. Riders won't return if the service isn't easy to use, fast and safe. But big events present an opportunity to showcase the individual and collective benefits of buses and trains, and that's important because getting people out of cars is essential to reduce emissions and fight climate change.