Here’s where people are riding Metro this spring

Metro ridership is still in the hole after more than a year of the coronavirus pandemic. But ridership isn’t just lower; it’s different. As the Post reported last month, the top stations around the region have changed in a post-pandemic world.

The latest ridership numbers from March bear that out. Overall, ridership rose throughout March, breaking 100,000 daily station entries twice in one week for the first time since the pandemic began. Still, the top stations of 2019 so far aren’t the top stations of 2021.

So where are people riding Metro?

Columbia Heights

The Post’s analysis found that Columbia Heights, with its dense community and large Latinx population, was the system’s busiest station as the year began. That held true in March, with an average of more than 3,000 daily weekday station entries according to Metro data.

That’s more than any other station, but it’s still not anywhere close to what it once was — back in 2019, Columbia Heights saw more than 11,000 entrances per weekday. Still, that year Columbia Heights didn’t even make the top 10 busiest stations. Its emergence as a ridership powerhouse is new.

Union Station

Union Station is traditionally among Metro’s busiest, and it still hits the top charts with more than 2,823 weekday entries in March. Back in 2019, it had an average of ten times as many entries per day.

According to Metro’s March snapshot, two of the system’s most frequently traveled trips involve travel to and from Union Station. Dupont Circle and Farragut North each have nearly 300 daily travelers between them and Union Station.

Foggy Bottom/GWU

Foggy Bottom was number three on the list this March, with 2,776 average weekday riders. That makes sense, as Foggy Bottom is usually a busy station, with more than 18,000 average weekday riders in 2019.

Fort Totten

Like Columbia Heights, Fort Totten has emerged as a new ridership center during the pandemic. With 2,347 weekday riders in March, Fort Totten was the fourth busiest station in March. Back in 2019, it didn’t even make the top 20, and was less busy than suburban stations like Wiehle-Reston East and Shady Grove.

The Post reported last month that some of the stations with the smallest drop in ridership are, like Fort Totten, in predominantly Black neighborhoods — Prince George’s Plaza, Deanwood, and Benning Road, to name a few.

That tracks with other cities, which have also found that communities of color with large numbers of essential workers have been more likely to rely on transit during the pandemic. That trend is also likely why Metrobus ridership has been much more steady than rail ridership (it’s down too, but not by nearly as much.)

Pentagon

Good ol’ Pentagon. The Pentagon’s station drove a good share of Metro’s ridership in March with 2,330 weekday riders on average. Can’t hurt that the Pentagon building employs roughly 24,000 people alone.

The Pentagon also made up a lot of Metro’s top trips on both bus and rail, GGWash contributor Stephen Repetski pointed out on Twitter. The top bus trip (between Mark Center and Pentagon Station) and four of the top rail trips in March involved travel to and from the Pentagon.