The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority has received mixed news concerning revenues generated through its public transportation systems.
On one hand, for the first time in a year, passenger counts at Buffalo Niagara International Airport in September rose 3.46 percent, with the Cheektowaga facility seeing 222,279 outbound passengers compared with 214,841 last September.


“It definitely helps us going forward,” said Lawrence Meckler, NFTA executive director.


For the year to date, however, the airport is still below 2008’s standards. Through the first nine months of the year, Buffalo Niagara International Airport saw 2.038 million passengers fly out of the facility, compared with 2.126 million during the same period in 2008. The drop is 4.15 percent, but still better than the national average, which has shown airport passenger traffic down 7 percent.


While air traffic is picking up, bus and Metro Rail ridership is below its 2008 pace. Bus ridership, for the first half of the NFTA’s fiscal year is down 6.7 percent, falling from 10.24 million last year to 9.54 million for the April 1 to Sept. 30 period of this year. The NFTA operates on an April 1 to March 30 fiscal year.


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