Cincinnati’s streetcar breaking ridership records

CINCINNATI (WXIX) - The Cincinnati Bell Connector is on a roll and this weekend’s Taste of Cincinnati event downtown will likely push the streetcar into record territory for the seventh straight month.

“We’re trending toward another record month for May after notching our best November, December, January, February, March and April,” said Matthew Hulme, interim streetcar director. “With robust ridership through most of May, I expect the popularity of this weekend’s event near the streetcar line to give us another monthly best.”

Ridership for the first three weeks of May totaled 52,092. By comparison, the best May on record totaled 53,116 passengers for the full month in 2017.

Daily ridership on the streetcar has averaged 1,800 passengers per day for the past year. The daily average ridership during the current month has increased to 2,400 passengers.

For the last six months, passenger counts are up 26 percent compared with all previous November to April periods since the streetcar began operations in downtown and OTR in 2016.

Ridership totaled 325,590 for the six months that ended April 30, compared to the system’s previous high-water mark of 258,789 for the six-month November to April period when the streetcar initially began operations in late 2016 through spring of 2017.

The streetcar’s highest single month for ridership occurred in October 2016 during its first full month of operations with 82,934 passengers. Its second-best month occurred during downtown’s BLINK light festival in October 2019 with 76,752 passengers.

The streetcar, which is free to ride, will operate until 9:30 p.m. Monday to accommodate Taste of Cincinnati near Fountain Square. The streetcar travels a 3.6-mile loop between OTR, the Central Business District and The Banks.

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