Uploaded on 2014-10-12 by psteitz

][1] [1]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/14130822494438848.jpg San Diego has an old and arguably underused light rail system, known as the Red Trolley. Average weekly ridership is 122,000, which is small for metropolitan area that exceeds 3 million. I almost never ride the trolley, although I do use Amtrak trains quite a bit. It is not that I don't want to, it is just that it does not serve my transit needs. I did ride it last weekend because the Trolley opens up extra service during San Diego Charger home games (American football), and parking at the stadium is a known nightmare. I drove my car instead to a trolley stop, and took a crowded train to the stadium. After the game, I took a trolley back to where I parked my car, and drove home. With respect to making the invisible visible, this photo raises a couple testable propositions to me. First, the bulk of the people in the train are wearing New York Jets gear. New York is 3,000 miles away. I suspect most of these people were visitors from New York, although some no doubt live in San Diego but are Jets fans because of where they grew up (i.e. transplants). Thus, facts about tourism and about migration can be investigated from data of this nature. One of the reasons cities desire to woo top tier sports clubs is to bring in tourism revenue. This photo suggests possible merit to that theory. No one would be taking that trolley that day absent the game, and many flew into San Diego to see the event. Second, I suspect most people were like me -- i.e. rare Trolley riders. Patterns of infrequent versus heavy use can be interesting to study, and can inform decisions transit planners make about access, ergonomics and network design. For instance, as any traveler knows, figuring out a foreign metro system can be very frustrating -- where do you buy the ticket, how do you get through the turnstile, do you show your ticket before, during or after a ride? The infrequent user is generally surrounded by teeming frequent users, who dislike the slowness a newcomer typically embodies. Fortunately, the transit authority in San Diego created an iphone app where you can buy a trolley day pass for Chargers games, and the system is incredibly easy to use. Someone knew most people attending Charges games are infrequent users (the invisible fact) and made the app extremely simple to buy and display.