At Tuesday’s Sherburne County Board meeting, Ed Petrie, finance director for Metro Transit, told the commissioners ridership was up significantly last year.

 

“We achieved 787,239 rides - up about 12.4% from 2012,” he said. “Average weekday ridership is up 17%, so we did see a significant increase.”

 

In August, 2012 the Met Council approved a temporary fare reduction, basically of $1 per station. That fare became permanent last May. Petrie said that change was one of the reasons ridership increased by almost 87,000 in 2013.

 

He said even though there were trains for sporting events and concerts, it wasn’t special events that drew people to thetrain.

 

“The daily average was 2,783 rides,” he said. “During June through October we were hitting between 3,000 and 3,200 passengers on average.”

 

Three years ago, that number was closer to 2,200 a day, said Petrie.

 

Petrie had more good news for Sherburne County. Because of annual budget adjustments by Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), the county will be receiving a refund of about $347,400.

 

Petrie said there was also a recent re-audit of BNSF allocations dating back to 2010 that could result in almost $3 million in refunds to NorthStar. If that happens, the county’s share would be about $250,000.

 

In addition, NorthStar expenditures were almost $4.4 million under budget in 2013, which will mean more savings and possibly a lower county contribution in the future.

 

Passenger fares for 2013 (unaudited) totalled $2,592,036, comprising 17.11% of the NorthStar operations revenues. In 2012, fares made up 15.63% of revenues.

 

Other contributions to revenues in 2013 included: Sherburne County $1,208,460; Counties Transit Improvement Board (CTIB) $7,871,880; motor vehicle sales tax $3,851,000; Greater MN $1,208,460 and $1,015,029  carried over from the previous year’s fund balance.

 

The average fare per passenger was $3.29. The subsidy per passenger was $15.96 compared to $19.78 in 2012. The cost per passenger mile dropped from $0.92 to $0.76.

 

Commissioner Felix Schmiesing said he hoped Met Transit would continue to focus on improving daily commuter numbers, which was the most important issue for NorthStar.

 

“The  first year we had a new stadium, we had a winning Twins team and the Vikings, and those numbers really skewed our effort,” he said. “As we count ridership, I hope we look at special event trains differently than our daily ridership, because our daily ridership is growing significantly each and every year that this train has been in operation. We built this thing as a commuter transport.”