Miami-Dade Transit has most riders in 41 months

Miami-Dade’s transit operations carried almost 7 million riders in March, the most in any month since October 2019, well before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, latest county figures show.

The March passenger tally of 6,989,938 was up nearly 41% from March 2022 and was 4.1% more than March 2019. By March 2020, at the outset of the pandemic, March passengers had fallen to fewer than 4.7 million riders.

The post-pandemic passenger return has been strongest on Metrobus, where the 5 million-plus March rider trips were more than any month since May 2017.

The bus system had been bleeding riders for at least a decade until it recorded a 2.1% gain from fiscal year 2021 to 2022, but the gains from 2022 to 2023 have been 45% or more a month as pandemic rider losses have disappeared. The gain in March from March 2022 was more than 57%.

Gains have been less on Metrorail, up 14% in March from March 2022, though last year Metrorail gained nearly 22% from 2021 depths. The 1,239,336 boardings in March were the most since 1.5 million in February 2020 but well below any pre-pandemic month since September 2017.

The smallest percentage gain in March was on fare-free Metromover, which had 4% rider growth from March 2022. Last fiscal year, however, Metromover gained nearly 57% in riders from the year before.

Even with a gain last month in its service to the booming downtown and Brickell areas, however, Metromover’s 558,306 rides were far below the 588,398 in February 2018 and barely half of the more than 1 million riders it carried in March 2016. In no pre-pandemic month since at least October 2014 did Metromover every carry as few persons as it carried in March this year.

As Metromover use has declined, however, county plans have emerged to extend the system to Miami Beach as the long-awaited Baylink transit leg of the county’s Smart Program for adding rapid transit.