MINISTRY OF PROPAGANDA

There were 8.6 million trips taken on buses, MAX and WES trains in March 2011, down 1.4 percent from March 2010. MAX Green Line and WES Commuter Rail saw double-digit increases, and for the first time in five months, rush hour trips increased for all modes. Ridership figures are compared to March 2010. More

Gotta love our ministry, one of the best in the world!

Spin Spin Spin, that's the name of the game at the ministry.

I went looking for the month to month chart, so I could look at our ridership last month compared to this month, alas, I could not locate it, not on the public site and not on the employee site.

Now for the real figures:
Bus, MAX & WES

Weekly system wide trips were = 1,916,000 trips (this months report)
Weekly trips were=1,912,650 trips (previous months report)
That's a slight increase in the # of people using trimet of 3,350 (1.7%) (boarding rides)

# of rides on bus this month=1,138,500 trips
# of rides on bus last month=1,142,200 trips
A slight decrease in the number of rides on bus (3,700) (.3%)

# of rides on Max in this month=769,900 trips
# of rides on max in last month=763,300 trips
A  decrease in # of rides (6,600) (8.5%)

# of rides on WES this month=7,600
# of rides on WES last month=7,150
An increase of 450 rides or 6%.

SURPRISE SURPRISE SURPRISE!
The real figures show the biggest loser in the month to month figures, the only figures that
have any real meaning, IS THE MAX, DOWN  8.5%!

And 59.4% of ridership is on the bus, no way to tell how many max trips actually originated on a bus!