New details about proposed Iowa City rail service

Johnson County held a Joint Entities Board meeting on Monday, and in their materials shared some details about a proposed commuter rail service through Pop Up Metro.

-Weekday service only from 6 AM to 9 PM

-Trains run every 45 minutes, resulting in 20 daily round trips between Iowa City and North Liberty

-Capital cost of $5.7 million

-Annual operating cost of $3.7 million

-No ridership forecast. The 2020 study for the corridor estimated 5,200 daily riders on 26 round trips, so maybe 4,000 riders is a fair target.

-Based on data from the 2020 study, I estimate that 4,000 daily riders would result in about 4 million passenger miles annually. All Johnson County transit services combined for about 8.5 million passenger miles in 2023.