No Lazy Days of Summer on Metro – August Ridership Numbers Soared Past 26 Million

Overall, August ridership averaged 608,366 boardings on Sundays and 702,526 boardings on Saturdays. The average weekday boardings were 952,906.

August was filled with many events including KCON in downtown LA, Rams and Chargers pre-season games at SoFi Stadium, the Nisei Week Parade in Little Tokyo, DayTrip in the Park at the LA State Historic Park, the Pomona Swap Meet and Classic Car Show at the LA Fairplex, and the Just Like Heaven Music Festival at the Rose Bowl. August also marked the beginning of classes for the county’s school districts, including LA Unified School District. There were 1,538,572 boardings using GoPass, which gives free transit to students in grades K through community college at participating schools.

Rail Ridership is on the Rise
Rail ridership continued its growth in August, rising 12.1% over August 2025 to 6,458,238. Sundays saw the highest growth at 17.1%, with average boardings of 168,243. This marks the first time Metro heavy rail has seen Sundays beat Saturdays in boardings. Continuing that trend, the D lines saw a whopping 71.62% growth on Sundays and averaged 16,417 boardings.
 
Other year-over-year rail ridership highlights include:

• A line ridership increased 14.3% to 2,106,929, and Saturdays grew nearly 17% to 59,315 average ridership.
• B line ridership increased by 6% in August to 1,420,635. The biggest growth came on Sundays, up 32.4% to an average ridership of 46,815.
• D line growth skyrocketed by nearly 63% to 650,857. The increases were significant every day of the week, with Sundays rising 71.62%, weekdays 63.17%, and Saturdays 54.37%.
• E line ridership was 1,579,553, a 10% increase, with weekdays showing the strongest growth at 11.27% to 55,043 average ridership.

Bus Ridership Continues to Grow
Bus ridership rose 3.3% year over year, with 3.37% increases on both weekdays and Saturdays: weekday ridership averaged 729,858, and Saturday ridership averaged 515,923. The J line, a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), was up 4.4%. Total bus ridership in August was 20,107,248.

Public Safety on Metro
Metro has continued its focus on making the system safer for riders and employees by maintaining a visible, engaged presence of uniformed personnel, strengthening access control, and partnering with the County, the Cities, and Regional Agencies to address societal issues.

Maintaining a visible presence is crucial to enhancing both system safety and perceptions of safety. In July, enforcement activity included 662 arrests, 587 citations, and 4,480 Code of Conduct removals.

Metro’s Homeless Outreach and Mobile Engagement (HOME) team engaged 295 individuals experiencing homelessness in July, resulting in 191 interim and 31 permanent housing placements through coordination with regional service providers. In FY26, the HOME teams placed 2,705 individuals in interim or permanent housing, exceeding their goal of 2,100 housing placements through June. For FY27, 222 people have been connected to interim or permanent housing, with the goal of 2,400 housing placements for the new fiscal year.

As a result of these continued efforts, overall crime on the system decreased 24% in July 2026 compared to the previous July. In addition, July 2026 had the lowest total rate of violent crimes for a July since 2023. The system had 99.997% incident-free trips.