New Year’s is often a time for individual reflection, and we’re no different here at MTS. Let’s take a look back at the progress our agency has made in 2024, and celebrate wins – both big and small – that we made together.
Ridership
In 2024, MTS experienced the highest ridership since the start of the pandemic – and logged over 75 million passenger trips. Thanks in part to an increase in youth ridership, record attendance at special events (Go Padres!) and string gains across our Trolley system. In May, we set a new weekly post-pandemic record: 270,000+ average weekday trips, and surpassed that marker again in October, nearing 280,000 average weekday trips! We can’t thank our riders enough for their commitment to public transit.
Safer Transit
About this time last year, MTS launched a new Security Initiative to help riders feel safer on board. We began the process of hiring an additional 34 Code Compliance Inspectors to boost the presence of the more than 200 officers already patrolling our system.
The additional Code Compliance Inspectors help us to increase the number of train teams, double homeless outreach coverage, and add Security outposts at our busiest transit centers.
We also started out the year by streamlining our 24/7 security hotline, so riders can now call or text a single phone number, making it easier to reach our officers.
These changes have allowed our officers to respond quicker and be more visible across the system – things our riders asked for and we delivered on. And, we’re glad to say, that in a recent safety survey (October 2024) - MTS riders were 3.5 times more likely to say they felt more safe than less safe, when compared to a year ago!
Housing
In February, we broke ground on SkyLINE, a new affordable housing development at the Rancho Bernardo transit station. This mixed-use project will provide 100 apartment homes and 14,000 square feet of commercial space right next to transit (expected to open in early 2025).
In April, we celebrated the completion of ShoreLINE, a 100% affordable transit-oriented development at the Grantville Transit Center. ShoreLINE provides 126 apartment homes, bringing the total number of homes completed on MTS properties to 1,155. Additional housing communities are at various stages of development at the 12th & Imperial, El Cajon and E Street Transit Centers, just to name a few.
Contactless Payments
Over the summer we launched contactless payments, giving our riders another way to easily pay for their fare. The launch came just in time for Comic-Con and allowed riders to buy a transit fare by simply tapping their debit and credit cards or mobile wallets.
Contactless payments have been a big hit so far with more than 400,000 riders having paid using this method. Look for more contactless payment updates in 2025.
Special Event Service
2024 was another year of record-breaking ridership to special events. We carried approximately one million riders to special events around San Diego, including Padres playoff games (with an additional 19,000 trips) and P!NK’s concert at Petco Park, Comic-Con, San Diego Pride, and Big Bay Boom just to name a few.
Comic-Con itself had a huge rider spike with an additional 265,000 trips over the four days of the convention. In comparison, in 2023 we logged 250,000 trips for Comic-Con, resulting in 15,000 more trips this year.
It was a fun year to ride MTS to special events and we’ll use that momentum into 2025, helping riders to skip high parking fees and traffic jams for their next concert or game.
ZEB Million Miles
Over the summer our battery-electric buses reached a HUGE milestone: one million road miles traveled. One million!
That translates to a savings of nearly 5 million car miles, preventing two thousand metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering our atmosphere.
With 25 electric buses in service and more on the way, we’re on track to have one of the cleanest transit fleets in North America by 2040.
Copper Line
Another big change this year was the launch of the Copper Line East County Connector, a new Trolley segment between El Cajon Transit Center and Santee.
In September, the Copper Line replaced the Green Line Trolley service to Santee and has dedicated trains running every 15 minutes.
So far, we have averaged 2,200 daily riders and have logged 185,000 total trips since the Copper Line opened.
The new segment improves on-time performance across the Trolley system, offers operators longer breaks at the end of the Green Line in El Cajon, and provides more reliable service for our riders in East County.
Grossmont Transit Center
Better Transit
A better transit experience isn’t just about getting from point A to point B. It’s about enhancing the customer experience for our riders. In 2024, we made some customer experience enhancements like hundreds of new tech-savvy trash cans to help with cleanliness, and new murals at Grossmont and E Street.
But, even more customer improvements will be coming in 2025:
- NEW digital next-arrival signs along the Orange Line, plus improved Orange Line lighting (starting in January)
- EXTRA Trolley service on nights and weekends (late January)
- NEW overnight express bus route between San Ysidro and downtown (late January)
- NEW pilot program for digital info signs on Trolleys (spring)
- MORE lighting at bus stops with the launch of our solar lighting pilot program (spring)
- And more!
There are a lot of great things in the works for 2025 – and that’s just within the first few months!
While we’re excited for 2025 to get rolling, we can’t skip over New Year’s Eve. Don’t forget that all rides on MTS will be free after 6 p.m. If you’re heading out to welcome the new year, let us do the driving for you. Be safe and take transit!
On behalf of all of us here at MTS, we wish you a wonderful year ahead and as always, thank you for choosing transit. Is your resolution next year to take more public transit? We’d love to hear from you—share your favorite transit moments or plans for using MTS in the new year by tagging us @sdmts on social!
