Key West Transit Development Plan FY2025-2034

Key West on the Move Development

Figure ES-1: Key West Transit Ridership FY18-19 to FY 22-23

The review indicated that KWT experienced an overall decrease of 61% in ridership, inclusive of COVID-19 impacts, while transit agencies nationwide, including those in Florida, experienced a decline exceeding 55%. The substantial decline in KWT ridership is attributable to the city's heavy reliance on tourism and seasonal residents. A correlation analysis between monthly ridership and the tourism-related variables is provided in Chapter 3. The analysis depicts the relationships of cruise ship-related variables and other factors like airport passengers and hotel occupancy rates during the height of the pandemic. An analysis of post-COVID trends revealed a 23% increase in ridership from 2021 to 2023. Reduced transit service also contributed to the ridership decline, particularly in 2020. The overall service reductions (2019-2023) equate to a 10.9% decrease in annual revenue miles and 17.1% in revenue miles per capita, while annual revenue hours increased by 30.9%, as KWT rebounded from the pandemic. From 2019 to 2023, annual passenger trips decreased by 61.3%, however, ridership increased by 22.7% between 2021 and 2023. A detailed analysis is contained in Section 3.3 Trend Analysis. A peer systems analysis was performed to compare KWT to seven other transit agencies and gauge performance in FY 2022. In comparison, KWT is significantly smaller in terms of service area size, by 67% and 54% smaller in population. However, St. Johns County, FL, and Northwestern are outlier peers in these categories with notably larger service areas and populations, leading to a substantial deviation from the typical comparison. When these two outliers were excluded in the analysis and KWT was compared to the remaining five peers, KWTs’ service area size is 240% larger than the peer group mean, and its population is only 22% smaller than the combined average of the remaining five peers. Overall, KWT showed a mixed performance as compared to the entire peer group, excelling in some key metrics while lagging in others.

800,000 600,000 700,000 400,000 500,000 200,000 300,000 100,000 0

761,655

652,374

334,739

223,863

239,602

FY 18-19 FY 19-20 FY 20-21 FY 21-22 FY 22-23

City Bus Routes Lower Keys Shuttle

Duval Loop Workforce Express

Key West Rides Total

Data Source: Key West Transit Notes:

1. City Bus Routes had been changed during FY19 to FY23. Red/ Blue/ Green/ Orange Lines ended service in April 2020. North Line/South Line served from May 2020 to June 2023. 2. Workforce Express started service since June 2023. 3. Key West Rides On-Demand Service started since December 2022.

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Transit Development Plan FY 2025–2034