Astros fans set a record for MetroRail boardings
MetroRail reported a record number of passengers for a single day — 125,000 boardings — as huge crowds packed downtown Houston for Friday’s Astros victory parade and rally.
The previous one-day ridership record was set Feb. 4, for pre-Super Bowl festivities. On the Saturday before the big game, MetroRail had 109,417 boardings.
Ridership on Friday exceeded the previous record by more than 15,000 boardings, or 15 percent.
Metro had 395,000 boardings overall on Friday, including bus service as well as Park and Ride, which also may have set a system record, the agency said Wednesday.
The city’s biggest party in decades hit downtown Friday, as hundreds of thousands of Houstonians welcomed the World Series champion Astros back to H-Town. Metro rides were free in celebration of the Astros’ first world championship in the franchise’s 56-year history.
According to Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo and department commanders who were monitoring and measuring the crowd, 750,000 to 1 million people turned out for the parade and after-party.
Starting Friday morning, overloaded Metro trains struggled to carry eager Astros fans. Buses also carried full loads.
Thousands trying to use free public transit to get to the 2 p.m. parade waited hours to catch a ride at packed stations. Some lines stretched for blocks, and many didn’t get downtown in time for the procession.
Snarled traffic and transportation mayhem led to a rerouting of public transit service. Fortunate fans ended up squeezing onto available trains bound for downtown, only to be dropped blocks away from the parade route.
“This was an unprecedented event,” Metro President and CEO Tom Lambert said in statement Wednesday. “An estimated 1 million people descended into downtown Houston within a matter of hours, which would be challenging for any city. We certainly understand the disappointment of customers who didn’t make it to the parade. There are always lessons to be learned and as an agency we continue to look for ways to improve service.”
A last-minute, twoblock extension of the Astros parade route Friday morning left officials scrambling to adjust service around the core of downtown. Staff added cars and modified routes. Still, trains on the red line — which stretches north-to-south through downtown — stopped traveling in the center of the action by midday. At several points, rail service on the purple and green lines was suspended because of heavy foot traffic.
At the height of demand, Metro reports trains were making stops every 4½ to 6 minutes.
“We used as many trains as possible and got creative when the streets became impassible due to pedestrian and auto traffic,” Lambert said. “Our vehicles face the same challenges as other vehicles when streets are closed and clogged with traffic. Looking ahead to large events of this kind, we would encourage patrons to plan to make a day out of it and allow extra time for travel.”