Slightly Less Epic MetroFail

To be absolutely fair, I made one more trip by the MLK station, this morning, for a train that came all the way from Leander, since I figured out after looking at the schedule from Monday’s visit that the train in question had only come in from as far as Howard Lane.
(An aside: Why use the MLK station? It serves UT and the Capitol; – i.e. 2 of the 3 major employment centers in the urban core; it’s one of two stations with shuttles; and one of two stations with non-trivial arrivals in the morning – it’s harder for me to stop by and watch the downtown arrivals although I’ll try to do it one of these days).
This morning, the 8:02 AM arrival (southbound) at MLK disgorged 15 passengers, 2 of whom were riding bikes. 12 people (both bikes) got on the first shuttle to UT, capacity roughly 40. The second shuttle remained empty. 2 other passengers got on the first Capitol shuttle (capacity roughly 40, again). The second shuttle remained empty. One person actually walked off towards MLK (I have no idea where she was headed).
Get this out of the way first: This is a lot better than the whopping 2 people that got off the other train on Monday!
Let’s assume that all the other morning arrivals at MLK had 15 passengers disembark (even that arrival that, on Monday, had only 2). There are 6 arrivals in the morning at MLK (several at ungodly early hours, meaning I’m likely being way too fair by assuming the 8:02 is typical instead of higher than average). That gives us 90 people going to UT and the Capitol on the train.
90 people. Per day. This is, by the way, far, far, far less than the number of people using express buses to get to UT every day (not sure about the Capitol).
180 boardings. Maximum.
Assume for every one of those there’s a downtown passenger (likely not, but assume so. When I’ve watched downtown trains go by in the early afternoon whilst stopped on Red River at 4th, there’s been less than 10 per train). That takes us up to 180 people; 360 boardings.
Don’t believe that this is far less than predicted? Ask yourself this question:
If these 15 people on each train represent the service ‘succeeding’, or performing up to expectations, why did Capital Metro plan for 2 shuttlebuses EACH to UT and the Capitol (two of the obvious target markets for any transit service)?)
Giving Capital Metro the best possible benefit of the doubt – assuming they thought they needed two buses to each destination because there was a slight chance they’d have one more person than could fit on one shuttle – you’ve still got a projection of roughly 80 (1 shuttle to each place) versus an actual performance of 15.
Or, hell, just go back to boardings. We know the first week of pay service (with plenty of joyriders still extant) was averaging about 1000 boardings/day (half of early projections). Anectdotal reports indicate further declines since then – and the immediate switch away from weekly reporting of ridership is also suspicious, as is the decision to suddenly hold a special day of Saturday service and a Friday afternoon event. My very charitable math above gives us a ceiling of perhaps 500 boardings per day by now, absent joyriders (still happening sometimes). Is there anybody out there who seriously thinks Capital Metro decided to switch to monthly reporting after their first weekly paid-fare report was so bad just as a coincidence? They don’t have the counts? Funny, they came up with the count real quick for Saturday’s barn-burner!

My guess is that boardings have sunk well below 1000/day now – barring outliers. Who’s willing to argue otherwise at this point? Let me know and I’ll even give you full-post treatment.