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Created: February 10, 2025

You may have heard that C-TRAN ridership is up. In 2024, we tallied a total ridership of nearly 5 million, a 10 percent increase over 2023 and the third consecutive year of growth.

That’s good news, and it’s certainly an encouraging trend. There are also some important highlights within those numbers that reflect how travel patterns have changed dramatically in the past five years. Those patterns will inform the decisions we make about how C-TRAN operates, not just tomorrow, but 20 years from now.

Let’s dive in.

First, it's worth noting that C-TRAN's ridership has grown by more than 10 percent in each of the past three years. That's a huge positive trend, and a testament to the importance of public transit in this community. But while ridership is growing, C-TRAN’s total ridership remains below pre-pandemic levels. That’s true of most transit agencies nationwide. In 2019, C-TRAN’s total ridership was more than 6 million. After a substantial drop during the pandemic, we’re now back to about 5 million. Yet some Local routes have already surpassed pre-pandemic levels. Routes 7, 32, 67, 74 and 78 all tallied more trips in 2024 than they did in 2019. Others are very close.

So what gives?

One big reason: People are making more local trips and fewer regional trips. As a result, the commute to Portland doesn’t look like it used to. While Local routes within Clark County have bounced back and continue to see strong growth, Express routes haven’t seen the same recovery. Combined ridership on C-TRAN’s Express routes was about 215,000 in 2024. That’s still less than one-third of total Express ridership in 2019. Similarly, where Express routes accounted for about 15 percent of total ridership in 2019, that number is now about 5 percent.

That’s largely because of changing patterns of how—and where—people are traveling. The rising prevalence of working from home and alternate schedules, among other factors, mean we don’t see the same morning and evening rush we used to. Instead, transit use is much more spread out throughout the day, including on Local routes. Even on Express, C-TRAN has added mid-day trips to Portland in recent years to accommodate those changing schedules.

Within Clark County, we’re seeing a lot of positive trends as new and returning transit riders step on board. Weekday ridership on routes in Clark County is near the 2019 average of 15,000 trips per day. Weekend ridership has surpassed 2019 levels and continues to grow.

At the route level, The Vine on Fourth Plain remains C-TRAN’s busiest, carrying more than 1 million trips last year. These were the top five routes by ridership in 2024, according to preliminary data:

• The Vine on Fourth Plain: 1,082,383
• The Vine on Mill Plain: 740,802
• Route 71: 357,169
• Route 60: 322,252
• Route 80: 284,158

It’s no surprise to see both Vine corridors at the top of the list. Fourth Plain and Mill Plain were already busy transit corridors even when Route 4 and Route 37 roamed the streets. But implementing Vine service made those corridors even stronger—both saw immediate growth in ridership, plus other economic benefits that come with bus rapid transit service. (Highway 99, by the way, is up next.)

Of course, ridership is not the only metric we use to measure route performance. But it is one of the topics the public is most interested in, both riders and non-riders. There are also some misperceptions about transit ridership. A persistent sentiment we hear in the transit world goes something like this:

“The other day, I saw a C-TRAN bus driving down the street, and there were only three people on it. Why do we have a transit system if hardly anyone uses it?”

Just like there are times when roads or parking lots look empty, in transit there are peak times when more people ride and off-peak times when fewer people are traveling. Some buses are full. Others only have a few people on board. A bus might leave a transit center empty, then gradually fill up as it picks up passengers along the route. More often, many people get on and off throughout the route, so the number of passengers on board constantly fluctuates. Seeing one bus at one time and one location doesn’t define an entire route or system. And while many people in Clark County depend on public transportation, others ride by choice. A strong transit system creates better transportation options for the entire community.

When we track ridership and other metrics, it’s simply a snapshot of how people are using our system. Route-by-route data help determine which routes are performing well and which can be improved. That’s why C-TRAN has invested in additional service hours and even new routes as travel patterns shift.