In Philadelphia, SEPTA has announced that a relocated station at Conshohocken (Manayunk-Norristown) will have high platforms as part of a long-term program. This is expected to attract 500 riders a day, and it reminded me of the LIRR adoption of high platforms systemwide. I know that a number of stations were eliminated at that time because of insufficient ridership, and it occurred to me to wonder: on the LIRR, would 500 riders a day have made the cut?
Absolutely. 500 riders a day is very good ridership, even for the LIRR and Metro-North.
I don’t have any numbers to point to, but I seem to recall that the average daily ridership for the five stations closed when the bilevels came around was in the single- and very low double-digits.