Few Peninsula residents appear to be giving up their cars for public transit in reaction to increasing gas prices, according to Clallam and Jefferson transit officials.
“We ran our ridership numbers and basically can confirm we really haven’t seen an increase,” said Frank Poulsen, operations manager for Clallam Transit System on Friday.
Jefferson Transit General Manager Dave Turissini said based upon comments received by drivers, there’s some anecdotal evidence of a small increase in ridership this summer due to escalating gasoline prices.
“Our numbers tend to fluctuate during the summer,” Poulsen said.
“There’s been maybe a 1 percent increase, but that’s not statistically significant,” Poulsen said.
“There was an increase for the [Clallam County] fair, but we really haven’t seen ridership go up.”
Clallam Transit’s monthly ridership was 52,093 in July and stood at 46,542 through Aug. 24.
Weekday averages have been 2,717 in June, 2,605 in July and 2,738 through Aug. 24.
“That’s typical,” Poulsen said.
“It shows nothing. It’s pretty flat. Our numbers are up 1 percent from last month which was down from the month before.”
Effect difficult to determine
Jefferson Transit Services Administrator John Koschnick said ridership for June was 19,635, followed by 22,544 in July and an estimated 25,000 riders through the end of August.
But, Turissini said, it’s difficult to gauge increased ridership from fuel prices because the transit system has seen a consistent and constant increase in ridership the past two years of as much as 4 percent, he said.
One of those anecdotal stories would include Nancy Stratton, a Port Hadlock resident, who said Friday that between her “big gas guzzler” car and rising gas prices the past two years that she has increasingly ridden the bus.
Stratton said that her limited retirement income is an inspiration for riding Jefferson Transit.
