When gas cost more than $3.50 during the six warm months of 2008, a lot of us parked our cars and tried the bus.
It’s interesting to see how many Triangle residents kept riding the bus this winter, even after gas prices returned to 2004 levels. The Road Worrier mentioned that fact this week, without all of the latest numbers to back it up.
The local average price for regular gas fell from $3.89 to $2.66 in October, then to $1.80 by the end of November, and $1.58 on the last day of December, according to fuelgaugereport.com.
Here are rider counts reported by three local transit lines for the last three months of 2008, compared to the same months in 2007:
Durham’s DATA
October 513,533 riders (up 17% from 2007)
November 423,139 (up 4%)
December 418,241 (up 11%)Raleigh’s CAT
October 468,331 (up 32% from 2007)
November 383,159 (up 5%)
December 381,563 (up 26%)Triangle Transit
October 123,431 (up 41% from 2007)
November 85,264 (up 13%)
December 59,323 (up 0.5%)
Bruce Siceloff reports on traffic and transportation. A News & Observer reporter and editor since 1976, he took over the 
