NORFOLK

It takes Bobby Parks an extra 20 minutes to commute to work and an extra $50 for a monthly pass to ride The Tide. Still, he’s hooked.

“To me, not having to drive (Interstate) 264 is worth it,” he said. “It makes me cringe with the potholes and bumps. … Light rail is less stressful and, with traffic, it’s more consistent.”

Parks drives four miles from his Virginia Beach home to the Newtown Road Station, rides the train to the MacArthur Square Station, and walks a couple blocks to work at Dominion Enterprises. He figures his savings on gas plus wear and tear on his car, and his nerves, is worth more than the train fare.

Parks is among a few thousand people who ride daily – far more than what transit officials expected.

With a full calendar month of collecting fares, The Tide is averaging 5,056 daily weekday trips. Hampton Roads Transit projected that 2,900 trips would be taken each weekday the year the rail opens, and 7,130 daily rides by 2030.

Counting weekends (The Tide runs a shortened schedule on Sundays), average daily ridership has been nearly 4,870.

But will the big numbers hold?

Ridership on the newest light-rail systems in Phoenix; Charlotte, N.C.; Houston; and Seattle grew after launching. Phoenix Metro started with daily weekday ridership in the low 30,000s and two years later was in the low 40,000s.

“Our original assumption was that, at some point, we’d level out to what our normal ridership should be, but instead we continue to see growth,” said Hillary Foose, a Metro spokeswoman.

Charlotte’s LYNX went from 11,500 boardings a day to 15,300 in its first year. Houston’s ridership doubled the first year and now is posting 36,000 daily trips, triple 2004′s opening months. Seattle’s system has grown from 15,000 daily trips to 25,000 in two years.

Federal Transit Administration officials have told HRT that it takes about six months for ridership on light-rail

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