I know that there are lines every week at my parish for confession; the other places where I regularly go always have lines, as well (i.e., the shrine, the franciscan monastary, and St. Mary Mother of God). Not as much as there should be, but the priests are never sitting in the confessional alone!
It may be a matter of the orthodoxy of the parish, in all honesty.
Wonderful to read that.
It is per parish it seems. There's a parish in the trendy part of my city, Our Lady of Lourdes. Its a beautiful, vaulted 19th century church, but it's under Jesuit occupation and full of heterodox, modernist priests. They have a "mission statement," social justice initiatives, an AIDS Hospice, and Dignity Masses on Wednesdays. Visiting it once, I noticed the sparse attendance but with 99% of people taking communion, (and you can bet 100% of Dignity people take it). Confession is nearly ignored, not even mentioned in their website or bulletin, and only by appointment
I contrast Lourdes with my parish in the poor, uncool part of the city. We don't have the gilded columns, stonework and filigrees, but we have our priests who are orthodox and reverent. The Mass is attended to capacity. If I get there early for the evening spoken mass, I invariably see, in the silence, 20 or 30 (often young) people, kneeling and praying. During communion, usually about 2/3rds go to the rail with 1/3 staying behind on their kneelers. Confession periods are also generously provided for, and its importance is central to their RCIA instruction.
There seems to be an inverse relationship of communion to confession which one can see in a given parish. When everyone takes the former, there's no perceived need for the latter.