The Riley County Commission was updated Monday morning by aTa Bus on their record number of rides provided on Fake Patty’s Day.

Anne Smith, aTa Bus Director explained that between noon on Saturday, March 4th, and 4 a.m. on Sunday, March 5th, they had 1,801 passengers take advantage of their Safe Ride program. The Safe Ride program offers three routes that cover all of Manhattan.

This year they added an additional route according to Smith.

“We also worked this year for the first time with the Aggieville Business Association and provided an additional bus that ran to a variety of the area hotels,” Smith said.

Of the 1,801 rides during the noon to 4 a.m. time frame 621 were on the route that went to the area hotels.

“That really exceeded our expectations. Predominantly we saw rides coming from the 4 Points (by Sheraton) and the Discovery Center area and so I would kind of like to tease that out a little bit more and expand that out a little bit.”

Smith said that the 1,801 rides shattered their previous record of just over 1,000 transports on Fake Patty’s Day and set a new record for the total number of rides for the entire day of 2,681.