Healthy ridership energizes Sunday streetcar discussion

Mayor David Holt says he expects “some healthy debate” in the weeks ahead on whether to expand streetcar service to Sundays.

New numbers released Thursday showed overall ridership approaching 56,000 trips in the first two weeks of streetcar service.

The introductory period includes free fares through Jan. 5 and regular streetcar operations on Sundays through Jan. 27.

Running seven days per week is intended to gauge support for adding yearround Sunday service on the 6.9-mile system.

Initial plans were to run just six days a week, Monday through Saturday.

Under the operations contract, about 5 percent of operating hours were allocated to Sundays, for limited event-driven

service such as providing streetcars when the Thunder has a home game.

Embark transit counted 4,270 trips taken Dec. 16, the Sunday of opening weekend, and 5,297 trips on Sunday, Dec. 23.

That amounts to 17.2 percent of overall ridership so far.

“Clearly Sunday usage has been very strong and in fact, on the opening weekend, Sunday had the highest hourly average,” Holt said by text.

He said he looked forward to having more data to assess in coming weeks.

Streetcars are scheduled to operate 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 13 and Jan. 20.

The Thunder has Sunday evening home games Jan. 6 and 27, and streetcars will run 11 a.m. to midnight those days.

Total ridership through Dec. 26 was 55,760 trips, Embark reported.