Using city transit to satisfy shopping needs appears to have become more popular in the last few years, according to a recent Durango Transit survey that collected feedback from Durangoans about how and why they commute around town.
The survey, which was released Nov. 1 and ran for four weeks, shows growing trends and ridership demographics for 2021. It received 143 total responses.
Seventy percent of respondents said they used city transit primarily to go shopping and to run errands. In 2019, 46% of respondents said the same. In 2017, just 39% of respondents said they used city transit for shopping.
The next most popular reason for riding city transit was for getting to and from work, although ridership in that category was down nearly 20% from 2019.
Social and recreational activities, medical appointments and visiting family or personnel meetings rounded out other popular reasons for using city transit.
Hospitality workers made up a small majority of survey respondents at 18%, with college students and retirees tied at 17%.
Sarah Hill, transportation director, said city transit uses data to identify ridership trends.
“We learn important demographic data about our riders,” she said in an email. “While we can use survey data to understand the demographics of our community at large, this survey is specific to transit riders.”
The Transportation Department can learn important information, such as the age, income level, ethnicity, gender identity and mobility of its ridership.
“Knowing a little bit more about our riders helps us compete for specific grant funding, such as our FTA 5310 Mobility Management grant that is specific to providing transit service to seniors and people with disabilities,” Hill said.
Durango Transit identified several growing trends in ridership for 2021, including seeing more riders from Three Springs subdivision and students from Fort Lewis College, more minorities and La Plata County residents using city transit, and a slight bump in ridership from people looking to avoid traffic.
Three Springs ridership was compared with 2017 data while other growing trends were compared with data from 2019.
Three Springs ridership increased 13% in 2021, while there was an increase in FLC student ridership of 8%.
Minority ridership increased 6% and county ridership improved by 7%.
Primary ridership is attributed to people with incomes of $25,000 or less, on par with data sets from previous surveys.
Based on respondents, more riders used city transit services in 2021 than in 2019 because they could not afford to drive themselves.
Hill said 70% of respondents rely on city transit because they do not have access to a vehicle.
“This indicates that a majority of riders are dependent on transit service to get around Durango,” she said. “Knowing that so many transit riders rely on our services creates a sense of urgency to provide the highest level of service that we can.”
Hill said the Transportation Department plans to expand its transit service this year. The survey and public outreach and further data analysis will help inform the department what route it needs to take going forward.
“We get great feedback from transit riders about our customer service and the areas of our service that can be improved upon,” she said.
Feedback the department heard this year included gratitude toward transit drivers, frustration with public mask policies mandated by the Federal Transit Administration and a desire for expanded service, she said.
“The survey is important because we learn a lot about the habits of our riders such as how frequently they ride, what type of trips they are making, their reasons for riding and so on,” she said.
For example, she said, 53% of respondents said they rode transit daily in 2021. Hill said that stat is a decrease of about 23% from 2019, but there are a few possibilities for why that decrease occurred.
“This could be for a few reasons, including the fact that more people are working remotely and are not commuting to work every single day as they did in the past,” Hill said. “That theory is substantiated by the survey responses that show work commutes as a trip purpose dropping by 20% this year over 2019.”
cburney@durangoherald.com
