Riders took more than 110,000 trips on Metro Transit’s Sun Prairie bus routes in 2025, according to data Sun Prairie Transportation Coordinator David Salmon shared with the Sun Prairie Transit Commission yesterday.
2025 represents the first full (January-December) calendar year of service since the startup of the A1 bus rapid transit (BRT) to the Sun Prairie park and ride in September of 2024. The data include boardings for that route as well as for the local connecting loop routes S and W.
Slightly more than half of those trips were on BRT route A1, which connects the Sun Prairie park and ride facility with major Madison destinations. The other half split about evenly between local Sun Prairie routes S and W, which loop through Sun Prairie to connect various city neighborhoods with the A1 as well as with each other.
Routes A1 and W both saw average boardings of about 8 passengers per revenue hour, while route S carried an average of just under 5 passengers per revenue hour.
In essence, and taking into account the frequency of service (with route W and most route A1 buses running twice an hour, and route S running at hourly intervals), this means that every Metro bus run in Sun Prairie saw boardings in 2025 of, on average, between 4 and 5 riders (though any particular run may carry more or fewer). Not full, by any means, but hardly empty, either—and though growing, with (literally) plenty of room for improvement.