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Public Transportation Sees a Big Ridership Increase

MTA/RTA
The Music City Star provides commuter service between Nashville and Lebanon.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP/WMOT) — The use of commuter buses and a regional train in the Mid-State jumped dramatically this past year.

The Nashville Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Regional Transportation Authority of Middle Tennessee provided more than 10 million passenger trips during the period. The increase amounted to more than a million riders in a single year.

MTA’s Patrica Harriss-Morehead says the system couldn’t be happier.

“When you put the Nashville MTA ridership together along with the Regional Transportation ridership, the increase over the previous fiscal year is nearly 14 percent. This is a milestone.”

Morehead says the system attributes the increase to the addition of several new regional routes, including bus service between Nashville and Clarksville.

She says the system also tends to see a lot of new faces whenever gas prices spike as they did earlier this year.