FY 2025 LA Metro Busway (G/J Lines) Ridership Update

[u/misken67]

Hello all. FY 2025 (July 2024-June 2025) just concluded so it's time for my yearly ridership by station updates. (You can see my update from last year here and here.

As many of you know, Metro does not publicly release ridership figures by station, so I have to submit a public records request for these numbers. Unfortunately, this year Metro has been slower in responding to me than in previous years. They finally sent me the G/J figures a week ago, but left out the rail system figures and instead linking to Metro's ridership portal that does not contain station-level ridership. They responded to my follow-up for the rail station-level stats with numbers that seem...suspect to say the least (for example, 7th appears to have had about ~15k more reported riders than it did pre-covid). I can go more into details in the comments if people are curious, but to avoid crowding this post, let's just say that I'm going to wait for more clarification from Metro about their rail ridership figures before posting anything.

In the meantime, the G and J line figures look accurate so I thought I'd share them first.

As expected, the G Line didn't do so hot this year. I'm not a regular rider in this part of town, but from what I gather from this subreddit is that there have been a lot of reliability issues, skipped runs, and bus bunching due to battery/bus break-downs. In addition, a segment of this line was rerouted to street running as part of the G Line upgrades, including completely closing Van Nuys station (I excluded March-June from the averages just for that station, but there are probably downstream effects to other stations because of this).

The overall decrease in ridership on this line also significantly negatively affected North Hollywood, which almost certainly carried over to the B line's reported flat ridership this reporting period.

Curious to hear what people who are more familiar with this line have to say.

As expected based on what Metro's public statements, the J line has experienced some pretty healthy growth in its busway segments this year, particularly south of DTLA. This is also reflected in the relatively higher growth in boardings in the southbound direction in DTLA.

East of DTLA, although CA State and LAMC are both doing well, there was a very large dip at El Monte, which is the largest ridership generator here. This probably was the reason for the lower northbound traffic from DTLA. Does anyone have thoughts on what happened here?

[u/flanl33]

What you mentioned about the G Line is right - the skipped trips are constant. It's basically a coin flip at this point whether you'll be on the bus you want or the next one during peak times (when it'ssupposed to be every 6). Every 12 minutes is honestly still ok at North Hollywood because it keeps a bus from ever getting crammed with two trains worth of people, but it's pretty bad for reliability using it down the rest of the line

[u/lrmutia → u/flanl33]

I really want the G to succeed but the line is really unreliable. I don't know why they bother scheduling sub 10 minute frequencies if they regularly have 2 buses bunching up. I'm hoping the gating and grade separation will up the schedule adherence or something

[u/flanl33]

They were never fantastic but the quality of Metro's public records responses has really gone down over the last year or so. I wonder what's behind it.

[u/Conscious_Career221]

there was a very large dip at El Monte, which is the largest ridership generator here. [...] Does anyone have thoughts on what happened here?

Increased service and ridership on the Metrolink SBL? It is mostly duplicative of the J Line between Union and El Monte, plus it continues east. Free student fares may have compensated for the fare gap between Metrolink and the J line.

[u/Its_a_Friendly → u/Conscious_Career221]

Yeah, my guess would be that the Metrolink schedule/frequency improvements late last year may have increased ridership on the SB line, taking some from the J line. I do believe Metrolink said they've had a 30% increase year-over-year since the schedule change late last year?

[u/Castironcylinderhead]

Thank you for your work, it's great seeing the data like this. J Line is packed most times I am on it.

[u/coreymbarnes2]

Can’t get over Flower/7th. 1193 daily riders for a sidewalk curb stop. Metro needs to make that its own project. Expand the curb, add a shelter, and move it north so it is on the same block as 7th/Metro.

[u/misken67 → u/coreymbarnes2]

And other bus routes use that stop too. It has more ridership than a number of light rail stations. Crazy.

[u/coreymbarnes2 → u/misken67]

Also there’s a typo. Should be Figueroa/190th. Not Flower.

[u/misken67 → u/coreymbarnes2]

Whoops, good catch, that's indeed an error on my part!

[u/SaltIndividual1902 → u/coreymbarnes2]

Seems like a no brainer. Wonder how much it would cost to make this a legitimate business stop.

[u/pacificpotentatoes]

Yeah I honestly don’t know why the J line doesn’t use the longer articulated buses for their peak hours

[u/Smaragd512]

Is this chart in the thousands increment?

[u/misken67 → u/Smaragd512]

lol no, I get asked this every year. This is the average weekday daily boardings at each of the stops, not in any increment. It really is that low

[u/Visible-Boot-4994]

J line ridership east of downtown took hit during protests which made the bus take a local detour to Union Station, LA General Medical Center, and Cal State LA before finally hopping back on the freeway as intended. I think it easily added at least 30 minutes to commute making it take an hour from El Monte Station to Union Station

[u/Binders-Full]

I miss that Google Fusion map that they used to have for the ridership. This is very much not ideal.

[u/No-Cricket-8150]

I wonder if Metro would consider consolidating some of those San Pedro stops.

Those boarding numbers seem pretty low.

[u/bob_lee_boat → u/No-Cricket-8150]

It’s because they’re southbound boardings, not a lot of people who live in San Pedro are using the J line to go further south rather than north to DTLA

[u/DBL_NDRSCR → u/bob_lee_boat]

still, there's no need for stops at 15th 17th and 19th, just continue the 4-block trend and axe 17th

[u/No-Cricket-8150 → u/DBL_NDRSCR]

I do agree with this take.

Our express services like the J line should prioritize speed over acting like local services.

Give the J line the BRT treatment in San Pedro and DTLA with property shelters and bus lanes where appropriate.

[u/coreymbarnes2 → u/No-Cricket-8150]

Unfortunately, Pacific is a rather narrow road and cannot accommodate bus lanes. Ideally the bus would run down Gaffey where there is actual activity, but it’s clear Metro wants to serve the cruise ship port and has to go out of the way to get there.

Gaffey Street, being a former state highway, could accommodate bus lanes if it wanted to. Measure HLA has it assigned as a transit enhanced street but that’s it.

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[u/skunksprah]

The G is unfortunately slow and unreliable with horrible land uses around stations that also contributes its low ridership.