Denton County Transportation Authority
A-Train offers easy commute during road construction
By Bj Lewis Staff Writer
H
ave you looked around an A-train car recently? Noticed more seats filling Denton County Transportation Authority buses? You probably have and there is good reason for it Denton County Transportation Authority ridership keeps climbing. There will be even more to follow as the agency awaits that major Interstate 35E-related spike in the numbers. Officials said they hope and expect those upward trends to continue, even as they plan to promote and advertise to bring in more passengers as the I-35E expansion project continues.
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“We are seeing solid growth and that’s real positive, [but] in terms of a huge jump somewhere, I think that will be a function of how the traffic is managed,” DCTA President Jim Cline said in a recent interview “We’re watching for things like when FM407 goes under construction and when the major elements come in and start affecting people.” According to the most recent numbers, DCTA carried 140,676 passengers systemwide — rail and bus — in May. The Atrain carried 44,244 passengers during the month, an overall increase in ridership of 15.8 percent from May 2013. DCTA’s bus system carried 96,432 passengers in May.
The agency has carried nearly 2 million people on both bus and rail combined this year. “It’s summer time. There is less traffic on the road,” said Kristina Brevard, vice president of communications and marketing for DCTA. “Once we
move into the fall, that’s when it will be really interesting to see where ridership goes: Schools get back in session, people get back from vacation and to their regular lives.” See CONSTRUCTION on Page 13
A-train